Historico-Geographical Research on the Cultural Contacts between South-West Asia and South-Eastern Europe.

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Both South-west Asia and South-eastern Europe have, from early times, the characteristic of a corridor, through which the races and cultures of these two areas passed cross-currently. And besides, South-eastern Europe having been once ruled for about 200 years by the Ottoman Empire, there can still be seen a notable similarity in the material cultures of those areas. The aim of our present research was to investigate, from the point of view of historical geography, such similarties as was effected by cultural contacts and as might be detected in the fundamental material cultures of these two areas, making full use of literature, research materials, and on-the-spot finds as a clue.We made it our chief objective first to confirm Turkish elements in Turkey and then to discover and educe such elements in South-eastern Europe, discernible in particular in flour-milling, textile-producing, and irrigation techniques and folk garments and utensils, and historic private houses. The areas covered by our research team were Turkey, Hungary, Bulgaria and Crete Island.From the results of the research, it is generally to be said that in South-Eastern Europe Turkish elements are more noticeable in the south, but less in the north. In Bulgaria and Crete Island, Turkish cultural elements subsist and clearly noticeable in flour-milling and in folk garments and utensils, while in Hungary Turkish cultural elements have been completely wiped out under the Habsburg rule and its cultural influence, and flour-milling, textile-producing, and irrigation techniques in use there are rather of Germanic nature. Our single find of Turkish nature might be a horse-driven noria, water-raising wheel, but that was called "Bulgar wheel" named after Bulgaria. Well-known wind-mills employed for irrigation in Lassithi District, Crete Island, are Crete origine because idea to use wind for watering was developed by an ingenious Cretan about 100 years ago.