‘Pure and Mixed’ in East India: Gerasim Lebedev’s Intercultural Enthusiasms

• Authors: Chakrabarti Gautam
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This article attempts to delineate and plot the contours of the intercultural contributions of Gerasim Lebedev in a linguistic-cultural domain totally alien to him, in early-colonial Calcutta. It also seeks to contextualise the intense polysemy between ‘microcosmic’ personal and literary journeys and the ‘cosmopolitan’ acculturation that came with Lebedev’s socio-cultural background and travels. Though, as will be seen in the essay, Lebedev’s pathbreaking maverick effort was largely a shot in the dark, his achievement is seen, in almost the entire theatrical fraternity in West Bengal and Bangladesh, in terms that can be described as larger than life. The essay will seek to understand the extent to which Lebedev’s personal and professional choices reflected deep cross-cultural sympathies, thus making him an enthusiast with a difference.

Keywords

EN

interculturality; Gerasim Lebedev; Goloknath Das; Russian Indology; pre-Victorian Bengali theatre; Sir William Jones

• Publisher: Księgarnia Akademicka
• Journal: Cracow Indological Studies
• Year: 2015
• Volume: 17: Crossing over “on the Birds’ Wings”: South Asian Literature in Local and Global Contexts
• Pages: 115-132

Contributors

author

Chakrabarti Gautam

• Freie Universität Berlin

References

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Identifiers

DOI

10.12797/CIS.17.2015.17.06