AR Kulkarni

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Ananta Ramachandra Kulkarni , short AR Kulkarni (Hindi अ. रा. कुलकर्णी ; born April 19, 1925 in Daddi, Belgaum district , India ; † May 24, 2009 in Pune ), was an Indian historian focusing on the history of the Marathas , one People in the west of the country.

Life

Parentage, education

Kulkarni came from a Brahmin family of the Indian Dekkan Highlands, so-called Deshastha Brahmins ("Land Brahmins", in contrast to the Citpavan or Kokanasth Brahmins of the Konkan Coast), where his ancestors held the office of a hereditary village clerk, a kulkarni , held. While the father did not have a higher education, the maternal family had a long tradition of education. In 1942 Kulkarni enrolled at the University of Bombay and then entered the Rajaram College in Kolhapur . Due to the events of the war, he first worked for an industrial project, then as a teacher at his old school, the Rajaram College in Kolhapur.

When after the murder of Mahatma Gandhi in South Maharashtra in 1948 there were riots against the Brahmins - "the sometimes forgotten firestorm of violence against Brahmans" (S. Guha) - Kulkarni had to help restore the destroyed home for a year. In 1949, he was then the test as lecturer ( lecturer ).

Originally more interested in economics, Kulkarni acquired after several school posts under often very simple circumstances and after historical preparatory work in 1964 at the then Marathwada University with a dissertation in history on the social and economic life at the time of the Marath ruler Shivaji (1627–1680) the doctorate . Govind Sakharam Sardesai (1865–1959), the old master of Marathas history, had encouraged Kulkarni in his plan.

Teaching and publication activities

As a lecturer at Deccan College in Pune , the British historian Kenneth Ballhatchet placed him in 1965 with a research grant at the renowned School of Oriental and African Studies ( SOAS ) in London , which led Kulkarni to work on the British soldier and administrator James Grant Duff (1789 –1858), the first historian of the Marathas, used it. The work, published in 1971 in the Indian language Marathi , was translated into English in 2006. At the time, Kulkarni swam against the current of Indian historians with his cautiously positive assessment, who didn’t miss the English administrator and military, while Kulkarni campaigned for a more differentiated view of this great discoverer and connoisseur of the Marathas history .

From 1969 until his retirement in 1985, Kulkarni taught at the University of Pune , where he founded the Institute of History. His focus in research and teaching was on the emphasis on source knowledge and study, knowledge of the scriptures (e.g. the Moḍī script , which he made available in facsimile editions) as well as the conviction that only one weighing up, Interpretation as free as possible of ideologies and concepts and fashions is appropriate to the historical objects.

When Kulkarni died, he left behind his wife Vijaya, two daughters and one son.

Appreciation

Kulkarni's more than fifty years of work cannot be overemphasized in terms of its importance for researching and enlivening Maratha history. Through his work and as a conference participant, he was not only in contact with the experts in India itself, but also with historians in Canada, the USA, France, Germany and Russia. His work covers the social and economic history of the Marathas state as well as the administration of the country, also going into the details of the early modern administration, e.g. B. the balutā system of the village servants.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Irfan Habib in the foreword to Kulkarni, Maratha Historiography , p. Xix
  2. ↑ For balutā see Maharashtra State Gazetteers . History, Part III, p. 214

Works (in selection)

A catalog raisonné can be found at Guha (see below); in some bibliographies Kulkarni is also referred to as "Kulakarni" ( Library of Congress , WorldCat ).

  • Maharashtra in the age of Shivaji . XXIII, 308 S. Ill., Kt. Poona: Deshmukh 1969. - Zugl. Maharashtra Marathwada Univ. Diss. 1964. Revised edition 2002
  • Marathas and the Marathas Country 3 Vols. Delhi: Books & Books 1996.
    • 1. Medieval Maharashtra
    • 2. Medieval Maratha Country
    • 3. The Marathas
  • Jemsa Kaniṃgahêma Grênṭa Ḍapha . 31, 266 S. Puṇe: Vidyāpīṭha Prakāśana 1971; in English: James Cuninghame Grant Duff. Administrator-Historian of the Marathas . Kolkata: Bagchi 2006
  • Maratha Historiography (based on Heras Memorial Lectures). Foreword by Irfan Habib. Delhi: Manohar 2006 - Extended version of the HML lectures from 1982.

literature

  • Frank F. Conlon: Prof. AR Kulkarni - In Memoriam . In: Folhas de História , October 9, 2009 digitized version
  • Sumit Guha: Professor AR Kulkarni Remembered . In: Folhas de História , October 9, 2009 digitized version, with selected bibliography
  • Umesh Ashokrao Kadam: Maratha history: A Quest for Regional Identity . In: Radikha Seshan (ed.): Medieval India: Problems and Possibilities . Jaipur: Rawat 2006, pp. 101–115 digitized

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kulkarni, AR
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kulkarni, AR
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Indian historian focusing on the history of the Marathas, a people in the west of the country
DATE OF BIRTH April 19, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Daddi, Distr. Belgaum , India
DATE OF DEATH May 24, 2009
Place of death Pune