Three years ago, epigrapher Anton O. Zakharov published a detailed discussion of the first part of my “Rescuing History from Srivijaya” article, entitled “Srivijaya or Angkor? Notes on Liam Kelley’s Hypothesis.”
It’s 17 pages of single-spaced Russian text! So that’s a significant piece of writing. I’ve long known that it’s “out there,” and saw from the abstract what his main points were, however I never really examined it closely.
Now that LLMs can translate better than Google Translate could, I decided to translate the review, and to leave comments. I am going to share it here. I hope Professor Zakharov doesn’t object.
I have to say that it is an honor to have someone read something that I have written so carefully and to comment on it. Therefore, I am truly appreciative of what Professor Zakharov has done (Спасибо большое!!!).
While I disagree with some of his points, 1) this is a review of the first part of my article and some of the issues that Zakharov objects to are covered in more detail in Part 2, and 2) my thinking about some of the issues has evolved, and 3) I have continued to write about this topic and have posted many blog posts on it.
Hence, it’s a little weird to comment on a review about something that I wrote in the past when I have now produced much more information about that same topic. So, many of my comments point to what I have found out in the time since I wrote that article.
Finally, if anyone ever wishes to cite Professor Zakharov’s review, please give him some love by doing so. The citation information is below, and here is the English translation with my comments.
Srivijaya or Angkor? Notes on Liam Kelley’s Hypothesis
Zakharov A.O. Sanfoqi 三佛斉—Srivijaya or Angkor? Notes on Liam Kelley’s Hypothesis. Yugo-Vostochnaya Aziya: aktual’nyye prob lemy razvitiya, 2023, T. 3, № 2 (59). Pp. 236–256. DOI: 10.31696/2072-8271 2023-3-2-59-236-256
