Center for the Study of the Islamic Republic Iran St. Petersburg State University “Collegium Iranicum”
The project director - Vladimir Drozdov
Modern methods of attribution of medieval texts with contested authorship have taken a dramatic step forward compared to 20th century. Nowadays ‘visual’ signs of authenticity cannot be considered a final proof. In order to prevent human cause some texts with the doubtful authorship are studied via complex critical analysis of sourses based on the implementation of the computer stylometry.
The main purpose of the research project is to test the methods of digital stylometry in the study of the text particulars and stylometric features of the selected medieval Persian and Afghan poetry texts.
The objectives of the study lie in the stylistic analysis of the main pieces of literature, their attribution and creation of the stylometry database by the use of the analysed texts. The poems of Faḵr-al-Dīn ʿErāqī “Oššāq-nāma” and Sanā'ī Ḡaznavi “ʿEšq-nāma”, as well as the works of Afghan poets ‘Abd al-Hamid Mohmand (died about 1732), Rahmān Bābā (1632-1712) and Mirza Hannan (about 1795-1875) were selected as the object of study. The stylistic characteristics of the mentioned works are compared with the texts the authorship of which is clear to the experts.
The creation of the database with “fingerprints” of the medieval Persian and Afghan poets is to become the main result of the study.
