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Hellenosemitica
An Ethnic and Cultural Study in West Semitic Impact of Mycenaean GreeceAstour, Michael C.
(With A Foreword by Cyrus H. Gordon)
 
In the beginning of the Heroic Age in Greece, Greek myths placed such characters as thePhoenician Cadmos in Thebes, the Phoenician Europa in Crete, the Egyptian Danaos in Argos.Herodotos reported on ancient Phoenician colonies in Boeotia and on the Aegean islands of Cythera, Thera, and Thasos.  Thucydides wrote about Phoenician settlements in the Aegeanisles.   Rhodian historians ascribed the foundation of some of their cities and shrines toPhoenicians. Was there any historical reality behind these reports ?Up to the second half of the 19th century, this question was usually answered in the positive.Though several attempts have been made to find cultic, mythological, and onomastic parallelsbetween Greece and the Semitic East, still the data for achieving this purpose were inadequate.Too little was known of Semitic philology, and still less of Semitic literature, religion, andmythology at the time.Astour's Hellenosemitica will undoubtedly be appreciated by those who have been attracted tothe suggestion of West Semitic impact upon early Hellenic culture, but who have not beenoverly impressed by some of the ambiguous evidence offered heretofore. The author'scontention is that "the entire Mycenaean civilization was essentially a peripheral culture of theAncient East, its westernmost extension" (pp. 357-58), and yet his strong assertion is alsobalanced by the judgment that "West Semitic influence was only one, though important factor inthe formation of Mycenaean civilization, and ... Mycenaean survivals (including their Semiticcomponents) were only one, though important factor in the formation of classical Greek culture"(p. xviii).
 
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Michael Czernichow Astour (1916 - 2004)
[H]ad a long career as Professor of Yiddish and Russian Literature at Brandeis University andas Professor of History (Classical cultures and Ancient Near East) at Southern Illinois University(Edwardsville).He was born in Kharkov on December 17, 1916, the only child of Joseph Czernichow (a lawyer)and Rachel Hoffmann (a historian). The family moved to Vilna (Poland) in 1924, where Michaelwas educated in the heavily secularist Yiddish schools. Michael became active in the politics of Jewish national autonomy, in which his father played prominent roles (Folkspartei and later theFreeland League, seeking a non-Palestine homeland for the Jewish people). It is at this time(1933) that Michael took up a nom-de-guerre Astur (a hawk), later gallicized into Astour.Astour's life is the stuff of fiction, elating as often as harrowing, and it is a pity that hesuccessfully resisted the many pleas to commit it to writing. His years in Paris (1934-1937)coincided with the initial publications of great discoveries at Ugarit, Nuzi and Mari, and hestudied with such great ancestors as Charles Virolleaud, Edouard Dhorme, Roman Ghirschman,Raymond Weil, Pierre Roussel, and Jerome Carcopino. He traveled widely in the Middle East,spending much time in Palestine. Those were tense times, with rising anti-Semitism; but for ayoung man absorbed by the lure of the past, also very exciting.The war fragmented his family. The Russians entered Vilna in Mid-September 1939. Astour andhis father were arrested for alleged anti-communist activity, and taken to Russia when Lithuaniatemporarily controlled Vilna. The Nazis murdered his mother in Vilna (June 1941) and theRussians shot his father on a forced march (July 1941). Astour was sentenced to years of hardlabor and moved from one work camp to another. He was not to find relative freedom until 1950.Even in prison, where inmates kept him alive for his capacity to recite poetry in Russian,German, and French, he managed to receive books from distant libraries and busied his mindwith comparative studies.Released and settled in Karaganda, Michael met Miriam, and they experienced a happymarriage that lasted almost half a century. Repatriated to Poland in 56, Michael worked at theJewish Historical Institute, contributing a Yiddish book on the history of the Jews in antiquity(Geshikhe fun Yidn in Altertum, 1958). Moving to Paris in 1958, he resumed his contact with hisold teachers and was librarian for the Hebrew Yiddish Library, translating works into French. Hemoved to the United States in 1959, accepting a Brandeis post in Yiddish and Russian
 
literatures, at which time he edited and completed Israel Zinberg's final volume on the History of Jewish literature. At the same time, he submitted Hellenosemitica (later published by Brill) for adoctorate in Mediterranean Studies (1961). Fearing lack of support from Brandeis for his pastTerritorialist sympathy and for accepting to write its definitive history (Geshikhte fun der Frayland-lige un funem teritoryalistishn gedank, 2 volumes, 1967), Astour accepted a post atSouthern Illinois University (Edwardsville) in 1965. From that time, Astour only occasionallyreturned to Yiddish themes, but invested his prodigious energy to unravel the many mysteries of the Ancient Near East.Astour's contributions were many and they can be partially reviewed in a 1997 Festschrift,honoring him on his 80th birthday (Crossing Boundaries and Linking Horizons Studies in Honor of Michael C. Astour, edited by Gordon D. Young, Mark W. Chavalas, and Richard E. Averbeck,CDL Press). He wrote broadly: on chronology, on mythmaking, within and across cultures, onprosopography and on ethnic identity, on historical episodes, political and military, real or imagined, on cultural interconnection, among and across continents, especially in the LateBronze Age, but also in later periods. His canvas was vast, including Mesopotamia, Canaan,Hatti, Egypt, Mitanni, Greece, and Israel. He wrote on our newest discoveries such as at Ebla,but also gave new life to obscure theories buried in forgotten journals. Increasingly, he came tobe absorbed with toponymy and with geographical history, often expressing shock at our literature's cavalier treatment of such matters. At his death, he was busy on a number of projects, among them collecting and translating into English his contributions in Russian, Polish,Yiddish, and French. He toyed with completing a novel (in Polish or maybe Yiddish) set in Israelof the Judges period that he had begun while in the gulag. He leaves notebooks stuffed withsketches and memos, in Russian.Michael Astour could give a sever impression to those who first meet him. (Luckily, his wifeMiriam easily neutralized any such initial notions). He might seem distant, unsmiling, perhapseven too serious in his scholarly posture. This mien was surface, likely developed duringdecades of confinement and of bitter experiences. It would not take long, however, to breakthrough this facade, for he was a warm and generous person, with ready laughter and anincredible storehouse of stories, anecdotes, proverbs, and, above all, poetry. He was blessedwith a phenomenal memory, both deep and detailed that was hardly compromised by age.He died this on 7 October 2004, after emergency abdominal surgery at a St. Louis hospital. Heleft no immediate kin.http://cosmos. ucc. ie/ cs1064/ 
 
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