Scandia debate: Intentions Between Source and Interpreter. A Response to Tonicha Upham

Abstract

This article serves as a response to Tonicha Upham’s comments on my previous publication in Scandia (91:1, 2025). While Upham suggests that I should have engaged more directly with Ibn Faḍlān’s original Arabic text, I emphasise that the aim of my article was not to reconstruct the source but to demonstrate how the intentions of interpreters inevitably shape the ways in which sources are read. I also address two additional points: the reasons why Kovalevskiy rendered the sacrificial victim as a “girl” rather than a “slave” in his translation of Ibn Faḍlān’s account of a Rus’ funeral, as well as the possible circumstances surrounding Kovalevskiy’s arrest.