A New Kazakstan: Four Books Reconceptualize the History of the Kazak Steppe

2004 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 233-243
Author(s):  
Michael Rouland
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Four Books ◽  
History Of ◽  
Great Game

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, scholars developed an interest in Central Asia unmatched since the days of the “Great Game.” Scholarship initially focused on contemporary issues rather than historical analyses, since Central Asia was composed of obscure, newly independent, and strategically important states. With the opening of archives in the 1990s, however, historians began to pursue research on the identity and ideology of modern Central Asia, the legacy of the Soviet Union and Muslim modernism, and the challenges to nationalism and Islam. Drawing from postcolonial studies, these works have filled important voids and expanded our ability to analyze the multitude of factors that function in the conceptualization of the nation and the adoption of national ideas by the Central Asians themselves.

scholarly journals Being Muslim in Soviet Central Asia, or an Alternative History of Muslim Modernity

2008 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adeeb Khalid
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
Soviet Central Asia

Abstract The literature on Muslim modernity takes little account of the experience of the Muslim societies of the Soviet Union, even though they might have undergone some of the most radical transitions to modernity. The Soviet sought a different kind of modernity, one without markets and liberalism, and one with little place for religion in it. I argue that the Soviet project succeeded to a great extent. This article explores some of the implications for our understanding of Muslim modernity if we are to take the experience of Soviet Muslim societies seriously.

scholarly journals A Great Game in Greater Central Asia

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 238-243
Author(s):  
M. H. Glantz
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Aral Sea ◽  
Aral Sea Basin ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
Soviet Central Asia ◽  
Great Game ◽  
Central Asian Republics

The region historically referred to as Soviet Central Asia includes the 5 Central Asian Republics (CARs) of the Former Soviet Union (FSU): Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Their political status changed drastically when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and they became independent republics. Since the early 1990s, Central Asian leaders have referred on occasion to neighboring Afghanistan as the sixth CAR. In fact, it does occupy 14% of the Aral Sea Basin and its mountains supply about 15% of streamflow to the region’s mighty Amu Darya River that used to flow into Central Asia’s Aral Sea.

The Ismaili of Central Asia

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Beben
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Complete Disappearance ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Missionary Movement ◽  
Muslim Minority ◽  
History Of ◽  
Private Collections

The Ismailis are one of the largest Muslim minority populations of Central Asia, and they make up the second largest Shiʿi Muslim community globally. First emerging in the second half of the 8th century, the Ismaili missionary movement spread into many areas of the Islamic world in the 10th century, under the leadership of the Ismaili Fatimids caliphs in Egypt. The movement achieved astounding success in Central Asia in the 10th century, when many of the political and cultural elites of the region were converted. However, a series of repressions over the following century led to its almost complete disappearance from the metropolitan centers of Central Asia. The movement later re-emerged in the mountainous Badakhshan region of Central Asia (which encompasses the territories of present-day eastern Tajikistan and northeastern Afghanistan), where it was introduced by the renowned 11th-century Persian poet, philosopher, and Ismaili missionary Nasir-i Khusraw. Over the following centuries the Ismaili movement expanded among the populations of Badakhshan, reaching a population of over 200,000 in the 21st century. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Ismailis suffered a series of severe repressions, first under local Sunni Muslim rulers and later under the antireligious policies of the Soviet Union. However, in the decades since the end of the Soviet period, the Ismailis of the region have become increasingly connected with the global Ismaili community and its leadership. While many aspects of the history of Ismailism in the Badakhshan region remain obscure and unexplored, the discoveries of significant corpuses of manuscripts in private collections since the 1990s in the Badakhshan region have opened up wide possibilities for future research.

New Nation, New History: Promoting National History in Tajikistan

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 224-239
Author(s):  
James D. Clark
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
First Century ◽  
National History ◽  
Islamic Movements ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Nation

AbstractThis essay looks at the national history of the Tajiks of Central Asia that was created in the twentieth century and has continued to develop into the twenty-first century. It traces the notion of Tajik nationalism, which arose in the 1920s under the Soviet Union, largely in response to Uzbek nationalism. Soviet intellectuals and scholars thereafter attempted to construct a new history for the Tajiks. The most important effort in that area was Bobojon Ghafurov’s study Tadzhiki (Tajiks, 1972), which gave them primacy among the Central Asian peoples. The essay examines the policies of independent Tajikistan’s government, such as its focus on the Samanid dynasty and the replacement Soviet monuments and names with nationalist ones. Finally, it looks at the challenges that contemporary Islamic movements in the country pose to the earlier secular interpretations.

scholarly journals Central Asia Reader

1995 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 571-575
Author(s):  
Farkhad S. Juraev
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Native Languages ◽  
Radio Stations ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
History Of ◽  
Full Force ◽  
The Right

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the creation of new independentstates has generated great interest among scholars and politiciansin the history and contemporary situation in the region. CentralAsia is not an exception to this case. Viewed in this light, Central Asia: The Rediscovery of History is a welcome contribution towardintroducing the western scholarly community to the politics of CentralAsia.The book is composed of a number of articles published by Turkiclanguage specialists from 1904 to 1990, and of official documents fromCentral Asia and Azerbaijan. The integration processes of the Turkicpeoples, which began during the Soviet period, are now in full force. In1990, the heads of the Central Asian republics signed a treaty for economicand cultural cooperation. The treaty was also signed by Tajikistan,the only representative of the Indo-European family in CentralAsia. The integration envisioned a united economic space betweenKazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgystan. In the 1992 and 1994 summitsheld in Ankara and Istanbul, Turkey and five newly independent Turkicstates confirmed their desire to cooperate in the economic and politicalarenas. Therefore, attention to Central Asian problems and the publicationof several scholarly works from this region are symbolic, to someextent, of the attention being paid to the significance of a commonTurkic tradition and the possibilities of a meaningful integration in the“Great Turan.”The book begins with Ayaz Malikov’s “The Question of the Turk:The Way out of the Crisis.” This chapter actually sets the tone for thewhole book by making a case for the need to attract the attention ofscholarly and political circles from around the world to the problems ofthe Turkic nations and their suffering under Soviet rule. His statementthat “our peoples do not have their own history” seems to be true, forall of the nations (not only the Turkic ones) in the former Soviet Unionhad to study mainly the history of the Russian state at the expense ofdeveloping their own historical consciousness. No doubt the author isright in his claims about Soviet violations of the rights of Turkic communitiesin Russia, especially the right to study in their own languagesat schools and universities and even the right to listen to programsbroadcast by western radio stations in their native languages. Arguingthat the political history of the Turkic nations extends backwards formore than two thousand years (p. 4), Malikov calls for the right ofTurkic peoples to seek unification without fear of being charged withadvocating “Pan-Turkism” (p. 6). The author appeals for the formationof a terminological commission that will be entrusted with seeking theunification of the Turkic language.All of the other chapters-Muhammad Ali’s “Let Us Learn about OurHeritage: Get to Know Yourself,” Zeki Togan’s “The Origins of theKazakhs and Ozbeks,” and Kahar Barat’s “Discovery of History: TheBurial Site of Kashgarli Mahmud”-are attempts to prove the Turkic originsof Central Asia since antiquity. Ali’s attempt to connect the term“Turan” with the ethnic term “Turkic” by referring to the Shah-ndma ofAbul Qasem Firdousi is quite novel, if not eccentric, as is his attributionof the Iranian language’s dominance in Central Asia as being the result ...

scholarly journals Genetic Resources of Apricots (Prunus armeniaca L.) in Central Asia

HortScience ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 48 (6) ◽  
pp. 681-691 ◽  
Author(s):  
David E. Zaurov ◽  
Thomas J. Molnar ◽  
Sasha W. Eisenman ◽  
Timothy M. Ford ◽  
Ravza F. Mavlyanova ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Genetic Resources ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Prunus Armeniaca ◽  
Soluble Solids ◽  
Germplasm Exchange ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
History Of ◽  
Prunus Armeniaca L

Central Asia is a center of diversity for many important fruit and nut tree species, including wild and cultivated apricots (Prunus armeniaca L.). A wealth of apricot germplasm that expresses novel and valuable characteristics such as fruits with high soluble solids, edible kernels, glabrous skin, and diverse colors and flavors, as well as later-blooming flowers, late-maturing fruit, and drought, cold, and salt tolerance, can be found growing across this region. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Central Asia has become more accessible for reciprocal germplasm exchange and scientific collaborations. Thus, opportunities now exist to obtain, study, and use a much wider diversity of Central Asian apricot germplasm in breeding efforts, which can lead to improved crop traits and ultimately an expansion of the regions where this high-value crop can be grown. To bring attention to the valuable P. armeniaca genetic resources found in Central Asia and to promote its better use, management, and preservation, a description and history of the species from a Central Asian perspective, along with recent and ongoing activities, are discussed in this article.

Ideology of the relationship of the Central Asian States to the common history of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union

2020 ◽  
pp. 79-87
Author(s):  
A. M. Mustafabeyli
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
Asian People ◽  
Relationship Of

After collapse of the USSA the process of new national self-identifi cation actively started off in the former soviet republics of the Central Asia and it was actually the basis of the ideological doctrines of the countries which were in the course of building. The idea of this was the self-affi rmation of the nations who became independent and gained the statehood for the fi rst time in their history or after the interval of hundreds years. As the modern Central Asian ideologists imagined the past had to create in the minds of their people the sense of pride and patriotism that had to make the national states stand up stronger. At such a background the common history of the Central Asia with the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union is interpreted as the period of invasion and enslavement of the Centrale Asian people.

The Role of the Mongolian People’s Republic in the Korean War

2018 ◽  
pp. 97-130
Author(s):  
Denzenlkham Ulambayar
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Korean War ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
History Of

Since the 1990s, when previously classified and top secret Russian archival documents on the Korean War became open and accessible, it has become clear for post-communist countries that Kim Il Sung, Stalin and Mao Zedong were the primary organizers of the war. It is now equally certain that tensions arising from Soviet and American struggle generated the origins of the Korean War, namely the Soviet Union’s occupation of the northern half of the Korean peninsula and the United States’ occupation of the southern half to the 38th parallel after 1945 as well as the emerging bipolar world order of international relations and Cold War. Newly available Russian archival documents produced much in the way of new energies and opportunities for international study and research into the Korean War.2 However, within this research few documents connected to Mongolia have so far been found, and little specific research has yet been done regarding why and how Mongolia participated in the Korean War. At the same time, it is becoming today more evident that both Soviet guidance and U.S. information reports (evaluated and unevaluated) regarding Mongolia were far different from the situation and developments of that period. New examples of this tendency are documents declassified in the early 2000s and released publicly from the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in December 2016 which contain inaccurate information. The original, uncorrupted sources about why, how and to what degree the Mongolian People’s Republic (MPR) became a participant in the Korean War are in fact in documents held within the Mongolian Central Archives of Foreign Affairs. These archives contain multiple documents in relation to North Korea. Prior to the 1990s Mongolian scholars Dr. B. Lkhamsuren,3 Dr. B. Ligden,4 Dr. Sh. Sandag,5 junior scholar J. Sukhee,6 and A. A. Osipov7 mention briefly in their writings the history of relations between the MPR and the DPRK during the Korean War. Since the 1990s the Korean War has also briefly been touched upon in the writings of B. Lkhamsuren,8 D. Ulambayar (the author of this paper),9 Ts. Batbayar,10 J. Battur,11 K. Demberel,12 Balảzs Szalontai,13 Sergey Radchenko14 and Li Narangoa.15 There have also been significant collections of documents about the two countries and a collection of memoirs published in 200716 and 2008.17 The author intends within this paper to discuss particularly about why, how and to what degree Mongolia participated in the Korean War, the rumors and realities of the war and its consequences for the MPR’s membership in the United Nations. The MPR was the second socialist country following the Soviet Union (the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics) to recognize the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) and establish diplomatic ties. That was part of the initial stage of socialist system formation comprising the Soviet Union, nations in Eastern Europe, the MPR, the PRC (People’s Republic of China) and the DPRK. Accordingly between the MPR and the DPRK fraternal friendship and a framework of cooperation based on the principles of proletarian and socialist internationalism had been developed.18 In light of and as part of this framework, The Korean War has left its deep traces in the history of the MPR’s external diplomatic environment and state sovereignty

Displace of Documentary Heritage from the Soviet Union to Poland during the Third Decade of the XXth Century

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 127-137
Author(s):  
Tatsiana Hiarnovich
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Agreements ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
Actual Process ◽  
Xxth Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
Selection Of

The paper explores the displace of Polish archives from the Soviet Union that was performed in 1920s according to the Riga Peace Treaty of 1921 and other international agreements. The aim of the research is to reconstruct the process of displace, based on the archival sources and literature. The object of the research is those documents that were preserved in the archives of Belarus and together with archives from other republics were displaced to Poland. The exploration leads to clarification of the selection of document fonds to be displaced, the actual process of movement and the explanation of the role that the archivists of Belarus performed in the history of cultural relationships between Poland and the Soviet Union. The articles of the Treaty of Riga had been formulated without taking into account the indivisibility of archive fonds that is one of the most important principles of restitution, which caused the failure of the treaty by the Soviet part.

A Sacred Space Is Never Empty

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Smolkin
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Sacred Space ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
Soviet Leadership ◽  
Sacred Spaces ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Ideology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Soviet Experiment

When the Bolsheviks set out to build a new world in the wake of the Russian Revolution, they expected religion to die off. Soviet power used a variety of tools—from education to propaganda to terror—to turn its vision of a Communist world without religion into reality. Yet even with its monopoly on ideology and power, the Soviet Communist Party never succeeded in overcoming religion and creating an atheist society. This book presents the first history of Soviet atheism from the 1917 revolution to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The book argues that to understand the Soviet experiment, we must make sense of Soviet atheism. It shows how atheism was reimagined as an alternative cosmology with its own set of positive beliefs, practices, and spiritual commitments. Through its engagements with religion, the Soviet leadership realized that removing religion from the “sacred spaces” of Soviet life was not enough. Then, in the final years of the Soviet experiment, Mikhail Gorbachev—in a stunning and unexpected reversal—abandoned atheism and reintroduced religion into Soviet public life. The book explores the meaning of atheism for religious life, for Communist ideology, and for Soviet politics.

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