Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eren Tasar
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
Church State Relations ◽  
Soviet Central Asia ◽  
State Relations ◽  
Previous Scholarship

This introduction describes the main arguments and historiographical interventions undertaken in the present work. The majority of previous scholarship on Islam in Soviet Central Asia has treated the Communist anti-religious campaigns of the 1920s and 1930s as representative of the entire Soviet period. By contrast, this book argues that Stalin’s normalization of church-state relations in 1943–1944 allowed a permanent space for Islam to exist in Soviet society. This space rapidly became the site of an accommodation between Islam and Communism for many Central Asians. The introduction concludes with a discussion of the advantages and limitations of the sources employed throughout the book.

Gender and nation in post-Soviet Central Asia: From national narratives to women's practices

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliette Cleuziou ◽  
Lucia Direnberger
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Gender Norms ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Feminist Studies ◽  
National Narratives ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
Soviet Legacy ◽  
Gender And Nation ◽  
Soviet Central Asia ◽  
Historical References

This article introduces a thematic issue consisting of five articles, which analyze the complex interrelations between gender norms and representations and the construction of nationalism in the post-Soviet republics of Central Asia. Drawing from gender and feminist studies, the first section explores how Central Asian nationalisms have promoted hierarchized gender roles to reinforce their legitimacy, noticeably invoking the authority of “tradition.” The second section examines not only how the Soviet period continues to shape contemporary nation-building processes in the region, but also how the latter has been creating new historical references to emancipate them from the Soviet legacy - and from the Soviet policy toward women in particular. The third section examines how gender norms promoted by Central Asian states may affect women in their everyday life and how they may negotiate, refuse, or promote these norms. In the final section, we show how “gender equality” has become a watchword of international organizations’ agendas and we analyze the production and implementation of this international agenda setting in a specific national context.

Of Saints, Shrines, and Tractors: Untangling the Meaning of Islam in Soviet Central Asia

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-405
Author(s):  
Paolo Sartori
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Memory Space ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Continuous Interaction ◽  
Historical Sites ◽  
Soviet Central Asia

Abstract In this article I suggest that in the Soviet period Central Asians cultivated and conceptualized Islam as an episteme. They did this by reaching beyond alienating (and often ephemeral) categories offered to them by the state. I argue that the constitution of an Islamic culture was made possible, among other things, by Central Asians’ encounters with the past, most notably with what they perceived as an Islamic past. We observe the curious phenomenon of Central Asians’ continuous interaction with the Islamic historical sites that escaped the bulldozers of the Soviet campaigns of religious repression. For some, encounters with the past might be accidental. For many others, the exploration of the past represented a purposive, self-conscious, and reiterated emotional act. I show that Central Asians in the Soviet period—even if at school they were taught little about, and were usually offered a distorted vision of, the Islamic history of their region—were still able to access their past through the surviving architectural presence of Islam. Monumental sites, however, were not enough for Muslims to understand the past and use it to construct their own identity. Such artifacts acquired meaning through an interpretive framework provided by Sufi narratives about saints and their miracles. Therefore, shrines represented for Central Asia a collective memory space, i.e., a place in which the past was preserved for mobilization in the present through narrative.

scholarly journals Some Common Patterns of Islamic Revival in Post-Soviet Central Asia and Challenges to Develop Human Rights and Inclusive Society

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 548
Author(s):  
Galym Zhussipbek ◽  
Dilshod Achilov ◽  
Zhanar Nagayeva
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Asian Countries ◽  
Islamic Revival ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
Central Asian Countries ◽  
State Actors ◽  
Soviet Central Asia ◽  
Inclusive Society

This paper argues that the following common patterns help explain the ongoing Islamic revival in Central Asia: (a) “de-modern” and “ethnicized” Islam as an enduring legacy of the Soviet period; (b) penetration of Salafism; (c) securitization of “non-official” Islam by state and non-state actors and (d) the rise of conservative Islam which goes hand in hand with retraditionalization. These factors, in their turn, pose serious challenges to developing inclusive society and human rights in Central Asian countries. This paper argues that the Islamic revival in Central Asian countries has come to the point when it can be analyzed under the prism, whether it impedes the development of inclusive society and human rights or not.

Epilogue

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eren Tasar
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
State Policies ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Soviet History ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
Soviet Legacy ◽  
To Come ◽  
Soviet Central Asia ◽  
Central Asian Republics ◽  
Post Soviet Period

Dramatic changes took place in the religious sphere during the tumultous final years of Soviet history. Shamsuddin Boboxonov’s unprecedented ouster as mufti in 1989 offered a preview of the confusion that was to come: SADUM’s disintegration into national muftiates for each of the five Central Asian republics took place rapidly, in a climate of ethnic conflict. Though the Central Asian muftiate ceased to exist in 1991, the precedents established by the CRA-SADUM alliance continued to shape relations between Islam and the state in the post-Soviet period. In one important respect, however, those relations have departed dramatically from the Soviet legacy: now that the independent republics have abandoned communism and atheism, little incentive exists for a moderate line toward religion. This explains why state policies toward religion in post-Soviet Central Asia became more repressive after the collapse of the USSR, not less.

Backwardness and the Quest for Civilization: Early Soviet Central Asia in Comparative Perspective

Slavic Review ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adeeb Khalid
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Early Republic ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Modern History ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Fundamental Misunderstanding ◽  
Soviet Central Asia

Much recent scholarship has seen Soviet Central Asia as directly comparable to the overseas colonies of modern European states. In this article, Adeeb Khalid takes issue with this trend. European colonial rule, he argues, was predicated on the perpetuation of difference, while the Soviets sought to conquer it. Central Asia was indeed subject to colonial rule in the tsarist period, but its transformation in the early Soviet period was the work, instead, of a different kind of polity—an activist, interventionist, mobilizational state that sought to transform its citizenry. Khalid compares the transformations of the early Soviet period in Central Asia with the reforms of the early republic in Turkey, which were strikingly similar in intent and scope. This comparative perspective brings out the substantial differences between colonial empires and modern mobilizational states; confusing the two can only lead to a fundamental misunderstanding of modern history.

The Veneration and Visitation of the Graves of Saints in Soviet Central Asia

2021 ◽  
Vol 83 (3) ◽  
pp. 501-536
Author(s):  
Věra Exnerová
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Career Advancement ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Soviet System ◽  
Ferghana Valley ◽  
Recent Debate ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Soviet Central Asia

The article contributes to the development of a deeper understanding of the changes in the practice of venerating and visiting of the graves of saints in Central Asia during the Soviet period. For this purpose, the article explores the archival reports and oral histories from the region of the southern Ferghana Valley in Uzbekistan from the 1920s to the1980s. The article reveals that the broad “categories” often used to study the issues associated with the graves of saints and their visitation, such as the ideological conflict between communist politics and Islam, or the gap between normative and popular Islam, are largely insufficient when describing the practice during this period. The common “schemes” are blurred or interconnected – “believers” used the Soviet system to fulfil their goal of venerating the graves of saints, while the local authorities often helped to retain the practice, or eliminate it, as determined by the needs of their own career advancement. In addition, the process of hagiography continued under the new conditions, irrespective of the levels of education or the individual stances towards the state that existed among the different actors. For the most part, people learned how to combine both Soviet modernity and the veneration of the graves of saints in innovative ways. This analysis contributes to the innovative research process in relation to Islam in Soviet Central Asia. The article also seeks to contribute to the recent debate about the graves of saints and the gap between normative and popular Islam.

Republics of Soviet Central Asia

1946 ◽  
Vol 15 (11) ◽  
pp. 169-172
Author(s):  
Andrew J. Steiger
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Soviet Central Asia

New Materials for Studying Preparation and Staging of the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students in 1957

2018 ◽  
pp. 550-563
Author(s):  
Daniel Sawert ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
Unique Event ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Cultural Standards ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Local Traditions

The article assesses archival materials on the festival movement in the Soviet Union in 1950s, including its peak, the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students held in 1957 in Moscow. Even now the Moscow festival is seen in the context of international cultural politics of the Cold War and as a unique event for the Soviet Union. The article is to put the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students in the context of other youth festivals held in the Soviet Union. The festivals of 1950s provided a field for political, social, and cultural experiments. They also have been the crucible of a new way of communication and a new language of design. Furthermore, festivals reflected the new (althogh relative) liberalism in the Soviet Union. This liberalism, first of all, was expressed in the fact that festivals were organized by the Komsomol and other Soviet public and cultural organisations. Taking the role of these organisations into consideration, the research draws on the documents of the Ministry of culture, the All-Russian Stage Society, as well as personal documents of the artists. Furthermore, the author has gained access to new archive materials, which have until now been part of no research, such as documents of the N. Krupskaya Central Culture and Art Center and of the central committees of various artistic trade unions. These documents confirm the hypothesis that the festivals provided the Komsomol and the Communist party with a means to solve various social, educational, and cultural problems. For instance, in Central Asia with its partiarchal society, the festivals focuced on female emancipation. In rural Central Asia, as well as in other non-russian parts of the Soviet Union, there co-existed different ways of celebrating. Local traditions intermingled with cultural standards prescribed by Moscow. At the first glance, the modernisation of the Soviet society was succesful. The youth acquired political and cultural level that allowed the Soviet state to compete with the West during the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students. During the festival, however, it became apparent, that the Soviet cultural scheme no longer met the dictates of times. Archival documents show that after the Festival cultural and party officials agreed to ease off dogmatism and to tolerate some of the foreign cultural phenomena.

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