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.

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.

The Modern History of Soviet Central Asia

1965 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 735-736
Author(s):  
M. Hookham
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Modern History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Soviet Central Asia

Mantra: a Review Essay on Islam in Soviet Central Asia

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 389-433
Author(s):  
Eren Tasar
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Review Essay ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
Urban Rural ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Muslim Religiosity ◽  
Soviet Central Asia

Abstract This paper traces the development of the historiography of Islam in Soviet Central Asia from the Cold War’s outset to the present by illustrating its uncritical reproduction of modernist and communist templates for describing Muslim religiosity, and its debt to two foundational frames of Soviet antireligious propaganda: “survivals” and “nationalized Islam.” It highlights the important implications of these frames for this scholarship’s development, i.e., its assumptions concerning “normativity” and the “poverty” of Central Asian Islam, as well as the urban-rural divide’s salience in religious life. The essay concludes with a survey of recent scholarship on the subject.

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.

The Modern History of Soviet Central Asia

1965 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 285
Author(s):  
F. Kazemzadeh ◽  
Goeffrey Wheeler
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Modern History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Soviet Central Asia

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.

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