scholarly journals “Identity through difference”: Liminal Diasporism and Generational Change Among the Koryo Saram in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

Author(s):  
Matteo Fumagalli

This article examines the case of the Koryo saram, the ethnic Koreans living in the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan, to reflect on how notions of diasporas, community, and identity have changed since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It contends that the Koryo saram are best understood through the lenses of diasporic conditions rather than as bounded communities, as such an approach allows for greater recognition of heterogeneity within these communities. While many Koryo saram continue to claim some form of Korean-ness, how they relate to issues of homeland-orientation and boundary maintenance evidences internal variation and growing in-betweenness. The community’s hybridity (“hyphenization”) and liminality (“identity through difference”) stand out when examining generational differences and are especially evident among the local Korean youth.

1986 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 288-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark R. Beissinger

The hypothesis that generation has become a major source of political cleavage within the Soviet regional party apparatus is examined in the context of existing models of political generations. The attitudes of a sample of RSFSR provincial officials toward problems in the Soviet economy, as expressed in their newspaper writings, are analyzed according to several variables, including political generation. While it is difficult to speak of a significant difference in perspectives along strict generational lines, generational differences appear to be more significant within subgroups of the elite than within the elite as a whole. Several attitudinal subgroups within the younger generation are identified and their views of economic problems compared with those of their elders and with those of their generational peers. The findings suggest that the process of generational change in the Soviet Union is likely to be more complex than the traditional models of political generations lead one to expect.


2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Barker

This article focuses on cooperation between Muslims and Christians inTatarstan and illustrates how federal arrangements operate to diffuse ethnopolitical crises. Management of ethnic and national conflicts has importance within Russia and its immediate neighbourhood as well as globally. Using news reports, secondary sources, and interviews from fieldwork in Russia, the article identifies ways in which the two communities are working together to ensure stability and peace in the region. It examines the religious aspects of cooperation, as well as economic and political dimensions of cooperation. The article identifies lessons for the rest of Russia, particularly Chechnya as well as the central Asian states formerly part of the Soviet Union. Even though federalism has got negative publicity in former communist countries, particularly following the collapse of communism, the case of Tatarstan suggests ways through which federal institutions enable cooperation between Russians and Tatars. In addition, the article considers recent pitfalls the two sides have had to overcome and broader implications for federalism and reconciliation studies in general.


Author(s):  
Atola Longkumer

Of the two Asian regions, socio-economically, South Asia presents both prosperity and abject poverty, embedded in varying traditions. Central Asian states are well-endowed with natural resources and sustain a diverse cultural heritage against a backdrop of Islam. The indigenous shamanic cultures that have sustained myriad indigenous people (often described by terms such as tribals, Adivasis, minorities) for generations across South Asia need to be recognised along with its globalisation. Healing, use of traditional medicines, the position and role of women, caste hierarchy and the relationship with the other are incorporated into South Asian Christianity. ‘Anonymous Christians’ have also contributed to concepts such as ‘insider movements’ to discuss embedded followers of Jesus. In Central Asia, Charismatic Christianity is finding particular resonance. The relative freedom of religious expression has given opportunities for Christians to witness to the gospel. The potential ecumenical relationship with the existing Orthodox Church presents an opportunity for global Christianity. Christianity has received fresh interest in Central Asia since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the formation of the nation-states of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Theological creativity along with prophetic proclamation will be needed to balance these challenges of culture and faith in the region.


Author(s):  
Barakatullo Ashurov

Christianity in modern Tajikistan is closely connected to the missionary movement of the Church of the East in the Central Asian landmass. The historical patterns of the ROC aimed to cover only European and Russian nationals with Russian language only. This has led to Christianity being dubbed a ‘Russian religion’. The Roman Catholic Church was in Central Asia since the thirteenth century. The first wave of Protestants came through the Mennonites (Brethren), along with Evangelicals and Baptists (who both eventually merged in 1941 into the Evangelical Baptists), and the second wave came through various Protestant mission organizations after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Protestant churches in the country comprise both local converts from Islam and those of Russian Orthodox background. Although non-Tajik Christians are culturally acceptable, local converts are regarded as traitors. Many such restrictions apply equally to all religions. State restraint toward religious minorities are due to inherited Soviet tradition and fear of the extremist ideology that was a cause of the recent civil war. Current persecution in the country is largely a matter of social discrimination rather than state control. Nonetheless, the existing communities, particularly those with valid registrations, are thriving, albeit on a small scale.


Author(s):  
Edward McWhinney

My retrospective study, published in the twenty-fifth anniversary volume of this Yearbook, attempted a critical survey of post-war Soviet general theory of international law, and noted the signs of an intellectual changing of the guard and the emergence of a new generation of Soviet international legal theorists. Is it possible today to speak of a post-war U.S. general theory of international law, and, if so, can we speak of a generational change, in the late 1980's, similar to that in the Soviet Union?


2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iveta Silova

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Central Asian education reform discourses have become increasingly similar to distinctive Western policy discourses traveling globally across national boundaries. Tracing the trajectory of ‘traveling policies' in Central Asia, this article discusses the way Western education discourses have been hybridized in the encounter with collectivist and centralist cultures within post-socialist environments in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. In the context of international aid relationships, the article considers different motivations and driving forces for reforms, the way pre-Soviet and Soviet traditions are affirmed within the reforms, as well as how these reforms speak back to Western reform agenda. Emphasizing the historical legacy of Soviet centralist traditions, this article reveals how traveling policies have been ‘hijacked’ by local policy makers and used for their own purposes nationally.


2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (48) ◽  
pp. 13881-13886 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vegard Eldholm ◽  
John H.-O. Pettersson ◽  
Ola B. Brynildsrud ◽  
Andrew Kitchen ◽  
Erik Michael Rasmussen ◽  
...  

The “Beijing”Mycobacterium tuberculosis(Mtb) lineage 2 (L2) is spreading globally and has been associated with accelerated disease progression and increased antibiotic resistance. Here we performed a phylodynamic reconstruction of one of the L2 sublineages, the central Asian clade (CAC), which has recently spread to western Europe. We find that recent historical events have contributed to the evolution and dispersal of the CAC. Our timing estimates indicate that the clade was likely introduced to Afghanistan during the 1979–1989 Soviet–Afghan war and spread further after population displacement in the wake of the American invasion in 2001. We also find that drug resistance mutations accumulated on a massive scale inMtbisolates from former Soviet republics after the fall of the Soviet Union, a pattern that was not observed in CAC isolates from Afghanistan. Our results underscore the detrimental effects of political instability and population displacement on tuberculosis control and demonstrate the power of phylodynamic methods in exploring bacterial evolution in space and time.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 1708
Author(s):  
Malik Rsbaevich MUKANOV ◽  
Ernar Nurlanovich BEGALIEV

The article discusses the current state of the monetary – credit sphere in the former states of the Soviet Union. The authors note that, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, which led to the defragmentation of the monetary system, is an important event in the formation of the financial sector in Central Asia. The single monetary and financial system, which was adapted to the conditions of the planned economy, had started rapidly falling apart. The result was a break of the traditionally existing economic ties. It is important to note that the monetary policy has a direct impact on the major macro-economic indicators such as GDP, employment and the level of prices. It is thus important to have a solid legal base. The accelerated formation of national monetary systems in Central Asian states has required the creation of genuinely independent emission center as the Central Banks of Central Asia. Since 1994, Central Asian governments have begun to carry out macroeconomic regulation, mutual settlement in the economy and emission activity. The next step was a reform of the banking system in Central Asia. At the beginning of the independence of the Central Asian states a legal framework was created and a transition was made to a two-tier banking system. According to the adopted laws in the countries of Central Asia, a two-tier banking system was formed, where the upper level was represented by the State Bank of the region (with emission rights), and the bottom were - commercial and government specialized. Creating second tier banks was a response to the needs of the Central Asian countries.


2007 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 802-804
Author(s):  
Nilgun Onder

Clan Politics and Regime Transition in Central Asia, Kathleen Collins, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 376.The long isolation of Central Asia finally ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Five new independent states emerged from the ashes of the Soviet Union, the very first time in history that the peoples of Central Asia gained their own independent states modelled on the modern state. This development caught the world, including Central Asians themselves, by surprise. It changed the geopolitics of the entire Eurasia. In the ensuing years, the Central Asian republics have undergone simultaneous multiple transformations: state building; political regime transformation; and transition from Soviet communism. Thus the new states in Central Asia have provided scholars with new cases of multiple economic and political transitions to study and compare. In recent years, there has been a significant proliferation of English-language publications on Central Asia. Kathleen Collin's book, a comparative historical study of political development in Central Asia, is a major contribution. While its focus is on Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, it often provides examples from the other two Central Asian republics, namely Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. It is thoroughly researched and rich in information and details. It also makes a significant contribution to the political science literature on democratization, regime transition and consolidation.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 20170068 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Lutz ◽  
James Lutz

Economic policy has often been an integral part of foreign policy usage by governments. Many states will use trade, aid, and investment as instruments to attain other objectives deemed to be in the national interest. Albert Hirschman in an early and classic study suggested that governments in the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany consciously attempted to dominate the trade of weaker states in Europe as a means of enhancing the German foreign policy position. Russian trade policy since the breakup of the Soviet Union has followed a similar policy, especially in regard to the other successor states of the former Soviet Union. Patterns were different for the Baltic countries, other European successor states, the Transcaucasian states, and Central Asian countries. Notwithstanding differences that were present, there was evidence in the trade patterns to indicate that Moscow was using trade policy to gain influence in the successor states.


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