Paper long abstract:

Much of the scholarship on Xinjiang in recent years has focused on elites, often trained in the Soviet Union, and the role they played in making the modern Uyghur identity. However, these studies give us only a limited perspective on what “Islam” or, indeed, even “history” in the region can actually be construed to be. If one looks at not only what the elite and the well-educated were writing, an entirely different picture of what “Islam” and, indeed, “history” in the region starts to emerge. It is an Islamic history steeped in not only said Islam, but the very survival-work of the people who undertook it: mothers and children, butchers and bakers, very real people with very real physical and spiritual needs that were met in a variety of ways. It is the intersection of Islam and survival-work that is of interest here.

This paper argues that “ahistorical” documents like divination manuals and occult treatises need to be taken seriously in reconstructing what I call an “affective history” comprised of everyday people doing things that really mattered to them. It tries to shift the narrative of Islamic history in southern Xinjiang away from one focused on elites and the wealthy and to re-center it on the multitudinous individuals in the region who saw no tension between their everyday practices and being a good Muslim. It does so by examining one such manual of divination, both as a text and in context, and situating it as absolutely central to the histories of those for whom it was at once an important part of survival-work, devotion, and being able to walk through their world able to exercise agency within it.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the effectiveness of wartime Soviet propaganda like self-perfection, exhortation, People’s friendship, Russian supremacy, and celebration of national historical figures on Kyrgyz people, including both soldiers in the war front and their close ones at home. It tries to answer the question ‘To what extent were the agitations effective?’ through analyzing the Kyrgyz letters between fighting soldiers and the home front during the Great Patriotic War. Additionally, it also explores the change in Kyrgyz identity. The choice of epistolary as an object for the research enabled to go beyond the official historical records and find personal perceptions, decisions, and experiences about Soviet propaganda, and the war in general. The findings of the research show that most of the propaganda were productive making the Kyrgyz soldiers fight and the home front laborers work effective in the Soviet-German war. However, they do not allow to conclude that Kyrgyz identity of soldiers changed because of the agitation; the soldiers just gained additional knowledge, and skills with the war.

Key words: Soviet propaganda, Kyrgyz identity, letters.

Paper long abstract:

Central Asia’s role in the Soviet Union’s attempt to gain influence with non-aligned nations during the Cold War has received considerable attention in recent scholarship. Historians of Soviet Central Asia have written about the Soviet government’s use of Central Asian voices and places in making a case for an alternative, non-colonial model of development to the Third World, the role of Central Asian party elites as intermediaries between the USSR and the non-aligned states, and the use of women’s magazines to promote Soviet visions of development and women’s emancipation to countries skeptical of the socialist superpower’s intentions. In this paper, I intend to follow the example set by Christine Varga Harris’s work on the magazine Soviet Woman and explore some depictions of Central Asia in the Soviet press. Instead of focusing on discourses aimed at external audiences, however, I will instead examine texts and images meant for domestic consumption. What did model Central Asian citizens look like from the Soviet government’s perspective? What were the government’s goals and expectations for Soviet Central Asia during Khrushchev’s early years in power? By answering these questions, I hope to complement the scholarship on Central Asia as a site of Soviet interactions with the Third World with a nuanced portrayal of the region’s place within the USSR’s “family of nations”.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will examine the use of ethnonyms in 19th century depictions of the Khanate of Kokand which was situated in the Ferghana valley. During the early 19th century the Khanate of Kokand competed with the Khanate of Bukhara as a major cultural and political center in Central Asia. The Khanate of Kokand was particularly populous and diverse due to the fact that many peoples inhabited the Ferghana valley. In addition, the location of the khanate near the steppe often led to interaction and even conflict with various nomadic peoples. The rulers of the khanate were the Ming, an Uzbek tribal dynasty. This research paper will examine how texts such as Abdul Karim Bukhari’s history of the Central Asia during the 18th – 19th centuries and the Tārīkh-i Shāhrukhī, by Muhammad Niyāz depicted the various peoples of the Khanate of Kokand. Abdul Karim Bukhari hailed from Bukhara and later went on to serve as an attendant and historian for a number of notable figures of Central Asia during the early 19th century. Later in his live he relocated to Istanbul where he wrote his history of Central Asia which was interspersed with his own personal experiences from his travels throughout the region. I will refer to Charles Schefer’s French translation of Bukhari’s work in this study. The Tārīkh-i Shāhrukhī is a chronicle of the Khanate of Kokand written by the historian Muhammad Niyāz around 1870-1. I will utilize the Persian text edition of this source. In examining both works particular attention will be paid to how various ethnonyms are used and in what contexts. I will focus on the reign of the ruler Alim Khan who is noted for his campaigns against the Kazakhs and his incorporation of Tajiks into his army. I wish to see how ethnonyms are juxtaposed with each other and whether they are set aside in favor of more overarching labels depending on the situation. I am interested in examining the Khanate of Kokand in this way due to the variety of peoples who populated the Ferghana valley during the 19th century. It is my intention to use Rogers Brubaker’s theoretical framework of groupness to examine how my sources depict certain peoples as “others” depending on the context. I am interested in how inclusive terms such as “Turk” and “Uzbek” were and if certain ethnonyms were associated with particular geographic areas. This will provide insight regarding how identity was conceptualized in Central Asia prior to the Soviet nation-building projects of the early 20th century.