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- Convenor:
-
Benjamin Storsved
(Indiana University)
Send message to Convenor
- Discussant:
-
Ablet Kamalov
(University Turan)
- Formats:
- Panel
- Theme:
- History
- Location:
- GA 1122
- Sessions:
- Saturday 22 October, -
Time zone: America/Indiana/Knox
:
This panel presents research which considers new perspectives on revolts in Central Asia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Abstract:
Uprisings in colonial settings are powerful expressions of agency and discontent, and memories of these events have lasting impacts on collective religious and national identities. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the ways in which Central Asian communities revolted against colonial rule as well as the memories of these revolts were determined by local religious, social, and cultural factors. Ardahbek Amantur describes the complex roles played by Islamic institutions and their leaders during revolts against the Qing Empire in the Ili valley (in present-day Xinjiang). Using several works written by Taranchis and one written by a Sibe shortly after these events, he argues that these revolts were strongly influenced by the actions and interactions facilitated by local institutions which developed during Qing rule of the region. Daniil Kabotyanski examines the impact of uprisings on national identity through the case of the Dungans in the Soviet Union. He identifies the unique historical circumstances of this group during the 1916 Uprising in Semirech’e and explores the ways in which these events catalyzed the Soviet definition of Dungan as a distinct nationality. Ben Storsved investigates Kyrgyz poems about the events of the 1916 Uprising and the different political goals which motivated local scholars to collect them in the early 1920s. He analyzes manuscripts of these poems and the context of their textualization to understand their place in the larger tradition of Turkic oral literature. Michael Krautkramer discusses the implementation of Islamic Law in the Kingdom of Kashgaria established by Yaqub Beg during the Dungan revolts. He examines the implementation of Islamic Law and its implications, arguing that it in fact represented a sharp break from normative Muslim practice in the region.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Saturday 22 October, 2022, -Ardahbek Amantur (Indiana University)
Paper abstract:
This paper focuses on the role of locally developed institutions during the revolts that broke out in Ili valley of today’s Xinjiang in the 1860s. As a result of the revolts, Taranchis, the local Turkic speaking Muslims, overthrew the Qing Empire’s rule in Ili valley and founded a Muslim state. These revolts have been studied through the lens of religion, peasant rebellions, national resistance, foreign policy and international politics. When studied, these revolts are often seen as part of the larger political upheavals that swayed the Qing Empire and Xinjiang in the late 19th century. In my paper, I focus more on the local developments while recognizing the influence of broader contexts. I argue that the revolts in Ili valley were shaped greatly by the locally developed institutions during the Qing Empire’s rule of the region. In Ili, administrative, economic and Islamic institutions that developed during the Qing Empire’s rule provided different groups mechanisms to work and live together. At the same time, these same institutions also effectively maintained the boundaries between different groups. The Qing Empire's rule of the culturally diverse region benefited much from these institutions. During the revolts, these institutions played crucial roles. Local actors, especially the leaders of the revolts, used some institutions to cross the group boundaries to seek alliance, they also used the same institutions to strengthen the hostility towards other groups when it was needed. This paper is based on locally produced sources, including several works produced by Taranchis and one work written by a local Sibe not long after the revolts in Ili. In addition, my paper also makes use of published materials in English, Chinese, Uyghur, and Russian languages.
Daniil Kabotyanski (Indiana University)
Paper abstract:
Despite their small population, Central Asian Dungans are of interest to scholars because they provide a particularly challenging case study of Soviet nationalities policy. Dungans fit especially poorly into Stalin's definition of nationhood, and while they are clearly separated from their neighbors by language, religion, and livelihood, these traits are not sufficient to explain the emergence of a distinct Dungan nationality. Scholars have previously focused on Dungan language, folklore, and material culture to explain their distinct identity. By contrast, this study draws on Rogers Brubaker's theory of nation as a "category of practice" in order to identify historical factors that contributed to a unique Dungan nationality. Specifically, it uses published government documents and memoirs to examine the role of Dungans in the 1916 Revolt against Tsarist rule in Semirech'e. The 1916 Revolt was a watershed event that presaged later violence and civil unrest. While studies of the Revolt generally focus on its consequences for Kazakh and Kyrgyz populations, it was also a pivotal moment for smaller ethnicities. This study shows that Dungans' unique socioeconomic circumstances and connections to Chinese Xinjiang placed them in conflict with both Russian settlers and nomadic populations in 1916. Lingering distrust following the violence and return of Dungans from Xinjiang solidified their separate group identity. The need to demonstrate loyalty to the Soviet Union in the wake of this violence caused the "indigenization" of the Dungans as a particularly Soviet nationality. Finally, Soviet Dungans later invoked the events of 1916 to demand cultural and territorial autonomy.
Benjamin Storsved (Indiana University)
Paper abstract:
The events of the 1916 Uprising in Semirech’e and the subsequent displacement of Kyrgyz peoples to China shaped the development of Kyrgyz national identity. This forced migration, known as the ürkün, inspired a new category of oral poetry known as ürkün ırları, ‘songs of the ürkün’. These poems were composed by Kyrgyz literati, graduates of Islamic institutions of learning where they had studied in the final decades of the 19th century. Many of them were teachers in 1916 and experienced the ürkün firsthand. Following their return to Kirghizia after their displacement, these scholars drew on the Central Asian and Islamic traditions in which they were educated as well as their personal experiences to compose new type of literature and poetry. Their compositions also were strongly influenced by the new and evolving sociopolitical conditions of the nascent Soviet Union. In the early 1920s, a small group of scholars local to Kirgizia embarked on a grassroots campaign to find folkloric compositions and record them in writing. Among these materials they collected were many ürkün ırları. The manuscripts of these poems and other oral literature collected during these campaigns provided foundational materials for Soviet and post-Soviet folklore studies in Kyrgyzstan. However, the circumstances of composition, performance, and textualization set ürkün ırları apart from pre-Soviet Kyrgyz oral literature. Using historical and folkloristic methodologies, I critically examine the place of ürkün ırları in Kyrgyz folklore studies and historiography.