Paper abstract:

From the mid-twentieth century, political shifts along the Soviet-Xinjiang border contributed to the rise of a new Soviet academic subject – uigurovedenie (Uyghur Studies). This paper examines the relationship between Soviet uigurovedenie and Soviet-Xinjiang political dynamics from the 1940s to the 1980s. I argue that Soviet uigurovedenie was, on the one hand, used as a tool to exploit cross-border Uyghur ethnic ties to project Soviet political influence into Xinjiang. On the other hand, the scholarship shaped the Soviet understanding of Xinjiang and the Uyghurs, influencing Soviet policymaking toward Xinjiang. Given the political vicissitudes in Xinjiang and Soviet Central Asia, Soviet intellectual discourse on the Uyghurs and Xinjiang varied over time. In the 1950s, Soviet scholars viewed cross-border ethnocultural linkages between Xinjiang and Soviet Central Asia as an opportunity to strengthen Sino-Soviet friendship and simultaneously expand Soviet soft power in Xinjiang. Following the Sino-Soviet split in the early 1960s, Soviet scholars found the Uyghurs an exploitable agent in Sino-Soviet rivalries in Central Asia, and gradually developed the idea of Xinjiang as a Uyghur land.

Two dichotomies – national assimilation-consolidation and primordiality-modernity – underlay Soviet uigurovedenie over time, despite their fluctuating implications. Whereas Soviet scholars tried to justify Uyghur assimilation with other peoples, including the Chinese, post-split uigurovedy (Uyghur Studies specialists) advocated the concept of unique, primordial Uyghur nationhood. Those who studied modern Uyghurs consistently promoted the idea of cross-border ethnic commonality between Soviet and Xinjiang Uyghurs. Beginning in the mid-1960s, Soviet uigurovedy intensified their efforts to legitimize the assimilation of Soviet Uyghurs into a unified Soviet entity, a process that should also involve the Xinjiang Uyghurs, whose independent nationhood was being destructed by the “chauvinist” Maoist regime. Glorifying the Sovietization of modern Uyghurs neutralized any potential nationalist sentiment in the scholarship, ensuring the Sovietness of uigurovedenie.

This paper relies primarily on Soviet academic publications, including monographs, journals, encyclopedias, and dictionaries. Newspapers, archival documents, and biographical materials are among other sources. Though providing only an on-paper perspective, Soviet uigurovedenie reveals a Soviet paradigm of generating and utilizing borderland and ethnic knowledge, which has broader implications for Soviet nationalities policy and foreign policy. Moreover, while academic discourses cannot directly expose concrete policies, investigating the scholarship and scholars sheds light on Soviet political agendas on the Uyghurs and Xinjiang after 1949, which contemporary historians have not thoroughly explored.

Paper abstract:

The Great Game describes British and Russian imperial expansion in Central Asia as the two powers competed to spread their influence in the region. Historians point to 1830 as the start of British paranoia regarding Russian advances towards India. This neglects to mention British actions during the Greek War of Independence, which saw the nation retreat from the Concert of Europe as well as the growth of anti-Russian sentiment. As Britain countered Russian interests in western Asia, Russia moved further east towards India, creating fears of invasion in Britain. This paper examines the role of Britain in starting the Great Game, focusing on its self-fulfilling prophecy of Russian expansion in Central Asia, examining how Britain’s exit from the European Congress System limited its response to resist Russian expansion. I propose that this exit, and the inability to contain Russia with either European or Eurasian allies, Britain was not effective at countering Russian influence in Central Asia. Unlike some interpretations, which place Britain as a grand architect of policy regarding Central Asia, British policy was reactive, countermanded, and disunited, meaning it was unable to ultimately cope with Russian expansion. The main instance when it looked to expand – the First Anglo-Afghan War – the British were woefully unprepared and suffered from the aggressive foreign policy proposed by Lord Palmerston and Lord Auckland in the 1830s. When the British finally achieved their objective of placing Shah Shujah, they realized that they were woefully unprepared to control and maintain Afghanistan, fulfilled the Duke of Wellington’s prophecy that maintaining a government in Afghanistan would result in a “perennial march into the country.” While Lord Aberdeen attempted to cooperate with, rather than oppose, the Russians in the 1840s, the idea was not pursued following his departure, returning Britain to a game in which it was never winning, yet convinced itself otherwise. This study is based on published materials, and will include archival materials from the India Office Archives at the British Library.

Paper abstract:

Discussions of the early Xiongnu polity continue to use a variety of classifications ranging from loose confederacy to hereditary empire. The scarcity of sources documenting the early stages of Xiongnu state formation make the origins of the Xiongnu leadership near impossible to trace prior to the rise of the hereditary Luandi dynasty under Modu chanyu. The story of Modu chanyu's rise to power closely resembles the a leadership model described by Marshall Sahlins in his description of Polynesian and Melanesian polities which he termed "Big Man" polities. Big Men rise to power through the exercise of their influence and projection of power through control and redistribution of resources. Unlike hereditary systems which rely on succession based on birth, Big Man systems rely on the personality and resources of the individual to maintain their right to rule. This paper proposes a new method for understanding state formation in Inner Asian-Chinese borderlands through which the rise of Xiongnu, Serbi, Kitan, and Qai Big Men is accompanied by attempted transitions to hereditary systems. The success of the Big Man in establishing a stable hereditary system relies on the ability of the initial hereditary heir in inheriting the Big Man status of the previous Big Man. From the second to tenth centuries CE, the northern Inner Asian-Chinese frontier can be characterized by a series of such attempted transitions-some directly failing, some briefly successful, and others which achieve lasting success like the Tabgach-led Northen Wei, or the Kitan-led Liao. The Luandi of the Xiongnu are the earliest of such transitions that can be clearly identified, but the later activity of the Serbi, Kitan, Qai, and other related groups provide accounts of similar transitions along the Inner Asian-Chinese borderlands. By examining the rise and fall of the families of these Big Men style leaders, this paper reevaluates Sinification arguments of Inner Asian leadership by providing new insight into the succession of power and state formation in the Inner Asian-Chinese borderlands.

Paper abstract:

Tsogtu Khong Tayiji (1581-1637), also called Tümengken Tsogtu Khong Tayiji, was a Khalkha Mongol prince, a poet, possible supporter of Ligdan Khan, and opponent of the Dalai Lama’s “Yellow Hat” order. His life signifies the short rise and fall of Khalkha Mongol supremacy in Tibet. This paper draws on Mongolian sources, Chinese and English translation of Tibetan sources, Chinese, Japanese and English secondary research and look forward to illustrating the importance of this Mongolian prince in the seventeenth-century Tibetan history. This paper argues that after Tsogtu Khong Tayiji, there was no longer a Mongol force from Outer Mongolia which could compete with the Khoshot domination of Tibet until the Manchu incorporation of Tibet in 1720. Therefore, Tsogtu Khong Tayiji’s downfall manifests the withdrawal of Khalkha Mongol’s attempt on Tibet and a possible patron of Bka’-brgyud sect of Tibetan Buddhism. Since then, the rise of Khoshot collaborating with the Dge-lugs sect maintained their supremacy in Tibet till the eighteenth century.