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- Convenors:
-
Nicholas Seay
(Ohio State University)
Daniyar Karabaev (American University of Central Asia)
Marianne Kamp (Indiana University, CEUS)
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- Chair:
-
Morgan Liu
(The Ohio State University)
- Discussant:
-
Artemy Kalinovsky
(Temple University)
- Format:
- Panel
- Theme:
- History
- Location:
- Lawrence Hall: room 105
- Sessions:
- Saturday 21 October, -
Time zone: America/New_York
Abstract:
This panel brings together three papers which use oral history to study the history of Central Asia in the 20th century. We start from the observation that there is a tendency among historians of the Soviet Union to rely heavily on state-produced archive materials. This results in histories which often over-emphasize the state's concerns and ignores social practices which run counter to the goals of party and state. By covering a wide range of topics - Islamic practice in the Stalinist period, marriage practices in Dungan families in the late-Soviet period, and agricultural practices and their effects on public health in Soviet Tajikistan - we aim to show the indispensability of practicing oral history in Central Asian history, precisely because it helps us understand the processes of daily live and changes across generations. It does so in ways that complicate the narratives we gain from focusing solely on archival research.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Saturday 21 October, 2023, -Paper abstract:
Islam and its everyday practices were severely limited during the Soviet period in Kyrgyzstan. This paper presents the results of a oral history research project where elderly people shared their individual testimonies and stories of practicing Islam during the Stalinist period. The paper argues that everyday religious practices were performed in various ‘hidden’ and ‘new surviving’ forms in different parts of Soviet Kyrgyzstan. Those family members that continued to practice religion in this period had developed practical, skillful, and often creative coping strategies for continuing their Islam practices in hidden ways.
Paper abstract:
This paper uses oral history interviews conducted in Tajikistan (2022, 2023), archival materials, and secondary publications to explore the expanded use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers in Soviet Tajikistan’s cotton sector. Together with expansion of irrigated lands, the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers led to a drastic increase in the cotton harvests in the late-Soviet period, which also contributed to higher wages on the collective farms and greater investments in infrastructure, hospitals, clinics, and schools. At the same time, the increase in the use of these chemical-based inputs exposed kolkhoz workers and rural communities to unprecedented health risks. In addition to exploring the “positive” and “negative” effects of these changes, I argue that it was precisely the increased level of illness derived from these chemicals that prompted local party authorities to the task of building hospitals and clinics in rural regions in the 1970s and 1980s. By exploring the relationship between cotton production, chemicals, and public health, this story complicates the common model of causations and chronology of Soviet development in Tajikistan.
Paper abstract:
What was Soviet about Central Asian ways of getting married? Oral history interviews with two generations in Dungan communities in Kyrgyzstan focused on how marriages came about, differentiating late Soviet expectations and patterns from post-Soviet trends. We, the interviewers, expected signficant differences regarding individual ability to choose a spouse, and in the size of wedding feasts. What we learned about instead were Soviet-period practices of parent-controlled marriage that seemed almost entirely unaffected by Soviet “Red Wedding” norms, and that respondents strongly associated with Dunganness, as well as the ways that social media and growing wealth modified those practices while reinforcing Dungan community connections.
Paper abstract:
Civic activism in the field of historical memory is a movement that offers alternative approaches to the dominant,
institutionalized point of view on history. Memory activism is not just the preservation of historical memory and not just
resistance to the destruction of the past. This is the active creativity of communities and individuals, aimed at resisting the one-sided politics of memory and expressing a different vision of historical events through memorial processions,
monuments, creating posters, scientific and artistic texts, journalistic reports, and cinema. Memory activism in Kyrgyzstan is
manifested, for example, in the assessment of the events of 1916 by various groups of society, their interpretation of
historical events and in related actions. This report will raise the example of commemorating Urkun-1916, about the politics
of memory and the culture of commemorating these events.