Abstract:

In the last couple of years, especially from 2022, the image and the name of Dinmukhamed Akhmedovich Qonaev (1912-1993) suddenly became more visible in public places in the forms of portraits and pictures, media sources, different commemoration events, and even in the country`s toponymal system. The main question of this research paper is: what caused such interest in the Soviet Kazakhstani leaders who passed away practically at the beginning of Kazakhstan’s independence? The focus of this research is on how Qonaev's symbolic power is used or better to say, how different actors both state and non-state from hip-hop bands to Islamic preachers apply to the symbolic power of Qonaev. During ethnographic fieldwork which included digital ethnography and interviewing I came up with several preliminary arguments: first, the sudden popularity of Qonaev on the state level can be explained as some form of the dismantling of the legacy previous leader of the country, Nursultan Nazarbayev by contemporary president Qasymzhomart Tokayev. Second, non-state actors such as musicians, hip-hop singers Islamic preachers, and many common Kazakhstanis on the ground level reimagine Qonaev as the ‘ideal ruler”, as a kind of “anti-Nazarbayev” whom the country “lost” during its historical development. However, such as nostalgia and romantic idealization mixed with the heavy nationalistic critique of Qonaev too.

Abstract:

In this conference report, I intend to consider similar patterns of local collective memory in an attempt to understand what role is played, and what place is occupied, by such narratives in the social lives of small social groups. The object of my research will be a small community of Imamite Shias, Central Asian Iranians, currently living in the city of Bukhara and its suburbs. An ethnic and religious minority in current-day Uzbekistan, the Bukharan Iranians are distinguished by their adherence to Twelver Shiism (in contrast to the Hanafi Sunni majority in the region), some minor differences in religious rites relating to the cycle of life compared to the most widespread practices in the Bukharan cultural realm, and patterns of collective memory which carry representations of collective trauma.

Providing one such framing of trauma were the events leading to the clash between Shias and Sunnis in January 1910 in the capital of the Bukharan Emirate, resulting in casualties on both sides. In conversations during my fieldwork in Bukhara (two times), I discovered that memory about these events plays an important role in self-identification for individuals of the older generation. More religious people apply a more persistent religious framework around their representation of the 1910 events, which adds to and can even mitigate the traumatic experience of the past.

Based on my field notes, I would like to look more closely at this case to understand what role representations of the past play and what place they occupy in the identity of Bukhara’s Shiite community; examine how and why the religious aspect is included in these representations; and determine whether there is a difference in representations of the past among members of different generations. A separate theme is the impact of historical policies by those in power and their influence on local memory. This process can result in either suppression of local memory or the search for suitable niches where it can be inserted into larger narratives of memory about the past of one small community

Abstract:

Nation-building and the creation of a linear idea of the history of one or another nationality of the USSR were based on the Eurocentric Marxist concept of social formations. At the same time, communities that, before the advent of Soviet power, were groups united on a confessional and/or territorial basis: minorities represented by European ethnic groups (Poles, Russians, Germans), who were often times relocated to Central Asia through settler colonial projects (voluntarily or involuntarily, as was the case with forced relocations and deportations), as well as groups that the Soviet government oftentimes referred to as "Eastern" (Uyghurs, Central Asian Arabs), who, as part of nation-building, received new socialist (or rather tooted in modernist, post-Enlightenment ideas of nation) foundations for consolidation.

The purpose of this study is a comparative analysis of the collective ideas of self of two distinct minority/subaltern communities, using in this case study Poles and Uyghurs in the Kazakh SSR during the first 20 years of Soviet power. Through the analysis of collective memories of said groups, their integration and recontextualization within the region, both through the lens of the Soviet state and their own perspectives and local perceptions of history we aim to analyze how self-identification was shaped by the context of being integrated in a national republic in the context of Soviet nation-building. We also aim to look at how the relationship between territorial (dis)affiliation and different modes of (sometimes forced) integration into the new state building project shaped self-identification of these two groups.

Abstract:

In this paper, I will primarily explore the Shi’a community of a small village who, drawing from mythology, shape their identity and establish a contrast with the Sunni community, the majority in the neighbouring areas. While the community employs various practices and customs, including rituals, to underscore these distinctions, I will particularly delve into the significance of shrines as tangible symbols and the practices of shrine veneration. This will illustrate how the community utilizes the mythology surrounding the shrine to delineate boundaries and accentuate their religious identity.

A shrine typically embodies the presence of a revered saint-patron who holds a central place in the indigenous beliefs and cosmology of the community. However, such folk religious practices are often not officially recognized within the doctrinal framework of the faith community. Each small community may designate a sacred space associated with a specific saint, which becomes a focal point of reverence steeped in myth and folklore. In some instances, the shrine is believed to enshrine the tomb of such a saint, whether they were a historical figure or a mythical one. What remains significant is the shared belief in the saint, the legend, or the myth, fostering a sense of belonging among practitioners. As the shrines embody religion, they naturally accentuate religious identity, the primary distinction between the Shi’a village community and the Sunni majority nearby.

I posit that the knowledge linked to the shrine constitutes a collective belief that delineates this distinction and solidifies the contrast. This shared knowledge is then externalized and sustained through ritual practices. To demonstrate how this knowledge is communicated, nurtured, and perpetuated, I will analyze the data within the theoretical frameworks outlined by Assmann (1999) and Halbwachs (2011) on collective memory. Additionally, I will utilize the concept of the "imagined community" to illustrate how the local community utilizes belief in the enigmatic saint-patron to construct their local identity.