Paper short abstract:

Making Friends and Waging War: The Dance and Diplomacy of Tamara Khanum

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines the war-time activity of Tamara Khanum (1906-1981), the Uzbek entertainer of Armenian heritage who made a career by performing the songs and dances of various nationalities. During the war she gave over one thousand performances across the Soviet homefront, as well as for Soviet soldiers on every major front, including Iran and Mongolia, and in immediate post-war Europe. She was made a captain in the Soviet Army and she donated her Stalin Prize winnings for the construction of a tank which bore her name. The paper asks why her brand of entertainment was deemed so vital for Soviet state interests at home and abroad. It suggests that her performance genre, mixing song, dance, and national costume with an emotive femininity, was eminently modular and expandable to any multi-ethnic setting. Her rarified position as an intermediary for the socialist cause required immense devotion but allowed her to become a broker for deficit wartime goods, and gave her the latitude to interpret the doctrine of Friendship of the Peoples in novel, and often surprising ways. The paper relies on archival and print sources, including her semi-autobiographical writings published posthumously.

Paper long abstract:

Samuil Marshak—the Soviet writer of Jewish origin--wrote that the famous Uzbek super-adopters--the Shamakhmudovs--welcomed two Jewish orphans (Sasha-Ergash and Fedia-Yuldash) after receiving a donation from one senior lieutenant Levitsky (also of Jewish descent), who pledged a monthly money transfer to this family. Despite effective conveyance of the joint war and home front efforts, this interpretation did not gain prominence, likely because of the marked Jewishness of the author, the money donor, and the adoptees themselves. By looking at this and other examples of how Jewishness of evacuees and war orphans was downplayed in the Soviet Uzbek press during and after the war, this paper will examine the limits of Soviet friendship of the peoples and the construction of Sovietness after Stalin.

Юлдаш и Эргаш: усыновление еврейских сирот узбекскими семьями во время ВОВ и пределы Советской "Дружбы Народов"

Самуил Маршак

— советский писатель еврейского происхождения — писал, что знаменитая узбекская семья кузнеца Шаахмеда Шамахмудова приняла во время ВОВ двух еврейских сирот (Сашу-Эргаша и Федю-Юлдаша). Согласно одной из версий усыновления этих мальчиков, кузнец решился взять

их из детского дома после получения пожертвования от некоего старшего лейтенанта Левицкого (очевидно, тоже еврейского происхождения), который пообещал ежемесячно, пока остается жив, посылать с фронта денежный перевод на содержание этих детей-сирот. Несмотря

на то, что данная версия событий демонстрировала совместные усилия фронта и тыла в помощи эвакуированным детям, эта интерпретация не получила широкой известности. Вероятно, это было связано с еврейским происхождением автора (Маршака), жертвователя денег (Левицкого)

и самих усыновленных. Рассматривая примеры того, как еврейство эвакуированных сирот зачастую намеренно замалчивалось в советской прессе во время и после войны, автор данного доклада исследует пределы советской дружбы народов и социальные связи в пост-сталинскую

эпоху.

Paper short abstract:

Освещается деятельность Советского государства и Духовного управления мусульман Средней Азии и Казахстана по организации хаджа 1944/1945 гг. в Мекку, заложившего основу для ведения пропагандистских акций

Paper long abstract:

Освещается деятельность Советского государства и Духовного управления мусульман Средней Азии и Казахстана по организации хаджа 1944/1945 гг. в Мекку, заложившего основу для ведения пропагандистских акций, имеющих своей целью убедить зарубежных критиков в том, что СССР является страной, создавшей для ислама все условия для полноценного развития. На основе новых документов из архивов Узбекистана анализируются причины, условия и результаты хаджа.

Paper short abstract:

Kazakhstan. 1941-1943. Different conditions of evacuation: evacuation flows, adaptation practices, moods.

Paper long abstract:

The fact that during the war of 1941-1945 Kazakhstan received a large number of evacuees. As analysis of documents shows the presence of various evacuation flows. Conventionally, the following can be distinguished: under investigation were from workers and temployees of industrial enterprises, their families, cultural and scientific institutions to prisoners and persons. On July 20, 1941, the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Kazakhstan adopt a resolution on the creation of special state structures for organizing and receiving evacuated citizens.

Frome July 1941 to October 1942 to Kazakhstan were relocated 142 large industrial enterprises with complete equipment and necessary raw materials: heavy and medium engineering plants, as well as textile, cotton spinning, shoe and other factories. In total, during the war years over 300 factories were relocated to Kazakhstan. According to the data of the Resettlement Department of the Kazakh SSR, on the number of evacuated citizens recorded in the lists, as of October 21, 1941, in the republic 89,477 people were recorded. All of them were located in different regions of the republic. Most of the evacuees in Kazakhstan were settled in auls and villages (64.6% as of July 1, 1943). 35.4% were equipped in cities.

Depending on which category the evacuees belonged to, “organized” or “unorganized”, adaptation practices were built differently. In our presentation, we will analyze all categories of the evacuated population and show their features of everyday life in the rear. Let us consider such an important aspect of the everyday life of the rear as moods, rumors that existed among the population. A wide source base of the study, including both Kazakh (Archive of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan (AP RK), Central State Archive of the Republic of Kazakhstan (CSA RK), Russian (SARF, RSASPH), eyewitnesses (oral history) made it possible to comprehensively highlight the stated topic.