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CESR
Central Eurasian Studies Review
Publication of the Central Eurasian Studies Society
ISSN 1538-5043 (Print)
ISSN 1543-7817 (Electronic)
Contents of this
issue
Volume 1, Number 3, Fall 2002
Perspectives
Research Reports and Briefs
Reviews and Abstracts
Conferences and Lecture Series
Educational Resources and Developments
Editors - CESR Vol. 2 No. 2
Editor-in-Chief: Virginia Martin (Huntsville,
Ala., USA)
Section Editors:
Perspectives: Robert M. Cutler (Ottawa/Montreal,
Canada)
Research Reports and Briefs: Laura Adams
(Boston, Mass., USA), Jamilya Ukudeeva (Riverside, Calif.,
USA)
Reviews and Abstracts: Shoshana Keller (Clinton,
N.Y., USA), Resul Yalcin (London, England)
Conferences and Lecture Series: Peter Finke
(Halle, Germany), Cengiz Surucu (Bloomington, Ind., USA)
Educational Resources and Developments: Daniel
C. Waugh (Seattle, Wash., USA)
Production Editor: John Schoeberlein (Cambridge,
Mass., USA)
Web Editors: Cengiz Surucu (Bloomington,
Ind., USA), John Schoeberlein (Cambridge, Mass., USA)
Copy Editor: Michael Davis (Kirksville, Mo.,
USA)
[Contents]
Perspectives
Central Asian Studies in Bulgaria: Main Trends and Perspectives
Vladimir Chukov, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Bulgarian
Center for Middle East Studies, Bulgaria, Sofia 1113, P.O. Box
16, vlachu nat.bg
and Roumiana Andreeva-Chukova, Ph.D., Research Fellow,
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria, Sofia 1113, Samokov St.
16, rumych mail.bg
The latest radical political shifts in European and Asian post-Communist
space remapped a multitude of political agents as well as their
related academic fields. Disciplines like international relations,
political science, history and sociology "conceived"
new regional studies, each one intertwining specific methodological
approaches with empirical case studies. Central Asian studies
in Bulgaria emerged as a separate academic field within this long-term
and erratic structural process. Moreover, the Bulgarian scholarly
community suffered from similar political, economic, social and
academic processes that occurred in the Central Asian countries
themselves in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse.
The Bulgarian scholarly community has sought to develop Central
Asian studies despite several obstacles, including the relative
paucity of material means that characterizes economies in transition.
It is useful to discuss several conceptual issues that have impeded
this development.
First, Bulgarian researchers of Central Asia were for too long
separated from the international scholarly community with respect
to Russian studies and, to a lesser extent, Middle Eastern studies.
Russian studies in particular has long overshadowed Central Asian
studies and hampers its emergence as a distinct field of study
at both the empirical and the methodological levels, while Middle
Eastern studies represents a corrective that assists in establishing
its emergence. This is because there inheres in the field of Middle
Eastern studies sociology of knowledge; it is characterized by
an internal logic of development and is linked to a research outlook
that is strongly tied to broader-based academic fields, such as,
for example, Islamic studies. Experts in Central Asian studies
thus find themselves poised between Russian and Middle Eastern
studies in their attempt to establish their approach to their
subject.
The vagueness of Central Asian studies as a rubric is a second
disadvantage with which Bulgarian scholars must contend. To be
sure, this covers a broad region eastward from Bulgaria, but at
the same time its borders are not well fixed. This results in
the absence of a commonly agreed upon regional focus among researchers.
If there is no doubt that the field of Central Asian studies includes
the five former Soviet republics (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan,
Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan), still there is less than full agreement
about whether it includes the regions populated by the many non-Russian
nationalities in South Russia, or Ukraine or the Caucasus, not
to mention those territories lying to the south of the Caspian
Sea and the Black Sea. This absence of consensus is especially
evident with respect to Turkish studies, as well as with respect
to Turkey as a country neighboring Bulgaria, and in addition to
the questions surrounding the many Turkic minorities in Bulgaria
(Turks, Gagauz, Tatars, and Circassians, to mention but a few).
A similar ambiguity characterizes the consideration of Bulgarian
minorities in Ukraine and Moldova. These last-mentioned fields
of study were developed in Bulgaria respectively as Turkish/Ottoman
studies and studies of Bulgarians abroad (also called Bulgarian
National Cause Studies).
It is instructive to ask whether Turkish studies and studies
of Bulgarians abroad are part of Central Asian studies, or whether
they should be considered as separate and strongly independent
fields of research. The work of Bulgarian scholars on local Islamic
(predominantly Turkic) minorities is an important part of Bulgarian
studies of the Bulgarian ethnic background. Insofar as these Islamic
and Turkic minorities settled in Bulgaria during the period of
Ottoman rule in the Balkans, beginning in the fourteenth century
and lasting into the nineteenth, those studies may also be considered
as Central Asian studies in the Bulgarian context.
Another cause for confusion in this, the early development of
Bulgarian studies of Central Asia, is the avoidance of research
on the Islamic peoples of the Russian Federation and Ukraine.
Both Bulgarian public opinion and state plans for academic development
remain caught within a framework according to which the Bulgarian
citizen must be of the Christian confession. This intellectual
and material environment complicates research on Islamic peoples,
who continued to be perceived as "others." Thus, studies
of the proto-Bulgars and of pagan and Christian tribal organization
are very well informed theoretically, but such is not the case
for Bulgarian statehood of the Volga River basin with its Islamic
connections. These Bulgarians were renamed Tatars and Bashkirs
by a decree of Lenin in 1920. Bulgarian studies of Central Asia
should include this ethnic uprooting, and also such political
and military organizations as the Volga Bulgarian Muslims Committee
(led by the Vaissovs, father and son), the Green Guards, and the
Kazan-based Bulgarian National Congress (BNC). The BNC reappeared
in 1990 and asserts that Bulgarian studies of Central Asia should
include the rewriting of the history of the Tatarstan Republic
and the cultural autonomy of the Bulgarians there. Efforts in
this direction up to now have been modest and exceedingly insufficient.
Moreover, these peoples have demonstrated a willingness to be
included in the Bulgarian national outreach to the Bulgarian Diaspora.
Thus Gousman Khalil, leader of the BNC, participated in a pan-Bulgarian
council held in Bulgaria in 2000, where he appealed for the restoration
of the sepulcher of Khan Kubrat, the founder of Great Bulgaria
in Ukraine.
Unlike the titular nations in the five ex-Soviet Central Asian
republics, many Muslim peoples in the Russian Federation (Tatars,
Bashkirs, Bulgaro-Khabardines[1], Chechens, Daghestanis
and others) did not obtain political independence. Archives not
yet easily available may shed light on historical events of crucial
importance in this connection. So these peoples, as objects of
study, remain absorbed in Bulgaria by Russian studies and explicitly
ignored by Middle Eastern studies, notwithstanding the fact that
they are integrally a part of the Islamic Diaspora.
Another main problem that Bulgarian Central Asianists face is
the strong and persistent influence felt by an unsteady political
and ideological climate left over from the Cold War. Narrative
empirical descriptions and deductive inferences are presented
in a simplified dichotomous and bipolar explanatory framework.
Soviet Russian ideological approaches of the period of communist
rule in Bulgaria (1944-89) are privileged, while analyses by Western
scholars are denigrated. The so-called "ethnic theories"
(which will be described below) exhibit precisely such a profile.
Among Bulgarian experts on Bulgarian ethnicity, adherents to the
Soviet-Russian school continue to minimize the significance of
the Central Asian roots of the Bulgar tribe, even though these
are established beyond doubt. This school emphasizes the Slavic
origin of the Bulgarian nation, while the school employing Western
methodologies (whose members are usually graduates of Western
universities) focus on Bulgarian ethnic supremacy within the process
of the establishment of the Bulgarian nation. Caught in this ideological
framework, Central Asian studies has been marginalized.
Themes of Central Asian Studies in Bulgaria
Taking into account the above-mentioned hindrances to the development
of Central Asian studies in Bulgaria, the following main themes
of these studies may be enumerated as follows.
1. Ethnic theories are the leading and most important constituent
part of Central Asian studies in Bulgaria. They derive from Bulgarian
historical science rather than from the study of international
relations, insofar as the latter were only recognized in the 1970s
with respect to the study of different international regions.
Ethnic theories include predominantly ethnic geographical studies
that examine the process by which Bulgar civilization was established,
its subsequent growth and flourishing, and also the massive migration
of peoples from Central Asia into the Caucasus and the Balkan
Peninsula. This aspect of Bulgarian Central Asian studies is characterized
by a renewed popularity of the so-called Turkic-Hunnic theory,
which postulates the origins of the Bulgar tribe in Central Asia.
Early in the twentieth century the Turkic-Hunnic theory was very
popular. Among its prominent exponents were Ivan Shishmanov (1909),
Stefan Mladenov (1928), and later Ivan Douichev (1973). All of
them focused on the Altaic region as the motherland of the Bulgars,
a numerous tribe that settled there and shared territories within
the so-called Turkic-Hunnic tribal alliance, with the Huns, Khazars,
Oguz, Kumans, Avars, and others. In the 1930s Dimitar Sasselov
(2000) advanced the Turkic-Hunnic theory by locating the Bulgar
motherland in the Tarim Valley (today the Taklamakan Desert, Western
China). Sasselov saw kinship ties with the early-medieval Onogur
and modern Uyghur, as well as with the Bashkir and Chuvash ethnic
communities. Another proponent of the Central Asian roots of the
Bulgar tribe was Vesseline Beshevliev (1981), who situated the
Bulgar tribe as a Pamiri civilization settled on the frontier
between the most ancient agrarian peoples of the East on the one
hand, and the many nomadic groups of the Tien Shan Mountains and
Altaic areas, on the other.
Since the end of the communist period, which saw the "slavonization"
of the Bulgarian nation and the attendant marginalization of research
on Central Asian ethnicities, contemporary Bulgarian historical
scholarship seeks to rehabilitate the Turkic-Hunnic theory among
Bulgarian ethnic concepts. The most important representative of
this theory today is Petar Dobrev (1998). Dobrevs work uses a
comparative approach and relies on ancient annals, paleolinguistic
details, and toponymic studies, arguing that the Bulgars set up
an advanced civilization in the fertile valley of the Balkh region
(today in Afghanistan), establishing there a tradition of statehood
and a flourishing culture. According to Dobrevs theory, nomadic
invasions triggered Bulgar migrations in the direction of the
Don River and the Caucasus Mountains. There they established several
states, the most significant among them being the so-called Volga
Basin Bulgaria. Both the Balkan and the Volga Bulgarian states
inherited the political principles of Khan Kubrats "Great
Bulgaria." In 1237 the Golden Horde of Chinggis Khan subjugated
the Volga Bulgarians (Dobrev 1998: 107-08).
2. A second theme of Central Asian studies in Bulgaria, but quite
limited in comparison with the first, concerns so-called "travel"
studies (travelogues, diaries, memoirs, and documentaries). These
are reputed to be reliable sources for studying political, religious,
social, ethnic, and cultural identity in Central Asia. The authors
and editors imbue their works with emotion-laden rhetoric, but
by this artifice they are better able to concentrate on the specifically
Bulgarian aspects of Central Asias complex history and its ever-changing
political organization. Taken together, these works respond to
that instinct of Bulgarian public opinion which seeks to propagate
an overarching idea of a historical motherland common to all Bulgarians.
Also they stress the grim circumstances in which the descendents
of the Volga Basin Bulgarians live today. They are to be found
in the Russian Federation, spread out over Tatarstan, Bashkortostan,
the Chuvash Republic, and Karbardino-Balkaria.
Chronologically, the first travelogue was that by Georgy Vazov
(1938), who observed the construction of the Trans-Siberian railway,
and whose descriptive work relies upon a wealth of military and
diplomatic documents. This Bulgarian former defense minister shed
light on the Russian conquests of Khiva, Merv, Samarqand, and
Bukhara, but he also traced the identities of the local ethnic
communities.
Among contemporary travel notes, worth mentioning are the narrative
monograph of Vesseline Iliev (1997) and the documentaries of Maksim
Karadzhov and Tsetan Tonchev (1998). Karadzhov and Tonchev produced
two documentary travelogues focusing on two main themes: the cultural
propinquity of the Balkan with the Central Asian Bulgarians, and
the crimes of Lenin and Stalin against the non-Russian nationalities,
with specific focus on the experiences of Tatar and Bashkir Bulgarians,
as well as the Chuvash, who are lineal descendents of the Bulgar-Suvars.
In the context of the development of Central Asian studies in
Bulgaria, we may add to the category of travelogues the diplomatic
memoir. The Bulgarian former ambassador Ivan Mateev (1992) has
explored the ethnic conflicts and period wars in post-Soviet Afghanistan.
Based on his personal contacts with local warlords and political
leaders, he predicted the appearance of the Taliban dictatorship.
To those who are today concerned with the fundamental origins
of the current situation in Afghanistan, Mateevs book represents
a true challenge.
3. A third theme in Bulgarian studies of Central Asia is minority
studies. Especially prominent in this category are studies of
the Muslim confession and of communities of Turkic origin, not
only from Anatolia but also from the Caucasus (Azerbaijan in particular)
as well as from Iran and India (the latter including Roma of the
Muslim denomination). Indeed, such topics, long prohibited or
distorted under the communist regime, received a powerful impetus
in the Bulgarian context when post-totalitarian political governance
necessarily emphasized democratization and international standards
for the protection of human rights. Scrupulous and comprehensive
studies by many Bulgarian historians, folklorists, ethnologists,
linguists and archaeologists revealed the countrys multiethnic
social background. Such studies undertaken since 1989 have sought
to refute the theories that were popular during the totalitarian
period, in particular the assumption that the state comprised
only one nation. Such an assumption characterized the so-called
"Revival Process" (1986-1989), during which the then-ruling
Communist Party claimed that Bulgarians citizens bearing Turkic-Arab
names had been forced by the Ottoman government to convert to
Islam, and changed these "back" into Slavic names.
Many state and non-profit institutions as well as individual
scholars and researchers conducted multidisciplinary studies to
refute such claims generated during the totalitarian period. The
Institute of History, Institute for Balkan Studies, Institute
of Sociology, Institute of Folklore and Institute of Ethnography
all part of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences formed working groups
and published significant works on minority issues. Also such
NGOs were established as the Bulgarian Center for Middle East
Studies (BCMES), the International Center for Minority Studies
and Intercultural Relations (IMIR), the Center for the Study of
Democracy, and the Center for the Study of Ethnic Conflicts. Most
of these were assisted by special funding from the Open Society
Foundation and by contacts re-established with academic institutes
in Macedonia. Over three thousand foundations addressing concerns
of the Roma community have been registered, but they appear to
implement programs of international aid rather than to conduct
research.
The research conducted in these institutions was published mainly
during the period 1989-1994. Based on their findings the protection
of human rights was implemented and the enhancing and strengthening
of minority organizations became a principal tendency of political
development on the local level. Thus, for example, the Movement
for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), which organized the Bulgarian Turks,
won recognition as the third parliamentary actor in post-communist
Bulgarian life. According to Dr. Ali Eminov (2000), more than
three hundred publications appeared that were dedicated to Turks
and other Muslims in Bulgaria, including books, monographs, papers,
articles, periodicals, dictionaries, training aids, poetry and
prose. Of these, over two hundred were produced by Bulgarian scholars
themselves. IMIR, in cooperation with British and French research
centers, sponsored over thirty fundamental works, some of them
becoming thematic topics for ensuing conferences, workshops and
roundtables.
These works include a six-volume collection of articles addressing
different subjects concerned with the day-to-day life of Balkan
Muslims and theoretical outlines addressing the Islamic religion
(Zhelyazkova 1997), the characteristics of Muslim culture in Bulgarian
lands (Gradeva and Ivanova 1998), the fate of Turks who emigrated
from Bulgaria to Turkey (Zhelyazkova 1998), general features of
Muslim culture (Lozanova and Mikov 1999), intricate aspects of
Albania and Albanian identities (Zhelyazkova 2000), and Bosnia
as a new Muslim state in Europe (Zhelyazkova 2001). Chukov (1999)
has analyzed the complex ethnic situation during the transitional
period after communism, and how and why Bulgaria peacefully accommodated
to a pattern of multinational coexistence in contrast with Macedonia
and some former Yugoslav states. A significant portion of that
work was performed by political scientists and sociologists (Dimitrov
2000, Popov 2000) seeking to assist local political parties to
formulate their positions on various ethnic questions. Even leading
politicians, including the countrys president (Parvanov 2000)
and the head of the MRF (Dogan 1999), tackled the topic. Stoyanov
(1998) analyzed the Bulgarian states contradictory policies regarding
Turks, Gagauz, Pomaks, Tatars and Circassians. A wealth of archival
documents permitted the editor to establish variation in the hospitality
and ethnic tolerance of the Bulgarian nation, as well as the attitudes
of political authorities to Muslim minorities since 1878, the
year of Bulgarian independence.
The ethnologist Karahanova (2000) has studied the Alians and
Kazalbash settled in the northeast of the country. There have
also been important publications of folkloristic works, dictionaries
and poetry (Naumov and Shukriev 1996, Nunev 1998, Hasan and John
2000, Slavov 1999). Archaeological research is not well funded,
but Nickolchovska, Todorova and Shukerova (1996) have studied
Momchilgrads monuments and their relation to traditions of the
local Turkic minority.
4. Over the last two years Bulgarian studies of Central Asia
have given increased attention to the regions energy potential.
There are two reasons for this: first, the continuing and increasing
interest on the part of the international community; and second,
the Bulgarian incentive to assist in the development of Central
Asias export capability. In particular, some pipeline routes to
Western markets are projected to cross Bulgarian territory. Notable
in this regard, for example, is the work of Zlatev and Denchev
(2000), the former being executive director of Lukoil-Bulgaria,
a Russian company, and the latter a columnist in Moscow newspapers.
Their monograph relies on extensive information publicly available
and discusses the most recent developments of the Russian strategic
approach to Central Asian pipelines. They discuss various Bulgarian
options for cooperation with Russia, Greece and Central Asian
states, including the Novorossiisk-Burgas-Alexandropoulis route.
They also delve into such related subjects as the role of oil
and gas in modern history and world geostrategic thinking, Russias
role in the elaboration of international energy strategies, and
problems of Central Asian and Balkan pipelines construction.
Andreeva-Chukova (2001) falls into this category and is part
of the Institute of Historys two-year project on historical perspectives
on East-West relations. Andreeva-Chukova treats the geopolitical
impact of Central Asian energy on international political and
economic security in light of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
In particular, she examines the relations between the newly independent
states on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the United States,
Russia, China, Iran and Turkey. Also, this study sheds light on
those actors chosen economic and foreign policy orientations,
interpreting the national security concepts of Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan,
Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan in light of their progress towards democratization
and of their domestic ethnic and religious conflicts.
Bulgarian economic reviews and newspapers have recently published
a series of articles on pipeline-related subjects in view of the
advanced stage of discussions among Bulgaria, Greece and Russia
over the Novorossiisk-Burgas-Alexandroupolis line. These articles
emphasized the pressure that Russia and Greece have exerted upon
Bulgaria for the diminution of its joint-stock capital.
The Role of BCMES in Central Asian Studies
The most recent research pertaining to Central Asia in the fields
of international relations and political science is carried out
mainly by researchers at the Bulgarian Center for Middle East
Studies (BCMES). BCMES is a non-profit organization officially
established in 1998 in the context of the development of Bulgarian
civil society and as a way to counter the above-mentioned resistance
to Central Asian studies by experts in Russian affairs. BCMES
is the only center in Bulgaria that addresses the subject of the
newly independent Central Asian states. The significance of Central
Asia as an object of study has been enhanced not only by the events
of September 11, but also by the planned enlargement of NATO in
November 2002 and the possible enhancement of the Black Sea fleet.
In this connection BCMES plans to set up a parallel Center for
Black Sea Studies dealing also with the southern tier of the former
Soviet areas. Such a center could draw its staff from graduates
of the Varna Free University and Burgas Free University in international
relations, political science, history and law. A newsletter, tentatively
titled the Black Sea Review of International Affairs, is
likewise foreseen. BCMESs ongoing projects and potential future
themes include:
1. General features and perspectives on Central Asia. This work
intends to collect and popularize political, economic and cultural
information about Central Asia for the benefit of academic and
public audiences in a format that is half-publicistic, half-encyclopedist.
Andreeva-Chukova and Chukov are pursuing this project.
2. History and perspectives of relations between Bulgaria and
Central Asia. Nikolai Yovchev from Varna Free University has sought
to classify Bulgarian diplomatic staff reports from Almaty and
Tashkent, held in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs archives, from
the standpoint of prediction of future trends. Ambassador Kiriak
Tzonev is working on Bulgarias relations with the Islamic world
and the Arab countries in particular, a theme he has been developing
since his retirement in 2000.
3. Translation and analysis of the constitutions of the principle
Islamic states. Dr. Angel Orbetzov, the Bulgarian governments
special envoy in Afghanistan, is expected to provide significant
assistance with his special knowledge of Iranian, Pakistani and
Afghanistani political life, institutions and law. Chukov will
coordinate these studies, which will employ linguistic and legal
experts outside the BCMES staff.
4. Pipelines in the Balkans, Caucasus and Central Asia continue
to be a topic of interest. Andreeva-Chukova coordinates a joint
project of BCMES with the Institute of History, exploring the
possibilities of Balkan pipelines transporting Central Asian oil
and gas to Western Europe.
5. Dr. Pavel Pavlovitch and Evgeni Gospodinov are involved in
short-term projects on various problems of the ethnic and religious
background of the Balkans and the Islamic world. They include
in their studies the multifarious Islamic and pre-Islamic faiths
and ethnic characteristics of the Caucasus emigrants in Varna.
Chukov likewise has a short-term project on Volga Bulgarians/Tatars
in the category of studies of the Bulgarian diaspora (also called
Bulgarians Abroad).
The field of Central Asian studies in Bulgaria is still at an
embryonic stage in terms of its collection of elementary quantitative
data, as well as its development of diverse themes and methodologies.
The list of references below only indicates the present main orientations,
and they only hint at the evolving problmatique. It may be concluded
that three measures will especially assist the further development
of Central Asian studies in Bulgaria: accelerated collection of
quantitative information, increased involvement of individuals
and institutions (especially state institutions) knowledgeable
about Central Asian issues, and deepening international cooperation
with foreign scholars from North America, Western Europe, Central
Asia and Russia through exchange of organizational and methodological
experience as well as discussion of possible joint projects.
Notes
[1] In the usage established during the Soviet
period, these peoples and the associated autonomous administrative
unit, are referred to as Kabardino-Balkars Ed.
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Dictionary. Sofia: IMIR.
Stoyanov, Valeri
1998 Turskoto naseleniia v Bulgaria
mejdu polusite na etnicheskata politika [The Turkish population
in Bulgaria between the poles of ethnic politics]. Sofia: Marin
Drinov.
Vazov, Gueorgy
1938 Pustinite na Sredna Asiia
[Central Asian deserts]. Sofia: Vazova zagruga.
Zhelyazkova, Antonina
2000 Sadbata na miusiulmanskite
obshtnosti na Balkanite [The fate of the Muslim communities
in the Balkans], vol. 5, Albania i Albanskite identichnosti
[Albania and Albanian identities]. Sofia: IMIR. [This volume,
of which Zhelyazkova is not the editor but the single author,
is available in English translation under the title Albanian
Identities, with the successive chapters hyperlinked from
the web-page: "Albanian Identities," http://www.omda.bg/imir/studies/alban_id1.html,
accessed 28 August 2002. Ed.]
Zhelyazkova, Antonina (ed.)
1997, Sadbata na miusiulmanskite
obshtnosti na Balkanite [The fate of the Muslim communities
in the Balkans], vol. 2, Sadbata na isliamskata obshchnosti
v Bulgariia [The fate of the Islamic community in Bulgaria].
Sofia: IMIR.
1998 Sadbata na miusiulmanskite
obshtnosti na Balkanite [The fate of the Muslim communities
in the Balkans], vol. 3, Mezhdu adaptatsiata i nostalgiiata
[Between adaptation and nostalgia]. Sofia: IMIR. [This volume
is available in English translation under the title Between
Adaptation and Nostalgia: The Bulgarian Turks in Turkey, and
also electronically in full text with successive chapters hyperlinked
from the web-page: "Interdisciplinary Studies," http://www.omda.bg/imir/studies/nostalgia.html,
accessed 28 August 2002. Ed.]
2001 Sadbata na miusiulmanskite
obshtnosti na Balkanite [The fate of the Muslim communities
in the Balkans], vol. 6, Bosna: Edin drug sluchai [Bosnia:
a case apart]. Sofia: IMIR.
Zlatev, Valentin and Kamen Denchev
2000 Neft, gaz i geopolitika:
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The Caspian and Balkan knots]. Sofia: Agroengineering-90.
[Contents]
Research Reports and Briefs
Communal and Political Change in Central Asia: Some Preliminary
Findings
Paul Geiss, German Institute for Middle East Studies,
Neuer Jungfernstieg 21, 20354 Hamburg, Germany, Tel: +49 (40)
42825-514, pgeiss doihh.de,
Website: http://www.doihh.de/
Research on this project started at the London School of Economics
in 1995, where I was enrolled in the M.Sc. Program in Political
Theory and studied theories of development in order to gain an
applicable theoretical framework for the study of social and political
change in Central Asia. In the course of my studies I came to
realize that the structural analysis that I envisioned could not
be done without analyzing the complex pre-Soviet and even pre-tsarist
social order, and so I limited the doctoral dissertation to pre-Soviet
Central Asia. It was submitted to the Department of Political
Science of the University of Vienna in 2000 as Communal Commitment
and Political Order in Change. Pre-tsarist and Tsarist Central
Asia. As part of that research I conducted research trips
to Central Asian countries. Since October 2000 I have continued
research on communal and political change in Soviet and independent
Central Asia as a research fellow at the German Institute for
Middle East Studies (Deutsches Orient-Institut) in Hamburg. In
this research report I suggest an alternative theoretical perspective
which strives for nomothetic knowledge in the studies of social
and political change in Central Asia.
The sovietization of Central Asia was linked to externally induced
social, economic and political changes, which significantly transformed
Central Asian societies and introduced new social spaces and collective
identities. The transformation of Central Asia was unique in that
it took place within a highly centralized hegemonic state apparatus.
This apparatus penetrated into society and imposed the cultural
values of Russian and other European communists, who adhered to
a universalistic, egalitarian and teleological political ideology
rooted in the ideas of the European Enlightenment and secularized
Christian culture.
During the Cold War political and social changes in Central Asia
received controversial assessments Soviet acclamation of successful
socialist mobilization and industrialization of backward societies
competed with the Western emphasis on totalitarianism, political
intolerance, and violation of human rights. Scholars reproduced
these controversial assessments. Some claimed Central Asia as
a development model for other Asian countries (Ali 1964, Nove
and Newth 1967, Khan and Ghat 1979, and Black et al. 1991), while
others pointed at the economic, ecological and social failures
in the region (Fierman 1991, Rumer 1990, and Geiss 2000).
Glasnostand the dissolution of the Soviet Union changed the conceptual
framework of political discourse on authority relations. After
independence Central Asian politicians and scholars also viewed
their past Soviet regime as a repressive totalitarian system that
had to be replaced with democratic institutions. But they argued
that the establishment of democratic institutions is a long and
difficult process identified with a "transitional period,"
with strong executive powers needed to prevent interethnic strife
and civil conflict. For this reason democratization policies had
to be carefully and slowly adapted to local conditions (Geiss
2000).
Western perception of political change following Samuel Huntingtons
Third Wave paradigm also expects Central Asia to move towards
democracy. However, Western assessments disagree about the willingness
of the current ruling elite to implement democratic reforms. They
cite presidents and their increasing powers as the main obstacle
to political and economic reforms. The growing control over journalists
and political opposition in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are interpreted
as further moves towards authoritarianism, while mahallization
of Uzbekistan is perceived as an attempt to extend state control
over local communities. Overwhelming corruption among the ruling
elites is regarded as one of the main obstacles to political and
economic development. Political analysts prescribe political decentralization
as an effective means to make politicians more responsive to the
needs of local populations. On the other hand, the "civil
society" promoted by grants to NGOs is viewed as a counter
force to the state and as the main advocate of democratization
(Anderson 1999, Goble 1999, Melvin 2000, and Eschment 2000).
Recently social anthropologists Cynthia Werner and Boris Petric
have adopted a different approach, free of ethnocentric conceptualizations.
Practices that appear corrupt to a Westerner they describe as
a "culture of gift making" (Petric 2002, 2001), or "household
networks of mutual indebtedness" (Werner 1997, 1998). They
study the cultural orientations of people with an emic approach
that doesnt impose their own cultural values. They conduct extensive
fieldwork in local communities, and translate the emic terms into
the analytical language of cultural anthropology. They advance
theoretical knowledge by comparing results of ethnographic studies
from different areas and generalizing observed causal relationships
in an inductive way.
Scholars explaining sociopolitical change and seeking nomothetic
knowledge about the limits and preconditions of political reform
cannot base their research on fieldwork, as their subject is too
broad. They might interview political actors, read newspapers,
look at economic and administrative statistics, observe political
developments, or interpret and reproduce political language found
in their sources. However, which analytical language should be
used if Western concepts cannot be properly applied when analyzing
non-Western political orders? The application of the proper analytical
framework is also complicated by the fact that the mere analysis
of formal institutional arrangements in non-European countries
cannot explain divergent outcomes of similar institutions in European
and non-European contexts. Thus, we also need theoretical knowledge
about societies, and the evolution and transformation of their
internal order.
The best way to avoid the arbitrariness of the extremely popular
single issue models is to use classical sociological theory, especially
that of scholars such as Emile Durkheim and Max Weber, who also
discuss the experiences of non-European civilizations. They provide
analytical concepts and theoretical knowledge that spare us the
need to reinvent the wheel. This is an insight developed after
my study of variants of modernization, dependence and world-system
theories had not yielded a satisfactory theoretical framework
to study political change in Central Asia.[1]
I found Richard Mnchs reconstruction of Durkheims, Webers and
Parsons contributions to the theory of sociology within the framework
of an action theory to be the most useful for my research (Mnch
1988). Mnch promotes the concept of "interpenetration"
to explain social change and the emergence of a new societal order
from the interpenetration of opposed action orientations of social
actors. His reinterpretation of the classical contributions to
sociology leads him to conceptualize Webers sociology of religion
from the perspective of voluntarist theory of action and enables
him, for example, to explain capitalism as a result of the interpenetration
of economic action orientations and Calvinist religious ethics.
Similarly, the emergence of normative (i.e., enduring, legitimate)
political order depends on the interpenetration of political action
orientations and communal commitment in a society. Mnchs reconstruction
produces a differentiated and comprehensive account of the emergence
of modernity, i.e., of the Western societal order (Mnch 1992,
1993). That order is linked to the notions of the rule of law
and the constitutional state, which Weber referred to as "ruling
organization" based on "legal authority" (legale
Herrschaft), and which represent the backbone of Western democracies.
Mnch explains the emergence of Western societies by studying non-European
civilizations in order to identify specific factors that preconditioned
Western development.
It is expected that there is more to be said, if interpenetration
theory is applied to non-European civilizations for its own sake.
There are other types of normative political order besides the
successful Western nation-state order, which is favored as the
only legitimate form of government bytransitologists and Western
theorists of democracy. The historical political orders of the
Pharaonic kingdom, the Athenian polis, the Roman Republic, and
the Byzantine Empire reveal the ethnocentricity of this claim.
Even if it is harder to find an enduring political order among
contemporary non-European societies, this does not necessarily
imply that they have not established such orders. Industrialization
in Japan is a remarkable case of a new normative order that emerged
from the interpenetration of traditional communal orientations
and new political-economic orientations. It did not result in
a Western-style liberal democracy with a highly regulated constitutional
state. Instead it transformed into a highly personalized and clientelistic
political system with institutionalized informal rules and particularistic
demands. Therefore, the different forms of political community
structure and their distinguishing features are not properly understood
if conceptualized as merely deficient versions of a Western standard
(Geiss forthcoming[a]).
Applying the interpenetration theory to explain political change
in Central Asian societies, I developed a typology of political
order and identified various types of authority relations. Here
Webers concept of authority is a useful starting point. On omitting
Webers third type of "charismatic authority," which
does not yet represent an enduring political order, one encounters
a wide range of authority relations which Weber systematically
describes as various forms of "traditional authority."
This type of authority is based on political obedience which is
"owed not to enacted rules but to the person who occupied
a position of authority by tradition" (Weber 1978, 227).
It refers to forms of personalized political community structure
in contrast to impersonal authority relations in Western states
based on the rule of law. Differentiating between state- and tribal-based
political orders, and between political orders that established
authority relations and those that did not, I conceptualized a
typology of political orders and political community structures
based on four different types of political commitment:
1) Acephalous tribal political order: political community
structures are based on the political equality of tribesmen.
2) Cephalous tribal political order: political community
structures are based on patriarchal authority and tribal following.
3) Personalized type of state order: political community
structures are based on patrimonial authority and the subservience
of subjects.
4) Impersonal type of state order: political community
structures are based on legal authority and citizenship.[2]
According to interpenetration theory the structure of the political
community cannot be altered by mere economic and/or political
means, since these are rooted in the societys community system.
This explains the failure of Gorbachevs perestroika, which wasdesignedto
establish new political community structures via political reforms.
Instead it destroyed the states integrity by overlooking the established
rules of authority. However, communal commitment is negotiated
and rooted in the cultural orientations of a society. These cultural
orientations are less dynamic and more resistant to change. Therefore,
a successful establishment of democracy based on the rule of law
requires radical cultural change, and that is not very likely
to happen soon.
Having applied this approach to communal and political change
in pre-tsarist and tsarist Central Asia, it was possible to assert
empirically some of the theoretical expectations: on dealing with
Central Asian tribal societies and explaining tribal political
order as a result of the interpenetration of communal and political
action orientation, I could verify empirically that acephalous
Turkmen tribal political orders differed from cephalous Kyrgyz,
Kazakh or Uzbek tribalism in their communal commitment structures
(Geiss forthcoming[c]). Whereas Turkmen political equality among
tribesmen resulted from egalitarian relations between male Turkmen
family members (Geiss 1999), did Kazakhs or Kyrgyz obey family
patriarchs (aqsaqals) who disposed of the extended familys
property, and whose "word became law to the rest"?
The applied typology also helps in analyzing the problem of political
integration in the emirate of Bukhara and the khanates of Khiva
and Kokand, whose ruling dynasties sought to strengthen patrimonial
state structures by creating a standing army and appointing non-Uzbeks
as state officials. They also promoted Sharia norms at the expense
of tribal customary law as the legal basis of the state apparatus.
This extension of state structures partially corresponded to the
de-tribalization of Uzbek and other tribesmen who became Sart.
They started to live in wards (mahallas), representing
communities of religious brotherhood based on residential communal
commitment (Geiss 2001). More enduring forms of political order
emerged after khans and emirs were acknowledged as Muslim rulers
who respected Sharia. Nevertheless, in contrast to more durable
forms of tribal political order, patrimonial state orders remained
weak and could not overcome the increasing rift between local
communities and the state, whose patrimonially recruited officials
tried harder to please their superiors than the population subjected
to their orders (Geiss forthcoming[d]). That rift continues to
exist today in Central Asia.
The Russian conquest and its civil-military administration destroyed
the tribal political order and economy. Tribesmen were no longer
able to secure their own political integration. They became dependent
on the tsarist officials and military commanders who controlled
resources. Politics was no longer rooted in the normative political
order shared by all, as the military commander took full charge
of managing conflicts between Sart, tribal, Cossack, rural and
urban European populations. The alliance of the indigenous patrimonial
states of Bukhara and Khiva with the "infidel" tsar
undermined authority based on the Islamic precepts of government.
Thus, tsarist conquest rendered a weak normative political order
even more fragile. According to the theoretical assumptions, the
change from tribal to patrimonial authority relations also coincided
with considerable cultural change, which both strengthened orthodox
precepts of Islam and diffused Russian culture (Geiss forthcoming
[b]).
On applying this approach to Soviet and independent Central Asia
various questions need to be clarified. If we assume that communal
structures are important in explaining social change, we have
to conduct comparative analyses of the cultural and economic impacts
of sovietization on local communities and communal commitment
structures. Did sovietization erase the differences in the pre-Soviet
communal commitment structures of Turkmen, Uzbeks and Kazaks?
Are there still differences between the informal conflict management
and state involvement in local affairs? How did this relation
change after independence? What are the implications of Soviet
cultural policy on the reconstruction and transformation of cultural
orientation?
The second complex of questions is related to the changes in
the political system, administrative control, and elite recruitment
after the dissolution of the USSR: how can one describe the establishment
of the Soviet political system according to the logic of patrimonial
politics? Is there a move towards a less patrimonial form of personalized
political order to be noticed? Has the political logic changed
since independence? How have political regionalism and the participation
of regional elites changed since independence? What are the changes
in the bargaining power of central and regional elites?
Following these questions I expect to identify factors that promote
the establishment of a normative political order, as well as those
factors that prevent political integration in Central Asia.[3] The study of the strained relationship
between local and centrally shaped Soviet cultures might not only
deliver new theoretical insights into the possibilities and limits
of cultural change, but also elucidate the reasons for the failure
of Soviet universalistic culture to change the particularism of
patrimonial politics in European and non-European parts of the
former Soviet Union.
Depending on the state of Central Asian studies some of the questions
will be more easily researched within the framework of this study,
whereas others with a smaller empirical base will be left open
for further research. As the field of Central Asian studies is
growing, the results of the project are only preliminary. The
merit of this approach is that it seeks to provide a cultural
reference point for the evaluation and conceptualization of sociopolitical
reforms in Central Asia. Such a reference point will not fully
converge with the political imperatives of Western foreign offices,
but it can help to evaluate and design reform agendas which might
better empower Central Asian governments to safeguard the interests
of their people.
Notes
[1] The theoretical impasse in the academic
field of the Sociology of Development is mainly linked to the
fact that it intermingles normative political discourse on ends
and causal explanations of social relations. The former is the
concern of political philosophers, whereas the latter can only
be used within the limited framework of a nominalistic social
science. For this reason essentialist concepts and teleological
theorems are widespread in this field.
[2] We do not need to say that this is
an analytical typology which heuristically better helps to understand
particular empirical political orders, the more they resemble
one of these pure types.
[3] Some preliminary findings on Soviet
and independent Central Asia having been published in Geiss 2001b,
2002a, 2002b.
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[Contents]
Security Perception in Central Asia
Rafis F. Abazov, Visiting Scholar at the Harriman Institute,
Columbia University, 12th Floor, 420 West 118th Street, New York,
NY 10027, USA, abazov netscape.net,
ra2044 columbia.edu
For the past three years I have been engaged in a project on
the changing security environment in Central Asia. One of the
main issues in my research has been that of the relative stability
in the region (with the exception of Tajikistan). The other has
been the role of the military in the post-Soviet polity in Central
Asia, particularly in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Unlike
many Third World countries, the military establishment in these
republics kept a low public profile (at least until the militant
incursion into Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in 1999 from Tajikistan).
My assumptions were that a) there were institutions in place
that allowed the negotiating and settling of political differences
between the republics and b) the governments perceived that there
was a low level of external threat to the security of these republics
and this kept the military from entering politics. With these
assumptions in mind I designed my research and divided it into
three stages. First, I completed background research and a historical
review of military and security developments. Second, I conducted
a series of interviews and survey studies. Third, I attempted
to verify the findings of my research by comparing them with mainstream
Western thought about politics in the region.
The first stage was relatively easy, but time consuming. There
was a rich body of literature published during the last nine years
on security issues in Central Asia, although many of the recent
publications are of a prescriptive nature and ignore primary sources
and data from these republics. After the disintegration of the
USSR Kazakhstan emerged as a true superpower, possessing a nuclear
weapons arsenal which easily matched those of France and England
combined. However, the combined pressure from the US, other major
Western powers and Russia, as well as the inability of the Kazakh
national army and national security agencies to protect the nuclear
weapons, forced President Nazarbayev to give up the countrys nuclear
arsenal. A significant part of the Kazakhstani elite vigorously
resisted this move, fearing the rise in power of the hard-line
Russian nationalists who openly questioned the legitimacy of the
existing borders between Russia and Kazakhstan and who demanded
the cession of a large part of Kazakhstan to Russia. Yet President
Nazarbayev decided to "trade in" the nuclear arsenal
in exchange for the US-Kazakhstan treaty on Strategic Partnership,
which guaranteed that Washington would "take seriously"
any external threats to the territorial integrity and security
of the country.
Meanwhile, all the Central Asian leaders had consistently supported
the establishment of a multiple-level security system with as
many international players involved in the region as possible,
unanimously joining the Central Asian Forum, the CIS, the CIS
Security Treaty, the OSCE, the NATO Partnership for Peace, etc.
Initially, Uzbekistan emerged as a true regional superpower. As
it had 25 million people, half the population of the region, it
was able to build a strong army of over one hundred thousand,
the largest in Central Asia. Uzbekistan managed both to avoid
a steep transitional recession and to preserve its industrial
base and military industrial enterprises. Moreover, the republic
became self-sufficient in oil and gas as well as in refinery capacity.
Meanwhile, it took nearly a decade for Kazakhstan to reform its
national army and border guard troops, as its defense forces were
chronically under-funded and its officer corps was plagued by
accusations of corruption (an attempt to sell MIG-21s to North
Korea is a case in point). In the case of Kyrgyzstan, the government
initially planned to get away with a small defense force of 4,000
to 6,000.
This apparent unanimity among the republics was broken on the
eve of the 21st century. A major disagreement emerged in 1999
when Uzbekistan left the CIS Security Treaty (in Russian, Dogovor
Kollektivnoi Bezopasnosti, or DKB) and joined its rival grouping
GUAM (consisting of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova).
In the meantime, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan faithfully believed
that the DKBwas the cornerstone of the regional security system.
The general political picture of the region was relatively clear
and straightforward, yet there were several issues difficult to
explain. There is a general consensus in the Western international
relations literature about the rivalry between Uzbekistan and
Kazakhstan and about the competition between leaders of these
two countries for political dominance in the region (see, for
example, Olcott 1996). However, there are few insights or comprehensive
explanations of this rivalry in the literature.
The second stage of my research was designed to clarify the issues
of this rivalry and its implications for security development
in the region and for the role of the military in public life
in these republics. In addition, in my interviews the issue of
attitudes towards the US military bases could not be ignored.
Although both Tashkent and Astana condemned the September 11 terrorist
attacks and expressed their full support for the US-led war in
Afghanistan, it was Uzbekistan who immediately offered its former
Soviet bases for permanent US military bases in Central Asia.
In November of 2001 the first 1,000 US military personnel and
US military airplanes arrived at Uzbekistans Khanabad airport.
In early 2002 Washington doubled its assistance package to Tashkent
from $83 million to about $160 million, half of which would be
spent on the modernization of Uzbekistans armed forces. In June
of 2002 a Kazakh state-controlled TV station announced that the
US Department of Defense had officially approached the Kazakh
Foreign Ministry requesting permission to use the Almaty civil
airport for US military aircraft involved in the antiterrorist
campaign in Afghanistan.
I found that conducting interviews in Kazakhstan was a challenging
task. First, very few high officials wanted to talk at all, and
it took considerable persuasion to get the interviews completed.
Moreover, many of those who talked just voiced official views
without going into any valuable details. Second, I found that
very often the views expressed by those interviewed depended entirely
on their perception of the nationality of the interviewer. A case
in point: one person expressed totally different views on the
same questions when he talked to me one day (I was introduced
as a scholar from Australia) and to my local Kazakh assistant
a few days later. This problem of "changing views" makes
the issue of verification and of the help of the local researchers
absolutely crucial for the outcome of the research. For example,
some respondents condemned the idea of the US military presence
when they talked to me, while to my Kazakh assistant they often
presented a more nuanced and complex picture of Kazakhstans attempt
to maneuver between the interests of China, Russia and the US.
Yet despite all these difficulties, I believe that my research
in Kazakhstan was very productive, as I clarified many issues
by following intensive debates among local experts on the changing
nature of security threats in the region and on the pros and cons
of establishing military bases on Kazakhstans soil.
During the third stage I analyzed all my interview notes and
my local newspaper clippings. My preliminary findings indicated
that there were several important long-lasting implications of
recent events for security perception from a Central Asian point
of view. First, the role of the military was minimal in the political
life of these republics during the first decade of independence.
This was due to the peaceful transition from the Soviet past and
to the absence of external or internal threats which might elevate
the importance of the military in public life. There was also
a consensus that defense and security forces could not be used
for political ends within the republics. However, since September
of 2001 the role of the military has been increasing dramatically
in response to both the threat of militant incursions and of growing
political instability due to issues of the leaders succession.
Second, the rivalry between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan does exist
and it is growing, as there is a list of scores to be settled
between the two. These range from bribery, extortion and humiliations
(on the borders as well as inside the countries) which both sides
have claimed were directed against their own citizens and businesses,
to unpaid bills and disputes over water, gas, transit of goods,
territory, and other issues. Unfortunately both countries have
quite large defense forces and continue to acquire advanced military
weapons and ammunition.
Third, the regional cooperation and negotiation mechanisms are
in disarray. During the past three years the Central Asian Forum
(formerly, the Central Asian Economic Union) has been on the brink
of collapse due to the inability of the members to resolve their
differences. The CIS Collective Security Treaty excludes Uzbekistan,
one of the most important regional players, and Turkmenistan.
The Shanghai Forum lost its integrity as three of its members
accepted the presence of US military bases, which may potentially
be utilized against other members, namely China and Russia.
Fourth, for many local politicians the establishment of US military
bases may become an additional stabilizing factor in the region
in the absence of regional security cooperation and negotiation
institutions. In the meantime the opponents of US military bases
believe that the US presence is a clear signal of full support
for the existing regimes, who are increasingly impatient in dealing
with each other. In addition, uncertainty about the future of
the US presence in the region "brings an element of instability
into the relatively stable environment" (in the words of
the head of one of the think-tanks in Almaty [pers. comm., April
2002]), as the Chinese and Russian place in the new security architecture
has not yet been spelled out.
Overall, my research indicates that the security environment
in the Central Asian region is becoming much more complex for
a number of reasons, and I believe that the voices of local experts
and local policy makers about nuances of regional politics are
absolutely critical for understanding the complexity of these
developments.
Reference
Olcott, Martha
1996 Central Asias New States:
Independence, Foreign Policy, and Regional Security. Washington,
DC: USIP Press.
[Contents]
Afghan Communities in Uzbekistan
Natalya Khan, Ph.D., Senior Researcher, Tashkent State
Institute of Oriental Studies, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, amnt khan.prv.uz
Surprisingly, Uzbekistan never had sizable Afghan communities
on its territory before the early 1990s. However, since the demise
of the USSR, Uzbekistan has found itself a home to Afghan refugees.
Their number was estimated by UNHCR at 8,000 in 1993. No significant
increases in these figures have been reported over the last several
years.
In October and November of 2001, as part of my broader research
on the dynamics of Afghan refugees in the region, I conducted
a survey among Afghanis in Tashkent. Due to the uncertain legal
status of the overwhelming majority of Afghanis in Tashkent and
their aversion to public exposure, snowball sampling was the best
available technique to conduct the survey. It was carried out
among 91 heads of Afghan households in Tashkent, including 53
Pashtuns, 25 Tajiks, 8 Uzbeks, and 5 Hazaras.
The survey and accompanying research revealed two interesting
results. First, it was established that at least two major waves
of migration from Afghanistan to Uzbekistan have taken place.
The first wave comprised a group of people who came to the former
Soviet Union to study, and became refugees after 1991. They are
relatively well-off and have a higher level of education than
the second wave, which came during the first years of independence
when government policy was still relatively flexible. The second
wave Afghan communities are compactly located in specific districts
of the capital and struggle to earn their livelihood under highly
unfavorable economic circumstances aggravated by the restrictive
attitude of the Uzbek government.
Secondly, I conclude from my research that the Afghan communities
in Uzbekistan are multi-ethnic, containing representatives of
all four main Afghan ethnicities (Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, and
Hazaras), and yet they seem not to be affected by the inter-ethnic
divisions that are prevalent in their home country. In Uzbekistan
they consider themselves a single nation, maintain strong intra-communal
ties, and pursue their traditional way of life. However, their
future is uncertain, mainly due to the restrictive attitude of
the government towards refugees and asylum seekers. Since local
integration is currently not an option for Afghanis, they are
entirely dependent on the situation in Afghanistan for voluntary
repatriation.
The survey is part of my doctoral dissertation (for the degree
of "doctor of sciences" [doktor nauk]), which
focuses on the Afghan crisis and its impact on Central Asia. The
analyses of the survey were presented at the International Berkeley
Conference on the Caucasus and Central Asia held March 16-17,
2002.
[Contents]
Reviews and Abstracts
Book Reviews
Terry Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations
and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939. The Wilder
House Series in Politics, History, and Culture. Ithaca, NY and
London: Cornell University Press, 2001. xvi + 496 pp., 4 maps,
46 tables, glossary, bibliography, index. ISBN: 0801486777 (paper),
0801438136 (cloth). $27.50 paper.
Reviewed by: Tomasz Kamusella, Jean Monnet Fellow, European
University Institute, Florence, Italy and Opole University, Opole,
Poland, tomek672 poczta.onet.pl
The late Ernest Gellner famously disagreed with received opinion
and stated that Austria-Hungary was a kindergarten, not
a prison of nations. The Habsburg Empire was the first to fully
appreciate the centrifugal force of ethnic nationalisms. Austro-Marxists
(e.g., Otto Bauer, Karl Renner) developed various solutions to
the national question, none of which were ever applied. The young
Joseph Stalin picked up their ideas when he was sent to Vienna
on a short study tour in January and February of 1913. He wrote
there his seminal essay, "Marxism and the National Question,"
the tenets of which he later would implement in the Soviet Union.
Lenin learned his lesson observing the rise of numerous national
movements in Central and Eastern Europe. This contradicted Marxs
opinion that in class struggle workers of various ethnicities
would unite against their ethnic kin of different classes. As
Roman Szporluk noted in his 1988 book Communism and Nationalism:
Karl Marx versus Friedrich List, the fight was not to be only
between the proponents of communism and capitalism. Marxists wrongly
imagined nationalism as an epiphenomenon of capitalism. Soon enough
it proved to be a third party on the battlefield where Marxism
met capitalism.
In the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution Lenin promised to do
away with the excesses of "tsarist colonialism" and
"Great Russian chauvinism," in favor of the principle
of the self-determination of nations. The revolutionaries were
anxious not to be outdone by President Wilson and Western Europes
initiative of the League of Nations. Although Lenin hoped his
concession toward nationalism would be a short-lived instrument,
such as NEP, the Soviet Union functioned as school and university
in one, from which numerous nations graduated upon its break-up.
To my knowledge, Martins work is the first full-length and archive-based
treatment of the question of why communism lost out to nationalism.
Why, having received the chance to develop in form (because in
accordance with Stalins dictum the content had to be uniformly
socialist), did nationalisms not wither away, leaving ideological
room for the flourishing of communism? The book does not provide
a straightforward answer, but does imply the answer in its narrative.
The early clamp-down on any expression of Russian nationalism
distanced the emergent Soviet Union from the denigrated tsarist
empire and colonialism, while at the same time legitimizing it
in the eyes of the ethnically non-Russian inhabitants. The "affirmative
action" mentioned in the title was for them, not the Russians.
Moscow allowed limited self-rule of the extant national movements
in the "developed" West of the Soviet Union (including
the Caucasus) as long as they did not oppose the Bolshevik state.
They were even given their own national territories. This line
could not be immediately followed in the East, where nationalism
still had to develop roots. Traditionally, religion, family, village,
clan and occupational group prevailed as the loci of group
loyalty. Modernization meant to change this. Hence, Soviet ethnologists
and linguists were charged with the task of identifying distinctive
ethnic groups and transforming their dialects into written languages.
As "culturally backward," these groups could not do
that on their own, and so needed outside help. Stalin propounded
the Herderian definition of nation, in which a nation must be
grounded in its distinctive culture tied to a specific language.
Eventually the USSR established over 170 of these nations. As
of 1932 the largest of them obtained their own federal republics
(2), union republics (7) and autonomous republics (15). Smaller
nations or minorities were granted status as autonomous oblasts
(16), autonomous okrugs (10), national districts (290), national
village soviets (7,000) and even national kolkhozes (10,000) (p. 413).
Eventually every citizens obligatory attachment to one and only
one of these nations was noted in his/her internal passport.
This preferential treatment excluded the Russians, who were seen
as over-privileged in the past and still dominant over the rest
of the Soviet population. Even the Cyrillic script of the Russian
language seemed incurably tainted with tsarist colonialism and
the Orthodox Churchs aggressive proselytism. In this paradigm
the Latin alphabet equaled freedom and modernity. So between 1922
and 1932 more than sixty languages were alphabetized in or shifted
to the Latin script (p. 203). Russian, Ukrainian and Belorussian
only narrowly escaped latinization.
A change of heart came in 1932. Successful indigenization [korenizatsiia]
policies, i.e., ukrainization of Ukraine and belorussianization
of Belorussia, were curbed. "Affirmative action" did
not attract Ukrainians and Belorussians from across the border
in Poland. Actually, influences from without spread among the
Soviet Ukrainians and Belorussians, to the detriment of Soviet
security. Too much of korenizatsiia seemed anti-Russian,
while the Russians and their language were increasingly seen as
the necessary glue to keep the Soviet Union together. In the latter
half of the 1930s this elevated them to the rank of "first
among equals," while other Soviet nations were expected to
cooperate. For those perceived to be "enemy nations,"
mass repression and ethnic cleansing awaited. Because it was no
longer "imperialist" the Cyrillic script replaced the
Latin one. The number of recognized nations was limited to some
sixty, and national districts, village soviets and national kolkhozes
were excised from the system. Korenizatsiia ceased to be
a priority apart from the East, where it was expected to produce
badly needed indigenous cadres skilled in medicine, engineering,
communication, pedagogy and the arts.
It was a "soft" policy which subsided in the face of
collectivization or terror, but eventually fossilized the Soviet
national-cum-administrative structure. The recently constructed
nations were projected into the distant past, and primordialism
became the de rigueur of Soviet nationalisms. I look forward
to reading a follow-up study, equal in its breadth to Martins,
that would cover the outcome of this policy in the years 1940-1991.
It is a pity that in an otherwise excellent introduction Martin
did not discuss Soviet terminological choices of ideological and
practical meaning. First of all, why "nationality" rather
than "nation" (perhaps nationality was less than a nation
and, thus, not eligible to become an independent nation-state)?
Second, why the interchangeable use of "peoples" and
"nationalities," which was ideologically fuzzy? In view
of the excruciatingly hard access to post-Soviet archives, I can
hardly criticize the author for using only those located in Moscow.
I trust that his brilliant work will open the way to similar thoroughly
researched studies on specific Soviet nationalisms, especially
in the scholarly neglected East, where conjectures are rife and
socio-cultural studies (such as Olivier Roys The New Central
Asia: The Creation of Nations) have to fill in the gap in
historical knowledge. Last but not least, Martins book should
become a basis for the comparative study of Eurasian nationalisms.
It would be fascinating to trace influences and parallels between
Austro-Hungarian and Soviet national policies, as well as between
the latter and those in independent India. The Austro-Hungarian
experiment in the liberal approach to nationalism wound up in
a multitude of ethnic nation-states in East Central Europe. Indian
affirmative action aimed at the caste system led to the proliferation
of linguistically-based ethnic nationalisms complete with their
own administrative states. One wonders whether, somehow, the Soviet
Union did not function as a conveyor belt of ethnic nationalism
from Central Europe to Asia.
[Contents]
Jacob M. Landau and Barbara Kellner-Heinkele, Politics
of Language in the Ex-Soviet Muslim States. Ann Arbor: The University
of Michigan Press, 2001. 240 pp. ISBN: 0472112260. $47.50 hardcover.
Reviewed by: Sally N. Cummings, Lecturer in Politics,
Department of Politics, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom,
s.cummings ed.ac.uk
Politics of Language in the Ex-Soviet Muslim States focuses
on language development in the six predominantly Muslim-populated
republics in Central Asia and the Caucasus during the 1990s Azerbaijan
(the authors employ the spelling Azerbayjan), Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The collapse of the Soviet
Union led all six states to embark on nation- and state-building
policies, and at the core of this enterprise lay the status and
corpus of titular language. Language, the authors write, "both
provides for uniqueness of the group or the ethnie and
differentiates it from others. It can provide both elites and
masses with an extrapolation to political independence" (p. 7).
The book is divided into ten chapters, five dealing more specifically
with the historical and political forces behind language change
and legislation, three with the specifics of lexicon, alphabet
and language use, and an introduction and conclusion. Each chapter
opens with a thematic overview for all six states and follows
with detailed analyses of each state in turn.
Landau and Kellner-Heinkele set out to address four interrelated
issues. First, they assess the reasons why governments have opted
to promote titular languages in the post-independence environment.
Governments, they argue, hoped both to ensure the cultural and
ethnic survival of the titular nation itself and to achieve a
sense of commonality among different groups by creating a wider
state identity, such as, for example, Azerbaijani or Kazakhstani.
These, they recognize, are common challenges of resolving the
language problem in a multilingual polity, the tension between
ethnic and civic conceptions of nationhood and cultural belonging.
They recognize that nationalist pressures to promote the use of
indigenous languages have often been constrained by the presence
of substantial Slav minorities on their territories and ongoing
dependency on Russia. The duality is a continuation of policy
and practice in the Soviet era, which saw the development in use
of both indigenous languages and the Russian language.
The second issue relates to how these governments have tried
to promote their indigenous languages. Landau and Kellner-Heinkele
analyze various methods: the promotion of language use at various
levels of education; alphabet and lexicon change, for example
the move away from the Cyrillic script (Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan
and Turkmenistan have opted to switch to the Latin script); the
renaming of place and street names; the preparation and publication
of textbooks and reading materials; and various legal and administrative
measures.
The third area of inquiry establishes that these measures have
been only partly successful, and the fourth concludes by identifying
the main differences between language politics in the six republics.
The authors are cautious to draw definitive conclusions after
only ten years of independence, but conclude that language change
"appears to have been done more successfully on behalf of
the titular language in Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan;
the pace has been more measured in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and
Tajikistan" (p. 210). They conclude that the six may
be divided into two groups: Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan;
and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The authors argue that
the key reason for the differentiation is that the second group
has a proportionately larger Slav minority, which constrains implementation,
despite the fact that the Kazakhstani and Kyrgyzstani governments
have devoted time and resources to language planning (with Tajikistan
only really beginning to address language issues in 1998, after
the 1992-7 civil war). Whatever their success, all six governments
have proclaimed their commitment to multiethnicity and multiculturalism
while simultaneously attempting to strengthen the corpus and status
of language groups. Overall, they conclude that "despite
some new solutions, most of the old problems remain" (p. 211).
Underlying all of these challenges is "how to achieve and
maintain policy primacy over ethnicity. The problem is more acute
in new states and societies, most particularly so in multiethnic
ones" (p. 204).
Even if the authors argue that it is "premature" to
"formulate general theoretical deductions" (p. 204)
the links between the chapters in the conclusion might have been
more thoroughly explored, elaborating on the conclusions they
make about, for example, the links between the politics of independence
and changes in legislation or lexicon. The authors might also
have developed their analysis of existing popular surveys on language
use in the six states; these surveys have often conveyed the complexity
of language use at home, school and work, determined by variables
such as ethnicity, profession, age and education. The book might
also have explored levels beyond the national, namely regional
and supranational influences. Each of the six states displays
regional variations in language use, often primarily the function
of a particular regions demographic make-up. International pressures,
membership in international organizations and geopolitical location
can also exert influences on language use.
Nevertheless, the book draws on much as yet unpublished material,
including printed materials, interviews with public officials
and scholars, local media, educational material and statistical
data. The study is also longitudinal, assessing the period between
1988 and 1998. It is the first work to deal comparatively with
the six ex-Soviet Muslim states, other volumes having tended to
focus on either Central Asia or the Caucasus or both comprehensively.
A further strength of the book lies in its detailed handling of
one issue, the politics and use of language. This enabled the
authors to go into some depth on themes such as legislation, alphabet
change and lexicon. The book is also well organized. Overall the
authors offer a rich and thorough treatment of this crucial stage
of language choice in the context of the political development
of these republics.
[Contents]
Uradyn Bulag, The Mongols at Chinas Edge: History and
the Politics of National Unity. Lanham, MD and London: Rowman
and Littlefield Publishing, 2002. xi + 273 pp., maps, illustrations,
bibliography, index. ISBN: 0742511448. $34.95 paper.
Reviewed by: Timothy May, Department of History, the University
of Wisconsin-Madison, tmmay students.wisc.edu
In his new book Uradyn Bulag has taken on a formidable task in
examining ethnicity and national unity in the Peoples Republic
of China (PRC). The focus of his study is the Mongol population
of Inner Mongolia, their autonomous region in the PRC, in which
the Mongols are a minority. Concepts of ethnicity and nationality
are complicated, but Professor Bulags book becomes more intricate
due to the fact that he himself is a Mongol originally from Inner
Mongolia.
As stated in the opening pages of The Mongols at Chinas Edge,
the purpose of this study is "to understand the multifaceted
Mongol experiences in China, past and present, and through it,
to highlight broader issues pertaining to the Mongols and other
peoples on Chinas vast border" (p. 1). In addition,
Bulag, an anthropologist by training, attempts to study the development
and the very concept of minorities in the PRC, particularly in
the context of the minzu tuanjie or national unity (p. 1).
Through this he explores relations between socialism and nationalism,
as well as resistance to national unity and the moral dilemmas
that arise.
The Mongols at Chinas Edge consists of seven chapters,
divided into the introduction and 3 separate parts. In the first
chapter or introduction to the problem at hand, Bulag sets forth
the historiography of nationalism and ethnicity as well as a discussion
of minzu tuanjie. Following this is Part One, entitled
"Producing and Reproducing National Unity." Consisting
of two chapters entitled "Ritualizing National Unity: Modernity
at the Edge of China" and "Naturalizing National Unity:
Political Romance and the Chinese Nation," this section examines
the concept of minzu tuanjie from its origins and how concepts
of nationality have changed over the course of time.
In the first chapter Uradyn Bulag states that his work asks several
questions as he attempts to understand the role of ethnicity and
national identity. He asks: what are the characteristics of Chinese
minzu tuanjie and how do national groups, many of whom
were enemies in the past, adjust to the harmonious atmosphere
of minzu tuanjie in the Peoples Republic of China? Next
he examines how Mongolian nationalism and socialism in Inner Mongolia
function in China, which is also nationalistic and communist in
its own right. This leads to a third problem, namely, how does
a small minority in Inner Mongolia, the Mongols, legitimately
exercise autonomy as the "titular nationality of their historic
homeland?" (p. 2). Finally, he asks to what extent the
Mongols of China struggle to maintain or achieve cultural and
historical integrity, while still maintaining the concept of minzu
tuanjie.
The second and third chapters examine two case studies. In the
second chapter Bulag undertakes a multi-disciplinary approach
to the Mongols of Kk Nur and their relationships with the Manchus,
Han, and Tibetans in that region or in the government. Chapter
Three examines the modern perceptions as well as the change in
interpretation of Wang Zhaojun, a Han princess who was sent to
be the bride of a Hsiung-nu khan. Whereas the first case study
was grounded in history, the third chapter examines gender and
sexuality.
The second part, entitled "Tensions of Empire," examines
the conflict between various ethnicities within the PRC as well
as ethnic tensions that originated in the Qing Empire. Two chapters
comprise this section. The first, "From Inequality to Difference:
Colonial Contradictions of Class and Ethnicity in Socialist China,"
examines the contradictions between ethnicity and class in a socialist
state. The second chapter, "Rewriting Inner Mongolian History
after the Revolution: Ethnicity, Nation and the Struggle for Recognition,"
is a study of the Mongolians attempts to come to grips with their
position within the PRC, as well as Han Chinese and the Communist
governments own relationship with the Mongolians of Inner Mongolia.
The final part, entitled "Models and Morality," presents
two case studies on ethnicity and nationality. The sixth chapter
of the book, "Models and Morality: The Parable of the Little
Heroic Sisters of the Grassland," examines how two Mongolian
girls are transformed into role models for all of Communist China,
while their story is changed to accommodate the idea of minzu
tuanjie. The final chapter, "The Cult of Ulanhu: History,
Memory, and the Making of an Ethnic Hero" examines the life
of Ulanhu, the most prominent Mongolian figure in Inner Mongolia,
and indeed, the PRC. Ulanhu (1906-1988) was the founder of the
Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and its leader until 1947. During
the 1980s he served as vice president of China, becoming the highest-ranking
minority in the PRCs government. A cult of ancestor/hero worship
developed after his death out of the memory of what he accomplished
for the Mongolian nation in China, a cult that was partially encouraged
by the government.
Bulags study is a much-needed work on minorities in China, especially
since the lions share of attention given to this issue in the
mass media is focused on Tibet and, to a lesser extent, the situation
in Xinjiang. In spite of its many merits, this work suffers somewhat
from poor organization. The chapters in The Mongols at Chinas
Edge read as a series of articles rather than as coherent
and inter-connected chapters of a single book with a unifying
theme. While it is certainly true that the theme is the relationship
between the Mongols as a separate ethnic group and their position
as part of China, there is little transition between the chapters.
The major reason for this, as Uradyn Bulag states in his acknowledgments,
is that chapters three, six, and seven appeared in earlier form
as articles in academic journals (p. xi). However, these
articles provide only the framework for later research that has
been added as they form the chapters in The Mongols at Chinas
Edge. Nevertheless, each chapter provides insight and they
work wonderfully as separate case studies on various aspects of
minority relations.
The other weakness of the book is the lack of a conclusion. Chapter
seven deals with possibly the most important figure in modern
Inner Mongolian history and politics: Ulanhu. Bulags treatment
of Ulanhu is thorough and admirable. While one may justifiably
comment that Ulanhu represented the pinnacle of achievement in
Inner Mongolia, a separate concluding chapter would have better
tied all of the chapters together.
Nevertheless, Uradyn Bulags The Mongols at Chinas Edge
should be an essential read for anyone working on minorities in
China, or for that matter in any region. Bulags multi-disciplinary
approach to the topic is balanced, as is his choice of subject
matter in each chapter.
[Contents]
Conferences and Lecture Series
First International METU Conference on International Relations
Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey, July 3-5, 2002
Reported by: Oktay F. Tanrisever, Lecturer, Department
of International Relations, Middle East Technical University,
Ankara, Turkey, oktay metu.edu.tr
The Department of International Relations at Middle East Technical
University (METU) organized the "First International METU
Conference on International Relations" in Ankara July 3-5,
2002. As various aspects of Eurasia were discussed at the conference,
I think it would be interesting for the readers of Central
Eurasian Studies Review to learn more about this conference.
As the international environment surrounding Turkey has changed
significantly since the end of the Cold War, the organization
of an international relations conference has become an especially
urgent matter for the community of international relations scholars
in Turkey. For that reason, the conference sought to discuss the
key issues of post-Cold War international relations through an
interdisciplinary approach.
The conference was a result of the remarkable cooperation of
the faculty, the students, the university administration and the
sponsors, including the Turkish Academy of Sciences, the Foreign
Policy Institute of Turkey, the US Embassy in Ankara, the British
Council, the UN High Commission for Refugees, the GAP Regional
Development Administration, and others. The main limitation of
the conference in attracting even greater participation and attendance
was financial. We had to organize this conference with a modest
amount of financial support, primarily due to the ongoing economic
crisis in Turkey.
We were very honored to host a number of invited speakers including
James Rosenau from George Washington University, Stephen J. Blank
from the US Army War College, Susan Woodward from City University
of New York, Lenore Martin from Harvard University, Peter Duncan
from the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at University
College, London, Ronen Palan and Kees van der Pijl from the University
of Sussex, Loukas Tsoukalis from the University of Athens, Ergn
Olgun, the Undersecretary to the President of the Turkish Republic
of Northern Cyprus, and John Roberts, Senior Editor of Platts
Energy Group. In addition to drawing participants from around
the world, the conference brought together scholars from nearly
all the international relations departments in Turkey.
James Rosenau, the distinguished international relations scholar
from George Washington University, delivered the opening lecture
of the conference. The title of his lecture was "Ominous
Tensions in a Globalizing World." In it he considered the
prospects for improving the security of peoples everywhere as
quite dim in the age of globalization. His pessimism is evident
in the following statement: "Until now, I have always been
an optimist about the probabilities of globalization fostering
long-term processes of reconciliation among those groups caught
up in seemingly intractable tensions. But my optimism is under
severe challenge today." Rosenau argued that "the Cold
War was at least marked by a form of stability, but today instability,
even chaos, seems to mark the prevailing order. And it does so
in such a way as to cast doubt on whether the liberating dimensions
of globalization are sufficient to reverse the descent toward
worldwide chaos, and thereby achieve a modicum of security for
both peoples and collectivities."
The main themes of the conference included Eurasia as well as
theories of international relations, international security, globalization,
energy, Cyprus, Europe, the Balkans and the Middle East. The participants
in the sessions on theories of international relations discussed
the emerging theoretical perspectives in international relations
and stressed the limitations of political realism in explaining
the developments in the post-Cold War era. Like Rosenau, most
participants in the globalization sessions underscored the complications
of the globalization process in both domestic and international
contexts. The international security sessions concentrated on
the changing concept of security in the light of the current war
on international terrorism as well as non-traditional security
issues such as ethnic and religious conflicts, migration, and
water and environmental issues.
Aside from these sessions on general theoretical themes, there
were also panels on regional issues. The sessions on Europe focused
on the integration and enlargement processes of, and Turkeys relations
with, the European Union. Concerning the future role of the European
Union, Loukas Tsoukalis argued that the EU is not likely to become
a superpower or a superstate because it is a new type of international
actor seeking to harmonize international relations in Europe without
falling into the political realist trap of zero-sum games. In
addition, the Turkish governments attempts at harmonizing its
practices with those of the EU were evaluated by Nilgn Arısan
and İnci Ata from Turkeys Secretariat General of European
Union Affairs and Oskar Benedikt from the Representation of the
European Commission to Turkey. Regarding Cyprus, a key issue in
Turkeys relations with the European Union, the participants discussed
the prospects for a resolution to the conflict. Tzn Bahelis paper
"Searching for a Cyprus Settlement: Considering Options for
Creating a Federation, a Confederation, or Two Independent States,"
was noteworthy in this respect. Concerning the Balkans, Susan
Woodward identified the competing definitions of security articulated
by the great powers and the regional states. Not surprisingly,
discussions in the Middle East sessions revolved around the impact
of September 11 on the region.
The Eurasia sessions focused on Russias relations with its neighbors,
the nation-building processes in Ukraine, the Caucasus and Central
Asia, and post-communist transitions. Peter Duncan from the University
of London gave the keynote speech on Eurasia. The title of his
paper was "Putins Foreign Policy: Before and After September
11." Duncan pointed out that Putin had been pursuing a pragmatic
policy towards the West since becoming acting president in 2000,
long before the horrendous terrorist attacks on September 11,
2001 and the subsequent international cooperation against international
terrorism. Unlike much of Moscows defense and foreign policy establishment,
Putin has seen the need to support America in international politics
rather than follow an isolationist course. According to Duncan,
Putins decision to share intelligence and welcome American troops
to CIS states after September 2001 reflected the convergence of
Russias economic needs and the desire to crush the Chechen rebels.
After September 11 Putin seized the opportunity to mobilize international
support against what he calls "international terrorism,"
a security threat the scope of which ranges from the Balkans to
Kashmir.
On Ukraine, I presented a paper entitled "Ukraine under
Kuchma: Looking East, Going West?" In it I argued that Kuchmas
pragmatic policy of "To Europe with Russia" weakens
the basis for westernizing reforms in the country. I also chaired
a very interesting session on the Caucasus. In that session, Yaşar
Onay enumerated the geographical, ethnic, political and economic
factors that could explain why the Caucasus has been so unstable.
Rovshan Sadıkbeylis paper underscored that Turkeys policies
contribute to regional stability in the South Caucasus. Aydın
Ibrahimov and Mustafa Mutluer, on the other hand, argued that
the collapse of the Soviet Union undermined the basis for regional
stability due to the its negative economic and political repercussions.
The session on Central Asia focused on the role of nationalism
and Islamic fundamentalism in post-Soviet transitions. Yılmaz
Bingl evaluated the relationship between nationalism and democracy
in post-communist Central Asia. Contrary to the transitologist
schools anticipation of liberal democracy, Bingol argued that
it is indeed nationalism, not liberal democracy, that is the real
successor to communism. Unlike Bingol, Zurab Todua focused on
Islamic fundamentalism rather than nationalism. Based on his analysis
of the opposition in Uzbekistan before and after the beginning
of the counter-terrorism operation in Afghanistan, Todua argued
that the complex of deteriorating socioeconomic and political
conditions contributes to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.
Lastly, Kai Wegerich from the School of Oriental and African Studies
at the University of London discussed water use problems in Central
Asia. There was also a session on Eurasianism, which was conducted
in Turkish. Elif Hatun Kılıbeyli, Ertan Efegil, Erhan
Bykakıncı and Ulaş Mangıtlı discussed
the policies of great powers towards Central Asia. In general
they agreed that Eurasianism is a conservative ideology that could
hardly contribute to attempts at promoting regional stability.
The sessions on energy, an important topic for many researchers,
focused on the strategic, political and economic issues in the
production, transportation and the marketing of natural gas, oil
and alternative sources of energy. Stephen J. Blank from the US
Army War College gave the keynote address on "The Transformation
of Caspian Security." Blank argued that the United States
is likely to increase its role in providing regional security
in the Caspian region. The other speakers discussed the politics
of pipelines. Emre Engur, from Turkeys main pipeline company,
BOTAŞ, evaluated the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline as an economically
feasible and politically preferred option. John Roberts, Senior
Editor of the Platts Energy Group, disagreed with many of Engurs
propositions. The disagreements showed that the saga of the Caspian
pipelines will continue to be heard in the foreseeable future.
In the closing session, Atila Eralp, Chairman of the Department
of International Relations, expressed his pleasure at hosting
a community of senior and junior scholars at the conference. Eralp
also underscored the importance of having future international
conferences with participants from not only the discipline of
international relations, but also from other branches of the social
sciences. The organizing committee and the participants made suggestions
for transforming the papers into publications in order to reach
a wider audience. Some of the participants also highlighted their
desire to establish an Association of International Studies in
Turkey. Furthermore, the participants expressed strong support
for having the next International METU Conference on International
Relations in 2003.
To conclude, the First International METU Conference on International
Relations was a useful event for participating students, academics,
and practitioners of international relations. In the coming years
it will be an even more constructive occasion if we can increase
the number of our guest speakers and turn the conference into
a major occasion for scholars and practitioners of international
relations to meet and exchange views. It is also very important
to organize much more focused sessions on various questions of
international relations. The Call for Papers for the Second International
METU Conference on International Relations will be circulated
by the end of 2002. Therefore, I would be very grateful if you
could send your suggestions especially on the upcoming Eurasia
panels to oktay metu.edu.tr.
The conference program and other METU IR events can be obtained
online at http://www.ir.metu.edu.tr/.
I hope to see all the readers of the Central Eurasian Studies
Review and the members of the Central Eurasian Studies Society
in Ankara in the near future.
[Contents]
Middle East History and Theory Conference and Central Asian
Studies at the University of Chicago
Center for Middle Eastern Studies, The University of Chicago,
Chicago, Illinois, USA, May 11-12, 2001
Reported by: Patrick Wing, Ph.D. student, Center for Middle
Eastern Studies, The University of Chicago, USA. pgwing midway.uchicago.edu
The Middle East History and Theory Conference (MEHAT) is a student
organized event sponsored by the Center for Middle Eastern Studies
at the University of Chicago. Founded by University of Chicago
graduate students in 1985, the MEHAT Conference has grown in both
size and scope. For the past seventeen years the conference has
provided a forum for graduate students to present and share their
work with peers, colleagues, and professionals in their field.
Not only has the conference drawn larger numbers of participants
each year, it has also evolved to recognize and include Central
Asian studies as an integral aspect of the course of Middle Eastern
and world history.
In the past two years the MEHAT Conference has featured panels
devoted to the political, religious, economic, and social history
of the region which today encompasses the five Central Asian republics,
i.e., Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan,
as well as Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Mongolia, China, and Iran.
Central Asian studies was well represented at the 17th Annual
Middle East History and Theory Conference this past spring. The
two-day gathering of students and scholars from around the United
States and the world included panels, lectures, and workshops
on the history, culture, and society of the Middle East and Central
Asia.
Several papers emphasized the international nature of historical
issues and modern problems. This has been an encouraging trend
in a field which has at times relied on modern, nation-state based
paradigms to explain events in a region which has always been
connected to the rest of the world as a cultural crossroads. Such
papers at this years conference included "Islam and HIV/AIDS
in Central Asia: Crisis of Traditional Values" by Alisher
Khamidov from the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace
Studies at the University of Notre Dame. In his paper Khamidov
explored the gradual evolution of HIV/AIDS in Central Asia and
the response of Islamic clerics to this epidemic. Specifically,
he examined local religious initiatives and the efforts of religious
leaders to use Islamic teachings in making HIV/AIDS prevention
campaigns more effective. Dr. Guli Yuldasheva from Indiana University
presented a paper entitled "Iranian-American Relations: Impact
for Central Asia." Yuldash eva illustrated the ways in which
the relationship between the United States and Iran has historically
influenced, and continues to impact, the economic and political
development of the Central Asian states. These are just two examples
of the seven papers dedicated to Central Asian topics presented
at the 2002 MEHAT conference. Another encouraging development
was the number of scholars from the Central Asian republics who
were willing to attend the conference. Despite the large number
of applications to the conference, most of these scholars had
to cancel their travel plans due to financial difficulties and
restrictions on visa applications.
Additionally, recent conference keynote addresses have related
to Central Asian issues. In 2001, Professor Devin DeWeese of Indiana
University discussed "History, Hagiography, and the Problem
of Religious Language: Some Thoughts on Approaches to Islamic
Hagiographical Sources." Professor Richard Foltz of the University
of Florida gave the 2002 keynote address, entitled "Does
Nature Have Historical Agency? Perspectives from the Silk Road,
Central Asia, and Elsewhere."
The musical culture of Central Asia has been a special part of
the past two MEHAT gatherings as well, as the conference has played
host to the now annual University of Chicago Central Asian Music
Festival. In 2002, the festival included a lecture and discussion
of Central Asian music with Ted Levin of Dartmouth College and
Martin Stokes of the University of Chicago. In addition, there
were two nights of performances. Talant Mawkanuli gave a solo
recital of traditional Kazakh music and the ensemble Shash Maqam
performed Jewish music from Bukhara.
The conference coordinators are now accepting applications for
its eighteenth meeting on May 9 and 10, 2003 at the University
of Chicago. Papers dealing with Middle Eastern and Central Asian
art, architecture, literature, society, history, and politics
are welcome. As usual, graduate students are particularly urged
to participate. The deadline for the submission of a one-page
abstract and curriculum vitae is March 1, 2003. Abstracts and
cvs can be sent via email to Patrick Wing at pgwing midway.uchicago.edu,
or by mail to: MEHAT Coordinators, Center for Middle Eastern Studies,
The University of Chicago, 5828 S. University Ave., Chicago, IL
60637.
Further information regarding past conferences, including papers
in PDF format, can be found at the MEHAT website: http://cas.uchicago.edu/workshops/meht/.
[Contents]
Networks, Alignments and Factionalism in Todays Central Asia
Centre Marc Bloch and Central Asian Seminar/ Humboldt University,
Berlin, Germany, June 22, 2002
Reported by: Ildik Bellr-Hann, Orientwissenschaftliches
Zentrum/Center for Oriental Studies, Martin-Luther-Universitt,
Halle-Wittenberg, Germany, beller-hann owz.uni-halle.de
The workshop was jointly organized by the Centre Marc Bloch (Berlin),
in collaboration with the Central Asian Seminar/ Humboldt University,
and the European Society for Central Asian Studies (ESCAS). The
workshop organizers were Prof. Dr. Ingeborg Baldauf (Central Asian
Seminar, Humboldt University/ Berlin), Prof. Dr. Altan Gkalp (Centre
Marc Bloch/ Berlin), and Asst. Prof. Mag. Dr. Gabriele Rasuly-Paleczek
(ESCAS and Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, University
of Vienna)
The central focus of the workshop was the creation and/or recreation
of networks, alignments and factionalism in Central Asia. Approaching
the topic from different angles, including social anthropology,
sociology, political science, economics and history, the various
papers provided background information and in depth analyses on
current developments in Central Asia for a broad public. Most
papers presented materials and analyses based on first-hand observations
and long term fieldwork in the respective regions.
Andrea Berg (Institute for Development Research, Ruhr-Universitt
Bochum) gave a paper entitled "Womens NGOs in Uzbekistan
Horizontal Networks or a New Elite?" In the first half of
her paper she gave an overview of the origins and activities of
local NGOs in Uzbekistan. Throughout the Soviet period participation
in public organizations in Uzbekistan had an obligatory rather
than voluntary character. In contrast, voluntary informal personal
networks played a crucial role in everyday life and it is in these
networks that post-socialist local NGOs seem to have their roots.
Nevertheless, Berg distinguished local NGOs from informal networks
since the former were self-help groups, while modern NGOs work
for the benefit of a target group. Following network analysis
theory, Berg argued that Uzbek NGOs occupy "structural holes"
between local society and the international community, and therefore
occupy an important broker position. Local NGOs are in competition
with each other and personal relations continue to play an important
part in their operation. Local NGOs form hierarchical rather than
horizontal structures and seem to have provided new frameworks
in which members of the former Soviet elite occupy key positions
and continue to exert their influence.
Reinhard Eisener (Berlin) gave a paper entitled "Coming
to Grips with Islamism in Central Asia?" This paper considered
Islamist activities as a current political problem with conflict
potential in Central Asia. It also attempted to inquire into the
nature and perceptions of this phenomenon, taking into consideration
features of its background and possible historical dimensions.
The latter concerned in particular the Basmachi movement, the
local Central Asian armed resistance against the Soviets in the
1920s-1930s.
Markus Kaiser (Sociology of Development Research Centre, University
of Bielefeld) talked about "Cross Border Traders as Transformers."
Kaiser analyzed the newly developed international informal-sector
trade in Uzbekistan within the framework of bottom-up transformation.
The speaker proposed that traders should be considered as transformers
in their own right. The role of personal networks in the second
and informal economy was considered. Kaiser argued that during
the transformation from socialism to a market economy the network
structures of the second economy became transformed into opportunity
structures for networking in Uzbekistans informal sector.
Gabriele Rasuly-Paleczek (Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology,
University of Vienna) gave a paper entitled "Alignment Policies
and Factionalism among the Uzbeks of Northeastern Afghanistan."
Following an analysis of the socio-political structure of the
region and a summary of its political history, Rasuly-Paleczek
focused on the strategies that the Uzbeks of northeastern Afghanistan
(16th to mid-19th century) developed since their subjugation by
the Afghan state in 1888. In this area inhabited by a large number
of different ethnic and linguistic groups the creation of interethnic
networks became one of the major strategies to defend local political
interests vis--vis the Afghan state, which tried to gain firm
control of Afghan society. In this process the former tribal leadership
of the Uzbeks, who once ruled northeastern Afghanistan, lost its
prominent political position. Acting as intermediaries between
the state and local society, local leaders played a major role
in Afghan politics until the communist coup dtat of 1978; they
were acting as brokers and defenders of local interests and political
autonomy. In northeastern Afghanistan they also functioned as
coordinators of interethnic alliances to defend their sociopolitical
and economic interests vis--vis large numbers of new settlers.
The final part of the paper focused on events following the coup
dtat of 1978, the Soviet invasion, and the subsequent civil war
in Afghanistan.
Ildik Bellr-Hann (Orientwissenschaftliches Zentrum/ Center for
Oriental Studies, Martin-Luther-Universitt, Halle-Wittenberg)
spoke about "Uyghur Peasant Strategies in the Reform Period."
Based on fieldwork data, this paper looked at some of the challenges
faced by peasants in southern Xinjiang in the socialist market
economy. It argued that for many in the countryside the intellectual
discourses elaborated, for example, by Rudelson, have little meaning.
Peasants are tied to their places of residence and to their land,
and they maintain traditional multiple identities which are not
hierarchically ordered. They continue to rely on alliances based
on kinship and community, relationships which are supported by
traditional ideals of reciprocity.
The workshop was concluded by Altan Gkalp (Centre Marc Bloch,
Berlin). In his paper, entitled "Between Tradition and Revelation:
the Contradictions of Present Central Asian Identity," Gkalp
summarized the previous papers and considered new directions for
research.
[Contents]
Educational Resources and Developments
The Challenge of Introducing Central Asia to Young Readers
Cherese Cartlidge, Charles Clark, The Central Asian States.
San Diego, Ca.: Lucent Books, 2001. Former Soviet Republics series.
128 pp., maps, b/w photographs, appendices, annotated bibliography,
index. ISBN: 1560067357. $27.45 hard cover.
Reviewed by: Daniel C. Waugh, Department of History, Henry
M. Jackson School of International Studies, Department of Slavic
Languages and Literature, University of Washington, Seattle, USA,
dwaugh u.washington.edu
Thanks to the recent surge of interest in Central Eurasia we
are increasingly well served by serious scholarship reflecting
new methodologies, use of indigenous source material and field
work. However, the genres of books for the general reader and
for educational purposes are much less well represented. Herein
lies a challenge for the members of CESS: to encourage the creation
of resources suitable to various educational levels, with the
goal of enabling curriculum change that could ensure adequate
teaching of Central Eurasia and stimulate a lasting interest in
the region. The goal here should be material that has some substance
and accuracy but is carefully targeted and edited to appeal to
different groups of readers. The book under review ostensibly
was intended to meet just such a demand, an aim which, sad to
say, it does not achieve.
The avowed purpose of the volume is to provide "information
about the people and recent history of the former Soviet republics,
with an emphasis on those aspects of their culture, history and
current situation that seem most likely to play a role in the
future course of each of these new nations emerging from the shadows
of the now vanished iron curtain" (p. 6). The substantive
chapters cover geography, history, current politics, daily life,
culture, and international relations. There is an appended factual
summary for each country and a brief chronology.
The authors have acquired a reasonably good idea of the current
challenges facing the countries of Central Asia, even if their
understanding of history and culture is extremely circumscribed.
An explanation for the latter is that, as freelance writers with
psychology degrees, the authors have no demonstrable background
in Central Asian studies. In fact their limited preparation for
writing the book (judging from their annotated listing of "Works
Consulted") is quite disturbing. A significant portion of
the books citations are to journalism and the Lonely Planet travel
guide. Their ignorance of any relevant languages is evident in
confusion over what is Russian and what Central Asian. Not the
least of the consequences is arbitrariness in the rendering of
names.
One might argue that the whole undertaking was misconceived.
To treat Central Asia under the rubric "Former Soviet Republics"
in 2001 is backward-looking. Worse, the emphasis throughout is
on the negative. The foreword emphasizes "challenges,"
political and social "problems," "tensions,"
"crises," potential for "dictatorship or civil
war" (p. 5). There is little genuine interest here in
Central Asians except insofar as their political, economic, social
or ecological situations are lamentable compared to those in the
West. The underlying theme is the question of whether these beleaguered
societies will ever make it into the modern world of democracy
and capitalism. The dangers of writing a book guided by a shallow
vision of contemporary concerns can be seen in the fact that,
post-9/11, its discussion of security and foreign policy issues
is already dated.
Further, even though library review journals indicate the books
target audience is either grades 6-12 or 9 and up, there is no
sensitivity to young readers needs in vocabulary or concepts.
Yet concepts such as "nationality" and "ethnicity"
are important and beg for clear explanation. Young readers will
never be attracted to "discussions" of culture and history
which too frequently are lists of names.
While in various ways the authors attempt to show the diversity
of the region, their discussion of its complex religious history
is especially disappointing. A page on Jews in Central Asia, based
on an impressionistic travelogue, emphasizes their happy integration
into the local societies. We do not learn how those Jewish communities
may have been important. As is the case in too much of the popular
literature on Central Asia, the treatment of Islam here is monodimensional.
Representing the Quran as simply "dictated" by Muhammad
rather than as Divine revelation would surely be perceived by
Muslims as offensive.
That there was no editorial oversight can be seen in the treatment
of the regions geography. Information on the Aral Sea crisis is
scattered and repetitive. Place names on maps generally embody
current official usage, but often only the older forms appear
in the text. There are some blatant errors: the Chu River as a
main source feeding Lake Issyk Kul; the historic Qashghar on the
upper reaches of the Amu Darya; and the upper reaches of the Yenisei
River labeled the Ob. Most readers would welcome topographic and
ethnic or linguistic maps.
History does not fare much better than geography. The expansion
of the Sassanians toward Central Asia is dated to the second,
not third century; to the Mongol empire is attributed the decline,
rather than the greatest flourishing, of the inner Asian trade;
and Tamerlane is a Chinggisid and his capital that of the Mongol
Empire. The Kyrgyz would undoubtedly be puzzled to learn how the
"Persian culture" of their ancestors mixed with that
of the Turks. In fact the significance of the Persian cultural
legacy in Central Asia never really becomes clear. In the appended
chronology, it is not clear why the Mongol conquest of Central
Asia extends to 1295 or why Russian colonization is dated specifically
1785-1820s. That four of the Central Asian countries joined NATO
in 1994 surely would have been a newsworthy event had it actually
happened!
Now all this may seem to make the book seem laughable, which
it is not. A revised version of this hastily contrived volume
could meet a need, however shallow (perforce) its compact treatment
of the area may be. It would be unfortunate though if by default
(and its uncritical endorsement by the ALA Booklist) this
book were to become the source on Central Asia for "young
researchers." One can reasonably hope for better. A decade
ago Lerner Publications issued a geography series aimed at middle
school students entitled "Then and Now" with a volume
devoted to each of the then "Newly Independent States."
While dated, that series still has much to recommend it, in part
because the publisher consulted with content experts at Indiana
University and the University of Washington.
It may well be that CESS should look to the example of (perhaps
even collaborate with) the Association for Asian Studies in promoting
education about our region by an appropriate program of publication.
Such an undertaking undoubtedly would want to employ a full range
of electronic media, since nowadays images and sounds are an essential
supplement to the printed page. We would be making a huge mistake
if we confined our mission to the promotion of academic research
on the region. We need more of the kind of collaborative effort
exemplified in Vika Gardner and R. T. Steponaitis curriculum unit
Polishing the Mirror (see CESR, 1 (1) 34-35), where
one author provided the content expertise and the other the public
school teaching experience.
[Contents]
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Issues of CESR
Vol. 8, No. 1
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Vol. 7, No. 2
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Vol. 7, No. 1
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Vol. 6, No. 1/2
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Vol. 5, No. 2
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Vol. 5, No. 1
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Vol. 4, No. 2
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Vol. 4, No. 1
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Vol. 3, No. 2
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Vol. 2, No. 3
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Vol. 2, No. 2
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Vol. 2, No. 1
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Vol. 1, No. 3
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Vol. 1, No. 2
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Vol. 1, No. 1
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