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

Central Asian Studies in Bulgaria: Main Trends and Perspectives, Vladimir Chukov and Roumiana Andreeva-Chukova

Research Reports and Briefs

Communal and Political Change in Central Asia: Some Preliminary Findings, Paul Geiss

Security Perception in Central Asia, Rafis F. Abazov

Afghan Communities in Uzbekistan, Natalya Khan

Reviews and Abstracts

Terry Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939. Reviewed by Tomasz Kamusella

Jacob M. Landau and Barbara Kellner-Heinkele, Politics of Language In the Ex-Soviet Muslim States. Reviewed by Sally N. Cummings

Uradyn Bulag, The Mongols at China's Edge: History and the Politics of National Unity. Reviewed by Timothy May

Conferences and Lecture Series

First International METU Conference on International Relations, Oktay F. Tanrisever

Middle East History and Theory Conference and Central Asian Studies, Patrick Wing

Networks, Alignments and Factionalism in Today's Central Asia, Ildikó Bellér-Hann

Educational Resources and Developments

The Challenge of Introducing Central Asia to Young Readers, Daniel Waugh

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, vlachunat.bg and Roumiana Andreeva-Chukova, Ph.D., Research Fellow, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria, Sofia 1113, Samokov St. 16, rumychmail.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.

References

Andreeva-Chukova, Roumiana

1999   "Isliamskoto vuzrazhdane v navecherieto na 21 vek [The Islamic revival on the eve of twenty-first century]," Istorichesko budesht, 1999 (1) 34-47. Sofia.

2000   "Sravnitelno izsledvane na otnosheniata mezhdu khristiani i miusiulmani na Balkanite i Tsentralna Asia [A comparative study of Christian-Muslim interfaith relations. The cases of the Balkans and Central Asia]," Istorichesko budesht, 2000 (2) 125-140. Sofia.

2001   "Tsentralnoaziatska put na petrola mezhdu iztoka i zapada [The Central Asian oil road between East and West]," Problemat Iztok-Zapad. Prevlapshenieta v novo i nainovo vremei, 2001 (1) 46-71. Sofia.

Beshevliev, Vesseline

1981   Prabulgarite: Bit i kultura [Bulgars: everyday life and culture]. Sofia: Nauka i Izkustvo.

Chukov, Vladimir

1993   Isliamskiat rebus predbulgarskoto obshcestvo: Tsentralnoaziatskia opit [The Islamic puzzle before Bulgarian society: The Central Asian experience]. Sofia: Capital Publishing House.

1999   "The political behavior of the Bulgarian Muslim community," ISIM Newsletter, 1999 (4) 26. Leiden.

Dimitrov, Boidar

2000   "Bulgarskia etnicheski model v balkanski i evropeiski kontekst [The Bulgarian ethnic model in Balkan and European context]," In: Natzionalnata idea i etnicheski vzaimootnoshenia v kraia na 20-ti vek i nachaloto na 21-vi vek. P. Georgieva, ed., pp. 37-50. Sofia: Hemus Publishing House.

Dobrev, Petar

1998   Bulgarskite ognishta na tsivilizatsii na kartata na Evrasia [Bulgarian civilization centers on the Eurasian map]. Sofia: Tangra, TanNakRa, Pan-Bulgarian Foundation.

Dogan, Ahmed

2000   Prava na maltsinstvata [The rights of the minorities]. Sofia: Friedrich Naumann Stiftung.

Douichev, Ivan

1973   "Imenik na Bulgarskite khanove i Bulgarskata durzhavna traditsiia [The enrollment form of Bulgarian Khans and the tradition of Bulgarian statehood]," Vekove, 1973 (8) 5-11. Sofia.

Eminov, Ali

2000   "[Bibliographies:] Turks and Other Muslims in Bulgaria and the Balkans," http://academic.wsc.edu/socialsci/eminov_a/biblios-turks_and_other_muslims.html, accessed 28 August 2002.

Gradeva, Rossitza and Svetlana Ivanova

1998   "Miusiulmanskata kultura v bulgarskite zemi [Muslim culture in Bulgarian lands]," In: Zhelyazkova, ed. (1998), pp. 24-287. Sofia: IMIR.

Hasan, Hasan and Steve John

2000   Turk masallari [Turkish tales]. Sofia: CSD.

Iliev, Vesseline

1997   Zabravenite Bulgari krai Volga[Forgotten Bulgarians next to the Volga]. Sofia: B&SH&M.

Karadzhov, Maksim and Tsetozar Tonchev

1998,   Pri izgubenite Bulgari v Tatarstan [With the lost Bulgarians in Tatarstan]. Sofia: Kameko.

Karahanova, Emilia

2000   Alianite ot Ludogorie [The Alians from Ludogorie]. Sofia: Lik.

Lozanova, Galina and Liubomir Mikov

1999   "Isliam i kultura [Islam and culture]," In: Isliamskite obshtnosti na Balkanite. A. Zhelyazkova, ed., pp. 55-96. Sofia: IMIR.

Mateev, Ivan

1992   Da se zdravisvam sas smurta [To shake hands with death]. Sofia: Sveti Georgi Pobedonosets.

Mladenov, Stefan

1928   "Poiavata na Asparukhovite Bulgari v Turkskia klon na Ario-Altaiskite narodi [The appearance of Asparukh Bulgars within the Turkic branch of the Arian-Altaic peoples]," Bulgaska istoricheska biblioteka, 1928 (1) 49-71. Sofia.

Naumov, Dimitar and Radi Shukriev

1996   Turski folklorni pesni ot iztochnite Rodopi [Turkish folk songs from Eastern Rhodopi]. Sofia: Lik.

Nickolchevska, Maria, Stella Todorova and Altunka Shukerova

1996   Momchilgrad: Priroda, archeologicheski pametnitsi, traditsionnafolklorna kultura [Momchilgrad: nature, archeological monuments, traditional folk culture]. Sofia: IMIR.

Nunev, Josef

1998   Tsiganski prikazki [Roma tales]. Sofia: IMIR.

Parvanov, Georgi

2000   "Bulgarski etnicheski model ot integratsiia na etnicheskite obshtnosti kam natsionalno povedenie [Bulgarian ethnic model from integration of the ethnic communities towards national behavior]," In: Natsionalnata idea i etnicheski vzaimootnosheniia v kraia na 20-ti vek i nachaloto na 21-vi vek. P. Georgieva, ed., pp. 5-20. Sofia: Hemus Publishing House.

Popov, Miroslav

2000   "Etnicheski model v Bulgariia i mezhdunarodnoto pravo i opit [The ethnic model in Bulgaria and international law and experience]," In: Natsionalna ideia i etnicheski vzaimootnoshenia v kraia na 20-ti vek i nachaloto na 21-vi vek. P. Georgieva, ed., pp. 123-137. Sofia: Hemus Publishing House.

Sasselov, Dimitar

2000   Patiatna Bulgarite [The Bulgarian path], 2nd ed. Sofia: Kibea.

Shishmanov, Ivan

1909   "Kritichen pregled na Vaprossite za proizkhoda na Bulgarite [A critical survey of Bulgar origins]," Sbornik za narodni umotvoreniia, 1909 (1) 145-175. Sofia.

Slavov, Andrei

1999   Gypsy-English/English-Gypsy 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: Kaspiiskiat i Balkanskiat vazel [Oil, gas and geopolitics: 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, pgeissdoihh.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.

References

Ali, A. S.

1964   Modernization of Soviet Central Asia: An Example of Socialist Construction. Lahore.

Anderson, John

1999   Kyrgyzstan. Central Asias Island of Democracy. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers.

Black, Cyril Edwin, et al. (eds.)

1991   The Modernization of Inner Asia. Armonk, New York & London: M. E. Sharpe.

Eschment, Beate

2000 "Autoritre Prsidialregime statt Parteiendemokratien in Zentralasien," Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 21 (19) 23-30.

Fierman, William (ed.)

1991   Soviet Central Asia: The Failed Transformation. Boulder, Colorado: Westview.

Geiss, Paul Georg

1999   "Turkman tribalism," Central Asian Survey, 18 (3) 347-58.

2000   "Political discourse on authority relations in Central Asia. A sociological elucidation," Central Asia Monitor, 2000 (6) 1-6.

2001a   "Mahallah and kinship relations. A study on residential communal commitment structures in Central Asia of the nineteenth century," Central Asian Survey, 20 (1) 97-106.

2001b   "Legal culture and political reforms in Central Asia," Central Asia and the Caucasus. Journal of Social and Political Studies, 6 (12) 114-25.

2002a   "Political community and Islam in Central Asia," In: Zentralasienund Islam Central Asia and Islam, A. Strasser, et al., eds., Deutsches Orient-Institut, Mitteilungen, (63) 173-89. Hamburg.

2002b   "The problem of political order in contemporary Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan," In: The Caspian Region, vol. 1, M. Gammer, ed., London: Frank Cass.

Forthcoming (a)   "Political community and state structures in European and non-European societies: Europe and Japan in comparative view," In: Community, Identity and the State. M. Gammer, ed., Tel Aviv University.

Forthcoming (b)   Communal Commitment and Political Order in Change. The Pretsarist and Tsarist Central Asia. London: Curzon Press.

Forthcoming (c)   "Tribal commitment and political order in Central Asia. A reconsideration," In: Why Not Central Asia, a Decade of Reforms, Centuries of Memories? Bellingeri, G. ed. Orientalia Venetiana, Fondazione G. Cini, Istituto Venezia e l'Oriente. Firenze: L. Olschki.

Forthcoming (d)   "The problem of political order in the Khanate of Khokand: between tribalism and patrimonialism," In: Central Asia: Past, Present and Future: Proceedings of the VII. ESCAS Conference, G. Rasuly-Paleczek and J. Katschnig, eds., Vienna: Wiener Universittsverlag.

Goble, Paul

1999   "How authoritarian regimes use elections," Central Asian Monitor, 1999 (6) ii.

Khan, A. R. and O. Ghat

1979   Collective Agriculture and Rural Development in Soviet Central Asia. London: Macmillan.

Melvin, Neil J.

2000   Uzbekistan. Transition to Authoritarianism on the Silk Road. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers.

Mnch, Richard

1988 [1982]   Theorie des Handelns. Frankfurt: Surkamp Verlag.

1992 [1984]   Die Struktur der Moderne. Grundmuster und differentielle Gestaltung des institutionellen Aufbaus der modernen Gesellschaften, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag.

1993 [1983]   Die Kultur der Moderne. 2 Bnde. Frankfurt: Surkamp Verlag.

Nove, A., and J. A. Newth

1967   The Soviet Middle East. A Model for Development? London: George Allen & Unwin.

Petric, Boris M.

2000   "The Political Game at Local Level in Post-Soviet Uzbekistan". Paper presented at the 7th Annual World Convention of the Association for the Study of Nationalities, 11-13 April 2002, Columbia University.

2001   La redfinition du pouvoir dans une socit post-sovitique: lOuzbekistan territoires, don rseaux, Ph.D. thesis, Paris.

Rumer, Boris Z.

1990   Soviet Central Asia: "A Tragic Experiment". Boston: Unwin Hyman, Inc.

Weber, Max

1978   Economy and Society. An Outline of Interpretative Sociology. G. Roth, and C. Wittich, eds. Vol. 2. Berkeley-Los Angeles-London.

Werner, Cynthia Ann

1997   "Household Networks, Ritual Exchange and Economic Change in Rural Kazakstan," Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University.

1998   "Household networks and the security of mutual indebtedness in rural Kazakhstan," Central Asian Survey, 17 (4) 597-612.

[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, abazovnetscape.net, ra2044columbia.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, amntkhan.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, tomek672poczta.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] 

Reviewed by: Sally N. Cummings, Lecturer in Politics, Department of Politics, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom, s.cummingsed.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, tmmaystudents.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, oktaymetu.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 oktaymetu.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. pgwingmidway.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 pgwingmidway.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-hannowz.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, dwaughu.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]

Go to: Front Page of the Central Eurasian Studies Society's website
Contact us at: CESS@muohio.edu

The Central Eurasian Studies Review is hosted by the Center for Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

The Central Eurasian Studies Society is hosted by the Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio

Vol. 8, No. 1
pdf
Vol. 7, No. 2
pdf
Vol. 7, No. 1
pdf
Vol. 6, No. 1/2
pdf
Vol. 5, No. 2
pdf
Vol. 5, No. 1
pdf
Vol. 4, No. 2
pdf
Vol. 4, No. 1
pdf
Vol. 3, No. 2
html :: pdf
Vol. 3, No. 1
html :: pdf
Vol. 2, No. 3
html :: pdf
Vol. 2, No. 2
html :: pdf
Vol. 2, No. 1
html :: pdf
Vol. 1, No. 3
html :: pdf
Vol. 1, No. 2
html :: pdf
Vol. 1, No. 1
html :: pdf