CESR
Central Eurasian Studies Review

Editor-in-Chief: Virginia Martin (Huntsville, Ala., USA)
Section Editors:
Perspectives: Robert M. Cutler (Ottawa/Montreal, Canada), Edward Walker (Berkeley, Calif., USA)
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), Philippe Fort (Zurich, Switzerland)
Production Editor: John Schoeberlein (Cambridge, Mass., USA)
Copy Editor: Michael Davis (Kirksville, Mo., USA)

[Contents]

Perspectives

The Centrality of Central Eurasia

Gregory Gleason, President-Elect of CESS, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, N.M., USA, gleasongunm.edu

In times of great change, an old wisdom advises, it is best not to look forward but to look back. When people find the world changing around them, when they find that events question their most common understandings, when they encounter conflict that questions their most deeply held values, wise counsel urges them to look inward rather than outward. When the formal rules and regulations of a society come to seem strangely at odds with the actual practices, it is time to look much deeper than the formalities of politics and economics to the very essence of culture itself.

Surely we live in times such as these. Globalization is compressing time and space, bringing people into greater and more frequent contact than ever before. Yet mutual understanding seems scarcer than ever. Knowledge has reached levels undreamed of in the days before the PC and internet; information moves with speeds never before thought possible. Yet wisdom seems as difficult to come by as ever. The formal structures of society, the economy and government are more sophisticated than ever before, yet many people find that these structures are often ill-suited to the things that matter to them the most. While a globalized world should know how to do things better, more efficiently, more effectively, we find that all too often this is not the case.

These tendencies are seen and felt in all societies today, but there are some places where they are particularly pronounced. Central Eurasia is surely one of these. Following the collapse of the USSR, the Central Eurasian societies that until so recently were cordoned off, isolated, and separated from much of the world, have traveled through decades of transformation in the span of just a few short years. Since the disintegration of the USSR, Central Eurasia has redefined itself, both internally and in relation to the societies around it. The countries of Central Eurasia emerged from the doldrums of communism to enter a rapidly transforming world. Globalization tends to benefit those countries that manage it well and punish those countries that do not. The Central Eurasian countries are still in the early stages of this revolution, but clearly they have suffered from many disorienting influences of globalization while not yet fully benefiting from the prosperity, freedom and equity that globalization promises.

More recently, following the events of September 11 and the rapid shifts in geostrategic relations, the Central Eurasian countries have become the focus of the diplomatic attentions of chancelleries around the world. Competition over access to fuel resources in the Middle East has combined with Russias growing role in the international energy trade to focus the attention of world markets on the oil riches of the Central Eurasian Caspian littoral. As countries look forward to post-Afghanistan normalization, Central Eurasias importance looms ever larger in the great geopolitical rivalry over the shape of the future. The jockeying for position in the post-Cold War reorganization of Asia, the Middle East, and Europe has focused attention on the lands lying at the interstices of those countries the lands of Central Eurasia. These lands have close ties to the Middle East, yet they are not the Middle East. These lands have close ties to Asia, yet they are not Asia. Much of Central Eurasia was long under the dominion of European Russia, yet it is not Europe. Neither East nor West, neither Europe nor Asia, Central Eurasia is its own region. Recent events have given a new practical urgency to understanding this ancient region that has gained such an important and growing role in contemporary affairs.

The Contours of Central Eurasia

In the inaugural issue of CESR a year ago, John Schoeberlein spoke of the importance of building a scholarly consensus on the question of what constitutes Central Eurasia. John spoke of demarcating the territory of Central Eurasia in ways that would promote better and more cooperative scholarship on the region and increase cooperation between Central Eurasian scholars and their counterparts in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. With such an enterprise in mind, scholars could avoid unproductive struggles over definitions of turf. Scholars could pursue their research questions in depth in a way that would do justice to the uniqueness of the region, while not losing sight of the close connections of the region with other parts of the world.

What constitutes the outlines, the contours, of Central Eurasia? In addressing this question, John noted that Central Eurasia broadly includes lands roughly contained within a perimeter ranging from points along the Iranian Plateau, the Black Sea, and the Volga Basin through Afghanistan, southern Siberia, and the Himalayas to Muslim and Manchu regions of China, and the Mongol lands. Using this physical outline as constituting the borders, broadly conceived, of Central Eurasia, it is clear that the region is central because it is, and has always been, in the middle. The peoples of Central Eurasia have historically been between. Between East and West, between North and South, between China and Persia, between Islam and Christendom, between mountains and plains, between desert and oasis.

Definitions, of course, are sometimes determined as much by conventional usage as by any objective features of the subject to be defined. In the past it was conventional to include much of Central Eurasia in the Soviet communist world. The Central Asian republics, the Caucasus republics, Mongolia, and, for a period at least, Afghanistan were seen as within the USSR or at least within the Soviet orbit. After the Soviet Union disintegrated, the countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus and Mongolia quickly adopted independent and separate paths. Now, after more than a decade of national independence, it is clear that the countries of the Central Eurasian region are, and would prefer to remain, distinct in many respects from their Middle Eastern, European, and Asian neighbors.

To be sure, the countries of the region share many common cultural, economic, and political features. The five former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan lie adjacent to one another and have long traditions of close cooperation, but frequently find themselves at odds with one another over such issues as water, energy, transportation and relations with the Great Powers. Across the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus states of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia have close historical linkages with the other former Soviet Central Asian countries and with the countries of the Middle East. Afghanistan and Mongolia have historical linkages with the other Central Eurasian countries due to Soviet era commercial and cultural relations. Xinjiang Province of the Peoples Republic of China has historically been separated politically and economically from the post-Soviet Central Asian states but has close cultural ties to them, particularly to Kazakhstan. Some other republics, particularly Bashkortostan and Tatarstan, both constituent republics of the Russian Federation, have close cultural, linguistic, and commercial ties to Central Asia and are usually thought of as being part of a larger Central Eurasian community. This list is by no means exhaustive; it does not include everything that should be counted as within Central Eurasia, nor does it exclude everything that should be left out.

There are reasons to stress commonality within Central Eurasia and there are reasons to see important areas of difference and uniqueness among the cultures of the region. Political leaders and scholars frequently point out that the Central Asian states possess many common elements. Traditions of language, culture, practice, and perspective are shared throughout the region. But there are important differences. No single language is spoken everywhere in the region. The area is broadly Muslim, yet no single religious tradition is practiced throughout the region. Moreover, although all of the states have ancient social traditions, none of the contemporary states of Central Asia ever existed with its current borders as an independent state prior to the Soviet period. The contemporary borders therefore do not have legitimacy gained through long historical precedent. There are many economic complementarities in the region, but these are much less important than complementarities with countries outside the region. International trade, over the last decade, has tended to overshadow intra-regional trade.

It is an accident of political history that many of the frontiers of Central Eurasia were defined by the interaction of great foreign empires. The Russian Empire defined Central Eurasia's northern boundaries; the eastern boundaries were defined by China; the western boundaries were defined by the Ottoman empire and Persian empires; the Durand line forming the southern boundary of the former USSR was defined by the 19th century confrontation between Russia and Great Britain. The influence of the external frontiers of Central Eurasia has been magnified by the passing of time. Many modern universities in Europe and the Americas until quite recently continued to conceive of the world in terms of major geographical regions of Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the former Soviet bloc. These conceptual divisions were merely abstract. They were replicated in terms of institutional divisions of departments, centers, and other research programs. Major governments too divided up the world in terms of these same areas. Central Eurasian states did not fit well into any of these categories. As a consequence, the countries of Central Eurasia were relegated to a secondary status in the often fierce and uncompromising competition for institutional resources within the western world's complex bureaucracies.

The collapse of the USSR and the rising tides of globalization have made it possible to redefine the institutional and conceptual divisions that we use. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has expanded its activities into the Central Eurasian states, not deterred by the fact that the states are not in "Europe." Two of the world's most important multilateral lending institutions, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Asian Development Bank, solved the problem of whether the countries were in Europe or Asia. The banks came to the Solomonic decision that the countries were in both Europe and Asia. Both regional development banks started and have maintained active development programs in the countries throughout the Eurasian region, making Central Eurasia the only region in the world where two multilateral development banks simultaneously share mandates.

The Uniqueness of Central Eurasia

The foundation of the scholarly enterprise is the effort to simultaneously understand a phenomenon in terms of its unique features as well as its place in more general patterns. Knowledge proceeds on the basis of developing generalizations that contribute to our common knowledge in a way that makes it possible for us to understand and appreciate uniqueness and difference. Modern society, driven by the homogenizing forces of globalization, commercialization and conceptual standardization, runs the risk of losing sight of the individual and the important for the sake of the common and the general. In the Anglo-Saxon world in particular, the triumphant role of the English language as the medium of computers, the internet and the language of international diplomacy, science, and commerce has reduced the ability of many scholars to appreciate social, historical and cultural phenomena that only an area studies approach can adequately comprehend. Many students, quite naturally, seek to avoid the substantial time and energy that language and detailed area study require.

In the end, the scholarly community appreciates that there are no shortcuts to understanding. I think that this explains the excitement that the establishment of the Central Eurasian Studies Society has generated. It is a testimony to the fact that many scholars, particularly younger scholars, appreciate the intrinsic importance of understanding peoples in the full historical and cultural context in which they live. There may also be another factor at play here. Many scholars of Central Eurasia, both citizens of the region and citizens of other countries, from a broad range of disciplines including the arts, humanities, sciences, social sciences and policy sciences, have found themselves influenced by a special regard for the peoples, cultures, history, and promise of the region. I think that it is accurate to say that many scholars of Central Eurasia consider their work to be driven by considerations higher than mere vocation they are studying Central Eurasia out of a sense of what can only be described as respect and affection for the peoples of the region.

It is natural that some beginning scholars feel a certain amount of trepidation at the prospect of the great commitment that an area approach demands. Language, history, and culture are not cursory undertakings they require a substantial commitment of a scholars time, energy and dedication. In todays highly competitive academic world there will always be detractors for any approach or orientation that does not seem to offer quick solutions and early bottom line returns. The desire for easy knowledge and instant expertise has led some scholars in the past to criticize area studies approaches as too eclectic, too contextual, and too descriptive to be systematic and fully scientific. Yet such superficial criticism is increasingly being overcome by the urgency of understanding the world in truly empirical terms, that is, in a way that does justice to reality rather than to the preconceived notions of the researcher.

Geography has always been a dominant feature of Central Eurasia. Central Eurasia has been defined by mountain and plain. At the center of Central Eurasia was the Pamir Knot, the great confluence of mountains that linked Central Eurasias five great outward radiating ranges the Himalayas extending southeast; the Karakorum extending southeast; the Hindu Kush extending southwest; the Tian Shan extending northeast; and the Kunlun Shan extending east. The snows and glaciers of these mountains fed the rivers and valleys below. The mountains also fed the groundwater reservoirs that sustained the regions desert oases. The livelihoods of Central Eurasias nomads, pastoralists, agriculturalists, and traders have always been shaped by the regions geography. In turn, the livelihoods have shaped the culture of the peoples of Central Eurasia. Culture refers to a peoples way of life, especially the general practices, customs, attitudes, and beliefs of a people. Culture is the distilled experience of the past, the wisdom of passed generations. Culture is multifaceted, malleable, and evolving. There is no single, comprehensive list of all critical aspects of culture. Understanding culture requires understanding it in its full complexity. Only an area studies approach can make it possible to understand Central Eurasia in its own terms. The Central Eurasian Studies Society has a role to play in making it possible for the rest of the world to appreciate the uniqueness of Central Eurasia.

The Shape of Things to Come

What is Central Eurasia in the fast changing world? It is probably fair to say that the definition of Central Eurasia is evolving. It is the job of the scholar to seek to understand, interpret, and pass on knowledge about what people value and create, how they behave, and how they interact with one another and with the natural environment around them. It is perhaps a bit presumptuous to assert that it is the job of the scholar to define Central Eurasia. The world may offer us definitions that we as scholars find less than satisfactory. Reason does not always determine the course of human affairs. But the Central Eurasian Studies Society has an important contribution to make. Many, perhaps most, ideas of politicians and government officials are little more than the shadows of concepts and ideas that were learned in classroom lectures and discussions many years before.

Particularly after September 11, many national governments began revising their thinking in terms of Central Eurasia as a region of strategic importance. Caspian oil and gas resources obviously play an important role in such reassessments. In a development that would have seemed implausible just a few years ago, American troops are stationed at Gansi airbase in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, cooperating in anti-terrorist activities with Russian Federation troops stationed at the Kant airbase just a few miles away. In deference to the importance of understanding Central Eurasia in its own terms, many major American universities have recently started research programs devoted to the region. We as scholars can serve our discipline best by taking advantage of the new-found importance of the region by incessantly pressing forward in our own institutions and countries with new proposals for programs, projects, and studies developed with an area approach. We must continue to impress upon administrators, politicians, and our colleagues the importance of Central Eurasia.

In his address in the inaugural issue of CESR, John Schoeberlein raised the issue of the definition of Central Eurasia by leaving the demarcation of the region open to the energies and intelligence of the scholars who labor in the field. John argued, any region and especially one which is situated amidst so many others, as Central Eurasia is requires connections and comparisons in many directions. Following that advice, it is important that Central Eurasianists both those who live in the region and those who live in other parts of the world work collaboratively with our scholarly colleagues in Asian, Middle Eastern, and Slavic studies to define the frontiers of our area in a way that does justice to the centrality of Central Eurasia.

Professor Gleason and the editors of CESR invite reader response. Is there a definition, or set of definitions, of Central Eurasia that CESS should promote?

[Contents]

Research Reports and Briefs

Reports

Current Issues in the Study of Traditional Dwelling Space of Mongol-speaking People

Marina Sodnompilova, Culture and Art Studies Department, Institute of Mongolian, Buddhist and Tibetan Studies, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Science, Ulan Ude, Republic of Buryatia, Russia, tscrynnimbitsrv.bsc.buryatia.ru

In 1999 I started a project studying the residential complexes of the Buryat people, the Mongol-speaking group settled in southern Siberia. The study was conducted at and funded by the Institute of Mongolian, Buddhist and Tibetan Studies, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Science. This study covers eleven regions of the Buryat Republic and Ust-Orda Buryat Autonomous Region. The data were collected through interviews, observation, and participation in rituals and household activities, and through the study of folklore materials, myths, and archeological data. Approximately 10-15 residents were interviewed in each village. Usually this group contained only one to three respondents with very deep knowledge of their traditions and customs, who would be interviewed and observed in greater depth. During one summer field trip a total of 250 people were interviewed. The main objects of study were rituals relating to residency, as well as life cycle rituals such as weddings, childbirth, and funerals. They were videotaped and sketched. Special attention was paid to the placement of items inside yurts and the arrangement of decorations according to the rules of internal house zoning. The purpose of the study was to identify the way the different Buryat groups' social structures are represented in their traditional housing.

The traditional approach to the study of dwelling space is to focus on material culture. This ignores numerous other aspects, such as the spiritual content of the house, the image of the house in the traditional interpretation of the world, the symbolic organization of its interior space, housing in the context of ritual and mythological activities, and the connection between the house and social organization. The study of the non-utilitarian aspects of this cultural phenomenon leads to the solution of important theoretical problems, such as how human beings organize and develop their surroundings and how their surroundings orient them socially. This approach also has psychological and behavioral aspects in its focus on the contradiction between the internal and external, where human understanding of external space is contrasted with their view of themselves as beings protected by the walls of their own microspace, that is, their house.

The study of housing structure is an important development in the study of dwelling space. The traditional house of Mongol-speaking people consists of horizontal and vertical systems that organize the space inside a house. The horizontal and vertical space inside the yurt is divided by lines running through the sacred center (the fireplace), with one line separating the entrance and the rear (khoimor) sections, and another the right and left parts. The study of space inside a house provides a map of social space (Leach 2001:66), which in this case plots social divisions based on age (front to back) and gender (left and right). The family has a structure and this structure is communicated in the social context of the house, giving the house a function in enacting social distinctions.

The gender-dividing function of the internal space of the house is accompanied by a specific order in the positioning and usage of household items. In particular, this refers to the arrangement of masculine and feminine items in the traditional yurt. For example, in the male part of the yurt are items such as gear associated with hunting and horses, and the ongon, a religious object that women, especially non-kin, are not allowed to touch. In the female part of the yurt one can find household items such as kitchen utensils, hides, grindstones, and so on. In the khoimor section there is an altar on either side of which are chests. The chest of the right side stores the masculine items and the chest of the left side stores the feminine items.

The social distinction function of the house is also expressed through the allocation of space to honorable and less honorable places that indicate ones social status and age. For example, elderly men occupy the space on the male side, closest to the khoimor, and the lower a guests social status, the closer to the door the guest sits. A similar order is observed on the female side of the house.

The vertical structural planning of the dwelling space is also important and serves as a determining factor in different systems. The analysis of the construction elements of the traditional house reveals a correspondence between the vertical structure of the yurt, the human body, and the Universe. One brief example from our data is the decorations of a house, and especially the felted-wool yurt, which comply with this schema. The lower parts of the yurts wooden railing are referred to as limbs, the upper ones are called heads, and the ornaments on the upper part of the door are referred to as the doors eyes. The objects inside the yurt are placed in accordance with the rules of the vertical structure and the objects semiotic status.

The issue of typologizing traditional dwellings of the Mongol-speaking peoples remains unresolved. Conventional detailed studies mostly focused on felted wool items, while the wooden many-sided yurt of the Buryats, the traditional houses of the Northern territories of the Mongol-speaking people, remain understudied. There are several aspects that differentiate between the wooden and woolen yurts differences in the genesis, the structural arrangement of space, and the performance of an intricate ritual preceding the construction of a house need to be examined.

In general the data on the typology and structure of the traditional houses point to numerous issues, both general and specific, related to the origins of the lexical denotations for different parts of the house, the correspondence of the spatial parameters of the house with the parameters of the external world, and the semantics of house decoration. The grammar of the communicative relations between people in terms of the contradiction between the inside and the outside of a house is a promising topic of research. The next goal of this project is to study the problem of the existence of traditional cultural forms in the context of Buryat residences in contemporary conditions. Specifically, I am interested in the gendered aspect of the organization of space and the meaning and functions of various spaces within houses.

Reference

Leach, Edmund [Edmund Lich]

2001 Kul'tura i kommunikatsiia: Logika vzaimosviazii simvolov. Moskva.

[Contents]

Ethnicity and Inequality Among Migrants in the Kyrgyz Republic

Joseph Boots Allen, Ph.D. Candidate, Population Research Center, University of Texas, Austin, Texas, USA, jballenmail.la.utexas.edu

My research investigates disparities in employment and living standards among migrants and non-migrants of varying ethnicities in urban settings in the Kyrgyz Republic. Its design was established to test the strength of the classic microeconomic approach to the study of migration, which states that individuals migrate to develop larger stores of social capital, boost living standards, and increase chances at greater educational attainment (see Borjas 1987, Chiswick 2000). First I will outline the debate in the migration literature, then I will summarize information on migration statistics for Kyrgyzstan, and then I will discuss my recent fieldwork on this topic.

In the 1990s an emerging body of research began to show that migrants in the developing world were not necessarily becoming advantaged by their move from rural areas to cities (Massey 1996). A study by Brockerhoff and Brennan (1998) with Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data from several developing countries showed infant mortality rates to be higher in urban areas than rural areas in most cases. What this illustrates is that destination choice among migrants is extremely complex and that several factors, not just ones that are socioeconomic in nature, play a role in determining who migrates and where migrants go. Increasingly among these new economics theorists (Massey 1998), ethnicity is being considered a primary factor in migration patterns.

Central Asia is often neglected in debates of ethnic migration patterns. This is unfortunate, as the region is ethnically diverse and has been experiencing heavy migration flows since the breakup of the Soviet Union (Kolstø 1998; Shevtsova 1992). My study concentrates on the Kyrgyz Republic, a country that contains several ethnic groups, many of which are concentrated in specific regions and cities. Migration has been a prominent demographic characteristic in the Kyrgyz Republic, as in the rest of Central Asia, over the past decade.

This study integrates census data from 1989 and 1999 with DHS data from 1997. Substantive data collected from fieldwork has recently been added. The census data display a classic migration pattern for a developing country: heavy immigration and internal migration characterized by rural to urban flight. Analysis of the census data supports past studies in the region that showed a decline in the number of Russians, Ukrainians, and other Europeans in the population due to emigration. Generally, these groups have been migrating to their respective homelands. This phenomenon is important to point out as it represents the most crucial form of brain drain in Central Asia. Russians and other Europeans have typically been the most educated and highly skilled members of the population in Central Asian countries. Therefore, there has been fear that the migration of this segment of the population could prove a liability to the former states of the Soviet Union as they attempt to develop their economy and technological base (Morozova 1993, Kolst 1998).

All rural provinces in the Kyrgyz Republic show population declines after controlling for natural increase. The capital, Bishkek, is experiencing a dramatic population increase due directly to migration. Cross-tabular analyses of the DHS data support these findings, but also show heavy intra-provincial migration within the heavily populated, rural, and very poor provinces of Osh and Jalal-Abad in the south.[1]

DHS data are used to determine the relative advantage of migrants in comparison to non-migrants and different ethnic groups to each other. This data set consists of a representative sample of 3,848 women ranging in age from 15-49.[2] Unemployment and living standards (using a living standards index derived from World Bank and United Nation Development Program living standard indicators) are the independent variables. The three major ethnic groups that are being examined are Slavs (Russians and Ukrainians), Kyrgyz, and Uzbeks. Slavs, the most advantaged group within the population, have far lower unemployment rates and much higher living standards than the Kyrgyz and Uzbeks. Slavic migrants actually have higher employment rates than Slavic non-migrants. The Kyrgyz have higher employment rates and living standards than the Uzbeks, but the rates of the two groups are more similar than the rates of either group are in comparison to the Slavs. Employment rates among Kyrgyz and Uzbek migrants are higher than among their non-migrating counterparts, but their living standards are much lower.

Regression analyses demonstrate that migrants have living standards that are, on average, 30 percent lower than non-migrants. After controlling for education, age, and number of children, living standards for migrants who settle in urban areas went from 1.491 to 1.372. These coefficients are interpreted as odds ratios and represent a 12 percent increase in living standards, where the variable outcome is low standard of living. However, much of this increase is due to the higher living standards among Slavic migrants in the Kyrgyz Republic in general and in cities in particular.

The fieldwork used in this study was conducted in July and August of 2002. Funding was part of the Pre-dissertation Field Research on Urbanization and Internal Migration in Developing Countries Fellowship Program provided by the Mellon Foundation. The fellowship was administered through the Population Research Center, University of Texas at Austin. I conducted the fieldwork in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and the Kyrgyz Republic. In the Kyrgyz Republic, I conducted the majority of my research in the capital of Bishkek and in Issyk-Kul Province.

My field research involved structured interviews with migration officials and employers and informal interviews with both migrants and non-migrants. The interviews confirmed that in terms of internal migration most population flows are from the underdeveloped southern part of the Kyrgyz Republic to the more economically advantaged north. Bishkek is the ultimate destination of migrants, with the urban centers of Osh and Jalal-Abad in the south acting as transit points for movement to the capital. This helps explain the internal movement of Uzbeks within the southern provinces found in the DHS data analyses. Such a pattern exists in other developing countries, where ethnically based networks and enclaves allow migrants to move from rural areas to urban ones within the same province or other administrative district. Once in those urban settings, migrants use their ethnically based connections to find better employment and opportunities in even larger urban settings (such as capitals).

Not all migration flows are going directly to the capital. My field research found that Issyk-Kul Province is also drawing migrants due to its relatively stable economy which is based on the tourism industry active on the northern and eastern shores of Lake Issyk-Kul.[3] This employment, however, is seasonal, and usually draws Russians and Kyrgyz from Bishkek. Flows from the south directly to Issyk-Kul Province are minimal at best. Issyk-Kul Province has traditionally had very few ethnic Uzbeks.

This research supports the predictions of Massey (1996) and the findings of Brockerhoff and Brennan (1998) and Massey et al. (1998) on how the migrant experience in cities of the developing world is changing. Like Massey et al., this study shows the importance of ethnicity when looking at the changing face of urbanization and migration in the developing world. Those of Slavic origin, who have been the most advantaged group in Central Asia, continue to experience high employment rates and living standards, even when they migrate. Much of this may be due to their relatively higher levels of education and work skills. For Slavic migrants in particular, migration to cities means migrating to a setting that has been traditionally dominated by Slavs. No doubt the networks established between migrating and pre-established Slavs give them an advantage in terms of higher status employment and housing. Kyrgyz, and especially Uzbek, migrants have much lower employment rates and living standards than their Slavic counterparts. Uzbek migration has been concentrated in the south, where Uzbeks have traditionally settled. The south remains a relatively poor and underdeveloped part of the country. Thus, their chances of attaining decent employment and living standards are not great.

I presented the findings of this research at the Seventh Annual World Conference of the Association for the Study of Nationalities, Columbia University, New York, April 11-13, 2002. The research continues and I am focusing what I believe are two weaknesses of the study thus far. First, I am examining the role that community (i.e., village and town) and clan-based networks play in internal migration patterns in the Kyrgyz Republic and Kazakhstan. It has been suggested by some that these types of networks might be more important than are broad ethnic ties. Second, I am investigating more thoroughly the migration process in places like Issyk-Kul Province and East Kazakhstan Province in Kazakhstan, where the tourism industry and other rural industries are not only deterring individuals within those provinces from migrating, but are actually drawing in migrants, at least on a seasonal basis.

References

Borjas, George J.

1987 Self-Selection and the earnings of immigrants, American Economics Review, 77: 531-53.

Brockerhoff, Martin, and Ellen Brennen

1998 The poverty of cities in developing regions, Population and Development Review, 4(1) 75-114.

Cheswick, Barry R.

2000 Are immigrants self selected: An economic analysis, In: Migration Theory: Talking across Disciplines, Caroline B. Brettell and James F. Hollifield, eds., New York: Routledge.

Kolst, Pl

1998 Anticipating demographic superiority: Kazakh thinking on integration and nation building, Europe-Asia Studies, 50(1) 51-69.

Massey, Doug S.

1996 The age of extremes: Concentrated affluence and poverty in the 21st century, Demography, 33(4) 395-412.

1998 Worlds in Motion: Understanding International Migration at the End of the Millennium. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Morozova, G. F.

1993 Vliianie migratsii na formirovanie rynka truda [The impact of migration on the formation of the labor market], Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, 1993(5) 12-6.

Shevtsova, Lilia.

1992 Post-Soviet emigration today and tomorrow, International Migration Review, 26(2) 241-257.

Notes

[1] Batken Province was not considered in the DHS data analysis as it was not an official administrative district at the time of the survey (1997).

[2] DHS data sets are only representative samples of women age 15-49. They are used primarily to investigate reproductive health and child health. However, they are very useful for examining other issues such as conditions among migrants and comparing conditions among rural vs. urban residents. DHS data was used because it is one of the few nationally representative independent data sets for the Kyrgyz Republic.

[3] These data come from interviews conducted with officials from the International Organization for Migration, Bishkek, and employers and workers in the tourism industry in Issyk-Kul Province during July and August, 2002.

[Contents]

Field Report on Oral and Archival Histories of Collectivization in Uzbekistan

Russell Zanca, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, Illinois, USA, rzancaneiu.edu

Introduction

In Spring of 2002 I worked in Tashkent and Nurota (Navoii Province), Uzbekistan, on the second year of what will be a four to five year oral and archival history project on the nature of Stalinist collectivization as experienced by peasants. My principal colleague, Dr. Marianne Kamp (University of Wyoming), and I will resume research starting February, 2003. To our satisfaction, this year we added members from Uzbekistans Young Scholars Organization (Yosh Olimalar JamgharmasiYO) to our team, including Drs. Elyor Karimov and Komil Kalonov. Kalonov worked with me in interviewing 14 elders of the semidesert and mountainous district of Nurota. We spent eight days traveling throughout this district long famed for pastoralism and Qarakl sheep production, gaining a sense of what the impact of collectivized agriculture and pastoralism meant to the lives of the interviewees and what kinds of key events or social processes they seemed able to recall. Working with contacts and local residents, we visited the elders in their homes and asked permission to discuss the topics covered by our questionnaire.

Kamp and I developed the idea to gather oral histories back in 1999-2000, and we began proposing the project to funders in late 2000. Kamp had worked in Namangan earlier, doing research that involved interviewing elders, and I had carried out my own research on villages in Namangan. Although we were aware of the multitude of Soviet sources on collectivization in Uzbekistan and have since deepened our knowledge of this literature, we thought it was important to examine collectivization in Central Asia, as Western scholars have already been doing in Russia and Ukraine. We knew from the outset that we would have an enormous amount of work to do with the archival materials alone, but we also vetted the idea of finding witnesses, hoping that if we could find those who were still mentally competent we then would be able to present eyewitness evidence that had never been recorded or memorialized.

Methods and Strategies

The process of conducting this research has been marked by challenges, not just in the research process, but from our colleagues, both in the U.S. and in Uzbekistan. We knew that if we were to do this research thoroughly, we would need at least three years of fieldwork and archival collection, and we also knew that once we began to interview we would have to return to Uzbekistan often because our aged informants might not live much longer. Furthermore, we would need to carry out the research over this length of time because we would want to work in different areas that reflect the countrys ethnolinguistic and economic differences (i.e., cotton farming as opposed to sheep pastoralism). This is why we situated ourselves in the Ferghana valley in 2001 and in Navoii in 2002. We plan to visit Khorezm and Karakalpakistan this spring, and to conduct interviews in 2004 in at least two other areas of Uzbekistan. In 2002 I received grants from both IREX and my home institution, Northeastern Illinois University, obtaining a short-term grant in the case of the former and whats known as a core research grant in the latter. Happily, Kamp and I were awarded a two-year research grant last August by NCEEER (National Council for Eurasian and East European Research) to complete the research portion of the project.

We understood from colleagues who were critical of our approach that this project would not be without its problems, even if we could find witnesses to the period. The two prominent warnings were: 1) people would no longer be cognitively competent and 2) they might not feel at ease speaking to Americans about this eventful period in their lives. In spite of these concerns our actual fieldwork has gone rather smoothly thanks to the assistance of local colleagues and others. For example, in Nurota we were fortunate to have the services of a driver who, while neither an academic nor an intellectual, demonstrated an intuitive grasp of our mission. This made him a fine asset in explaining the nature of our aims to local officials and ordinary folk. The importance of our local contacts cannot be emphasized enough, for these are the people who know where potential interviewees are, know interviewees particular characters, unique personal histories, etc., and they are able to work as terrific facilitators, enabling informants to understand why we want to interview them and smoothing out linguistic difficulties.

Having undertaken fieldwork in Uzbekistan over the course of ten years, I can say that ordinary people seem to be slightly but steadily freer in the way they interact with and speak to Americans, even as local and provincial authorities help to bolster the states authoritarian outlook on life that brooks little dissent and tolerates only the barest of openness. Also, scholarship and intellectual life continue to be vibrant in Uzbekistan despite bossy ideological proclamations from on high.

Shortcomings and Misgivings

While our Western colleagues have challenged our methods on pragmatic terms, our Uzbekistani colleagues have confronted us with substantial philosophical issues. Kalonov and I discussed whether or not the people we interviewed and worked with felt that the ideas and questions of the project were worthwhile. However, several people suggested that such interviews were necessary so that contemporary young people and coming generations would have a better understanding of what had happened to their forebears. Back in Tashkent, colleagues from YO and I conducted scientific discussion sessions both at YO headquarters and at the History Institute to investigate responses to our findings and ideas.

These discussions were animated and very useful to me because I gained an understanding that I had really never had from nearly a decades worth of previous social science work in Central Asia. Now my work and involvement with these scholars was a part of other peoples sense of their own past, and the reconstruction of collectivization history must take into account many facets of local life that were tinged by far more gray than black and white distinctions. Simply put, this second round of collectivization research reinforced my commitment to a methodology that embraces cross-cultural collegiality. At the History Institute in Tashkent, for example, senior scholars cautioned us to be careful about the very nature of our questions because one might run the risk of predisposing informants to portray collectivization positively. One person asked if I myself didnt have a neo-communist position in claiming that most of the interviewees looked upon the vicissitudes of collectivization positively. I was more than a little surprised by this allegation, but I calmly explained that in no way was I conducting interviews mainly to provide evidence for one ideological persuasion or another. In general I take the challenges very seriously, and I really think they will serve our writing well.

I have spent a long time wondering if this project really has value based solely on the practice of interviewing and talking to witnesses to collectivization. The intrinsic worthiness of dragging these peoples memories back from buried vaults of consciousness in their senescence doesnt always seem so transparent to me. The value of the interviews has to be tempered by both a cross-disciplinary theoretical perspective and a comparative effort that examines other works framing social histories of collectivization. We are always rethinking and reassessing the kinds of questions that we ask, although we think it is nearly impossible to anticipate all the ways biases may be built into questions or how a particular question is going to be received.[1]

We know that however many interviews we manage to record and however many patterns in thought about the period we are able to discern, we will still be inscribing a fragment of meaning in the entire appraisal of collectivization in Uzbekistan. Operating from a dictum that all truths and histories are partial, and that the relating of the past changes as time passes, I feel that I am left needing to reiterate the overall usefulness or good of the work. The point is that ethnographic methods not only give us the opportunity to try to represent those who have never had a chance to recount their recollections, but also help us see and feel what conditions of existence may have been like based on the settings we enter today. Surroundings, terrain, resources, and living conditions at present provide a window to the past, since our informants physically demonstrate how the present is like and unlike the past. This knowledge cannot be gained from the primary and secondary sources now available. Thus, weaknesses of our oral history project notwithstanding, I am sure that the greatest benefit of our research will have little to do with showing that a representative sample of collectivization survivors in Uzbekistan, for example, favored or disavowed Stalinist collectivization. Rather, it will be that we acted upon the realization that a major source of information on the collectivization period had been largely neglected and should to be tapped to make collectivization history more multifaceted and complete.

Ultimate Goals

In addition to the obvious business of churning out articles, we are hoping to write a pathbreaking book. Equally important to the project will be success in forging collegiality that will set a new and exciting tone for cross-national research between Americans and Uzbeks. We think that we are on that path right now, and that we have the support and commitment to research from those whose guidance we seek as they benefit from our ability to entertain new approaches to anthropology and history and provide funding to continue Uzbekistans tradition of scholarship. I am speaking here precisely about the History Institute and YO.

Collectivization is a branch of Uzbekistani historical scholarship now up for major revision as its Soviet manifestation is re-examined. While there have been zealous attempts to paint the Soviet period with a broad black brush, the last few years have seen some serious and important reevaluations of collectivization. Here I would include recent essays by Alimova and Golovanov (2000), Germanov (2000), and Karimov, ed. (2001). While such essays are not completely about collectivization, they all deal with it in novel and nuanced ways that we would not have seen even as recently as ten years ago. It is in this new investigative and broad-minded spirit that we hope to make a substantial contribution to collectivization that benefits people in Uzbekistan as much as it will benefit Western scholarship.

References

Alimova, D. A. and Golovanov, A. A.

2000 zbekiston mustabid sovet tzimi davrida: sisii va mafkuravii tazĭiq oqibatlari. Tashkent: zbekiston.

Germanov, V. A.

2000 Istoriia Turkestana v usloviiakh politicheskogo terrora 20-30-kh godov. Tashkent: Uzbekiston.

Karimov, Naim, ed.

2001 Khalq khotirasi oldida bosh egamiz. Tashkent: Sharq.

Notes

[1] As an example, one scholar whom I greatly admire and respect suggested that our question concerning the arrival of European-style shoes and clothing may be leading informants to think that such things were necessarily good and progressive, and therefore the informants themselves were being led to see such aspects of collectivization (as a new way of life) as positive. Naturally, he may be on to something; however, we have had informants tell us point blank what they liked and did not like. One elder said, I never could stand socks and I dont wear them to this day. He then removed a worn overshoe to show us his bare foot.

[Contents]

Reviews and Abstracts

Book Reviews

Stephane A. Dudoignon and Komatsu Hisao, eds. Islam in Politics in Russia and Central Asia (Early Eighteenth to Late Twentieth Centuries). London: Kegan Paul International, 2001, 375 pp. ISBN: 0710307675.

Reviewed by: Suchandana Chatterjee, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, Kolkata, India, suchandanachatterjeehotmail.com

The world of Islam continues to be a focal point of study for scholars who are keen to observe the variety of social and political trends in Central Eurasia. In the post-Soviet period there is an emphasis on the cultural attributes of Islam and discussions revolve around Islam as a way of life, the social origins of the Islamic community, and diversity within Islam. Though there is considerable interest in the politicization of Islam in Central Asia, there is hardly any focus on Central Eurasia as a frontier of Islamic Area Studies. Also, research on the intellectual history of the Muslim communities of the Russian Empire, the USSR and post-Soviet Central Asia and the evolution of Muslim politics in the past three decades is very rare. Islam in Politics in Russia and Central Asia (Early Eighteenth to Twentieth Centuries), jointly edited by Stphane Dudoignon and Komatsu Hisao, and the product of a colloquium organized by the Islamic Area Studies group of the University of Tokyo in October of 1999, tries to fill this gap in research about Muslim communities who have played a significant role in imperial Russian, Soviet and Central Asian politics. The book brings to light the evolution of Muslim politics under non-Muslim domination in Central Asia and Russia. Authors have drawn attention to the twin phenomena of co-optation and subordination of Muslim elements in Central Eurasia. The book also deals with the current situation, in which the Muslims have been thrown into the vortex of international politics.

However, there is not an overemphasis on the significance of religion in Central Asian politics. As pointed out by the editors in the preface, contributors have tried to reverse stereotyped explanations about the relationship between religion and politics. In the process it becomes possible to pinpoint the attributes of a Muslim community. It is also interesting to read about social relationships between members of the community, the internal contradictions within that community, assertion of identities centered around various social groups (like the Tatar merchant class of Kazan), and the spatial development of an administrative division (municipality).

The book is divided into four parts. In the first three parts the authors have dealt with (a) the evolution of Muslim intellectual history from the late eighteenth century to the contemporary period, (b) the working of a community identity within the State and (c) intellectual activity in and around Central Asia. The creation of an urban mentalit through institutions and informal associations is discussed. There is an analysis of the world of Islam the faith, social structures (communities), the literati (udaba) and the clergy (ulema). Christian Noack and Ramil Khayrutddinov strongly criticize the hypothesis that Muslim society is impervious to outside influence and bars intellectuals and leaders from the decision-making process. To supplement their argument they have shown how in 19th century imperial Russia, particularly in the Governor Generalship of Kazan, considerable local authority rested in the hands of the Volga Tatars. The evolution of the Tatar ratusha as a municipal body is an example of this phenomenon. The ratusha evolved as an organ of local self-government and was largely managed by the Tatar merchants. Noack explores the ways in which informal arrangements within the framework of an empire resulted in the integration of Muslim learned men. Noacks work is an addition to earlier accounts by Michael Kemper and Allen J. Frank about the role of Tatar Muslim traders in the business transactions of the Russian state.

Dudoignons article on the development of strains within the Muslim religious community in late Imperial Russia deserves attention. In a comprehensive and rare treatment of zakat as a form of institutionalized property, Dudoignon shows how the collection of zakat solidified the umma and strengthened community identity. Muslim institutionalized property (zakat, waqf) was the principal means of exercising spiritual control over the members of the society. This control, however, degenerated with time. Dudoignon shows how, despite such control, cleavages appeared among various sections of the Muslim community (bais, ulema, muallims, imams, etc.). Dissension also arose within Jadidist ranks. Dudoignons analysis of divisive trends within the Muslim ulema and udaba reinvigorates the discussion about Jadid reformism and indicates the limitations in the study of Jadidism. According to him, the Jadidist discourse ignored the existence of internal divisions within Jadid circles and the emergence of new trends that produced fissures within the Islamic hierarchy. One such trend was the penetration of private capital and its concentration in the hands of the imams, which produced cracks within the ulema. The reformers did not like the accumulation of private fortunes by the clergy, and this became the subject of their criticism of religious leaders. Dudoignons article sharply brings to light debates concerning the diminishing importance of Muslim institutionalized property and the overriding significance of private capital that restructured the Muslim community. Discussions surrounding the ideological conflict between the Jadid intelligentsia and the ulema were also reflected in the critical press of Ufa, Orenburg and Kazan. Studies of the local press indicate the vibrant mentalit of the intellectuals of Central Eurasia.

Community identity was articulated through mass movements (as in the case of the Kazakhs and the Alash movement of 1916) and demands for independence (as in the case of the Uzbeks as expressed by the Bukharan premier Faizullah Khojaev). Obiya Chika is concerned with Khojaevs intentions as Bukharan premier after the Bukharan Revolution of 1920. For her an understanding of the Uzbek identity of Khojaev is crucial because it finally determined his decisions about the delimitation of the Uzbek state in 1924. Such decisions marginalized the Tajiks in the decision-making process of the Young Bukharan Republic. Such analysis is very useful in understanding the present Uzbek nationalist urge to valorize Faizullah Khojaev as the national hero of Uzbekistan. Also, from Obiyas article one gets the impression that Khojaev was solely concerned with Bukharas independence. However, there is not enough evidence during 1920-24 to substantiate that argument. Bukharan issues lost prominence the moment the Uzbek SSR was created in 1924. Khojaev was the man responsible for it, and Obiya seems to ignore this. The articles of Thierry Zarcone and Shinmen Yasushi touch upon lesser-known aspects of Eastern Turkestan. The strong chord of unity among the Sufi shaykhs of Ferghana, Qashghar and Khotan during the 1930s and 1940s points to the religious linkages between the nomadic and sedentary regions of Central Asia. Such analyses differ greatly from views about regionalism and sentiment that lack an understanding of the symbiotic relationship between the nomads and the sedentary population.

Istanbul as the cradle of Central Asian intellectualism acquires prominence in Komatsus article. Renowned as a specialist for his research on Fitrat, Komatsu carries his specialization further by highlighting Munazara [Debate], Fitrats mouthpiece in Istanbul. In his article Komatsu reasserts his argument about the development of group identity among Young Bukharan Jadid intellectuals who tried to build networks through correspondence and informal gatherings. The author describes the ways in which Fitrat, the leading member of this group, organized his reading circle for the Ottoman journal Sirat-ul-Mustaqim in Istanbul.

The advent of new consciousness is the subject of Naim Karimovs article on 20th century Uzbek literature. The article attempts to look into the ways in which Uzbek literature was represented by educated reformers. From Fitrat to Abdullah Qadiry, pre-Soviet and post-Soviet generations of Uzbek litterateurs have been engaged in writing satires that caricature various aspects of religious orthodoxy. This article seems to be a tribute to the pre-Soviet Jadidist heritage. Abdullah Qadiry is considered to have belonged to that lineage. In Karimovs article attention is drawn to less publicized journals like Xudosizlar and Mustum as much as to popular poetry and the plays of writers who were once purged as dogmatists during the Soviet period.

Despite serious concern about re-Islamization in Central Asia, Bakhtiyar Babadjanov and Muzaffar Kamilov reflect upon the need to rehabilitate theologians like Muhammadjan Hindustani. Greatly respected and rehabilitated as a religious figure during the post-Stalinist period, Hindustani and traditionalists like him found their status as intellectuals who were educated in centers of Islamic learning in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan and the Indian part of the Kashmir valley, and later spread contacts in the entire region. Therefore, the co-optation of religious figures that we see in Central Asia today is not an entirely new phenomenon. The Soviets practiced it in the 1960s and the present Central Asian governments (like Tajikistan) are doing the same in the post-Civil War period. Hindustanis charisma is comparable to that of Qazi Akbar Turajonzoda, argues the Tajik scholar Parviz Mullajanov. Despite their charisma, such personalities have not been able to unify their followers. There has been a schism within the ranks of the umma. In a case study, Mullajanov indicates that there were fissures within the Islamist movement in Tajikistan. As time passed, the young mullahs wavered and reoriented their ideology according to the fluid political situation in the republic. Such arguments point to the cracks within the Islamic movement, and also to the myth concerning the potency of an Islamic threat in Tajikistan.

Part Four of the book deals with the issue of the re-Islamization of Central Eurasia. Discussions revolve round both religious and cultural aspects of revival. There is an interesting observation by Aleksei Malashenko that younger generations of Muslims in the Russian Federation are inclined towards spiritual reincarnation. As a result of their identification with common religious traditions and customs, Muslim youth in Russia are able to cohere as members of an ethnic group. Malashenkos argument therefore is that there is a very fine thread of distinction between religious revivalists and cultural revivalists. Muslims in Russias north, the North Caucasus, the Volga region, the Urals and Siberia identify themselves as members of the Islamic umma. In other areas, the younger generations of Muslims are more conscious of their cultural and nationalist identity. Similar distinctions can also be made between official Islam and parallel Islam. Rafyq Muhammatshin expresses the States renewed interest in the subject of parallel Islam, symbolized by Tengrism in Tatarstan that signifies the relationship between man and his environment.

Sometimes revivalism leads to social strains. This, according to Irina Kostyukova, was particularly observed in southern Kyrgyzstan, where the traditional nomadic-pastoralist aul-based community structure disintegrated after Soviet dissolution. In the post-Soviet period, economic hardships have resulted in a struggle for survival that led to the fragmentation of the Kyrgyz clan structure. Three distinct social groups with varied interests emerged. These social groups are villagers, city dwellers, and a marginalized group of urban migrants who moved to the cities in search of livelihood and have consistently faced the challenge of the Russian-educated intellectual class. To withstand this challenge Kyrgyz intellectuals have suggested spiritual reincarnation as a way of societal progress. From 1998 onwards, migrants and settlers have increasingly associated themselves with the past. Such responses indicate the transformation of the Kyrgyz mentalit. The trend of spiritualism has affected social relations in southern Kyrgyzstan. Competition for better living between new groups of migrants and older generations of settlers has disturbed the ethos of community based on kinship ties. In the northern and central regions however, such ties remain intact and continue to influence power structures in the republic. Such divergent trends account for regionalism in Kyrgyzstan, as well as in the neighboring republic of Tajikistan.

John Schoeberleins account of the Ferghana Valley as the cockpit of insurgency in Central Asia indicates the paranoia about Islamic revivalism. He shows how the attitude of the Central Asian governments towards Islamic radicalism has evolved with time.

This is a useful book due to its analysis of Muslim intellectual traditions in Russia and Central Asia. Discussions about the evolution of Muslim politics and the role of Muslim institutions in generating a feeling of community offer a rare insight into the world of tradition. Such an approach leads to fresh insights about re-Islamization.

[Contents]

Mark R. Beissinger, Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 2002. ISBN: 0521806704, 052100148 X (pb).

Reviewed by: Kathleen E. Smith, Adjunct Professor, Department of Government, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., USA, kes8georgetown.edu

Mark Beissinger tackles one of the central failures of social scientists in recent years, the failure to anticipate the demise of the Soviet Union. In explaining how the once seemingly impossible disintegration of the centralized Soviet state became a foregone conclusion, Beissinger draws our attention to the role of agency in the form of nationalist mobilization. He employs event analysis to break nationalist mobilization into distinct factors of structure and agency. He then demonstrates how in times of condensed activity one can see the impact of action itself on structure. Beissinger uses the framing metaphor of tides to capture the dynamic of nationalisms growth in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Beissinger bases his study on a massive database of 6,663 protest demonstrations of over 100 participants and 2,177 mass violent events between 1987 and 1992. He and his research assistants compiled this data primarily by mining 150 different news sources covering the time span in question. The large compilation of events and their careful classification provide Beissinger with the grist for extensive statistical analysis of waves of mobilization and the effects of structural factors, most notably population density, ethnofederal status, degree of linguistic assimilation, and urbanization.

Beissinger offers a persuasive account and innovative theory regarding the tidal aspects of nationalism in the former USSR. He shows how events built upon each other across ethnic boundaries. In this regard, he offers a fascinating picture of the influence of early mobilization in the Baltics and the Caucasus. For those readers interested in Central Asian nationalism, Beissinger devotes equally close attention to opportunities for activism that went unrealized. In particular, he discusses the diffusion of nationalist mobilization in Uzbekistan.

This erudite and sophisticated study of the late Soviet period will be of the most interest to those who study nationalism. It offers both a novel approach to the topic of nationalism based on a close reading of major theorists and a huge quantity of data on the former Soviet republics. I offer up only two caveats to readers. For those who want insight into what Beissinger aptly labels the spectaclelike quality of protests that makes [them] important site[s] of cultural transaction at which national identities are potentially formed (p. 22), this is not a book that conveys a vivid sense of what these demonstrations were like. Although Beissinger quotes moving eyewitness testimony to describe episodes of mass violence, he never attempts to capture what these demonstrations looked and felt like.

Second, the database at the empirical heart of this study is compromised somewhat by its almost exclusive reliance on Russian and English language media and by the authors apparent lack of consideration of the spotty, politicized and contradictory nature of reporting on demonstrations. Hence, based on three different press accounts, Beissinger refers to one demonstration as having consisted of three thousand to ten thousand people (p. 387) a rather significant difference! Media reports not only differ drastically in their estimates of the size of protests, they also in my experience usually offer up only a sampling of slogans witnessed. This partial coverage means that the presence of a few nationalist flags and slogans may skew classification of a demonstration that was largely about a non-nationalist issue.

[Contents]

Ronald Grigor Suny and Terry Martin (eds.), A State of Nations: Empire and Nation-Making in the Age of Lenin and Stalin. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001. xii + 307 pp., map, index. ISBN: 0195144228, 0195144236 (pb).

Reviewed by: Richard Sakwa, Professor of International Relations, Head of the Department, Politics and International Relations, University of Kent, Canterbury, United Kingdom, r.sakwaukc.ac.uk

This collection of articles makes a fundamentally important contribution to our understanding of early Soviet nationality politics. It offers a series of studies acting as windows on the complex reality that the Bolsheviks faced, while at the same time all the studies demonstrate that Bolshevik policies themselves evolved and adapted to new perceptions of reality and the changing circumstances. Certain basic principles persisted, however, and the way that the interrelationship between the modernizing ideology and the realities of a multinational country changed is at the heart of the studies presented in this volume. The work in effect renders redundant earlier simplistic portrayals of Bolshevik policy as a given rather than being rooted in historical legacies and evolving discursive frameworks. One puts down this book having learned a lot, and not just facts but a number of different ways of seeing certain problems.

The tone is set in the introduction by Suny and Martin, where they explore the implications of the historiographical shift from interest in studying the politics of class to multifarious investigations of the idea of the nation and problems of political and national identity. In addition, the emphasis in Soviet studies has shifted from Russocentric analysis to a broader understanding of the Soviet Union as a multiethnic state. The very notion of Russianness itself is being rethought. In this connection the authors argue that an inflexible understanding of the USSR as an imperial power does not begin to do justice to the complex relationship between the peoples that made it up, and between the peoples and the authorities. A further dialectic is that between communism and nationalism, and at the same time problems of economic and national development interacted sometimes in surprising ways.

The question of empire is addressed directly by Suny in his chapter. Drawing on the work of Mark Beissinger, Suny notes the shifting normative value attached to the concept of empire. When successful, people seek to be associated with it, but when crisis hits nations they disassociate themselves faster than rats from a sinking ship! Sunys essay is an outstanding study of the ambiguity of the relationship between center and periphery in multinational states. Clearly, if the concept of empire is ambiguous then so is the notion of decolonization as the many peoples of Russia are today discovering.

Martins chapter provides a concise summary of his arguments in his earlier book on the Soviet Union as an affirmative action empire. His work is a powerful corrective to those who have seen the Soviet Union as little more than a Russian empire in red workers clothes. Martin stresses that the affirmative action empire continued right through to the end of Stalins rule despite Stalins destruction of native elites and repudiation of many of the principles of korenizatsiia.

Other essays offer wide-ranging evaluation of aspects of nationality politics during the revolution and later. It is particularly welcome that some of the authors are new to the field, with some of the work presented here coming straight out of archive-based doctoral research. Joshua Sanborn discusses the process of nation building in Russia between 1905 and 1925, where he notes that from 1914 a sense of Russia as a nation began to override traditional patrimonial and exclusive representations of the state. A national identity was gradually born that moved beyond traditional autocratic values. As he puts it, the nation-state eclipsed the police state (p. 95).

Peter Holquist looks at the role of population statistics and the politics of managing national groups. His study is a marvelous example of how technocracy in the twentieth century undermined democracy. Peoples were managed by numbers, and often as a result killed in great numbers. Population statistics were far from neutral and were used to manage interethnic relations.

Adeeb Khalid examines the politics of Jadidism (reform Islam) in Central Asia during the revolution. He notes above all the shifting role of reform Islam, sometimes for Moscow and sometimes against. More than this, Jadidists in Central Asia at first looked to the West as a source of inspiration, but the First World War, the collapse of the Ottoman empire and the imperial pretensions of Britain and France in the Moslem world turned many in the region towards anti-imperialistic positions, a shift swiftly exploited by the Bolsheviks.

Daniel E. Schafers work on the birth of the republic of Bashkortostan during the revolution is a fascinating study of nation-building on the Volga. Lenins decision to create and support a separate Bashkir republic repudiated earlier commitments to create a united Tatar-Bashkir republic. That decision in 1919/1920 still has important legacies today, despite some attempts to recreate the ideal of Idel-Ural, a Tatar-dominated Volga-Ural republic.

Douglas Northrop shifts our attention to the question of gender, empire and Uzbek identity. This is a sensitive study of changing womens attitudes towards the Bolsheviks from the perspective of women themselves. Matt Payne looks at the tensions between Russian and Kazakh workers building the Turksib Railway, connecting Novosibirsk with Tashkent, during the first five year plan (1928-1932). The affirmative action policies pursued by the Bolsheviks, particularly in employment practices, provoked a backlash among Russian workers that sometimes took violent forms.

A fascinating chapter by Peter A. Blitstein on Russian instruction in Soviet Russian schools between 1938 and 1953 demonstrates Stalins continued commitment to the concept of the affirmative action empire, even as he destroyed native elites and sponsored greater Russian-language teaching. Stalin insisted that non-Russians should retain the right to be instructed in their own language, although at the same time he still urged the practical need for non-Russians to learn Russian. The dialectic between nation-building and Russification is far more complex than is often portrayed.

The final chapter by David Brandenberger looks towards the future by examining debates within the historical profession during the Second World War. These debates assessing Russias pre-Soviet past (whether there was something progressive in Russian imperial expansion), and in particular the history of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic revealed tension between internationalists and attempts to nationalize history. Was the colonization of Kazahkstan a lesser evil? The focus of the chapter is the debate over A. M. Pankratovas History of the Kazakh SSR from the Earliest Times to Our Days, published in 1943. These historiographical debates, as Roger Markwick has demonstrated so well, began to open spaces for a paradigm shift in the role and status of academic life in the Soviet Union that prefigured the breakdown of Bolshevik ideological orthodoxy.

In short, this is a fine collection of stimulating essays and anyone wishing to understand early Soviet nationality policy should make this essential reading.

[Contents]

Edwin G. Pulleyblank, Central Asia and Non-Chinese Peoples of Ancient China. Aldershot, Eng.: Ashgate Variorum, 2002, xii + 312 pp., ISBN: 0860788598.

Reviewed by: Stephen Chan, Professor of International Relations, Dean of Law and Social Sciences, SOAS, University of London, United Kingdom, s.chansoas.ac.uk

This volume is part of the Ashgate Variorum series and, as such, reproduces a number of essays as they first appeared. This means that the essays have not been updated or annotated and, because the original journal pages were used for the photographic plates from which this volume was printed, their original page numbers have also been reproduced causing confusion only partially offset by the insertion of roman numerals to indicate the order of the essays. Different typefaces and typesizes have also been reproduced, so that while the volume is both a record as well as a selection of some of the authors best essays, it is also a frustrating and unbeautiful beast.

Pulleyblank probably deserves better, but, given the narrow and esoteric nature of his branch of sinology, we should be happy to have this volume at all. A significant figure in the debates on the historical origins of the Chinese peoples and their languages, his has always been an original and elegant contribution.

What we have here are 14 essays, dating from 1954 to 1999, so we are only five years short of an indicative record of a half century of consistently skillful work. This work is, essentially, one of comparative and forensic linguistics tracing linguistic roots in the Chinese language and seeking to identify certain crossover points and influences from other languages. Because until recently this was a very small academic discipline, many of Pulleyblanks essays consist in a debate within a rather small group of scholars. It is only recently that new younger scholars have brought to this debate tools to do with computer-based modeling, and Pulleyblank is unable to express any great commentary on their results.

Similarly, he relies on the work of archaeologists to furnish him with platforms for what must remain, at days end, well-judged suggestiveness; for that is what he does. He provides well and closely argued suggestions as to what was likely a point of origin, a point of crossover, or a point of influence and he is highly adept in indicating the difficulty or impossibility of accepting the arguments behind the suggestions of others. As he himself says, the dead however archaeologically uncovered cannot speak; and our knowledge of, e.g., second century Chinese contains, in any case, speculative subjectivities; never mind our knowledge of early forms of other languages.

Within all these, which to outsiders might seem significant parameters, Pulleyblanks work is simply superb. The various intersections of early Chinese with Austroasiatic (Vietnamese, Khymer, etc.), Tibetan-Burman, Turkic, Indo-European (indeed, Slavic, Greek, Latin, and even Celtic) languages are traced and dissected with a forensic skill based on an immense erudition and linguistic methodologies. Sometimes the intricacies of argument are lightened by examples of Chinese observations of their neighbors, which seem always descriptive rather than themselves forensic and investigative and amazingly polite. The commonly-supposed nomadic and warlike people of about 500 AD known as the High Carts (although Tall Chariots might be a less unflattering rendition), squat on the ground and behave unceremoniously, without any inhibitions or restraints, meaning that they had no qualms about defecating in public.

What Pulleyblank demonstrates by the sheer weight of his materials and interpretations is that what we know as homogenously Chinese was nothing of the sort. The origin of the Chinese was, to many extents, a series of compositions of various groups who finally politically merged. The resistance to merger is still evident today in Tibet and other minority groups, often of a Transcaucasian or Turkic nature. He also indicates the debt early Chinese civilization had to influences from the west, so that what we take to be the autonomous and leading scientific development of China took place within a quite late and historically compressed period.

This book is a collection of essays for the specialist. There is an emerging paradigm, based on formal scientific modeling, that may come to regard Pulleyblank and his generation as antiquarians and antiquated. With the tools he had, however, Pulleyblanks is a huge accomplishment. For the non-specialist there is much of interest here, a story revealed, and received assumptions heavily qualified.

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Ahmed Rashid, Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press/World Policy Institute, 2002. xviii + 281 pp., 2 maps, appendix, glossary, notes, index. ISBN: 0300093454, $24.00.

Reviewed by: Adeeb Khalid, Department of History, Carleton College, Northfield, Minn., USA, akhalidcarleton.edu

Ahmed Rashid is a Pakistani journalist whose earlier book on the Taliban was made a bestseller in the U.S. by the events of September 11, 2001. That book was justifiably praised for its fine reportage and the author's command of the intricacies of Afghan politics. Central Asia, however, is not Afghanistan, and Rashid's grasp of factual detail (or of necessary languages) does not extend beyond the Amu Darya. In particular, Rashid's knowledge of the history of the region and its Soviet context is woefully inadequate for the task. Chapter 2 provides a brief survey of the region's history from prehistory to 1917, where we are told that "Mir Alisher Navai ... created the first Turkic script, which replaced Persian" (p. 23), and that the Tsarist regime developed "large cotton plantations" and established "large factories manned by Russian workers" (p. 25). Chapter 3 deals with the Soviet period, which is absolutely crucial for understanding the contemporary period. Rashid, however, does not go beyond repeating well worn Cold War clichs. The Soviet regime was little more than a thick blanket that smothered local society, but from which it emerged largely unchanged at independence. Hence the remarkable statement that, "When independence finally came, in 1991, the Central Asians, ideologically speaking, were still back in the 1920s" (p. 35). Rashid simply does not comprehend the massive transformations wrought by seven decades of Soviet rule in local understandings of religion, politics, and culture, which produced new political and intellectual elites that were quite at home in the Soviet context. Nor can he account for the many ways in which Islam came to be intertwined with ethnic and regional identities.

All of which affects Rashids basic argument about the present. The core of the book is provided by four chapters on different militant Islamic movements: the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan, the Hizb-i Tahrir in Uzbekistan, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. On the whole, this is fine reporting. Rashid spins tales of his encounters with several leaders of the movements he discusses. But while he paints a rich picture of the movements in question, he provides no context. We get little sense that these movements exist in a political context that was radically de-Islamized in the Soviet period and that remains so; that claims to Islam coexist with claims to the nation; and that other varieties of Islam whether the folk or everyday Islam of the bulk of the population or the conservative, quietist Hanafi Islam of the majority of the ulama are much more popular than the militant version discussed here. Also, Rashids reliance on interpreters occasionally leads to dubious outcomes. He reports attending a clandestine Muslim wedding in a kolkhoz in the Ferghana valley in 1989, in which a sheep was slaughtered in secrecy and the feast was held at the crack of dawn to avoid the security police (p. 41). Now, such feasts (toy) were, in the late Soviet period, a major Uzbek tradition and a basic expression of Uzbek identity, and they were traditionally held at the crack of dawn. Clearly, some of Rashids local friends were not above pulling his leg and telling him what he wanted to hear.

Rashid explains the rise of militancy in terms of the woeful economic situation of the region and the corruption and authoritarianism of the regimes that have run Central Asian states since independence. The problems of Central Asia are internal, and will not go away with the military defeat of the militants. The solution would be market reform and the creation of a democratic system that permitted legal Islamic parties to participate. Most of these conclusions are unexceptionable, though they often arise from questionable assumptions about the contemporary situation. For Rashid, it is natural that Islam (i.e., militant, politicized Islam) should replace the cultural vacuum left by the Soviet Union. He grossly underestimates the power of nationalism to provide other answers, or the possibilities of alternative understandings of Islam emerging.

Ultimately, this is an instant book generated by September 11. It was apparently in progress when the events of September 11, 2001, sent the authors previous book on the Taliban skyrocketing to the top of national bestseller lists. This book was then rushed through the press, and it hit American bookstores before the dust from the bombing of Afghanistan had even settled. The haste shows in the numerous contradictions, factual errors, and editing mistakes throughout the book, while the heat of the moment colors some of Rashids conclusions, most notably the self-contradictory statement that by joining the U.S.-led alliance against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, [Central Asian regimes] have given their countries a tremendous opportunity for change, economic development, and democracy (p. 11). The American public might want to believe such platitudes, but they fly in the face of Rashids own logic in the rest of the book.

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Natsuko Oka, Andrei Chebotarev, Erlan Karin, and Nurbolat Masanov, The Nationalities Question in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan. Middle East Studies Series No. 51. Chiba, Japan: Institute of Developing Economies, 2002. ii + 159 pp., appendices, references (paper; distributed for free).

Reviewed by: Edward Schatz, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Ill., USA, schatzsiu.edu

Of all the changes that Central Asian societies underwent in the 1990s, perhaps none was more striking than the relative stabilization in interethnic relations. The rise of tensions that began with the 1986 Almaty riots largely subsided after the violence in Osh in 1990. To be sure, not all was peaceful in the early 2000s, with small bands of Russian skinheads roaming the streets of Almaty, Uzbeks feeling themselves to be victims of discrimination in Kyrgyzstan, Tajiks feeling the same in Uzbekistan, and so on. The predictions for the worst forms of interethnic conflict, however, proved to be off base.

How post-Soviet states attempted to manage interethnic relations (i.e., the nationalities question) has been the subject of a wide array of literature much of it in English. Lost in the array, however, have been the voices of Central Asian scholars themselves. When Central Asian perspectives appear in English, they typically do so through the prism of the Wests social science establishment, with its range of policy concerns and theoretical preoccupations. By producing in English a volume of largely unfiltered voices from Kazakhstan, Natsuko Oka a Research Fellow at the Institute of Developing Economies (Chiba, Japan) and her collaborators fill an important gap. Fluent in Western and Japanese social science, Kazakh and Russian, she is perhaps uniquely qualified to do so.

After a two-page preface written by Oka, the volumes three chapters turn to the Kazakhstani variants of policies common across the nationalizing states of Eurasia that is, states that spearheaded a drive to remedy titular ethnic groups for their underprivileged position. Thus, policies on language use, cultural promotion, migration, and personnel appointments receive particular attention.

The volumes major strength lies in the authors willingness to let the contributions speak for themselves. The voice of the first contributor, Nurbulat Masanov (an ethnographer and a prominent critic of Nazarbaev), is clear. He roundly criticizes the ethnocractic regimes of post-Soviet countries (p. 2), depicting a barbaric ethnic virus against modern civilization (p. 1). A dedicated advocate of liberal democracy and neo-liberal market institutions, he is particularly affronted by the Wests support for Central Asias authoritarian rulers (p. 2-3).

Unrestrained by a central conceptual concern, Masanov theorizes freely about intergroup relations. This is a post-Soviet scholar who moves easily from Bromleis theories of ethnos, to neo-modernization paradigms, to a functionalist explanation for nomadic pastoralism, to a Brubaker-like consideration of communal vs. individual identities (with a marked preference for the latter). Even if his conceptual wandering creates unresolved contradictions, we have still gained insight into the competing paradigms that confront and inspire post-Soviet academe.

In the volumes middle chapter, Erlan Karin and Andrei Chebotarev (director and research fellow, respectively, at the Central Asian Agency of Political Research in Almaty) develop a complex picture of Kazakhization in the 1990s. Their normative concern is similarly clear: the Nazarbaev regime was intent to Kazakhize state and society, and what little was done for non-Kazakhs was mystification of civilized interethnic politics, rather than concern for the equal rights and development of the republics many peoples (p. 80). Critically, the piece is a cry for help to present Kazakhstan to the world community as a state where democracy and human rights are oppressed (p. 108).

The unfiltered nature of the voices is also the volumes weakness. First, it creates notable redundancy in empirical coverage between the first two chapters. Second, it raises an array of theoretical tensions. For example, on the one hand Masanov depicts ethnic Kazakhs as irreversibly disunited (p. 13), while on the other hand offering an ethnodemographic history as if Kazakhs were the unit of analysis (p. 16). Third, the first two chapters rely heavily on data from the mid-1990s. One cannot help wondering what newer data would reveal, especially in light of a recent, relative macro-economic stabilization. Fourth, little attention is paid to Soviet atrocities in Kazakhstan the backdrop against which post-Soviet nationalities policy must be evaluated.

The primary missed opportunity is the lack of attention to a question that hovers like a ghost over the volume: if the general trend is toward Kazakhization, why has Kazakhstan avoided the worst forms of interethnic conflict? To use Karin and Chebotarev's words, why is it so that "At present, the nationalities question in the republic is not quite so sharp..." (p. 105)?

Oka's contribution helps in this regard. Presenting the result of an elite questionnaire administered in 2000-2001, she front-loads the study's methodological shortcomings, sounding a note of modesty about conclusions that is strikingly absent in much English-language scholarship. This comes across as refreshingly unlike standard social scientific narratives in the West.

But Oka need not be so modest, for her piece partially resolves theoretical tensions that emerge from the volumes other pieces. Her answer though she does not depict it as such is to focus on the different subjectivities in Kazakhstani nationalities policy. Russian nationalists and intellectuals, Kazakh nationalists and intellectuals, and members of other ethnic minorities all have viewed Nazarbaevs nationalities policy differently. Each ethnic and professional community has experienced a different Kazakhstan. (Masanov offers a similar point [p. 58], but in the context of his eclectic piece, the point gets lost.)

Few of Okas respondents expressed satisfaction with nationalities policy, viewing it either as too coercive of ethnic minorities or insufficient in its promotion of titular Kazakhs. Herein lies the clue. Nazarbaev appealed deeply to no one; neither did the regime deeply alienate any single, ethnically defined community. Notably, it avoided fundamentally antagonizing ethnic Slavs. So, when we read about the states rhetorical commitment to the friendship of peoples, we can regard it as masking a different reality of interethnic relations, which it often does (Masanov, 55). But political rhetoric may also be effective. As a politician, Nazarbaev used this rhetoric with skill, managing to appeal to different communities at a minimal level while satisfying no one deeply. As an increasingly ruthless authoritarian leader, he supplemented this rhetoric with a willingness to buy off his opponents and deal harshly with those who were unwilling to be corrupted.

[Contents]

Sally Hovey Wriggins, Xuanzang: A Buddhist Pilgrim on the Silk Road. With a foreword by Frederick W. Mote. Boulder, Colo./Oxford, Eng.: Westview Press, 1996. xxiv + 263 pp., 13 maps, 8 color plates, 42 ill., glossary, bibl., index. ISBN: 0813334071 (pb).

Reviewe

CESR Central Eurasian Studies Review

Contents of this issue

Perspectives

Research Reports and Briefs

Reviews and Abstracts

Conferences and Lecture Series

Educational Resources and Developments

Editors - CESR Vol. 2 No. 1

Perspectives

The Centrality of Central Eurasia

The Contours of Central Eurasia

The Uniqueness of Central Eurasia

The Shape of Things to Come

Research Reports and Briefs

Reports

Current Issues in the Study of Traditional Dwelling Space of Mongol-speaking People

Reference

Ethnicity and Inequality Among Migrants in the Kyrgyz Republic

References

Notes

Field Report on Oral and Archival Histories of Collectivization in Uzbekistan

Introduction

Methods and Strategies

Shortcomings and Misgivings

Ultimate Goals

References

Notes

Reviews and Abstracts

Book Reviews

CESR
Central Eurasian Studies Review