Download or read book Soviet Orientalism and the Creation of Central Asian Nations written by Alfrid K. Bustanov and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-11-20 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Orientalism – the idea that the standpoint of Western writers on the East greatly affected what they wrote about the East, the "Other" – applied also in Russia and the Soviet Union, where the study of the many exotic peoples incorporated into the Russian Empire, often in quite late imperial times, became a major academic industry, where, as in the West, the standpoint of writers greatly affected what they wrote. Russian/Soviet orientalism had a particularly important impact in Central Asia, where in early Soviet times new republics, later states, were created, often based on the distorted perceptions of scholars in St Petersburg and Moscow, and often cutting across previously existing political and cultural boundaries. The book explores how the Soviet orientalism academic industry influenced the creation of Central Asian nations. It discusses the content of oriental sources and discourses, considers the differences between scholars working in St Petersburg and Moscow and those working more locally in Central Asia, providing a rich picture of academic politics, and shows how academic cultural classification cemented political boundaries, often in unhelpful ways.

Download or read book Central Asia in Art written by Aliya Abykayeva-Tiesenhausen and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-06-20 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the midst of the space race and nuclear age, Soviet Realist artists were producing figurative oil paintings. Why? How was art produced to control and co-opt the peripheries of the Soviet Union, particularly Central Asia? Presenting the 'untold story' of Soviet Orientalism, Aliya Abykayeva-Tiesenhausen re-evaluates the imperial project of the Soviet state, placing the Orientalist undercurrent found within art and propaganda production in the USSR alongside the creation of new art forms in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. From the turmoil of the 1930s through to the post-Stalinist era, the author draws on meticulous new research and rich illustrations to examine the political and social structures in the Soviet Union - and particularly Soviet Central Asia - to establish vital connections between Socialist Realist visual art, the creation of Soviet identity and later nationalist sentiments.

Download or read book Russian Orientalism written by David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-20 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here, the author examines Russian thinking about the Orient before the Revolution of 1917. He argues that the Russian Empire's bi-continental geography and the complicated nature of its encounter with Asia have all resulted in a variegated understanding of the East among its people.

Download or read book Soviet Orientalism and the Creation of Central Asian Nations written by Alfrid K. Bustanov and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Orientalism - the idea that the standpoint of Western writers on the East greatly affected what they wrote about the East, the "Other" - applied also in Russia and the Soviet Union, where the study of the many exotic peoples incorporated into the Russian Empire, often in quite late imperial times, became a major academic industry, where, as in the West, the standpoint of writers greatly affected what they wrote. Russian/Soviet orientalism had a particularly important impact in Central Asia, where in early Soviet times new republics, later states, were created, often based on the distorted perceptions of scholars in St Petersburg and Moscow, and often cutting across previously existing political and cultural boundaries. The book explores how the Soviet orientalism academic industry influenced the creation of Central Asian nations. It discusses the content of oriental sources and discourses, considers the differences between scholars working in St Petersburg and Moscow and those working more locally in Central Asia, providing a rich picture of academic politics, and shows how academic cultural classification cemented political boundaries, often in unhelpful ways.

Download or read book Empire of Nations written by Francine Hirsch and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2014-10-03 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917, they set themselves the task of building socialism in the vast landscape of the former Russian Empire, a territory populated by hundreds of different peoples belonging to a multitude of linguistic, religious, and ethnic groups. Before 1917, the Bolsheviks had called for the national self-determination of all peoples and had condemned all forms of colonization as exploitative. After attaining power, however, they began to express concern that it would not be possible for Soviet Russia to survive without the cotton of Turkestan and the oil of the Caucasus. In an effort to reconcile their anti-imperialist position with their desire to hold on to as much territory as possible, the Bolsheviks integrated the national idea into the administrative-territorial structure of the new Soviet state. In Empire of Nations, Francine Hirsch examines the ways in which former imperial ethnographers and local elites provided the Bolsheviks with ethnographic knowledge that shaped the very formation of the new Soviet Union. The ethnographers—who drew inspiration from the Western European colonial context—produced all-union censuses, assisted government commissions charged with delimiting the USSR's internal borders, led expeditions to study "the human being as a productive force," and created ethnographic exhibits about the "Peoples of the USSR." In the 1930s, they would lead the Soviet campaign against Nazi race theories . Hirsch illuminates the pervasive tension between the colonial-economic and ethnographic definitions of Soviet territory; this tension informed Soviet social, economic, and administrative structures. A major contribution to the history of Russia and the Soviet Union, Empire of Nations also offers new insights into the connection between ethnography and empire.

Download or read book The Global Cold War written by Odd Arne Westad and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-10-24 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cold War shaped the world we live in today - its politics, economics, and military affairs. This book shows how the globalization of the Cold War during the last century created the foundations for most of the key conflicts we see today, including the War on Terror. It focuses on how the Third World policies of the two twentieth-century superpowers - the United States and the Soviet Union - gave rise to resentments and resistance that in the end helped topple one superpower and still seriously challenge the other. Ranging from China to Indonesia, Iran, Ethiopia, Angola, Cuba, and Nicaragua, it provides a truly global perspective on the Cold War. And by exploring both the development of interventionist ideologies and the revolutionary movements that confronted interventions, the book links the past with the present in ways that no other major work on the Cold War era has succeeded in doing.

Download or read book Soviet Nation Building in Central Asia written by Grigol Ubiria and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-09-16 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The demise of the Soviet Union in 1991 resulted in new state-led nation-building projects in Central Asia. The emergence of independent republics spawned a renewed Western scholarly interest in the region’s nationality issues. Presenting a detailed study, this book examines the state-led nation-building projects in the Soviet republics of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Exploring the degree, forms and ways of the Soviet state involvement in creating Kazakh and Uzbek nations, this book places the discussion within the theoretical literature on nationalism. The author argues that both Kazakh and Uzbek nations are artificial constructs of Moscow-based Soviet policy-makers of the 1920s and 1930s. This book challenges existing arguments in current scholarship by bringing some new and alternative insights into the role of indigenous Central Asian and Soviet officials in these nation-building projects. It goes on to critically examine post-Soviet official Kazakh and Uzbek historiographies, according to which Kazakh and Uzbek peoples had developed national collective identities and loyalties long before the Soviet era. This book will be a useful contribution to Central Asian History and Politics, as well as studies of Nationalism and Soviet Politics.

Download or read book Orientalism written by Edward W. Said and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2014-10-01 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking critique of the West's historical, cultural, and political perceptions of the East that is—three decades after its first publication—one of the most important books written about our divided world. "Intellectual history on a high order ... and very exciting." —The New York Times In this wide-ranging, intellectually vigorous study, Said traces the origins of "orientalism" to the centuries-long period during which Europe dominated the Middle and Near East and, from its position of power, defined "the orient" simply as "other than" the occident. This entrenched view continues to dominate western ideas and, because it does not allow the East to represent itself, prevents true understanding.

Download or read book Film and Identity in Kazakhstan written by Rico Isaacs and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-02-07 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cinema and nationalism are two fundamentally modern phenomena, but how have films shaped our understanding of the creation -the 'imagining' - of Central-Asian nations? Here, Rico Isaacs uses cinema as an analytical lens to explore how the Kazakh national identity has been constructed and contested. Drawing on an analysis of Kazakh films from the last century, and featuring new interviews with directors and critics involved in the Central Asian film industry, his book traces the construction of nationalism within Kazakh cinema from the country's inception as a Soviet Republic to a modern independent nation.Isaacs identifies four narratives since the collapse of the Soviet Union: a warrior-like 'ethnic' narrative rooted in the 18th Century struggles against the Mongolian Oirat tribes; a 'civic' inspired narrative cemented in the Stalinist deportations of the 1930s and 40s; a religious narrative founded within the mystic and philosophical religion of Tengrism and the cult of the Sky God; and a socio-economic narrative which roots Kazakh nationhood and identity in contemporary social divisions, the lived day-to-day experiences of ordinary citizens and the struggles they face with authority. These last two tropes demonstrate how cinema has emerged as a site of dissent against the country's authoritarian regime under President Nazarbayev. Film and Identity in Kazakhstan advances our understanding of Kazakhstan and nationalism by demonstrating the multiple and inessential character of each, and illustrates the important role of cinema in contesting political power in the post-Soviet space.

Download or read book The European Handbook of Central Asian Studies written by Jeroen Fauve, Adrien De Cordier, B. J. Van Den Bosch and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2021-10-19 with total page 1064 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This handbook is the first collection of comprehensive teaching materials for teachers and students of Central Asian Studies (CAS) with a strong pedagogic dimension. It presents 22 chapters, clustered around five themes, with contributions from more than 19 scholars, all leading experts in the field of CAS and Eurasian Studies. This collection is not only a reference work for scholars branching out to different disciplines of CAS but also for scholars from other disciplines broadening their scope to CAS. It addresses post-colonial frameworks and also untangles topics from their ‘Soviet’ reference frame. It aims to de-exoticize the region and draws parallels to European or to historically European-occupied territories. In each chapter, the handbook provides a concise but nuanced overview of the topics covered, in which way these have been approached by the mainstream literature, and points out pitfalls, myths, and new insights, providing background knowledge about Central Asia to readers and intertwine this with an advanced level of insight to leave the readers equipped with a strong foundation to approach more specialized sources either in classroom settings or by self-study. In addition, the book offers a comprehensive glossary, list of used abbreviations, overview of intended learning outcomes, and a smart index (distinguishing between names, locations, concepts, and events). A list of recorded lectures to be found on YouTube will accompany the handbook either as instruction materials for teachers or visual aids for students. Since the authors themselves recorded the lectures related to their own chapters, this provides the opportunity to engage in a more personalized way with the authors. This project is being developed in the framework of the EISCAS project (www.eiscas.eu), co-funded by the Erasmus + Program of the European Union.

Download or read book The Central Asian World written by Jeanne Féaux de la Croix and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-10-20 with total page 815 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This landmark book provides a comprehensive anthropological introduction to contemporary Central Asia. Established and emerging scholars of the region critically interrogate the idea of a ‘Central Asian World’ at the intersection of post-Soviet, Persianate, East and South Asian worlds. Encompassing chapters on life between Afghanistan and Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Xinjiang, this volume situates the social, political, economic, ecological and ritual diversity of Central Asia in historical context. The book ethnographically explores key areas such as the growth of Islamic finance, the remaking of urban and sacred spaces, as well as decolonizing and queering approaches to Central Asia. The volume’s discussion of More-than-Human Worlds, Everyday Economies, Material Culture, Migration and Statehood engages core analytical concerns such as globalization, inequality and postcolonialism. Far more than a survey of a ‘world region’, the volume illuminates how people in Central Asia make a life at the intersection of diverse cross-cutting currents and flows of knowledge. In so doing, it stakes out the contribution of an anthropology of and from Central Asia to broader debates within contemporary anthropology. This is an essential reference for anthropologists as well as for scholars from other disciplines with a focus on Central Asia

Download or read book The Russian Conquest of Central Asia written by Alexander Morrison and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-10 with total page 641 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive diplomatic and military history of the Russian conquest of Central Asia, spanning the whole of the nineteenth century.

Download or read book Identity History and Trans Nationality in Central Asia written by Dagikhudo Dagiev and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-09-28 with total page 477 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pamiris, or Badakhshanis in popular discourse, form a small group of Iranic peoples who inhabit the mountainous region of Pamir-Hindu Kush, being the historical region of Badakhshan. Pamiri communities are located in the territories of four current nation-states: Tajikistan, Afghanistan, China and Pakistan. This book provides insights in the identity process of a group of mountain communities whose vigorous cultures, languages and complex political history have continued to shape a strategic part of the world. Its various chapters capture what being a Pamiri may entail and critically explore the impact of both trans-regionalism and the globalisation processes on activating, engaging and linking the dispersed communities. The book presents a variety of lines of argument pertaining to Pamiri identity and identification processes. Structured in three parts, the book first addresses themes relevant to the region’s geography and the recent history of Pamiri communities. The second section critically explores the rich philosophical, religious and cultural Pamiri heritage through the writings of prominent historical figures. The final section addresses issues pertaining to the contemporary diffusion of traditions, peace-building, interconnectivity and what it means to be a Pamiri for the youth of the region. Contributions by experts in their field offer fresh insights into the Ismaili communities in the region while successfully updating the historical and ethnographic legacy of Soviet times with present-day scholarship. As the first collection of scholarly contributions in English entirely focusing on the Pamiri people, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of the history, anthropology, religious studies, sociology, linguistics, education and geography of Central Asia and/or East Asia as well as of Islam, Islamic thought, minority-majority relations, population movements and the processes of defining and affirming identity among minority groups.

Download or read book Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Central Asia written by Rico Isaacs and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-09-14 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Central Asia offers the first comprehensive, cross-disciplinary overview of key issues in Central Asian studies. The 30 chapters by leading and emerging scholars summarise major findings in the field and highlight long-term trends, recent observations and future developments in the region. The handbook features case studies of all five Central Asian republics and is organised thematically in seven sections: History Politics Geography International Relations Political Economy Society and Culture Religion An essential cross-disciplinary reference work, the handbook offers an accessible and easyto- understand guide to the core issues permeating the region to enable readers to grasp the fundamental challenges, transformations and themes in contemporary Central Asia. It will be of interest to researchers, academics and students of the region and those working in the field of Area Studies, History, Anthropology, Politics and International Relations. Chapter 23 of this book is available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Download or read book The Afghan Central Asia Borderland written by Suzanne Levi-Sanchez and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07-15 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on extensive, long-term fieldwork in the borderlands of Afghan and Tajik Badakhshan, this book explores the importance of local leaders and local identity groups for the stability of a state’s borders, and ultimately for the stability of the state itself. It shows how the implantation of formal institutional structures at the border, a process supported by United Nations and other international bodies, can be counterproductive in that it may marginalise local leaders and alienate the local population, thereby increasing overall instability. The study considers how, in this particular borderland where trafficking of illegal drugs, weapons and people is rampant, corrupt customs and border personnel, and imperfect new institutional arrangements, contributed to a complex mix of oppression, hidden protest and subtle resistance, which benefitted illicit traders and hindered much needed humanitarian work. The book relates developments in this region to borderlands elsewhere, especially new borders in the former Soviet bloc, and argues that local leaders and organisations should be given semi-autonomy in co-ordination with state border forces in order to increase stability and the acceptance of the state.

Download or read book Punk Orientalism the Art of Rebellion written by Sara Raza and published by . This book was released on 2022-08-30 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Punk Orientalism explores the spaces and places associated with the former Soviet Union, focusing on the artists and ideas hailing from Central Asia and the Caucasus, which were long perceived as an extension, or "client" states, of the USSR. The theme of non-conformity and the punk rejection of state authority is a continuous thread throughout the book.

Download or read book Practices of Traditionalization in Central Asia written by Judith Beyer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-05-21 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Practices of Traditionalization in Central Asia focuses on how tradition is ‘everyday-ified’ in contemporary Central Asia, including Tatarstan and Tibet, and what people seek to achieve in its name. The case studies range from political demonstrations and industrial workers’ gatherings to institutions of religious education, minority communities, weddings, and the Internet. In this volume we regard tradition as a practice that needs to be explored in its institutional and interactional context at a particular time, rather than as a reliable guide to the past: tradition can only be judged from the present; it is an interpretative concept, not a descriptive one. While the scholarly debate has so far centered on what tradition entails and what it does not, including the question of invention and ownership, less attention has been devoted to investigating how tradition is enacted, enforced, or motivated – in short, how it ‘gets done.’ In Central Asia, practices of traditionalization are closely related to the transformation of the socialist order and the emergence of highly stratified societies. This volume asks: When does tradition emerge as a line of argumentation, who are the actors invoking it and how is it being (materially) manifested? Practices of Traditionalization in Central Asia will be of great interest to scholars of Central Asia, Anthropology, History, Political Science, and Sociology. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of Central Asian Survey.