Central Eurasia in Context

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
Series Editor: Douglas Northrop, University of Michigan

Central Eurasia embodies a rich historical legacy that includes some of the world’s greatest art, epic literature, vast empires, nomadic peoples, great urban centers – manifested in a diverse array of cultures and nationalities. For millennia the economic and cultural crossroads of the immense Eurasian land mass, this region has exerted a powerful influence on the history of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Combining abundant natural resources and daunting terrain, alternately ignored and coveted by outside powers, this continental heartland is marked by many fault lines of historical and contemporary global conflict and plays a vital role in world politics. Yet for all its importance, Central Eurasia remains insufficiently explored by modern scholarship. Central Eurasia in Context provides a unique and valuable venue for the publication and promotion of the best scholarly work on and from this region.

Format: Paperback

Pages: 296

ISBN: 9780822964193

Pub Date: 11 Oct 2016

Imprint: University of Pittsburgh Press

Series: Central Eurasia in Context

Description:

Despite Cultures examines the strategies and realities of the Soviet state-building project in Tajikistan during the 1920s and 1930s. Based on extensive archival research, Botakoz Kassymbekova analyzes the tactics of Soviet officials at the center and periphery that produced, imitated, and improvised governance in this Soviet southern borderland and in Central Asia more generally. She shows how the tools of violence, intimidation, and coercion were employed by Muslim and European Soviet officials alike to implement Soviet versions of modernization and industrialization.

Format: Paperback

Pages: 240

ISBN: 9780822964131

Pub Date: 24 Jun 2016

Imprint: University of Pittsburgh Press

Series: Central Eurasia in Context

Description:

Based on the case of Kyrgyzstan, while going well beyond it to elaborate a theory of the developing state that comprehends corruption as not merely criminal, but a type of market based on highly rational decisions made by the powerful individuals within, or connected to, the state.

Format: Paperback

Pages: 248

ISBN: 9780822962069

Pub Date: 30 Jul 2012

Imprint: University of Pittsburgh Press

Series: Central Eurasia in Context

Description:

Speaking Soviet with an Accent presents the first English-language study of Soviet culture clubs in Kyrgyzstan. These clubs profoundly influenced the future of Kyrgyz cultural identity and fostered the work of many artists, such as famed novelist Chingiz Aitmatov.Based on extensive oral history and archival research, Ali Igmen follows the rise of culture clubs beginning in the 1920s, when they were established to inculcate Soviet ideology and create a sedentary lifestyle among the historically nomadic Kyrgyz people.

Format: Paperback

Pages: 328

ISBN: 9780822961772

Pub Date: 02 May 2012

Imprint: University of Pittsburgh Press

Series: Central Eurasia in Context

Description:

Winner of the 2014 Central Eurasian Studies Society Book Award in the Social Sciences.Under Solomon's Throne provides a rare ground-level analysis of post-Soviet Central Asia's social and political paradoxes by focusing on an urban ethnic community: the Uzbeks in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, who have maintained visions of societal renewal throughout economic upheaval, political discrimination, and massive violence.Morgan Liu illuminates many of the challenges facing Central Asia today by unpacking the predicament of Osh, a city whose experience captures key political and cultural issues of the region as a whole.

Chaos, Violence, Dynasty

Politics and Islam in Central Asia

Format: Paperback

Pages: 232

ISBN: 9780822961680

Pub Date: 14 Oct 2011

Imprint: University of Pittsburgh Press

Series: Central Eurasia in Context

Description:

In the post-Soviet era, democracy has made little progress in Central Asia. In Chaos, Violence, Dynasty, Eric McGlinchey presents a compelling comparative study of the divergent political courses taken by Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan in the wake of Soviet rule. McGlinchey examines economics, religion, political legacies, foreign investment, and the ethnicity of these countries to evaluate the relative success of political structures in each nation.

Format: Paperback

Pages: 368

ISBN: 9780822961130

Pub Date: 19 Sep 2010

Imprint: University of Pittsburgh Press

Series: Central Eurasia in Context

Description:

Paul Stronski tells the fascinating story of Tashkent, an ethnically diverse, primarily Muslim city that became the prototype for the Soviet-era reimagining of urban centers in Central Asia. Based on extensive research in Russian and Uzbek archives, Stronski shows us how Soviet officials, planners, and architects strived to integrate local ethnic traditions and socialist ideology into a newly constructed urban space and propaganda showcase. The Soviets planned to transform Tashkent from a \u201cfeudal city\u201d of the tsarist era into a \u201cflourishing garden,\u201d replete with fountains, a lakeside resort, modern roadways, schools, hospitals, apartment buildings, and of course, factories.