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.

Polygynous Marriages among the Kyrgyz Cover

Format: Hardback

Pages: 284

ISBN: 9780822947530

Pub Date: 20 Dec 2022

Imprint: University of Pittsburgh Press

Series: Central Eurasia in Context

Description:

During Soviet rule, the state all but imposed atheism on the primarily Islamic people of Kyrgyzstan and limited the tradition of polygyny - a form of polygamy in which one man has multiple wives. Polygyny did continue under communism, though chiefly under concealment. In the decades since the fall of the Soviet Union, the practice has reemerged.

Format: Hardback

Pages: 788

ISBN: 9780822946786

Pub Date: 28 Sep 2022

Imprint: University of Pittsburgh Press

Series: Central Eurasia in Context

Illustrations: 10

Description:

Central Asia is a diverse and complex region of the world often characterized in the West as being difficult to access. Central Asia: Contexts for Understanding offers the most comprehensive introduction to the region available. Combining thematic chapters with case studies, readers will learn to appreciate the interconnected aspects of life in Central Asia.

Format: Hardback

Pages: 248

ISBN: 9780822946144

Pub Date: 30 Sep 2020

Imprint: University of Pittsburgh Press

Series: Central Eurasia in Context

Illustrations: 25 b&w

Description:

Steppe Dreams concerns the political significance of temporality in Kazakhstan, as manifested in public events and performances, and its reverberating effects in the personal lives of Kazakhstanis. Like many holidays in the post-Soviet sphere, public celebrations in Kazakhstan often reflect multiple temporal framings - utopian visions of the future, or romanticized views of the past - which throw light on present-day politics of identity.

Format: Hardback

Pages: 240

ISBN: 9780822946175

Pub Date: 30 Sep 2020

Imprint: University of Pittsburgh Press

Series: Central Eurasia in Context

Description:

The collapse of the Soviet Union famously opened new venues for the theories of nationalism and the study of processes and actors involved in these new nation-building processes. In this comparative study, Kudaibergenova takes the new states and nations of Eurasia that emerged in 1991, Latvia and Kazakhstan, and seeks to better understand the phenomenon of post-Soviet states tapping into nationalism to build legitimacy. What explains this difference in approaching nation-building after the collapse of the Soviet Union?

Format: Hardback

Pages: 192

ISBN: 9780822945970

Pub Date: 02 Jun 2020

Imprint: University of Pittsburgh Press

Series: Central Eurasia in Context

Illustrations: 28 b&w

Description:

In the first half of the eighteenth century, Central Asia’s Bukharan Khanate descended into a crisis from which it would not recover. Bukharans suffered failed harvests and famine, a severe fiscal downturn, invasions from the north and the south, rebellion, and then revolution. To date, efforts to identify the cause of this crisis have focused on the assumption that the region became isolated from early modern globalizing trends.

Format: Paperback

Pages: 328

ISBN: 9780822965435

Pub Date: 21 Aug 2018

Imprint: University of Pittsburgh Press

Series: Central Eurasia in Context

Illustrations: 14 b&w Illustrations

Description:

Robert Kindler's seminal work is a comprehensive and unsettling account of the Soviet campaign to forcefully sedentarize and collectivize the Kazakh clans. Viewing the nomadic life as unproductive, and their lands unused and untilled, Stalin and his inner circle pursued a campaign of violence and subjugation, rather than attempting any dialog or cultural assimilation. The results were catastrophic, as the conflict and an ensuing famine (1931-1933) caused the death of nearly one-third of the Kazakh population.

Format: Paperback

Pages: 302

ISBN: 9780822964636

Pub Date: 11 May 2018

Imprint: University of Pittsburgh Press

Series: Central Eurasia in Context

Illustrations: 16 b&w Illustrations

Description:

Learning to Become Turkmen examines the ways in which the iconography of everyday life—in dramatically different alphabets, multiple languages, and shifting education policies—reflects the evolution of Turkmen society in Central Asia over the past century. As Victoria Clement shows, the formal structures of the Russian imperial state did not affect Turkmen cultural formations nearly as much as Russian language and Cyrillic script. Their departure was also as transformative to Turkmen politics and society as their arrival.

The Rise and Fall of Khoqand, 1709-1876 Cover

Format: Paperback

Pages: 288

ISBN: 9780822965060

Pub Date: 30 Nov 2017

Imprint: University of Pittsburgh Press

Series: Central Eurasia in Context

Illustrations: 26 b&w Illustrations

Description:

This book analyzes how Central Asians actively engaged with the rapidly globalizing world of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In presenting the first English-language history of the Khanate of Khoqand (1709–1876), Scott C. Levi examines the rise of that extraordinarily dynamic state in the Ferghana Valley.

Format: Paperback

Pages: 248

ISBN: 9780822965084

Pub Date: 15 Nov 2017

Imprint: University of Pittsburgh Press

Series: Central Eurasia in Context

Illustrations: 48 b&w Illustrations

Description:

From Belonging to Belief presents a nuanced ethnographic study of Islam and secularism in post-Soviet Central Asia, as seen from the small town of Bazaar-Korgon in southern Kyrgyzstan. Opening with the juxtaposition of a statue of Lenin and a mosque in the town square, Julie McBrien proceeds to peel away the multiple layers that have shaped the return of public Islam in the region. She explores belief and nonbelief, varying practices of Islam, discourses of extremism, and the role of the state, to elucidate the everyday experiences of Bazaar-Korgonians.

Format: Paperback

Pages: 368

ISBN: 9780822964421

Pub Date: 05 Sep 2017

Imprint: University of Pittsburgh Press

Series: Central Eurasia in Context

Description:

Nick Megoran explores the process of building independent nation-states in post-Soviet Central Asia through the lens of the disputed border territory between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. In his rich "biography" of the boundary, he employs a combination of political, cultural, historical, ethnographic, and geographic frames to shed new light on nation-building process in this volatile and geopolitically significant region. Megoran draws on twenty years of extensive research in the borderlands via interviews, observations, participation, and newspaper analysis.

Format: Paperback

Pages: 344

ISBN: 9780822964414

Pub Date: 03 Aug 2017

Imprint: University of Pittsburgh Press

Series: Central Eurasia in Context

Description:

"State weakness" is seen to be a widespread problem throughout Central Asia and other parts of post-socialist space, and more broadly in areas of the developing world. Challenging the widespread assumption that these "weak states" inevitably slide toward failure, Paradox of Power takes careful stock of the varied experiences of Eurasian states to reveal a wide array of surprising outcomes. The case studies show how states teeter but do not collapse, provide public goods against all odds, interact with societies in creative ways, utilize coercion effectively against internal opponents, and establish practices that are far more durable than the language of "weakness" would allow.

Format: Paperback

Pages: 224

ISBN: 9780822964605

Pub Date: 19 Jun 2017

Imprint: University of Pittsburgh Press

Series: Central Eurasia in Context

Description:

Eva-Marie Dubuisson provides a fascinating anthropological inquiry into the deeply ingrained presence of ancestors within the cultural, political, and spiritual discourse of Kazakhs. In a climate of authoritarianism and economic uncertainty, many people in this region turn to their forebearers for care, guidance, and advice, invoking them on a daily basis. This "living language" creates a powerful link to the past and a stable foundation for the present.

Islam, Society, and Politics in Central Asia Cover

Format: Paperback

Pages: 392

ISBN: 9780822964278

Pub Date: 16 May 2017

Imprint: University of Pittsburgh Press

Series: Central Eurasia in Context

Description:

During the 1990s, there was a general consensus that Central Asia was witnessing an Islamic revival after independence, and that this occurrence would follow similar events throughout the Islamic world in the prior two decades, which had negative effects on both social and political development. Twenty years later, we are still struggling to fully understand the transformation of Islam in a region that's evolved through a complex and dynamic process, involving diversity in belief and practice, religious authority, and political intervention. This volume seeks to shed light on these crucial questions by bringing together an international group of scholars to offer a new perspective on Central Asian states and societies.

Format: Paperback

Pages: 224

ISBN: 9780822964438

Pub Date: 18 Apr 2017

Imprint: University of Pittsburgh Press

Series: Central Eurasia in Context

Description:

Azan on the Moon is an in-depth anthropological study of people's lives along the Pamir Highway in eastern Tajikistan. Constructed in the 1930s in rugged high-altitude terrain, the road fundamentally altered the material and social fabric of this former Soviet outpost on the border with Afghanistan and China. The highway initially brought sentiments of disconnection and hardship, followed by Soviet modernization and development, and ultimately a sense of distinction from bordering countries and urban centers that continues to this day.

Format: Paperback

Pages: 248

ISBN: 9780822964209

Pub Date: 07 Dec 2016

Imprint: University of Pittsburgh Press

Series: Central Eurasia in Context

Description:

The Force of Custom presents a finely textured ethnographic study that sheds new light on the legal and moral ordering of everyday life in northwestern Kyrgyzstan. Through her extensive fieldwork and firsthand experience, Judith Beyer reveals how Kyrgyz in Talas province negotiate proper behavior and regulate disputes by invoking custom, known to the locals as salt. While salt is presented as age-old tradition, its invocation is shown to be a highly developed and flexible rhetorical strategy that people adapt in order to meet the challenges of contemporary political, legal, economic, and religious environments.

Format: Paperback

Pages: 272

ISBN: 9780822964285

Pub Date: 15 Nov 2016

Imprint: University of Pittsburgh Press

Series: Central Eurasia in Context

Description:

David W. Montgomery presents a rich ethnographic study on the practice and meaning of Islamic life in Kyrgyzstan. As he shows, becoming and being a Muslim are based on knowledge acquired from the surrounding environment, enabled through the practice of doing.