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Central Asian studies

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Central Asian studies is the discipline of studying the culture, history, and languages of Central Asia. The roots of Central Asian studies as a social science discipline goes to 19th century Anglo-Russian Great Game. During the 19th century, Central Asia became a subject of systematical information collection and organization thanks to the numerous travels made by British and Russian agents, soldiers, scholars into the region. The British Royal Geographical Society and Russian Geographical Society published dozens of travel books on the region.

Contemporary Central Asian studies have been developed by pioneers such as Nicholas Poppe, Denis Sinor, Ilse Laude-Cirtautas, Alexandre Bennigsen, Edward Allworth, Yuri Bregel and Hasan Bulent Paksoy among others. Several American research universities have programs on Central Asia. The Mongolian and Altaic Studies Program within the Far Eastern and Russian Institute at the University of Washington (UW), established under Poppe's direction in 1949, became an early prototype of Central Asian Studies. The Central Asian Studies Program, later formed by Cirtautas in 1968 at the UW, and the Department of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University have been the leading research and teaching programs. Many scholars involved in Central Asia studies belong to the Central Eurasian Studies Society.

Travelogues of Central Asia

Contemporary political map of Central Asia

One of the oldest sources for Central Asia are the memoirs of travelers who passed through Central Asia. Some of the earliest extant examples were left by Arab geographers who passed through the region. In the 19th centuries numerous European and American published their travelogues of Central Asia. This includes American journalist Anna Louise Strong who passed through Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in the 1920s.

Central Asian studies in post-Soviet period

After the fall of the Soviet Union and the opening of Central Asia to European and American researchers, numerous studies were carried out and hundreds of articles and monographs were published. Researchers of various specialties are engaged in the study of Central Asia: historians, archaeologists, orientalists, anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists and others.

Studies on the pre-Islamic period

In the post-Soviet period, new studies of the ancient cultures of Sogdiana, Bactria and Khorezm were carried out. During this period, joint archaeological expeditions were created with archaeologists from France, Italy, Australia, China and Japan, who studied the ancient urban centers and thier cultures in Central Asia.[1][2][3][4]

A large group of historians and archaeologists from France, Russia and Italy is studying the history of Sogdiana and Zoroastrianism in Central Asia.[5]

Studies on the Islamic period

One of the major historians on the history of Central Asia was Yuri Bregel. He authored numerous publications on the medieval and early modern history of Central Asia, including the 3-volume Bibliography of Islamic Central Asia (1995), the edition and An Historical Atlas of Central Asia (2003) and many other publications.[6]

One of the famous experts in the medieval history of Central Asia was Clifford Edmund Bosworth. His works are devoted to the history of the Arab Caliphate, Samanids, Karakhanids, Ghaznavids and Seljukids.[7]

The history and culture of the Karakhanid state was studied by prominent researchers: Ye.Davidovich,[8] B.Kochnev,[9][10][11][12] P.Golden,[13] M.Fedorov,[14] V.Nastich,[15] O.Karayev,[16] M.Biran[17] etc.

American and European scholars such as Maria Eva Subtelny,[18] Stephen Frederic Dale,[19] Beatrice Forbes Manz,[20] Charles Melville,[21] have done significant research on the political and cultural history of the Timur and Timurid epoch.

The political and economic history of the Uzbek khanates (16th-18th centuries) were the subject of research by R. McChesney,[22][23] O.Burton,[24] Y.Davidovich[25]

Studies on the Colonial period

There are a large number of studies on the history of the conquest of Central Asia by the Russian Empire[26] and its colonial policy in the region.[27][28][29] They are based on different approaches and documentary bases. Each publication has its own merits, errors and misconceptions.

The history of the Jadids of Central Asia aroused great interest among researchers.[30][31] The Jadids were Muslim modernist reformers within the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th century. Discussions are still going on about how to interpret the Jadid movement because different groups of Jadids pursued different interests. Certain researchers tend to simplify the complex ideas of the reformists and divide them into two big groups: conservatives (qadimists) and modernists (Jadids).[32]

Studies on the Soviet period

Studies of the Soviet period were aimed at studying the national-territorial delimitation,[33] the religious policy of the Soviet government,[34] nation-building process, and the development of Soviet cities.[35] A large amount of research is being done on Islam in the region.[36][37][38]

Studies on the post-Soviet period

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, great strides have been made in the study of the history, culture and anthropology of Central Asia.[39] However, there are shortcomings in research that are related to a number of reasons. The main problem of European scholars studying Central Asia is that some of them do not know local languages well. It is surprising that historians who do not understand the medieval Arabic language and, accordingly, the texts of the Quran and Hadith claim that they are dealing with the issues of Islam in the region.[40]

Poor knowledge of the local languages of the peoples of Central Asia by some anthropologists leads to many distortions in the interpretation of societies and their cultural characteristics. Often, such researchers become victims of colonial ideas and various clichés that do not reflect the ongoing social processes in the region. A considerable number of historical errors are contained in the monograph on the history, politics and societies of Central Asia.[41] For example, the Samarkand region, which was part of the Turkestan Republic in 1920, was erroneously listed by one of the authors of the monograph as part of the Bukhara Republic. [42]

A certain number of researchers, not knowing the local languages, ignore the local historiography of the topics they study. For example, in a study on Islam in Uzbekistan, sources in local languages were not used at all.[43]

List of Central Asian Studies Journals

  • Central Asian Survey, began publication in 1982 out of the United Kingdom and continues to publish to this day.
  • Central Asiatic Journal, began publication in 1955 and continues to publish to this day.
  • Journal of Central and Inner Asian Dialogue (JCIAD), along with its supplementary newsletter, JCIAD News, strive to inform the academic community and the public at large about the rich cultures, literature, languages and histories of the peoples of Central and Inner Asia. JCIAD and its newsletter are devoted to bringing the works of native scholars and literary figures of Central/Inner Asia—an area encompassing the Turkic, Mongolian and Tungusic populated regions of Asia east of the Volga—to light.
  • Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society, began publication in 1914 as the Journal of the Central Asian Society. From 1931 to 1969 it was published under the title of the Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society. In 1969 the title was changed to Asian Affairs and the focus of the contents shifted from Central Asia to South Asia and East Asia.

See also

References

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  2. ^ Minardi, Michele. Ancient Chorasmia: a polity between the semi-nomadic and sedentary cultural areas of Central Asia: cultural interactions and local developments from the sixth century BC to the first century AD. Vol. 56. Peeters, 2015.
  3. ^ Lyonnet, Bertille. "Sogdiana." In The Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek World, pp. 313-334. Routledge, 2020.
  4. ^ Grenet, Frantz. A view from Samarkand: the Chionite and Kidarite periods in the archaeology of Sogdiana. Vol. 412. Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2010.
  5. ^ Grenet, Frantz. Was Zoroastrian art invented in Chorasmia?, Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia 24, no. 1-2 (2018): 68-86.
  6. ^ "YURI BREGEL Obituary (2016) Boston Globe". Legacy.com.
  7. ^ Bosworth, Clifford Edmund. New Islamic Dynasties: A Chronological and Genealogical Manual. Edinburgh University Press, 2019.
  8. ^ Davidovich Ye.A. Voprosy khronologii i genealogii Karakhanidov vtoroy poloviny XII v. // Srednyaya Aziya v drevnosti i srednevekov'ye (istoriya i kul'tura). M., 1977
  9. ^ Kochnev B. D. Karakhanidskiy kaganat // Ocherki po istorii gosudarstvennosti Uzbekistana. Tashkent: Shark, 2001
  10. ^ Kochnev B.D. Shash (Chach) i Ilak pri Karakhanidakh (po numizmaticheskim dannym) // Drevnyaya i srednevekovaya kul'tura Chacha. Tashkent, 1979
  11. ^ Kochnev B. D., Karakhanidskiye monety: istochnikovedcheskoye i istoricheskoye issledovaniye. Avtoreferat-dissertatsiya doktora istoricheskikh nauk, Moskva, 1993
  12. ^ Kochnev B.D., Numizmaticheskaya istoriya Karakhanidskogo kaganata (991—1209 gg.). Moskva "Sofiya", 2006
  13. ^ Golden, Peter. B. (1990), The Karakhanids and Early Islam, in Sinor, Denis, The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia, Cambridge University Press
  14. ^ Fedorov M.N. Karakhanidskaya numizmatika kak istochnik po istorii Sredney Azii kontsa X — nachala XIII vv. Avtoreferat-dissertatsiya doktora istoricheskikh nauk. Novosibirsk. 1990
  15. ^ Nastich V.N. Monetnyye nakhodki s gorodishcha Krasnaya Rechka (1978-1983 gg.) // Krasnaya Rechka i Burana. Frunze, 1989
  16. ^ Karayev O. Istoriya karakhanidskogo kaganata. Frunze. 1983
  17. ^ Biran, Michel, The Empire of the Qara Khitai in Eurasian history, Cambridge University Press, 2005
  18. ^ Subtelny, Maria Eva. "Mīr 'Alī Shīr Nawā'ī". In C. E. Bosworth; E. Van Donzel; W. P. Heinrichs; Ch. Pellat (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Islam. Vol. VII. Leiden—New York: E. J. Brill. 1993
  19. ^ Dale, Stephen Frederic. "The legacy of the Timurids." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 8, no. 1 (1998): 43-58.
  20. ^ Melville, Charles (April 2010). "Beatrice Forbes Manz, Power, Politics and Religion in Timurid Iran". Speculum. 85 (2): 429–30
  21. ^ Melville, Charles. "8. The Itineraries of Shāhrukh b. Timur (1405-47)." In Turko-Mongol Rulers, Cities and City Life, pp. 285-315. Brill, 2013.
  22. ^ McChesney R. Central Asia: Foundations of Change. Princeton&New Jersey: The Darwin Press, 1996
  23. ^ McChesney R. Waqf in Central Asia: Four Hundred Years in the History of a Muslim Shrine, 1480-1889. Princeton:Princeton University, 1991
  24. ^ Burton Audrey. The Bukharans. A dynastic, diplomatic and commercial history 1550−1702. Curzon, 1997
  25. ^ Davidovich Ye.A. Istoriya denezhnogo obrashcheniya srednevekovoy sredney Azii. Moscow: Nauka, 1983.
  26. ^ Morrison, Alexander. The Russian Conquest of Central Asia: A Study in Imperial Expansion, 1814–1914. Cambridge University Press, 2020.
  27. ^ Brower, Daniel. "Islam and ethnicity: Russian colonial policy in Turkestan." Russia's Orient: Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700–1917 (1997): 115-35.
  28. ^ Sahadeo, Jeff. Russian Colonial Society in Tashkent, 1865--1923. Indiana University Press, 2007.
  29. ^ Morrison, Alexander. Russian rule in Samarkand 1868-1910: A comparison with British India. Oxford university press, 2008.
  30. ^ Baldauf, Ingeborg. "Jadidism in Central Asia within reformism and modernism in the Muslim world." Die Welt des Islams 41, no. 1 (2001): 72-88.
  31. ^ Khalid, Adeeb. The politics of Muslim cultural reform: Jadidism in Central Asia. Vol. 27. Univ of California Press, 1999.
  32. ^ Wennberg, Franz. "An Inquiry into Bukharan Qadimism: Mirza Salim-bik." In An Inquiry into Bukharan Qadimism: Mirza Salim-bik. Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 2021
  33. ^ Sabol, Steven. "The creation of Soviet Central Asia: the 1924 national delimitation." Central Asian Survey 14, no. 2 (1995): 225-241.
  34. ^ Keller, Shoshana. To Moscow, Not Mecca: The Soviet Campaign Against Islam in Central Asia, 1917-1941. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001.
  35. ^ Stronski, Paul. Tashkent: forging a Soviet city, 1930–1966. University of Pittsburgh Pre, 2010.
  36. ^ Feldman, Walter (1997). "Review: Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde: Baba Tükles and Conversion to Islam in Historical and Epic Tradition by Devin Deweese". Slavic Review. 56 (2). The American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies: 352–353. doi:10.2307/2500803. JSTOR 2500803.
  37. ^ Khalid, Adeeb. Islam in Central Asia 30 years after independence: debates, controversies and the critique of a critique. Central Asian Survey 40, no. 4 (2021): 539-554.
  38. ^ Khalid, Adeeb. "A secular Islam: nation, state, and religion in Uzbekistan." International journal of Middle East studies 35, no. 4 (2003): 573-598.
  39. ^ Roy, Olivier. The new Central Asia: the creation of nations. NYU Press, 2007.
  40. ^ Yemelianova, Galina M. Islam, national identity and politics in contemporary Kazakhstan, Asian Ethnicity 15, no. 3 (2014): 286-301.
  41. ^ Van den Bosch, Jeroen JJ, Adrien Fauve, and Bruno De Cordier. "The European Handbook of Central Asian Studies. History, Politics, and Societies." Stuttgart, 2021
  42. ^ Van den Bosch, Jeroen JJ, Adrien Fauve, and Bruno De Cordier. "The European Handbook of Central Asian Studies. History, Politics, and Societies." Stuttgart, 2021,p.298
  43. ^ Louw, Maria Elisabeth. Everyday Islam in Post-Soviet Central Asia. Routledge, 2007.
  44. ^ "Mizan: incorporating Central Asian review". OPC4. Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2006-06-21.
  45. ^ Will Myer. Islam and Colonialism: Western Perspective on Soviet Asia. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002. p. 103-4. ISBN 0-7007-1765-X.
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