Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-hfldf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-30T11:30:02.786Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Redefining Religion: Uzbek Atheist Propaganda in Gorbachev-Era Uzbekistan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Sarah Kendzior
Sarah Kendzior*
Affiliation:
Central Eurasian Studies Department, Indiana University, U.S.A. skendzior@yahoo.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Much has been made in the social sciences of the ambiguity of nationalism in Central Asia, where not only the boundaries between republics but between nations, languages, and peoples were drawn by the Soviet state. The similar ambiguity of Central Asian religiosity, however, has remained largely ignored. Perhaps religiosity, unlike the more recent idea of nationalism, is considered too fixed a construct for the modern and artificially created states of Central Asia. The division of religions into specific sects, each with its own explicit doctrine and precepts, would seem to preclude definitional necessity. Yet in the 1980s it was religiosity, malleable and stubborn, which proved as essential to the decline of the Soviet Union as did nationalism. As a vital component of identity, religion can exist without any clergy, place of worship, or understanding of sacred text, much as a nation can exist without a state or a government. The illusory aspects of religion, the comforts and mystery of rite and ritual, are as difficult for a state to control as national sentiment, and often prove the impetus behind the latter.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 34 , Issue 5 , November 2006 , pp. 533 - 548
Copyright
Copyright © 2006 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1. Jon Elster, Karl Marx: A Reader (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 301.Google Scholar

2. M. A. Usmonov, Islom Spravochnik, 2nd ed. (Tashkent: O'zbek Sovet Entsiklopediyasi Bosh redaktsiyasi, 1987), p. 2.Google Scholar

3. M. A. Usmonov and I. Jabbarov, Ateistik Entsiklopedik Lug'at (Tashkent: O'zbek Sovet Entsiklopediyasi Bosh redaktsiyasi, 1988), p. 388.Google Scholar

4. William Fierman, “Policy towards Islam in Uzbekistan in the Glasnost' Era,” Nationalities Papers, Vol. 22, 1994, p. 234.Google Scholar

5. Ibid., pp. 225–226.Google Scholar

6. Azade-Ayse Rorlich, “Islam and Atheism: Dynamic Tension in Soviet Central Asia,” in William Fierman, ed., Soviet Central Asia: The Failed Transformation (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991), p. 195.Google Scholar

7. Fierman, “Policy towards Islam,” p. 228.Google Scholar

8. Rorlich, “Islam and Atheism,” p. 203.Google Scholar

9. Mehrdad Haghayeghi, Islam and Politics in Central Asia (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996), p. 56.Google Scholar

10. Ibid., p. 186.Google Scholar

11. Michael Bourdeaux, The Politics of Russia and the New States of Eurasia (London: M.E. Sharpe, 1991), p. 8.Google Scholar

12. M.A. Usmonov, Islom Spravochnik (Tashkent: O'zbek Sovet Entsiklopediyasi Bosh redaktsiyasi, 1989), p. 2.Google Scholar

13. Karl Krippes, Uzbek–English Dictionary (Kensington, MD: Dunwoody Press, 1996), p. 102.Google Scholar

14. Ateistik Entsiklopedik Lug'at, s.v. “Ibrohim,” p. 166.Google Scholar

15. Islom Spravochnik, 1989, s.v. “Ibrohim,” p. 128.Google Scholar

16. Among them Yevgeny Belayev, Yevgeny Bertels, and Ilya Petrushevsky.Google Scholar

17. Yaacov Roi, Islam in the Soviet Union (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), p. 523.Google Scholar

18. William Fierman, “The Soviet ‘Transformation,‘” in William Fierman, ed., Soviet Central Asia: The Failed Transformation (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991), p. 26.Google Scholar

19. Islom Spravochnik, 1986, s.v. “Adjodlarga sig'inish,” p. 39.Google Scholar

20. Ateistik Entsiklopedik Lug'at, s.v. “Adjodlarga sig'inish,” pp. 14–15.Google Scholar

21. Islom Spravochnik, 1989, s.v. “Adjodlarga sig'inish,” pp. 49–50.Google Scholar

22. Islom Spravochnik, 1986, s.v. “Janoza,” p. 77.Google Scholar

23. Roi, Islam in the Soviet Union, p. 518.Google Scholar

24. David E. Powell, Antireligious Propaganda in the Soviet Union: A Study of Mass Persuasion (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1975), p. 70.Google Scholar

25. Ateistik Entsiklopedik Lug'at, s.v. “Janoza,” pp. 152–153.Google Scholar

26. M. Nazif Shahrani, “Islam and the Political Culture of ‘Scientific Atheism’ in Post-Soviet Central Asia: Future Predicaments,” in Michael Bourdeaux, ed., The Politics of Russia and the New States of Eurasia (London: M.E. Sharpe, 1991), p. 278.Google Scholar

27. Uzbekistan Looking to the Future, <http://www.uzbekistan.uz/eng/striving.html>..>Google Scholar

28. Ibid. Google Scholar

29. Deniz Kandiyoti and Nadira Azimova. “The Communal and the Sacred: Women's Worlds of Ritual in Uzbekistan,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 10, No. 2, 2004, p. 330.Google Scholar

30. Islom Spravochnik, 1989, s.v. “Navro'z,” pp. 212–214.Google Scholar

31. Ibid., s.v. “Chilla,” p. 276.Google Scholar

32. Zuh riddin Husniddinov, Islom Entsiklopediya (Tashkent: Davlat Ilmiy Nashriyoti, 2004), p. 263. This entry is one of many reprinted nearly verbatim from the Soviet-era guides to Islam.Google Scholar

33. Islom Spravochnik, 1989, s.v. “Tashahhud,” p. 253.Google Scholar

34. Islom Spravochnik, 1989, s.v. “Fitr,” p. 264.Google Scholar

35. Islom Spravochnik, 1989, s.v. “Tashahhud,” p. 253.Google Scholar

36. Islom Spravochnik, 1989, s.v. “Fotiha,” p. 266.Google Scholar

37. The wording of this translation was copied from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatiha>..>Google Scholar

38. Islom Spravochnik, 1989, s.v. “Musulmon Mamlakatlari,” pp. 316–334.Google Scholar

39. Islom Spravochnik, 1989, s.v. “Musulmon Xalqlar,” pp. 200–201.Google Scholar

40. Islom Spravochnik, 1989, s.v. “Jadidizm,” p. 109.Google Scholar

41. Islom Spravochnik, 1989, s.v. “Bashorat,” p. 67.Google Scholar

42. Isa Jabborov, Ateistik Suhbatlar (Tashkent: “O'zbekiston,” 1990), p. 3.Google Scholar

43. Kandiyoti and Azimova, “The Communal and the Sacred.” Poliakov and Snesarev are mentioned specifically in this regard.Google Scholar

44. Islom Spravochnik, 1989, s.v. “Mujohid,” p. 192.Google Scholar

45. Islom Entsiklopediyasi, s.v. “Mujohid,” p. 165.Google Scholar

46. Rafyq Mohammatshin, “Official and Unofficial Islam in Contemporary Tatarstan: Islam's Position in Tatar Society and the Emergence of an Independent Islamic Theoretical Perspective,” in Stephen Dudoignon and Komatsu Hisao, eds, Islam and Politics in Russia and Central Asia (Early Eighteenth to Late Twentieth Centuries) (London: Kegan Paul, 2001), p. 280.Google Scholar

47. “Afyun,” in Mushtum (Tashkent: “O'zbekiston,” 1987), p. 25. The cartoonist credited is V. Dumkin.Google Scholar