Florian Mühlfried, Sergey Sokolovskiy (Eds.) Exploring the Edge of Empire: Soviet Era Anthropology in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Reihe: Halle Studies in the Anthropology of Eurasia. Bd. 25, 2011, 344 S., 29.90 EUR, br., ISBN 978-3-643-90177-4



http://www.iea.ras.ru/cntnt/levoe_meny/publikacii/bibliograf1/n2011/sokolovski1.html#



This collection explores theoretical and empirical developments in the anthropology of the Caucasus and Central Asia, originating in or shaped by the Soviet era. Special attention is paid to the creation of local and national schools as well as to the role of institutional and biographical dis/continuities. Within the academic field of anthropology in the Soviet republics, Russia-based research institutes and regional branches of the former Soviet Academy of Sciences played a special role. Explorations of this role and of the impact of ideology are pertinent to the controversial question as to whether the Soviet Union was essentially a colonial enterprise. The authors include leading anthropologists from the Caucasus and Central Asia, as well as regional specialists from the Russian Federation and western countries. Florian Mühlfried is an anthropologist working for the Caucasus Studies Program at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Germany. Sergey Sokolovskiy is a Senior Researcher at thae Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences and editor-in-chief of the journal Etnograficheskoe obozrenie.



Exploring the Edge of Empire

Soviet Era Anthropology in the Caucasus and Central Asia



All too often, Western scholars studying the Caucasus and Central Asia show a striking disinterest in, and occasionally even distaste for, knowledge generated locally. The anthropology of the Soviet era is often dismissed in toto as a fabrication of communist ideology and/or a purely descriptive and anti-theoretical endeavour. These assumptions greatly hinder communication between regional experts and between disciplinary specialists.



This book is an attempt to overcome this problem by re-evaluating Soviet anthropological work in the Caucasus and Central Asia. The contributors include scholars from these regions as well as others from Western countries. In addition to authors with first-hand experiences of Soviet era anthropology, the volume presents the voices of several younger scholars, as their reflections on the discipline’s past will matter for its future in the regions.



The book is divided into five parts. The first part is devoted to the general framework of socialist anthropology in the Caucasus and Central Asia and scrutinizes relations between Soviet academic centres and peripheries. The second partdeals with studies of collective farms and engagements with modernity in post-Stalinist Soviet anthropology. In the third part, two interviews with key “participant observers” and leading contributors to Soviet and post-Soviet anthropology bring in first-hand experiences and personal reflections. The final two parts of this book present the making of national schools of ethnography and related sciences in the Caucasus,followed by explorations of the contributions of some outstanding individuals and the institutional and/or political constraints within which they worked in Central Asia.



The topics range from discussion of the legacy of Soviet-era anthropology and application of theories of ethnos and so-called survivals to the impact of disciplinary traditions stemming from pre-Soviet times. The chapters bring out striking differences between the two large regions considered; they also draw attention to variation within these regions, and between different sub-disciplines of anthropology. The intricate histories of local research traditions subjected to strict controls contribute to a better understanding of the ways in which the social sciences interact with ideology. Chronologically, the book spans the whole epoch of the Soviet-style anthropology from its inception in the 1920s to its aftermath in a new century.





Contents



 Acknowledgements    ix



 Notes on Transliteration    xi



1    Introduction: Soviet Anthropology at the Empire’s Edge    1

    Florian Mühlfried and Sergey Sokolovskiy   



Theoretical Frameworks and their Practical Implications    19



2    Soviet Ethnography: Structure and Sentiment    21

    Tamara Dragadze   



3    Survival Strategies: Reflections on the Notion of Religious ‘Survivals’ in Soviet Ethnographic Studies of Muslim Religious Life in Central Asia    35

    Devin DeWeese   



4    Heroes of Theory: Central Asian Islam in Post-War Soviet Ethnography    59

    John Schoeberlein   



Collective Farm Studies    81



5    Ethnographic Views of Socialist Reforms in Soviet  Central Asia: Collective Farm (Kolkhoz) Monographs    83

    Sergey Abashin   



6    From Collective Farm to Islamic Museum? Deconstructing the Narrative of Highlander Traditions in Dagestan    99

    Vladimir Bobrovnikov   



Interviews        119



7    Interview with Sergey Aleksandrovich Arutyunov    121



8    Interview with Anatoly Mikhailovich Khazanov    127





The Making and Functioning of National Schools    149



9    Salvage versus Knowledge: Armenian Ethnography Across Soviet Times    151

    Artak Dabaghyan   

10    Soviet-Era Anthropology by Azerbaijani Scholars    175

    Aliagha Mammadli   



11    The Reception of Marr and Marrism in the Soviet Georgian Academy    197

    Kevin Tuite   



12    Anthropology at its Margins: Essentialism and Nationalism in Northwest Caucasian Studies    215

    Igor Kuznetsov   



Individual Contributions and their Political Constraints    235



13    Iakubovskii and Others: Canonizing Uzbek National History    237

    Alisher Ilkhamov   



14    Olga Sukhareva and the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan    259

    Olga Naumova   



15    Tragedy of a Soviet Faust: Chayanov in Central Asia    275

    Alexander Nikulin   



Epilogue        295



16    Description and (Re)Construction in Soviet-Era Anthropology    297

    Levon Abrahamian   



    Appendix 1: List of Dissertations in Armenian Ethnography Defended in and after the Soviet Era    313



    Appendix 2: Ethnology and Anthropology Chairs at Russian Universities    323



Contributors        329



Index        331





Acknowledgements



Most of the contributions to this book are based on presentations given at a workshop which we convened in April 2009 at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. Olga Naumova and Igor Kuznetsov were unable to attend the workshop, but we are pleased to be able to include their contributions here. Sergey Arutyunov and Anatoly Khazanov would also have been welcome guests in Halle, but at least we have been able to capture their reflections in two interviews. Alexander Nikulin was a Visiting Fellow in Halle in 2009; since his intimate knowledge of the life and works of Alexander Chayanov provides invaluable insight into the conditions of fieldwork in the early days of the Soviet empire, we are delighted to include his paper.



Our workshop continued a series of meetings at the Max Planck Institute exploring the production of anthropological knowledge under socialist regimes. We are indebted to Chris Hann for his encouragement and support; to Aleksandar Bošković, Peter Finke, Svetlana Jacquesson, and António Eduardo Mendonca for their creative chairing of the workshop’s sessions; and to Bettina Mann and Berit Westwood for logistical support. In selecting and soliciting contributions for this volume, we have benefited from the advice of Chris Hann, Svetlana Jacquesson and Nikolai Ssorin-Chaikov. Finally, we would like to express our gratitude to Berit Westwood and Anke Meyer for coordinating the production of this volume, to Kerstin Klenke for harmonising the Russian transliterations and to Benjamin White for his painstaking copy-editing.



Florian Mühlfried and Sergey Sokolovskiy