ISSN: 0898-6827
A A C A R B U L L E T I N
of the Association for the Advancement of
Central Asian ResearchEditor: H. B. PAKSOY Vol. V, No. 1, Spring 1992
IN THIS ISSUE H. B. Paksoy NOTE FROM THE EDITOR.
Kevin Krisciunas THE LEGACY OF ULUGH BEG (1394-1449).
Yusuf Ak ura (1876-1935) THREE POLICIES. (Tr.) David S. Thomas.
Hisao Komatsu THE TURKIC FEDERALIST PARTY IN TURKISTAN.
Rene Pruneau DEMOCRATIZATION IN UZBEKISTAN.
News of the Profession
Bibliography
Book Reviews
NOTE FROM THE EDITOR With this issue, the AACAR BULLETIN has entered its fifth year. Accordingly, under the provisions of the AACAR By-Laws, the term of this Editor is completed. Meanwhile the circulation of the
4 AACAR BULLETIN Vol. V, No. 1 (Spring 1992)
AACAR BULLETIN reached two thousand, partially via the electronic medium of SOVSET, administered by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC.
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The issues most of our readers enjoyed would not have been possible without the subventions provided: at first by the Department of History, CENTRAL CONNECTICUT STATE UNIVERSITY, and later by the Department of History, UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS- AMHERST toward the publication of these five volumes. We greatly appreciate the help and understanding of Department Chairs, in chronological order, Professors John Rommel and his successor Donald Sanford (and the then Academic Vice-President Richard Pattenaude) of CCSU; Roland Sarti and his successor Robert E. Jones, of UMASS-Amherst.
I trust the AACAR BULLETIN readership will extend its welcome to the new editor, who will take over with the next issue.
THE LEGACY OF ULUGH BEG Kevin Krisciunas, PhD [1]
Joint Astronomy Centre-HawaiiMuhammed Taragai Ulugh Beg (1394-1449) was a Turk who ruled the province of Transoxiana (Maverannahr), a region situated between the River Oxus (Amu Darya) and the River Jaxartes (Syr Darya), the principal city of which was Samarkand. Ulugh Beg's grandfather was the famous conqueror Timur (1336-1405). Ulugh Beg became the ruler of Transoxiana in 1447 upon the death of his father. But his rule was of short duration. Two years later he was killed by an assassin hired by his son 'Abd al Latif. Were it only for his role as prince, viceroy, and martyr, few scholars would know of Ulugh Beg. But his memory lives on because he was an observatory builder, patron of astronomy, and
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astronomer in his own right. He was certainly the most important observational astronomer of the 15th century. He was one of the first to advocate and build permanently mounted astronomical instruments. His catalogue of 1018 stars (some sources count 1022) was the only such undertaking carried out between the times of Claudius Ptolemy (ca. 170 A.D.) and Tycho Brahe (ca. 1600). And, as we shall briefly discuss here, his attitude towards scientific endeavors was surprisingly modern.
The administration of Transoxiana was the responsibility of Ulugh Beg's father for most of Ulugh Beg's life. The prince had the opportunity (and the inclination) to pursue scholarly matters. His interest in astronomy dates from an early age, when he visited the remains of the Maragha Observatory, made famous by the astronomer Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (1201-74). The principal accomplishment at Maragha was the Zij-i ilkhani, or Ilkhanic Tables.[2]
A principal source of our information about the astronomical activity at Samarkand is a letter of one Ghiyath al-Din Jamshid al-Kashi (d. 1429), which is available in Turkish and English (see Sayili 1960). This letter, originally in Persian, was written in 1421 or 1422. From it we deduce that serious astronomical activity began in Samarkand in 1408-10, and that the construction of Ulugh Beg's observatory was begun in 1420. Among the astronomers known to have been active at Samarkand, we know only a few by name, but according to al-Kashi there were sixty or seventy scholars at the madrasa who were well enough versed in mathematics to participate in some capacity in the astronomical observations and/or seminars.
The observations were carried out systematically from 1420 to 1437. While observatories today are expected to carry on indefinitely, this was not the case in olden times. Rather, observations were carried out, for example, to update tables of planetary motions in order to predict their future positions. al-Kashi tells us (see Sayili 1960, p.106):
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As to the inquiry of those who ask why observations are not completed in one year but require ten or fifteen years, the situation is such that there are certain conditions suited to the determination of matters pertaining to the planets, and it is necessary to observe them when these conditions obtain. It is necessary, e.g., to have two eclipses in both of which the eclipsed parts are equal and to the same side, and both these eclipses have to take place near the same node. Likewise, another pair of eclipses conforming to other specifications is needed, and still other cases of a similar nature are required. It is necessary to observe Mercury at a time when it is at its maximum morning elongation and once at its maximum evening elongation, with the addition of certain other conditions, and a similar situation exists for the other planets.
Now, all these circumstances do not obtain within a single year, so that observations cannot be made in one year. It is necessary to wait until the required circumstances obtain and then if there is cloud at the awaited time, the opportunity will be lost and gone for another year or two until the like of it occurs once more. In this manner there is need for ten or fifteen years.
One might add that because it takes Saturn 29 years to return to the same position amongst the stars (that being its period of revolution about the Sun), a period of 29 years might have been the projected length of the Samarkand program of observations.
A number of instruments were used for the observations of the planets and for determining the relative positions of the stars.[3] The largest instrument in Samarkand was the so- called
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Fakhri sextant. It was a 60-degree stone arc mounted on the north-south meridian line. Such an instrument was used to determine the transit altitudes of stars (i.e. their maximum angular distances above the horizon). From the most southern and northern positions of the Sun, observed over the course of a year, one can easily determine the obliquity of the ecliptic (i.e. the tilt of the Earth's axis of rotation with respect to the plane of its orbit.) The mean of these extrema, or the meridian altitude of the Sun at the moment of the vernal or autumnal equinox allows one (by definition) to determine one's latitude.[4] According to Ulugh Beg the obliquity of the ecliptic was 23 degrees 30' 17" (differing by only 32" from the true value for his time). His value for the latitude of Samarkand was 39 degrees 37' 33".
Now, to the reader unaccustomed to astronomical topics, these might seem like just numbers, the accuracy of which may mean nothing. The most interesting thing about the Fakhri sextant in Samarkand was that its radius was 40 meters! (This is very nearly equal to the height of the dome of the 200-inch reflector at Palomar Mountain, California.) The Fakhri sextant was by far the largest meridian instrument ever built. It could achieve a resolution of a several seconds of arc -- on the order of a six-hundredth of a degree, or the diameter of an American penny at a distance of more than half a kilometer.
Because the Fakhri sextant was an arc fixed on the meridian, it could only be used for determining the declinations of celestial bodies. (This being before the invention of accurate clocks, it could not be used for the determinations of relative right ascensions.) Because it was a 60-degree arc, it could not be used to observe stars along the full north-south meridian. Thus, it could not be used, say, to determine the angular separations of pairs of stars, or for observing stars near the northern or southern horizons. Consequently, other observational instruments were used at Samarkand, among them parallactical
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lineals and equinoctial and solstitial armillary spheres. These were made of metal and wood and were on the order of 1 meter in size. Hand held astrolabes are not to be included in this list because they were "star finders" and were used for rough time determination, rather than for the accurate determination of stellar or planetary positions.
Typically, two people were required to make individual observations at any given time. At Samarkand it was the practice for a larger number of people to discuss the results. In modern terms, this is like peer review, the purpose of which is to eliminate sources of error and to ensure the health of the observational program. Ulugh Beg himself has allowed that in scientific questions there should be no agreeing until the matter is thoroughly understood and that people should not pretend to understand in order to be pleasing. Occasionally, when someone assented to His Majesty's view out of submission to his authority, His Majesty reprimanded him by saying 'you are imputing ignorance to me.' He also poses a false question, so that if anyone accepts it out of politeness he will reintroduce the matter and put the man to shame.[5]
The foreword to Ulugh Beg's Zij contains four parts: 1) the chronology, describing various systems of time reckoning; 2) practical astronomy (how observations are made and used); 3) the apparent motions of the Sun, Moon, and planets, based on a geocentric system of the universe; and 4) astrology. Besides the tables of motions of the Sun, Moon, and planets, Ulugh Beg's Zij was significant for its catalogue of about 1000 stars, giving their names and ecliptic coordinates. In an appendix to this paper I give a list of published works that contain all or part of Ulugh Beg's Zij.[6] In Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica (1725) and Baily's 1843 treatise we
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can directly compare Ulugh Beg's positions with those of Ptolemy, Tycho Brahe, and others. With modern stellar positions, proper motions, and an accurate treatment of precession, it would be interesting to make a statistical analysis of, say, the 100 brightest stars, to see how these catalogues compare as to average accuracy.[7]
In The Observatory in Islam Sayili concludes (pp. 391, 393) by stating:
The observatory as an organized and specialized institution was born in Islam; it went through very important stages of evolution within Islam itself; it passed on in a rather highly developed state to Europe, and this was followed, shortly afterwards, by the creation of modern observatories of Europe, in an unbroken process of evolution superposing upon the traditions borrowed from Eastern Islam...The question is of significance...in the case of the Samarqand Observatory because it appears as probably the most important Islamic observatory from the standpoint of influences exerted upon Europe.I can accept the first half of Sayili's perspective. The astronomical programs carried out at Baghdad (9th century), Cordova (10th century), Cairo (10th to 12th centuries), Toledo (11th century), Castile (under the Christian king Alfonso X; 13th century), Maragha (13th century), and at Samarkand (15th century) were far more extensive than anything carried out by the ancient Greeks, with the possible exception of Hipparchus. The Arabs honored learning and kept alive the study of astronomy by preserving Ptolemy's Almagest and adding to its mathematical formulation. The Ma'munic, Hakemite, Toledan, Ilkhanic and Alphonsine Tables, along with the tables contained in Ulugh Beg's Zij have come down to us because scholars knew they were
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important. But the influence of the Samarkand Observatory on European astronomy was more indirect than direct. While copies of Ulugh Beg's Zij existed in various libraries such as Oxford and Paris not long after its composition (see Razvi 1985), it only became known in Europe in the mid-17th century, nearly five decades after the publication of Tycho Brahe's much more accurate data (see appendix to this paper).
If the activities in Samarkand influenced European ones, why does Ulugh Beg only get cursory mention (on pp. 328 and 347, but not in the index) of Dreyer's classic 1890 biography of Tycho Brahe? In Thoren's even more authoritative 1990 biography of Tycho there is no mention of Ulugh Beg at all. It was work such as Tycho's, not Ulugh Beg's, that led in turn to the efforts at Greenwich (founded 1675), Pulkovo (founded 1839), and the United States Naval Observatory (founded 1844), among other institutions, and these modern, national, facilities did not need or use Ulugh Beg's work as a fundamental component of the construction of accurate star catalogues. Yet, to be fair, astronomers and historians have found many uses for ancient and medieval observations, such as studies of the spin down rate of the Earth, studies of the motion of the Moon and planets, and the dating of historical events. Ulugh Beg's observations being the best of their century allow them to stand as a permanent observational archive for our benefit. For example, Shcheglov (1977) has recently used information from the modern excavation of Ulugh Beg's large meridian instrument for a study of continental drift.
The most direct influence of the Samarkand Observatory was on the construction of the five observatories, or Jantar Mantars, built by Maharajah Jai Singh (1686-1743) in India. Jai Singh was a Hindu prince in the court of a Muslim Mogul emperor. These observatories were built at New Delhi, Ujjain, Mathura, Varanasi, and Jaipur. The largest instrument was 27 meters high. For more
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information see Kaye (1918), Mayer (1979), Sharma (1987), and Bedding (1991).
While recognition of Ulugh Beg's contributions to astronomy was delayed, an extensive body of information now exists on the activity of his observatory in Samarkand.[8] We now know that at the time Ulugh Beg's observatory flourished it was carrying out the most advanced observations and analysis being done anywhere. In the 1420's and 1430's Samarkand was the astronomical capital of the world. As such it is deserving of further study.
NOTES:
[1] Member, International Astronomical Union, Commission 41 (History of Astronomy). [2] A zij is an astronomical treatise that usually contains tables for calculating the positions of the Sun, Moon, and planets. It might also contain a star catalogue.
[3] For a discussion of the astronomical instrumentation of the Arabs, see Sedillot (1841), Repsold (1908), and Krisciunas (1988, chapter 2). Note that the telescope was only first used for astronomical purposes in 1609.
[4] Strictly speaking, one must also account for atmospheric refraction. For a review of astronomical coordinate systems see Krisciunas (1988, chapter 1).
[5] Sayili (1960, pp. 109-110).
[6] The appendix is largely based on information found in Shcheglov (1968; 1979) and in the National Union Catalog Pre-1956 Imprints. I thank Paul Luther for additional information.
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[7] Vogt (1925) found 22' for the average error of 122 Ptolemaic celestial latitudes. The best of Tycho's stellar positional measures are good to 1'. See Dreyer (1890, pp.387-8), Wesley (1978), and Thoren (1990, pp. 287-299, and references therein).
[8] See Kary-Niiazov (1967) and Sirazhdinov (1979).
REFERENCES AND FURTHER READINGS Barthold, W. W., Ulugh Beg und seine Zeit. Abhandlungen fur die Kunde des Morganlandes 21, No. 1, 1935.
Bedding, James, "Playground for the stars: The Jantar Mantars, Astronomical Observatories in India," New Scientist, 31 August 1991, p. 49.
Dreyer, J. L. E., Tycho Brahe: A Picture of Scientific Life and Work in the Sixteenth Century (Gloucester, Mass.:Peter Smith), 1977 reprint. (Original edition published by Adam & Charles Black, Edinburgh, 1890.)
Kar[y]-N[i]iazov, T. N., "Ulugh Beg", in Dictionary of Scientific Biography 13, pp. 535-537.
Kary-Niiazov, T. N., Astronomicheskaia shkola Ulugbeka, (Tashkent), 1967.
Kaye, G. R., The Astronomical Observatories of Jai Singh, (Janpath, New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India), reprint of 1918 edition. Krisciunas, Kevin, Astronomical Centers of the World (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press), 1988.
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Mayer, Ben, "Touring the Jai Singh Observatories," Sky and Telescope 58, No. 1, July 1979, pp. 6-10.
Razvi, Abbas, "The Observatory at Samarqand (Marsad-e-Ulugh Beg, 15th C)," Central Asia, No. 17, 1985, pp. 97-150.
Repsold, Johann A., Zur Geschichte der Astronomischen Mess-werkzeuge von Purbach bis Reichenbach (1450 bis 1830) (Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann), 1908. I have a rough (unpublished) English translation, which I would be happy to provide anyone, of the first six sections of this work, covering the astronomical instrumentation of the ancient Greeks, the Arabs, Purbach, Regiomontanus, Copernicus, Apian, Wilhelm IV of Hesse-Cassel, and Tycho Brahe.
Sarton, George, Introduction to the History of Science (Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins), 1948, vol. 3, pp. 1120, 1467-1474.
Sayili, Aydin, Ulug Bey Ve Semerkanddeki Ilim Faaliyeti Hakkinda Giyasuddin-i Kasi'nin Mektubu (Ghiyath al Din al Kashi's Letter on Ulugh Bey and the Scientific Activity in Samarqand) (Ankara: Turk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi), 1960. In note 1, pp. 32-33 of this work it is stated that another English translation was published by E. S. Kennedy (Orientalia 29, 1960, pp. 191-213), which differs in many particulars, and that the Persian text of the letter was published twice before that.
Sayili, Aydin, The Observatory in Islam and its Place in the General History of the Observatory (New York: Arno Press), 1981 reprint. (Original edition published by T rk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, Ankara, 1960.)
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Sedillot, L. [P. E. A.], Memoire sur les instruments astron. des Arabes, Paris, 1841.
Sharma, V. N., "The Astronomical Efforts of Sawai Jai Singh," in G. Swarup [et al.], eds., History of Oriental Astronomy (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press), 1987, pp. 233-240.
Sh[ch]eglov, V. P., Jan Hevelius: The Star Atlas (Tashkent: "Fan" Press), 1968. Shcheglov, V. P., "Astronomical azimuths of terrestrial objects as indicators of the rotational motions of the continental blocks," Soviet Astronomy 21, No. 4, July-August 1977, pp. 499-502.
Shcheglov, V. P., "Rasprostranenie <
> v evropeiskoi pechati," in Sirazhdinov (1979, see below), pp. 143-151. Sirazhdinov, S. KH., ed., Iz istorii nauki epokhi Ulugbeka, (Tashkent: Academy of Sciences of the Uzbek SSR), 1979.
Thoren, Victor E., The Lord of Uraniborg: A Biography of Tycho Brahe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press),1990.
Vogt, H., "Versuch einer Wiederherstellung von Hipparchs Fixsternverzeichnis," Astronomische Nachrichten, No. 5354-55 (1925):23.
Wesley, Walter, "The accuracy of Tycho Brahe's instruments," Journal for the History of Astronomy 9 (1978), pp.42-53.
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EDITIONS CONTAINING ALL OR PART OF ULUGH BEG'S ZIJ 1648. John Greaves (1602-1652). Quibus accesserunt, Insigniorum aliquot Stellarum Longitudines, et Latitudines, Ex Astronomicis Observationibus Ulug Beigi, Tamerlani Magni Nepotis. Oxoniae. Contains latitudes and longitudes of [98] stars.
1648. John Greaves (1602-1652). Binae Tabulae Geographicae, una Nassir Eddini Persae, altera Vlug Beigi Tatari: Opera et Studio J. Gravii. Lugduni, Batavorum. Geographical tables of the Zij.
1648. John Bainbridge (1582-1643). Canicularia. Una cum demonstratione ortus Sirii heliaci, pro parallelo inferioris Aegypti. Auctore Iohanne Gravio. Quibus accesserunt, insigniorum aliquot stellarum longitudines, et latitudines, ex astronomicis observationibus Vlug Beigi. Oxoniae, H. Hall. The citation in the U. S. Naval Observatory copy states that Greaves added the catalogue of 98 Ulugh Beg stars to the Bainbridge treatise.
1650. John Greaves (1602-1652). Epochae Celebriores, Astronomis, Historicis, Chronologis, Chataiorum, Syro-Graecorum Arabum, Persarum, Chorasmiorum usitatae (Arabice et Latine): Ex traditione Ulugi Beigi; eas primus publicavit, recensuit, et Commentarius illustravit Johannes Gravius. Londini, J. Flesher. Latin and Persian on opposite pages. That part of the Zij dealing with chronology.
1652. John Greaves (1602-1652). Binae Tabulae Geographicae, una Nassir Eddini Persae, altera Vlug Beigi Tatari: Opera et Studio J. Gravii nunc primum publicatae. Londini, Typis Jacobi Flesher: prostant apud Cornelium Bee. 2nd edition of geographical tables.
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1665. Thomas Hyde (1636-1703). Tabulae long. ac lat. stellarum fixarum, ex observatione Ulugh Beighi, Tamerlanis Magni Nepotis, Regionum ultra citraque Gjihun (i. Oxum) Principis potentissimi. Ex tribus invicem collatis MSS. Persicis jam primum Luce ac Latio donavit, & commentariis illustravit, Thomas Hyde. In calce libri accesserunt Mohammedis Tizini tabulae declinationum & rectarium ascensionum. Additur demum Elenchus Nominum Stellarum. Oxonii: Typis Henrici Hall, sumptibus authoris. Tables in Latin and Persian for 1018 stars of which about 700 were based exclusively on Ulugh Beg and the balance were reduced from Ptolemy in one or both coordinates. Hyde appears to have worked totally independent of Greaves.
1690. Johannes Hevelius (1611-1687). Prodromus Astronomiae. Danzig. Contains a comparison of data in Ulugh Beg's tables with other star catalogues known at that time -- those of Ptolemy, Tycho Brahe, Giambattista Riccioli, Wilhelm IV (Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel), and Hevelius.
1698-1712. Geographiae veteris scriptores graeci minores. Cum interpretatione latina, dissertationibus, ac annotationibus... Oxoniae, e Theatro Sheldoniano. A work containing Ulugh Beg's geographical tables.
1725. John Flamsteed (1646-1719). Historia Coelestis Britannica. London, 3 vols. Includes Ulugh Beg's catalogue, along with those of Ptolemy, Tycho Brahe, Wilhelm IV, and Hevelius.
1767. Gregory Sharpe. Syntagma dissertationum quas olim auctor doctissimus Thomas Hyde, S. T. P. separatim edidit. Accesserunt nonnulla ejusdem opuscula hactenus inedita, &c. &c. Omnia diligenter recognita a Gregorio Sharpe, LL.D. Reg. Maj. a sacris. Templi Magistro S.S.R. et A.S. Oxonii. Reprint, with corrections,
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of Hyde's 1665 work on the Zij, in a 2 vol. collection of Hyde's work.
1807. Duo pinakez geographikoi, d men Nassir 'Eddinou Persou, d de Ouloug Mpei Tatarou. 'Epimeleia kai opoudh Dhmhtriou 'Alexandridou ... Kata thn en 'Oxonia ekdosin tou sophou Grauiou. 'En Biennh thz Austriaz, ek thz tupographiaz 'A. Sxmidiou. Ulugh Beg's geographical tables published in Vienna in a Greek-language edition.
1843. Francis Baily (1774-1844). "The Catalogues of Ptolemy, Ulugh Beigh, Tycho Brahe, Halley and Hevelius, Deduced From the Best Authorities, With Various Notes and Corrections," Memoires of the Royal Astronomical Society 13, pp. 19-28, 79-125, London. Reprinted from Thomas Hyde's translation, as edited by Gregory Sharpe in 1767.
1839. L. P. E. A. Sedillot (1808-1875). Tables astronomiques d'Oloug Beg, commentees et publiees avec le texte en regard, Tome I, 1 fascicule, Paris. A very rare work, but referenced in the Bibliographie generale de l'astronomie jusqu'en 1880, by J. C. Houzeau and A. Lancaster (Brussels, 3 vols. 1887-9; reprinted London, 1964).
1847. L. P. E. A. Sedillot (1808-1875). Prolegomenes des Tables astronomiques d'Oloug Beg, publiees avec Notes et Variantes, et precedes d'une Introduction. Paris: F. Didot.
1853. L. P. E. A. Sedillot (1808-1875). Prolegomenes des Tables astronomiques d'Oloug Beg, traduction et commentaire. Paris.
1917. Edward Ball Knobel (1841-1930). Ulugh Beg's Catalogue of Stars, Revised from all Persian Manuscripts Existing in Great
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Britain, with a Vocabulary of Persian and Arabic Words. Washington, D. C.: The Carnegie Institute of Washington.
* * *
TARZ-I SIYASET
(THREE POLICIES)Yusuf Ak ura (1876-1935)
Ak ura's Tarz-i Siyaset (Three Policies) appeared during 1904 in the newspaper T RK (Nos. 24-34) in Cairo, then under British rule. The work was re-printed in 1912 in Istanbul, as a pamphlet. In 1976, Tarz-i Siyaset was re-issued with the late E. Z. Karal's introduction, also containing two of the original responses to the work: by Ali Kemal and Ahmet Ferit (Tek).[1] Due to the prevailing censorship in Istanbul, a number of periodicals opposing the rule of Abd lhamid II were being printed in Cairo.[2] One such paper of the era was AL-NAHDAH[3] published by Ismail Bey Gaspirali (1854-1914)[4], who was related to Ak ura by marriage.
The issues discussed in Three Policies have occupied the thoughts of a large number of individuals belonging to almost all persuasions, and the administrative strata of the majority of political entities of its time. The perspectives from which Ak ura viewed those issues are also very wide, and the conclusions he reached essentially foretold what was to become. The concerns Ak ura articulated are still valid for most of the region.
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A brief biography of Ak ura is provided by David Thomas, immediately following the translation proper.[5]
NOTES TO INTRODUCTION: [1] Yusuf Ak ura, Tarz-i Siyaset (Ankara: T rk Tarih Kurumu, 1976). The dedication page states: "In commemmoration of Ak ura's 100th birth anniversary, one of the first Presidents of the T rk Tarih Kurumu [Turkish Historical Society, founded by the order of Mustafa Kemal Atat rk in 1925 and maintained by his legacy provided in his last will and testament]." The volume contains a biography of Ak ura by Karal, and a bibliography of Ak ura's writings.
[2] To place the events of the era into perspective, see for example, Y. H. Bayur, T rk Inkilabi Tarihi (Ankara, 1940-1967) Three Vols.; A. B. Kuran, Inkilap Tarihimiz ve J n T rkler (Istanbul, 1945); T. Z. Tunaya T rkiyede Siyasi Partiler, 1859- 1952 (Istanbul, 1952), of which there is now a new and expanded edition; Serif Mardin, J n T rklerin Siyasi Fikirleri, 1895-1908 (Ankara, 1964); A. Bennigsen and Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay, La presse et le mouvement national ches les musulmans de russie avant 1920 (Paris, 1964); E. E. Ramsaur, The Young Turks (Beirut, 1965); Feroz Ahmad, The Young Turks: The Committee of Union and Progress in Turkish Politics, 1908-1914 (Oxford, 1969); Sina Aksin, 31 Mart Olayi (Ankara, 1970); S. S. Aydemir, Makedonya'dan Orta Asya'ya Enver Pasa, Vol. II. (Istanbul, 1976) 2nd Ed. (Especially Pp. 443-494); Stanford J & E. K. Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Vol. II (Cambridge University Press, 1977); M. S kr Hanioglu, Bir Siyasal rg t Olarak 'Osmanli Ittihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti' ve 'J n T rkl k' 1889-1902 (Vol I) (Istanbul, 1985); Masami Arai, Turkish Nationalism in the
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Young Turk era (Leiden, 1991). Most contain extensive bibliographies.
[3] Thomas Kuttner "Russian Jadidism and the Islamic World: Ismail Gasprinskii in Cairo, 1908" Cahiers du monde russe et sovietique. 16. (1975).
[4] Edward Lazzerini, "Gaspirali Ismail Bey's Terc man" Central Asian Monuments, H. B. Paksoy, Ed. (at press); idem, "Gadidism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century: A View From Within" Cahiers du monde russe et sovietique. 16 (1975); idem "From Bakhchisaray to Bukhara in 1893: Ismail Bey Gasprinskii's Journey to Central Asia" Central Asian Survey Vol. 3, No. 4 (1984); idem, "Ismail Bey Gasprinskii and Muslim Modernism in Russia, 1878-1914" (Doctoral dissertation, University of Washington, 1973); Ismail Bey Gasprinskii, Russkoe musul'manstvo: mysli, zametki I nablyudeniya (Simferopol, 1881) Society for Central Asian Studies (Oxford, 1985) Reprint No. 6; Cafer Seydahmet, Gaspirali Ismail Bey (Istanbul, 1934).
[5] For further details, see David Thomas, "Yusuf Ak ura and the Intellectual Origins of Tarz-i Siyaset" Journal of Turkish Studies/T rkl k Bilgisi Arastirmalari Vol. 2 (1978); idem, "The Life and Thought of Yusuf Ak ura 1876-1935" (Doctoral Dissertation, McGill University, 1976).
THREE POLICIES Translated by David S. Thomas, PhD.
Rhode Island CollegeIt seems to me that since the rise of the desires for progress and rehabilitation spread from the West, three principal
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political doctrines have been conceived and followed in the Ottoman dominions. The first is the one which seeks to create an Ottoman Nation through assimilating and unifying the various nations subject to Ottoman rule. The second seeks to unify politically all Muslims living under the governance of the Ottoman State because of the fact that the prerogative of the Caliphate has been a part of the power of the Ottoman State (this is what the Europeans call Pan-Islamism). The third seeks to organize a policy of Turkish nationalism (T rk Milliyet-i siyasiyesi) based on ethnicity.
The first of these principles had an important influence on the general political policy of the Ottoman Empire, whereas the last appeared only recently in the writings of certain authors.
I The desire to bring into being an Ottoman nation did not aim at a lofty objective nor high hopes. Rather the real purpose was to grant and impose the same rights and political duties on the Muslim and non-Muslim peoples of the Ottoman dominions, and thus to realize perfect equality between them and to grant complete freedom of thought and worship. The aim was thus to create an Ottoman Nation (Osmanli Milleti) a new nationality united in a common country similar to the American nation in the United States of America by blending and assimilating to each other the above mentioned peoples in spite of the religious and racial differences [existing] among them. The ultimate result of all these difficult processes was to be the preservation of the "High Ottoman State" in her original external form, that is within her old boundaries. Although the continuance and strengthening of the power of a state whose majority was Muslim and Turkish in its major part was beneficial to all Muslims and Turks, this political principle would not directly serve them. For this reason the Muslims and Turks living outside the Ottoman lands
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could not be so interested in this policy. The point is that it would only be a local and internal matter.
The policy of creation of an Ottoman nation arose seriously during the reign of Mahmut the Second.(1) It is well known that this ruler said: "I wish to see the religious differences among my subjects only when they enter their mosques, synagogues, and churches..." Around the beginning and the middle of the nineteenth century it was natural that this policy was thought preferable and practicable for the Ottoman dominions. At that time in Europe the idea of nationalism, through the influence of the French Revolution, accepted as the basis of nationality the French model based on the principle of conscience rather than that of descent and ethnicity. Sultan Mahmud and his successors, self-deceived by this principle which they could not thoroughly comprehend, believed in the possibility of blending, and molding the subjects of the state who were of different ethnicities and faiths into a united nation, by means of freedom, equality, security and fraternity. Some examples which could be observed in the history of the integration of nationalities in Europe also strengthened their conviction. In fact did not the French nationality originate from a compound of German, Celtic, Latin, Greek, and other elements? Were there not many Slavic elements digested in the German nationality? Is not Switzerland a nation despite differences of ethnicity and religion? It is not improbable that these Ottoman statesmen, through an inadequate understanding of the nature of the policies pursued by the Germans and the Italians, who were striving for their political unity at that time, presented these movements as evidence to support the correctness of their policy.
The idea of an Ottoman national unity was observed especially during the time of Ali and Fuat Pasha. Napoleon the Third, the apostle of creating nations according to the French principle of the plebiscite, was the most powerful supporter of these Westernized pashas. The French inspired reforms during the
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time of Sultan Abd laziz and the lyc e at Galatasaray which this reform symbolized were all results of the time when this system was fashionable.
But when Napoleon and the French Empire fell in 1870-1871 which symbolized the victory of the German interpretation of nationality, that of assuming ethnicity as the basis of nationality, which, I believe, is closer to reality, the policy of Ottoman unity lost its only powerful supporter. It is true that Mithat Pasha was to a degree a follower of the two famous ministers mentioned above but his political program which was more complex in relation to theirs disappeared very quickly. As for the program of present-day Young Ottomans, who pretend to follow the work of Mithat, is very vague. I believe therefore it would not be a mistake if one assumes that the illusion of organizing an Ottoman nation passed away with the French Empire and, like it, can never be revived again. When the policy of creating an Ottoman nation failed, the policy of Islamism appeared.(2)
This idea which the Europeans term Pan-Islamism was recently developed out of Young Ottomanism, namely by a group who partially adopted a policy of forming an Ottoman nation. The point to which many Young Ottoman poets and politicians ultimately arrived, having begun first of all with the slogans "Homeland" and "Ottomanizm" --that is Ottomanizm composed of all the peoples living in the homelands-- was "Islamism." The most influential cause of this metamorphosis was their experience of Europe and their closer observation of Western ideas. When they were in the East they stuffed their heads with the ideas of eighteenth century political philosophy --one of them was a translator of Rousseau-- but they were unable completely to comprehend the importance of ethnicity and religion and especially they were unable to understand completely that the time had passed for creating a new nationality; that the interests, if not desires, of the various elements under the rule
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of the Ottoman state were not in accordance with such a unity and blending and hence that the application of the French conception of nationality was impossible in the East. When they were in foreign countries, however, they saw their own country with greater clarity from afar, and they were successful in understanding the gradually increasing political importance of religion and ethnicity for the East. As a result they realized that the desire to create an Ottoman nation was an illusion. Thereupon they became convinced of the necessity to unify completely all Muslim peoples using all possible means, starting first with those living in the Ottoman dominions and then with those living in the remainder of the world, without regard to differences of ethnicity, but taking advantage of their common faith. In accordance with the rule that "religion and nation are one" which every Muslim learns from his earliest years, they believed that it was possible to put all Muslims in the form of a unified nation in the sense given to a nation in recent times. In one respect this would lead to dissolution and separation among the peoples of the Ottoman dominions. Muslim and non-Muslim Ottoman subjects would now be divided. On the other hand, however, this would be the means of uniting all Muslims in an even greater unification and assimilation. This policy, in comparison to the previous policy, was more extensive, or in current terminology, it was world-wide (mondiale). This idea which in the beginning was purely theoretical, appearing only in the press, gradually began as well to have practical application. During the last years of Sultan Abd laziz's reign the word Pan- Islamism was frequently heard in diplomatic conversations. The establishment of diplomatic relations with certain Muslim rulers of Asia were undertaken. After the fall of Mithat Pasha, that is after the complete renunciation of the idea officially of creating an Ottoman nation, Sultan Abd lhamid the Second strove to follow this policy. This ruler, in spite of the fact that he was the irreconcilable adversary of the Young Ottomans, was, to a
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degree, their political disciple. The Young Ottomans, once realizing that the non-Muslim subjects did not want to stay within the Ottoman Commonwealth, even if they were granted complete equality in rights and freedom, had begun to express their enmity toward these non-Muslim subjects and towards their Christian protectors. The present-day policy of the Padisah exhibits a striking resemblance to Young Ottoman ideas after this change in their outlook. (3)
The present-day ruler tried to substitute the religious title of Caliph for the terms Sultan and Padisah. In his general policies, religion, i.e. the religion of Islam, held an important place. In the curricula of the secular schools the time allotted to religious instruction was increased; the basis of education was religious. Religiosity and pietism --even if it were external and hypocritical-- became the most important means for attracting the protection of the Caliphal favor. The imperial residence of Yildiz was filled with hojas, imams, seyyids, sheikhs, and sherifs. It became a custom to appoint men with turbans to certain civil posts. Preachers were sent among the people to inspire firmness in religion, strong loyalty to the office of the Caliphate --to the person who occupied that office rather than the office itself-- and hatred against the non- Muslim peoples. Everywhere tekkes, zaviyehs, and jamis were built and repaired. Hajis won great importance. During the pilgrimage season, pilgrims passing through the city of the Caliphate were honored by the blessing and favor of the Ruler of the Muslims. Their religious allegiance and loyalty of heart to the office of the Caliphate was sought. In recent years envoys have been sent to the countries of Africa and China thickly populated by Muslims. One of the best means of carrying out this policy has been the building of the Hamidiye-Hijaz Railway. Yet with this political policy the Ottoman Empire resumed the form of a theocratic state that it had tried to abandon in the period of the Tanzimat. It now became necessary [for the
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state] to renounce all freedom, the freedom of conscience, thought and political freedom, as well as religious, ethnic, political and cultural equality. Consequently, it was necessary to say farewell to an European-type constitutional government; to accept an increase of the already existing enmities and antipathies arising out of the diversity of ethnicities, religions and social positions, which ultimately led to an increase of revolts and rebellions, as well as to an upsurge in Europe of enmity against the Turk. In fact that is just what occurred.(4)
The idea to bring about a policy of Turkish nationalism based on ethnicity is very recent. I do not think this idea existed in either the Ottoman Empire up to now nor in other former Turkish states. Although L on Cahun, the partisan historian of Chinggis and Mongols, has written that this great Turkish Khan conquered Asia from end-to-end with the ultimate intention to unite all the Turks. I am unable to say anything concerning the historical authenticity of this assertion. Furthermore, I have not encountered any trace concerning the existence of an idea to unite the Turks during the Tanzimat and in the Young Ottoman movements. Probably the late Vefik Pasha, when he showed interest in a pure Turkish language by writing his Dictionary, was fascinated for a while with this utopian idea. It is true, nevertheless, that recently in Istanbul a circle, scientific rather than political, has been founded to pursue the idea of Turkish nationalism. It seems to me that an increase in the relations between the Ottomans and the Germans, and the growing acquaintance among Turkish youth of the German language and especially the historical and philological studies done by the Germans, have been very influential in the formation of this circle. In this new group, rather than the light, frivolous, and political style characterized by the French tradition, there exists a soundly-based science which has been obtained quietly, patiently, and in a detailed fashion. The most prominent members
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of this group are Semseddin Sami, Mehmet Emin, Necip Asim, Velet elebi, and Hasan Tahsin; while Ikdam, up to a point, seems to be their organ. The movement is developing rather slowly because the present-day government apparently does not look with favor on this mode of thinking.(5)
I do not know whether followers of this idea exist in places other than Istanbul in the Ottoman Empire. Yet Turkism, just like Islamism, is a general policy. It is not limited to the borders of the Ottoman Empire. Consequently it is necessary to look at the other parts of the world inhabited by the Turks. In Russia, where most of the Turks live, I know of the existence in a very vague form of the idea of the unity of the Turks. The nascent Idil literature is more Turkish than Muslim in character. If external pressure had not existed, the regions of Turkistan, Yayik and Idil, wherein the great majority of the Turks are found, could have provided a more favorable environment than the Ottoman dominions for the flourishing of this idea. This idea may also exist among the Caucasian Turks. Although the Caucasian Turks have had an intellectual influence on the Azerbaijan Turks, I do not know to what degree the Turks of Northern Iran have embraced the idea of Turkish unity. In any case the formulation of a policy of nationalism based on ethnicity is still in its infancy and not widespread.
II Now let us investigate which one of these three policies is useful and practicable.
We said useful, but useful to whom and to what purpose? To this question only our natural instincts, in other words our sentiments which reason is still unable to analyze and justify, can give an answer. "I am an Ottoman, a Muslim, and a Turk. Therefore I wish to serve the interests of the Ottoman state, Islam, and all Turks." But are the interests of these three
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societies, which are political, religious, and ethnic, common? That is to say does the strengthening of one imply the strengthening of the others? The interests of the Ottoman state are not contrary to the interests of Muslims and Turks in general, inasmuch as both Muslim and Turkish subjects would become powerful by its gaining power, and at the same time other Muslims and Turks [outside] will also have support.
But the interests of Islam do not completely coincide with Ottoman and Turkish interests, because the strengthening of Islam would lead in the end to the separation of some non-Muslim peoples from the state. The rise of the conflicts between the Muslims and the non-Muslims would lead to a partition of the present-day Ottoman commonwealth and its weakening.(6) As for the interests of the Turks, they also do not completely coincide with the interests of the Ottoman state or with Islam, since the division of Islamic society into Turkish and non-Turkish parts, will weaken it, with the result that this would release discord among the Ottoman Muslim subjects and lead to a weakening of the Ottoman Empire.
Therefore a person belonging to each of the three societies must work for the interests of the Ottoman state. Yet in which one of these three policies, which we are discussing, lies the interest of the Ottoman state itself? And which one of these is practicable in the Ottoman Commonwealth?
III The creation of an Ottoman Nation is the sole means for preserving the Ottoman Empire within its present-day borders. Yet, does the real strength of the Ottoman state lie in its preservation within its present-day geographical form?
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In the case of an Ottoman nation, it is believed that a composite nation will come into existence from among the various religions and ethnic groups based upon liberty and legal equality. They [the people] will be united only by the ideas of homeland (The Ottoman Dominions) and nation (The Ottoman Nation). The conflicts and animosities arising from religious and ethnic differences will cease, and in this fashion the Greeks and Armenians, like the Arabs will be fused into a unity. The Ottoman Turks who are the basic foundation of the Ottoman state will be content with the spiritual benefits of attributing the name of Osman Bey, their first leader, to their homeland and nation and especially by seeing the empire which came into existence through the efforts of their ancestors not partitioned any further. Perhaps they may even be forced to drop this name altogether because in this free state, in which the former conquered peoples constitute a majority, the name "Ottoman," which to them is a symbol of their former subjugation, may be abolished by their will!
The Ottoman Turks may continue their actual predominance for a limited duration of time thanks to their sovereignty exercised through past centuries, yet it must be remembered that the duration of the force of inertia in the social realm is no more than the one observed in the realm of nature. As for the generality of Muslims who live in the Ottoman nation, since they will constitute the majority, the complete power of rulership in the administration of the state will pass into their hands. Consequently, if it is recognized that spiritually and materially the Islamic element will derive the greatest benefit from this composite society, then we also must admit that in this Ottoman nation religious conflicts remain, a real equality does not exist and the various elements have not truly been merged into one.
To say that in the creation of the Ottoman Nation the Turkish and Muslim population and their power will not be
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increased is not to say that the power of the Ottoman state will be decreased. Nevertheless our basic question is the power of the state. Power will certainly be increased. The people of a state organized in a rational, closely-knit fashion, in short, as a block, rather than being in the state of continuous disputes and conflict (anarchy), will certainly be more powerful.
But the basic problem is whether or not the elements belonging to different ethnicities and religions which up to now have never ceased being in conflict and contention with one another can now be united and assimilated? We have seen above that experiments of this nature in the past have ended in failures: in order to understand henceforth whether or not success is possible, let us survey the causes of this failure.
1. Muslims, and especially Ottoman Turks, did not themselves wish this combination and assimilation. Such a policy would have put an end legally to their six hundred year-old sovereignty, and they would descend to the level of equality with reayas whom they had become accustomed over many years to regard as subjugated peoples. As the most immediate and material result of it they would be forced to let the reayas enter the government and army positions that they had customarily monopolized up to that time. In other words, by leaving an occupation looked on as honorable by the aristocratic peoples, they themselves would be forced to enter into trade and industry which they looked down upon and with which they were little acquainted.
2. Likewise, the Muslims did not wish this inasmuch as this powerful religion which looked after the real interests of its followers from a very material and human point of view, did not accept complete legal equality of Muslim and non-Muslim: the Zimmis were to remain always on a secondary level. As for liberty, although it is true from every aspect that Islam, among all the religions, has been the most liberal, nevertheless as a religion, having its origin in the supernatural, it regards every
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custom not entirely of its own principles and customs, derived [as they are] from absolute truths, as contrary to the true path. It would not accept, therefore, merely for the goal of human happiness, complete freedom of thought and conscience.
3. The non-Muslims, too, did not want it, because all of them had their own past, their own independence and their own governments in that past which was now being glorified because of the revival of national consciousness. Muslims and especially the Turks had ended their independence and had destroyed their governments. And, under the Ottoman rule, they believed, they had experienced injustice and not justice, contempt and not equality, misery and not happiness. The Nineteenth century had taught them their past, their rights and their nationality on the one hand, and had weakened the Ottomans, their masters on the other. And some of the fellow subjugated peoples had already won their independence. Now their weakened masters are extending their hand of brotherhood unwillingly and hesitantly. They wanted them to share sovereignty; they wanted to equalize the privileges. These invigorated subjects, whose wisdom was now brighter than their masters' and who understood that some of the hands extending towards them were really sincere, did not fail to recognize the role played on the formation of this new policy by the pressure of Western powers, who, for their own interests, sought the maintenance of the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. The interests of some of them were probably with the idea of the Ottoman nation, yet they were also prone to exalted emotions rather than cool calculations. Thus, literally none of them wanted to form a new national unity by letting themselves merge with those whom they looked upon as their enemies.
4. The greatest enemy of the Ottomans, Russia, as well as its satellites, the Balkan states, also did not want it. Russia wanted to get possession of the Straits [Bosphorus and Dardanelles], Anatolia, and Iraq, Istanbul and the whole of Balkans, the Holy Lands, and thus to realize its political,
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economic, national and religious aims. By occupying the Straights, Russia would obtain a large and protected port for its naval fleet, freely roam the important trade routes of the Mediterranean. From that position, Russia could, at any time, ambush the British Naval and commercial fleets, the caravans of our time, thereby at will could sever the British lines of communication with her wealthiest colony. In short, Russia could flank India, which it has coveted for a long time, again, this time from the West. By occupying Anatolia, Russia would be in a position totally to control the most fertile and productive continent on earth. By expanding into Iraq, Russia would complete its conquest of Asia, thus tilting the age old competition with Britain for the control of the Islamic holy-lands and populations in its own favor. As a result, by gaining the Straits and a substantial portion of Ottoman Asia, Russia would reap important political and economic benefits.
By annexing the Balkans to its already wide lands, [Russians would] unify the South Slavs, and by planting the Cross on St. Sophia, gain control of the lands from which the Russian Orthodox religion originated. This would allow the extremely devout Russians, to claim with all their hearts, their highest religious and emotional objectives.
The realization of these aims depended upon a weak, troubled and divided Ottoman state. Therefore, Russia could never tolerate the rise of an Ottoman nationality.
Then, those Serbian and Greek states, which had recently gained political life, would want to increase [sic] their populations "that have been left under the yoke of the Turks." This could only be attained by segregating the Ottoman communities. They would have strived towards that [objective].
5. The idea was not well received in some sections of European public opinion. Some of those who manipulated European public opinion were still under the influence of the age-old religious quarrel between Christianity and Islam. They were still
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following the tradition of the Crusades. They wanted to rescue the Christians from the Muslim yoke, to clear the infidels out of Europe and the lands of the Christians. Some of them, giving a more humane and scientific color to their claims, wanted not only to rescue the "European nations capable of progress" from the yoke of the half-barbarian Turanians who knew nothing but waging warfare, but also to push these Asiatics back to the deserts of the continent from which they originated. Frequently these two theses became mixed and confused with each other so that it was not clear which one was derived from the other. We see, therefore, that in spite of the desires of all peoples living in the Ottoman lands and in spite of all external obstacles, only a few persons who were at the top of the Ottoman government wanted to create an Ottoman nationality simply by relying upon the support of certain European governments (especially of the France of Napoleon III)! It was an impossible task. Even if these men at the top were great geniuses, it would not in the least have been possible to overcome so many obstacles. In fact, their efforts ended in failure.
Those obstacles have not decreased since then. On the contrary they have become more numerous. Abd lhamid's policy increased the enmity and the gulf between the Muslims and the non-Muslims. Additional numbers of non-Muslim peoples were getting their independence and this doubled the enthusiasm of the others. Russia increased its power and became more aggressive. European public opinion turned more bitterly against the Turks. France, the most powerful supporter of the idea of Ottoman nationality, lost its greatness and became a follower of Russia. In short, both inside and outside, the conditions became more and more unfavorable to the scheme. It seems, therefore, that from now on to follow the policy of Ottomanism is nothing more than a waste of time.
Now let us see if the policy of PAn-Islam is beneficial and practicable for the Ottoman state.
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As has ben alluded above, the application of this policy would increase the already existing rivalries and animosities among the peoples of the Empire and thus would mean the weakening of the state. Moreover, the Turks would find themselves separated into Muslims and non-Muslims and thus the common affinity based on ethnicity would be destroyed by religious conflicts.
Against such disadvantages, however, this policy had the advantage of unifying all Muslims, and consequently the Turks, would create an Islamic Commonwealth more solid and compact than the unity of the Ottoman nation. More important than this, it would prepare the ground for the rise of a larger unity, based on religion, which would be able to survive alongside the great powers arising out of Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, Slavic, Latin and perhaps Sino blocs.
The realization of this ultimate aim would undoubtedly take a long time. In the beginning it would suffice to strengthen the already existing spiritual relations and to set down the outlines of future organization. But gradually the outlines will begin to take a more clear and definite form, and then it would be possible to create a stable spiritual unity extending over the greater part of Asia and half of Africa which would serve to challenge the above mentioned great and formidable blocks. But is it possible to pursue this policy in the Ottoman lands successfully?
Islam is one of the religions which puts much importance on political and social affairs. One of its tenets may be formulated by the saying that "religion and nation are the same." Islam abolishes ethnic and national loyalties of those who embrace it. It also tends to do away with their language, their past and their traditions. Islam is a powerful melting pot in which peoples of various ethnicities and beliefs, produces Muslims who believe they are a body with the same equal rights. At the rise of Islam there was within it a strong orderly political
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organization. Its constitution was the Koran. Its official language was Arabic. It had an elected head and a holy seat. However, the changes observable in other religions can be seen in Islam, too. As the result of the influences of ethnicity and various events the political unity achieved by religion became partly disrupted. A century had not even passed since the hijra before the national conflicts between the Arabs and the Persians (taking the form of the struggles between the Umayyads and Hashemites dynasties) had opened an unbridgeable rift in the unity of Islam. It created the great schism between the Sunni and Shii Muslims. Later on various other elements like the Turks and Berbers appeared in addition to the Arabs and the Persians. In spite of the great levelling, assimilating and unifying power of Islam, the unity of the official and religious language, too, disappeared. Persians claimed equality with Arabic. A time came when the power of Islam began to sink to its lowest ebb. Part of the Muslim lands and then gradually a great part of them (more than three fourths) passed under the domination of the Christian states. The unity of Islam became more disrupted. And, in recent times, under the impact of Western ideas ethnic and national feelings which previously had been subsumed by Islam began to show their force.
In spite of all these forces which have weakened the power of Islam, religious beliefs are still very influential. We can safely say that among the Muslims skepticism toward their faith and the doctrine of atheism are not yet wide spread. All followers of Islam still seem to be faithful, enthusiastic, obedient believers, who can face every sacrifice for the sake of their religion.
Although the new legislations of some Muslim states have diverged from the sheria of Islam, these states still pretend to maintain the Islamic law as the basis of legislation. Arabic is still the only religious language of science and literature among the Muslims of certain lands. Many Muslim madrasa, with a few
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exceptions, still teach in Arabic and follow the same scholastic programs. Still many Muslims are saying "Thank God, I am a Muslim," before saying "I am a Turk or an Iranian." Still the majority of the Muslims of the world recognize the Emperor of the Ottoman Turks as their Caliph. Still all Muslims turn their faces to Mecca five times a day and rush from all corners of the world, enthusiastically facing all kinds of difficulties, to the kabah of Allah to kiss the Black Stone. Without hesitating, we can repeat, therefore, that Islam still is very powerful. Thus, it seems that the internal obstacles against the policy of Pan-Islam may more or less easily be overcome.
The external obstacles, on the other hand, are very powerful. On the one hand, all of the Islamic states, with one or two exceptions, are under the influence of the Christian states. On the other hand, all of the Christian states, with one or two exceptions, have among their subjects, Muslims.
These states believe that the allegiance of their Muslim subjects, even if this allegiance is only in a spiritual sense, to a foreign political power is contrary to their interests and is something which might prove dangerous in the future. Therefore, these states would naturally use every means within their power to prevent the realization of a Pan-Islamic unity. And, through their influence and might over the Muslim states, they are in a position to prevent it. Therefore, they can follow and eventually succeed in the materialization of a policy contrary to the Pan-Islamic program of the Ottoman government which is the strongest Islamic power today.
Now, let us survey the benefits of the policy of Pan- Turkism (tevhid-i Etrak). By such a policy all Turks living in the Ottoman Empire would be perfectly united by both ethnic and religious bonds and the other non-Turkish Muslim groups who have been already Turkified to a certain extent would be further assimilated. Those who have never been assimilated but at the
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same time have no national feelings would be entirely assimilated under such a program.
But the main service of such a policy would be to unify all the Turks who, being spread over a great portion of Asia and over the Eastern parts of Europe, belong to the same language groups, the same ethnicity and mostly the same religion. Thus there would be created a greater national political unity among the other great nations. In this greater national unity the Ottoman state as the most powerful, the most progressive and civilized of all Turkish societies, would naturally play an important role. There would be a Turkish world in between the world of the Caucasian and the East Asian ethnicities. Recent events suggest that such a division of the world into two great blocs is imminent. In between these two blocks the Ottoman state could play a role similar to that which is played by Japan among the East Asian ethnicities.
But, over these advantages, there are certain disadvantages which may lead to the partition of the non-Turkish Muslims from the Ottoman Empire. These peoples cannot be assimilated with the Turks and therefore this policy would lead to the division of the Muslims into Turks and non-Turks and thereby to the relinquishment of any serious relations between the Ottoman state and the non-Turkish Muslims.
Moreover, the internal obstacles against this policy are greater in number than those which were unfavorable to the policy of Pan-Islam. For one thing, the Turkish nationalistic ideas which appeared under the influence of Western ideas is still very recent. Turkish nationalism --the idea of the unification of the Turks-- is still a new born child. That strong organization, that living and zealous feeling, in short, those primary elements which create a solid unity among Muslims do not exist in Turkishness (T rkl k). The majority of the Turks today have forgotten their past!
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We must remember, however, that a great majority of the present-day Turks who seem to be amenable to unification, are of Muslim religion. For that reason, Islam may be an important factor in the realization of a Turkish unity. Religion is admitted as an important element in various definitions of nationality. Islam, however, to play such a role in the realization of the Turkish nationality has to face a change so that it can admit the existence of the nationalities within itself --a recognition achieved recently in Christianity. And such a transformation is almost inevitable. The dominant current in our contemporary history is that of the nations. Religions as such are increasingly losing their political importance and force. Religion is increasingly becoming less and less social and more and more personal. Freedom of conscience is replacing unity of faith. Religions are renouncing their claims to being the sole director of the affairs of the communities and they are becoming spiritual forces leading hearts towards salvation. Religion is nothing more than a moral bond between the Creator and the created. Religions, therefore, if they are to maintain any of their social and political importance can do so by becoming a helper and even a hand-maiden to the national unities.(7) External obstacles against the realization of the Turkish unification, on the other hand, are less strong in comparison with those working against Pan-Islamism. Among the Christian states only power to work against this policy will be Russia. As to the other Christian governments, they may even encourage this policy because they will find it against the interests of Russia. The following conclusions seem to emerge from our discussion. The policy of Ottoman nationality, though implying many advantages for the Ottoman state, seems to be impracticable. Other policies aiming at the unification of the Muslims or of the Turks, on the other hand, seem to imply advantages and disadvantages of almost equal weight. As to the practicability of
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these two policies, we see likewise that the favorable and the unfavorable conditions are equal.
Which one, then, should be followed? When I saw the name of your paper T rk, an uncommon name to be used [by the Ottomans], I hoped to find in your columns an answer to this question which used to occupy me continuously and I hoped that this answer would be in favor of the policy of Turkism. But, I see that the "Turk" whose rights you are defending, the "Turk" whom you are trying to enlighten and move is not anyone of that great ethnicity who live in the lands of Asia, Africa, and Europe, extending from Central Asia to Montenegro, from Timor Peninsula to the Karalar Ili[?], but he is just one of the Western Turks who is a subject of the Ottoman state. Your paper T rk knows and sees this "Turk" only as a Turk living from the Fourteenth century and whose history is known only through the eyes of the French historians. You are trying to defend the rights of only the "Turk" against the pressures of the foreign nations and the non-Muslim and Muslim peoples who are subjects of the same [Ottoman] state but who belong to a different [non-Turkish] ethnicity. For your paper T rk, the military, political and civil history of the Turks is nothing but the history of Murat the First, Mehmet the Conqueror, Selim the First, Ibn Kemal, Nef'i, Baki, Evliya elebi and Namik Kemal. It does not and cannot be extended to the names of Oghuz, Chinggis, Timur, Ulugh Bey, Farabi, Ibn Sina, Taftazani and Navai. Sometimes your opinions seems somewhat close to the policy of Pan-Islam and the Caliphate leaving the impression that you are supporting the policies of Pan-Islamism and Turkism at the same time. You implicitly seem to believe that both groups being Muslims have common interests on vital questions. But you do not even insist upon this view.(8)
In short, the question which is in my thoughts and inviting an answer is still unanswered. The question is: of the three policies of Islamism and Turkism (T rkl k) which one is the more beneficial and practicable for the Ottoman state?
Yusuf Ak ura
Village of Zoya, Russia 15 (28) March 1904
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Ak ura's Notes:
(1) Although it can be claimed that this policy had been followed in a natural fashion by certain Ottoman rulers up to the time of Selim I, it was not because of imitating Europe. Rather, it originated from the needs of the time and from the fact that Islam was not yet well established. Consequently it is not relevant to our discussion.
(2) This policy had been followed several centuries before by the Ottomans. Bayazit the Lightening, Mehmet the Conqueror, and Mehmet Sokollu pursued this idea. The desire to unify the world of Islam is obvious in almost every action of Selim I. These periods, however, do not fall within the scope of this article.
(3) It must not be forgotten that this article was written over seven years ago. [Editor's Note to the 1912 re-print].
(4) My intention must not be misunderstood. There are several reasons for the hostility which exists among the diverse peoples and the conflicts between Europe and the Ottoman Empire. The cause I have mentioned above forms only one of several varied causes.
(5) If I am not mistaken the government did not permit publication of the second volume of the Turkish History [which this group prepared].
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(6) Because the non-Muslim Turks are very few [in number], this last danger is not important.
(7) Examples are: the Orthodox church in Russia, Protestanizm in Germany, Anglicanism in England and Catholicism in various countries.
(8) "Makam-i Celil-i Hilafet" T rk, 18 Kanunevvel 1319 (1903). About the Life of Yusuf Ak ura
Ak ura was born in 1876 in Simbirsk (Ulyanovsk) on the right bank of the middle Volga. His father died when he was two; five years later he and his mother emigrated to Istanbul where henceforth he was to live. He received his early education in the schools of the Ottoman Empire and in 1895 he entered the Harbiye Mektebi (War College) in Istanbul. Upon graduation he was assigned to the Erkan-i Harbiye (General Staff Course), one of the most prestigious posts for young and ambitious cadets and one of the essential steps up the ladder of the Ottoman military hierarchy. Before he completed his training, however, he was accused of belonging to a secret society opposed to Abd lhamid and was sent into exile at Fezan in the interior of Libya, from where, in 1899, he and Ahmet Ferit [Tek], his close friend since their days together in the War College, escaped and made their way to Paris.Ak ura remained in Paris four years. It was a period which exerted a decisive influence on his thinking and which was to turn him completely away from a military career and reorient him for the remainder of his life toward intellectual and academic pursuits. He was given the opportunity to gain first-hand experience of European, specifically French culture, and to perfect his knowledge of French. At this time he became
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politically conscious and began to understand the motive forces and power of nationalism.
In 1903 Ak ura left Paris and returned to his ancestral home in the Russian domains where he composed what was to become his best known work, THREE TYPES OF POLICIES. In this essay which appeared in 1904 in the paper T rk published in Cairo, Ak ura advanced a number of arguments which, when taken together, were in fact a proposal to the Turks of the Ottoman Empire, urging them to recognize their national aspirations, to forget about being Ottomans and to adopt a policy of Turkish nationalism as the focus of their collective loyalty and identity. For their time these ideas were revolutionary. Among the Ottoman Turks they were either universally ignored or rejected and it was only during the period of the Second Mesrutiyet (Constitutional Monarchy) (1908-1918) that these notions were taken seriously and elaborated by Ak ura and others into an ideology of Turkish nationalism.
In pursuit of this, Ak ura founded the journal T RK YURDU which, from 1911 to 1917, became the foremost publication in the Turkish cultural world advancing the cause of nationalism "for all the Turks of the world." In it, Ak ura elaborated his own comprehensive doctrine of Turkism which was radically different from that advanced by G kalp. His ideology of Turkish nationalism was distinguished by its definition of the Turkish nation in terms of ethnicity, its recognition that the Turks must develop a national economy to sustain national consciousness and its insistence on reform of all institutions of Turkish society in accordance with a program of total Westernization.
In the Turkish Republic, Ak ura assumed a position of intellectual leadership. He continued to influence the ideological evolution of the new Turkish political entity, the Turkish Republic, through his position as an influential university professor and popular teacher, and through his ideas
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on the writing of history as well as his historical studies. He died in Istanbul in 1935.
THE TURKIC FEDERALIST PARTY IN TURKISTAN: A PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS Hisao Komatsu, PhD.
Tokai UniversityPerestroika opened the way for the discovery and new interpretation of the modern history of Soviet Central Asia. In recent Central Asian publications we can find a lot of new facts and source materials relating to issues and individuals that were absolutely neglected or treated as a taboo subject. In this paper, I would like to discuss an interesting document presented last year by Uzbek scholars and suggest its interpretation from a historical perspective.
This document is the program (maramnamasi) and regulations (nizamnamasi) of the Turkic Federalist Party (T rk Adam-i Markaziyat Firkasi) adopted on August 23, 1917. It was published as a lithographed pamphlet in Tashkent in the same year and reprinted in the Cyrillic alphabet in the journal Fan ve Turmush No. 7 (1990) through the efforts of Ahmadjan Madaminov and Said Murad. I regret that I have not yet obtained the original of the pamphlet. However, as far as I know, copies of that document remained unknown to the rest of the world up to now. To begin with, it is appropriate to provide a glimpse of the political circumstances in Turkistan between the February and October Revolutions. The February Revolution evoked the nationalist movement among the Turkistan population against the
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colonial Russian rule. The Turkistani political awakening was observed in every major city, where a number of newspapers and journals were published. In addition to the periodicals, the first political organization, the Turkistan Muslim Central Council (Turkistan M sl man Merkez-i Shurasi) was established mainly by the reformist (jadids) intellectuals in Tashkent in April of the same year. However, the leadership was in fact divided into two political groups. The first was the Islamic Council (Shura-i Islam), that was established by the liberal reformists in March 1917. The second was the Ulama Society (Ulama Jamiyati), that was formed by the conservative Muslim intellectuals in June. In the first phase, there existed between them hostility and sharp conflicts as to their doctrines and tactics. While the first designed an autonomous republic for future Turkistan, the latter stressed autonomy only in the realm of Islamic law. The all-Russian Muslim Congress held in Moscow in May, indicated the clear contrast among the Turkistan delegates with different orientations. However, before long, the political situation in Turkistan among other things the Russian negative attitude toward the Turkistani population, brought about the compromise and union of the two political groups, which was completed on the occasion of the Fourth Turkistan Muslim Congress convened in Khoqand in November, just after the October Revolution.
Now I would like to examine the above mentioned document. First of all, its content. The program consists of a Preamble, or Special Remark (Ikhtar-i Mahsus), and of Nine Chapters which are entitled as follows: "State and Autonomous Organization;" "Nationality Issues;" Religious Issues;" "Human Rights in Autonomous Segments;" Economic and Financial Matters;" "Land Issues;" "Workers Issues;" "Justice;" and "Educational Affairs." The aim of the Party is shown in the Introduction. It states "In order to bring about an autonomous and federative administration in Turkistan, there are no other means than to
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create an effective Federalist Party in Turkistan." Accordingly, new Russian state should be based on a federal system. Such major national segments as Turkistan, Kirghizistan (Kazakistan), Caucasus, Bashkurdistan and others enjoy national and territorial autonomy, while other scattered or small nations, for example Volga and Crimean Tatars, enjoy national and cultural autonomy within Russia. In general, the program plans to establish a democratic, secular and, with respect to domestic affairs, an independent Republic of Turkistan. For instance, its secular aspects appears in the article that states "no religions and sects are preferred by the government." However, at the same time it should be noted that the aspiration for the Turkic and Islamic unity in Russia is obviously expressed. The all-Russian Turkic league for national and cultural affairs and the all-Russian Muslim Spiritual Board presided by a selected Shayk al-Islam are to be created for the control of religious affairs. The program also states that a common Turkic written language should be learned and used in higher education. Still, this does not mean that the program denied linguistic pluralism in multi-ethnic Turkistan. A local language or dialect was to be used along with the official language in administrative affairs of every province and district. And in any elementary and secondary school, a local language or dialect spoken by the majority of the population should be used in the classrooms.
The next question pertains to the identity of the author. At the end of the document, we find a list of fourteen co-authors. I introduce some of them. Mullah Kamaluddin Qazi Damulla Rahmanberdiogli of Khoqand, who was one of the delegates of Turkistan Ulama at the all-Russian Muslim Congress in Moscow. Their conservative attitude was severely criticized by other reformist --and socialist-- minded Turkistan delegates. He and some mullahs named on the list are supposed to be members of the Ulama Jamiyeti. Mullah Abidjan Mahmudyar, a merchant of Khoqand and Mir Adil Mirza Ahmadogli, a merchant of Skobelev (Margilan),
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were reformist intellectuals and later entered the cabinet of the short-lived Turkistan Autonomous Republic. Munavvar Qari Abdurrashidhan Ogli and Mullah Mahmudhoja Bahbudiy were rather famous Jadid leaders. However, as to Behbudiy's thought, it may be noticed that his early project of autonomous Turkistan presented in 1909 is enlarged and incorporated in this Party Program. Sadriddinhan Mahdum is one of the most remarkable Turkistan nationalists. After the collapse of the Turkistan autonomy [under Red Army occupation], he went to Istanbul with the purpose of establishing a Turkistan Representative Committee in Switzerland. Although he left for Switzerland with K pr l zade Mehmet Fuat, having been assisted by Talat Pasha, the revolutionary conditions in Eastern Europe prevented him from accomplishing his purpose. Later returning to Turkistan, he joined the Basmachi Movement. In short, we can find on the list the leaders of the two opposite political groups the most eminent nationalist leaders in Turkistan. And one more person not to be forgotten is Muhammad Amin Afandizada, a Caucasus ulama. The list indicates that the program was drafted by Turkistani nationalists themselves. However, it seems not without help. Zeki Velidi Togan, who himself participated in the Turkistan National Movement, writes as follows:
In the summer of 1917, the Turkistan reformist intellectuals were engaged in establishing their own political party in preparation for the coming election of the all-Russian Constituent Assembly. Formerly there was among the Uzbeks the Turan Society for Spreading Education. At first they tried to reorganize it on the Social Democratic principles, but later, under the influence of an Azerbaijani Mehmet Emin Efendizade, they transformed it into the Turkic Federalist Party and published a definitive program. Theirs presented a socialist version of the Azerbaijan Musavat Party's
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program. They also published newspapers entitled Turan (April-September), and later T rk Ili (September). [T rkistan, P. 362]
Togan's statement is very instructive for our interpretation. When we compare the program with that of the Azerbaijan Musavat Party, it turns out that the former is essentially the same as the latter except for a few alterations. In both programs not only the framework, but also most of the articles are identical. This program is considered the result of the cooperative work of the Turkistan and Azerbaijan reformists. The work was carried out under the effective guidance of Muhammad Amin Efendizade who was supposed to be sent by the Musavat Party at the Turkistani's request. Objectively speaking, it was inevitable for the Turkistani intellectuals who had lacked political experience to imitate the Musavat Program. On the other hand, some differences are found between the two programs. In general, the Turkistan program appears more moderate than the Musavat's. It is supposed that the Turkistan reformists had to modify it in some respects to persuade their conservative colleagues to form a united national front against the Russians. They seem to have compromised with the Ulama Jamiyati with respect to such problems as expropriation and distribution of large tracts of private land, women's rights, and so on. As to those issues we know that the delegates of the Turkistan ulama made a strong protest during the Moscow Congress. Therefore, we cannot agree with Togan, who pointed out that the Turkistan program presented the socialist version of the Azerbaijan Musavat Party. On the contrary, some radical articles in the Musavat Program, for example workers' and women's rights, disappeared in the Turkistan version. The reformists' concession to the ulama, who were conservative yet influential among the population, appear also in the party organ T rk Ili's motto: "Holding on to Islam, we work hard to defend autonomous rights."
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The biggest difference between the two programs may be found in the articles relating to land issues. As to this subject, the Turkistan Party had its own claims. First, the Turkistan program omitted the Musavat principle of expropriation and distribution of large tracts of private land. Second, the Turkistan Program claimed the recovery of land and villages confiscated by the Russians. We know, for instance, the Andijan uprising and the Kazakh revolts in Semirechiye in 1916. Third, the Turkistan Program states that the whole waqf lands confiscated unlawfully should be returned to the rightful owners according to the waqfnamas concerned. In short, as to the land issue, the Turkistan Party was radically against the previous colonial rule, but moderate as to the traditional Muslim land ownership. Unfortunately, we have not sufficient knowledge about the Party's real aspects. The Party's organ T rk Ili was at the same time the organ of the Turkistan Muslim Central Council, and it is supposed that the Party included almost all the members of the Islamic council. The very short life of the T rk Ili suggests that the Party could not enjoy great success. On the other hand, Nurshirvan Yashev did not hide his disappointment, after observing the activities of the Second Turkistan Muslim Congress held in September, just after the birth of the Party. However, it is undeniable that the Turkic Federalist Party attempted to draw the first and systematic political program independent of the Russian political parties in Turkistan, and promoted the autonomous Turkistan idea among the population even if the sphere was limited. And around it, such talented young intellectuals as Fitrat began to search for Turkistan national history and traditions. When the Musavatists in Azerbaijan decided to adopt the Ilkhanid's blue banner as their symbol, Fitrat remembered the golden age of the Timurids.
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[INSERT: three pages containing the regulations of the Turkic Federalist Party, in the original, photomechanically reproduced].
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DEMOCRATIZATION IN UZBEKISTAN Rene Pruneau[1]
[Presented at the AACAR Sponsored Panel during AAASS annual meeting in November 1991].
Prior to the August coup in Moscow, Uzbek President Islam Karimov was a firm supporter of a renewed union with increased sovereignty for the republics. Even in the days following the coup, Karimov criticized President Gorbachev's decision to resign from the Communist Party and in speeches and statements called for its primacy. Since the aborted coup and Karimov's realization of what a turning point it was for the Soviet Union, the Uzbek President has been working overtime to appeal to nationalists and democrats in Uzbekistan. He now calls for an economic and security union but complete political independence of the republic.
Political unrest in the republic has been growing since the aborted coup and the decline of center authority. In response to the political discontent, Karimov has allowed two opposition parties to be registered and has set Presidential elections and a referendum on Uzbekistan's independence for 29 December. So far, Karimov is the only candidate for President though other parties are trying to get their nominees on the ballot.
This paper will show that in fact Islam Karimov is working to fill the vacuum that the demise of central authority has left in the republics. After first discussing laws and decrees issued by Karimov, this paper will then look at his opposition,
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obstacles to democratization in Uzbekistan, and finally, discuss Karimov's prospects for holding on to power.
Islam Karimov is 53-years-old and a veteran of Uzbek politics. He is from Samarkand and has held his current post since March 1990. Until this fall he had also been First Secretary of the Communist Party since 1989.[2] Karimov has proven to be a deft politician. With increased openness throughout the Soviet Union causing most republic leaders to relinquish some of their hold over their populace, Karimov remains in control.
Karimov and his government issued an independence declaration just days after the coupe five months after 94 percent of the Uzbek population voted for President Gorbachev's referendum on the inviolability of the Union[3]--and changed the republic name from Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic to the Republic of Uzbekistan. Karimov is actively departyizing cultural societies, education, and security forces.[4] He has put security forces under direct republic control.
The Communist Party has broken with the CPSU and renamed itself the People's Democratic Party of Uzbekistan--which is headed by Karimov. The new party calls for peaceable revival of spiritual and cultural traditions although it condemns calls for a state religion or creation of political religious organizations.[5] It also calls for development of a sovereign and independent Uzbekistan as a democratic state where human rights will be scrupulously observed. The party was officially registered on 18 November.[6] With the exception of these largely cosmetic changes, however, little has changed in the republic. Karimov has orchestrated what appears to be a slight opening up of Uzbek culture with the passing of a language law underscoring Uzbek preeminence as the republic's language, the publication of novels which extol the virtues of Uzbek culture, and restoring to Uzbek history books some heroes that the Soviet
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period had forgotten. On the other hand, however, he continues to clamp down on the personal freedoms of the populace. Karimov strictly controls the republic press and no unofficial papers or journals are allowed to publish. The republic press law which was published in June 1991 claims to guarantee the freedom of speech and right of Uzbek citizens to express their opinion and that censorship of the mass media is not permitted. It goes on to state, however, that appealing for a change of the state or public system is an abuse of the guaranteed right of freedom of speech. It also says that the use of mass media for interference in the personal lives of citizens without their consent, or for the infringement of their honor and dignity, is banned and prosecuted in conformity with the law. A clear warning against criticizing the President or any other public official.
One Uzbek opposition paper, Munosabat, attempted to publish by registering and publishing in Moscow rather than Tashkent. Its distributors in Uzbekistan, however, were arrested and the paper eventually closed.[7]
Karimov is denying the populace the freedom to assemble. In February 1990, the Supreme Soviet banned mass meetings and demonstrations outside of private premises and the Tashkent City Soviet Executive Committee has tightened the edict by prohibiting groups from meeting in private premises also.[8] This ban continues. In fact, according to leaders of the opposition group Birlik, their headquarters in Tashkent has been closed by the government and militia forces stand guard outside its entrance to keep away would be members.[9]
In mid-November a group of about 200 representatives from opposition parties who were demonstrating outside of the hotel where most republic Supreme Soviet deputies stay, were forcibly disbanded by republic OMON after calling for Karimov's resignation, the recognition of the Islamic Revival Party, and the nationalism of Communist Party property.[10]
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The government is denying both foreigners and Uzbek citizens the freedom to travel. Karimov has stopped journalists from traveling to areas of the republic where tensions are running high and even sent some foreign and Russian journalists out of the republic. He is also obstructing lawyers from visiting political dissidents who have been arrested.[11]
In October 1990 the Supreme Soviet passed a law guaranteeing the protection of militia workers. The law states that words or even intonation can be interpreted as a threat or insult and can be punished by a fine or arrest. Another parliamentary decree authorizes the militia to make extensive use of rubber truncheons and special methods against protestors.[12]
Another government decree states that state owned enterprises will not assist political organizations--thereby slowing down the formation of political parties. Opposition groups in other republics such as Azerbaijan are able to take control of already existing communist cells in factories and use enterprise facilities to hold meetings.[13]
In the last republic elections almost half the candidates were elected on a single-candidate basis, most of them Communist officials. Harassment of independent candidates took place and in dozens of instances contrived pretexts were cited as refusal for candidates to be nominated for positions.[14]
The Supreme Soviet also passed a decree outlining measures to stabilize the social and political situation in the republic which in fact outlaws most political parties. Furthermore, by decree, no parties whose aim is to "change the existing order" are allowed. This would apply to almost any opposition party.
On 17 September 1991 Karimov issued a decree banning all political activities in the republic government and educational establishments. In other republics, and to some degree in Uzbekistan, the intelligentsia is the strata where political parties and groups first blossom--this includes university professors.[15]
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On 1 October of this year the Republic Supreme Soviet dismantled the Council of Ministers and set up a cabinet of ministers attached to the republic President--Karimov--thus enhancing the powers of the President.[16]
On 12 November an Uzbek Supreme Soviet committee decided not to revoke the residence permit system.
On 14 November, a letter signed by unknown republic Supreme Soviet deputies was publicized in Russian press that called for immediate presidential elections and also for the strengthening of presidential authority stating that the well- being of the republic depends on the trust for the President personally. It is likely that Karimov was behind this move as a ploy to confuse and divide opposition groups. Furthermore, opposition groups probably do not have the infrastructure in place to run a successful republic wide presidential race in the near-term so such a timetable would be in Karimov's interest.
While the opposition group Birlik has been allowed to register as a political party, the Uzbek Justice Ministry is not allowing the group to nominate a candidate for the presidential race.[17]
Karimov claims that the republic is not yet ready for democracy. In an interview in the London Independent published on 18 September 1991 he claimed that he may be too authoritarian for many but he is the barrier against renewed ethnic fighting. There could have been another six or seven Fergana's without firm action by his government and multiparty democracy must be limited because of the danger of ethnic violence. He has also said, "A firm hand is needed in today's explosive situation, and the people of Uzbekistan will not accept western-style democracy because of their history and national character."[18] According to Russian press, Karimov has announced that Uzbekistan will carry out reforms according to the Chinese model--that is economic reform with no political reform.[19]
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As Moscow Komsomolskaya Pravda points out in an article published on 21 September, the idea of Uzbekistan following a Chinese model is problematic for two reasons. One, the Uzbek leadership must be ready to use force against its populace. They are currently only planning a 700 man National Guard--there are over 19 million people--and the Russian dominated USSR security forces have claimed they do not want to be involved in putting down internal republic unrest. The other point that Komsomolskaya Pravda makes is that dissent has already taken root in Uzbekistan perhaps making it too late to halt political reform.[20]
Opposition Organizations:
Even under the repressive conditions described above, Karimov does have opposition. Some of the opposition is unorganized or just emerging such as members of the intelligentsia that are discussing the creation of a purely national, one-religion state, according to Birlik leaders. Other segments of the opposition have been around for several years and are more organized. These include: Birlik: Birlik, meaning Unity, was founded in 1988 and today has departments in almost all rayons and oblasts in Uzbekistan. Its leaders claim to have the largest mass organization opposed to Uzbek authorities. They claim from 300,000 to a half million members and millions of sympathizers[21]--Karimov's new party claims only 300,000 members.[22] The organization--headquartered in Tashkent--is an umbrella group whose membership ranges from moderate opposition forces all the way to Muslim fundamentalists. It proclaimed itself a political party at a congress in Tashkent on 28 October of this year and the Uzbek Ministry of Justice registered it as an official political party on 12 November. Birlik's program includes the demand to restore to Central Asians their true history and a democratic secular state on the Turkish model.[23] The goal of the organization is the deliverance of Uzbeks and other peoples of the republic form social lethargy, indifference57 AACAR BULLETIN Vol. V, No. 1 (Spring 1992) and fear and the stimulation of social and political assertiveness. Birlik calls itself a social and political organization which wishes to extricate Uzbekistan from crisis and convert it into an independent democratic republic. The new chairman is Abdurakhim Pulatov, a doctor of science who ran a scientific institute and was the Birlik movement's co-chairman. The other co-chairman was Pulat Akhunov, a teacher and USSR Peoples deputy from the Komosomol.
Erk: Erk--once a part of the Birlik movement--was the first Uzbek opposition officially registered by the Uzbek authorities. This came about on 5 September, only after the aborted coup in Moscow and appears to have been an attempt to appease nationalists and democrats. The party's name means freedom. The Party brings together members of the intelligentsia. Its stated goal is the struggle for human rights, national revival of Uzbekistan, and complete independence. It claims some 5,000 members. Erk's leader, Mukhamed Salikh, is a member of the Uzbek Supreme Soviet and secretary for the Uzbek Writer's Union. The party calls for opposition to the Communist Party and full democratization of all Uzbek society.[24]
The most potentially destabilizing force against Karimov is the recently formed republic Supreme Soviet opposition group which is calling for immediate Presidential elections. In early October Karimov was confronted with unprecedented criticism at the republic Supreme Soviet session. Between 100-200 out of 500 parliament members expressed no confidence in Karimov and announced the formation of an opposition headed by Vice President Mirsaidov.[25] Meanwhile, Moscow television reported that there were simultaneous demonstrations of many thousands of people in Andijan and Namangan oblasts demanding the resignation of Karimov and a ban on his party. Republic press denied these accusations. The recent presidential decree that puts the republic Premier under the control of the President as his Vice President may have been a preemptive move on Karimov's part to gaining more
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control over Mirsaidov's actions. Mirsaidov also has a background in economics and came up through the Communist party ranks. He spent five years as Tashkent mayor. His commitment to democracy is unknown.[26]
Other parties and groups which have been around for awhile but about which there is little information include the Islamic Rebirth Party. This group has been outlawed and many of its members jailed. Its size is not known. Members of the popular movement, Humaneness and Charity, are part of the group. The group also calls for all democratic movements to work together. Its leader is Akhmad-Kadi Aktayev.[27] Other parties and groups are new or just beginning to flex their muscles. For instance, a newly formed wing of Eduard Shevardnadze's Movement for Democratic Reform. Its size and strength are not known. Its leader is Doctor of Historical Sciences Fayzulla Iskhanov, a member of the Republic Academy of Sciences. This party calls for the unification of democratic movements and a rule of law state.[28]
There are also organizations made up of ethnic minority groups. The largely Russian Intersoyuz group is no longer a major player in the republic but the mainly Tajik Samarkand Society is. This is based in Samarkand. The group calls for cultural autonomy of Tajiks and other Muslim non-Uzbeks in the republic. It also calls for a high-level commission to be constituted to investigate the rights of Uzbeks in Tajikistan and Tajiks in Uzbekistan. Its members and leaders have been jailed and the society banned in Uzbekistan.[29]
Arguments Against Democracy in Uzbekistan:
As Karimov himself states, one argument against building a democracy in Uzbekistan, at least for the near term, is the Uzbek's lack of democratic political culture. The region now known as Uzbekistan has an ancient history as the cultural, spiritual, and--during some periods--governmental center of
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Central Asia. The region, however, has no democratic history, instead it was ruled by strong authoritarian leaders.
The region's rich spiritual ties to Islam also work against the formation of a true democratic state. Islam is a strong force in Uzbekistan, though more as a cultural phenomenon than as a political one. If an Islamic government were imposed, it is unlikely that the ensuing leadership would be democratic. Other phenomenon that argue against the building of democracy in Uzbekistan are the republic's out of control population growth, growing unemployment among male youths, and economic deterioration that increase the prospects of political instability there. About 50 percent of the republic lives below the poverty line and about 50 percent of the republic's population is made up of dependents--people who do not work, mainly the elderly and children.[30] The few remaining republics in the Soviet Union will not be able or willing to fund the Central Asians as they had. In return, Uzbekistan and its neighbors will have to spend hard currency to obtain badly needed infrastructure, health care, and other goods from outside of the former Soviet Union. While some of the hard currency will come from selling cotton and gold on the open market--this will not pay for all the needed goods. The ensuing increase in poverty will result in more instability.
Karimov has already taken action, however, to win support through economic bribery. On 17 November, he issued a decree raising the pay 40-50 percent for workers in the education, health, culture, social welfare, housing, and public utilities sectors. He is also raising student stipends 30 percent. These are traditionally key segments of the population where discontent ferments.[31]
Prognosis:
Karimov is fostering one of the more repressive regimes in the former Soviet Union. Uzbekistan lags most of the republics in reformist legislation that guarantees the rights of individuals.
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Obstacles are constantly put in the way of opposition groups' growing so powerful as to be able to take on Karimov. Birlik's new standing and the upcoming Presidential elections, while positive developments, do not significantly change the equation. The recently formed parliamentary opposition group may be able to stand in the way of more repressive legislation but it does not appear to have the votes needed to overturn the existing legislation nor is its commitment to democracy known.
The Uzbek Presidential elections will be a significant test of Karimov's resolve for democratic reform. If he holds fair, democratic elections and allows other parties to run candidates against him, not only will he be overturning his own policies but he will also probably gain support among the populace. Existing press laws and Karimov's position as Republic President, however, put all other candidates at a disadvantage. It is not likely that they will get the exposure, through media time or ability to travel and campaign throughout the republic, that they will need get their message out. By merely adhering to the current repressive laws, Karimov will be able to set himself up to win the Presidential election. Karimov's popular election to this post will serve to underscore his legitimacy and a poor showing by opposition candidates will give Karimov the ammunition he needs to further marginalize opposition groups. Growing nationalism, economic deterioration, unemployment, population growth, and ecological disaster indicate that instability will grow in Uzbekistan. Any leader elected democratically in the next few years would have difficulty staying in power under the dire circumstances that Uzbekistan faces. Karimov may be able to stay in place but only by increasing repression while continuing to massage Uzbek nationalist feelings and by continuing to bribe those segments of the population that appear to be the most anti-Karimov. If he is successful in reforming the economy on the Chinese model, social unrest may dissipate for a time but in the
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longer term it will likely cause such schisms in the republic that it will lead to Karimov's ouster.
Notes: 1. This paper reflects the views of the author and not necessarily those of the US government. 2. Moscow Tass 15 July 1990.
3. Izvestiya 14 September 1991
4. Komsomolskaya Pravda 27 August 1991.
5. Interfax 1 November 1991.
6. Tass 18 November 1991.
7. Izvestiya 14 September 1991.
8. Ibid.
9. Komsomolskaya Pravda 27 July 1991.
10. Interfax 18 November 1991.
11. Interfax 16 July 1991.
12. Komsomolskaya Pravda 27 July 1991.
13. Izvestiya 14 September 1991.
14. Komsomolskaya Pravda 27 July 1991.
15. Tashkent Radio 17 September 1991.
16. Moscow Tass 1 October 1991.
17. Interfax 20 November 1991.
18. Komsomolskaya Pravda 27 July 1991.
19. Moscow World Service 17 September 1991.
20. Komsomolskaya Pravda 21 September 1991.
21. Izvestiya 14 July 1991.
22. Komsomolskaya Pravda 27 July 1991.
23. Moscow Central Television 16 November 1991.
24. Moscow Tass International Service 5 September 1991.
25. Moscow Central Television First Program 2 October 1991.
26. Tass 26 March 1990.
27. Interfax 9 July 1991.
28. Izvestiya 24 October 1991.
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29. Interfax 10 June 1991.
30. Moscow Television First Program 24 October 1991.
31. Moscow Radio Rosii 17 November 1991.
NEWS OF THE PROFESSION AACAR BULLETIN would like to thank those individuals and institutions who kindly furnished the information presented in this section.
AACAR held its Membership Meeting on 23 November 1991 in Miami, in connection with the AAASS annual convention. Members directed the AACAR President Prof. Audrey L. Altstadt to conduct the elections to the AACAR Nominations Committee and the AACAR Elections Committee, nominating the individuals to be placed on the ballot. The said Committees, upon election, will perform their functions per AACAR By-Laws to replace the two outgoing members of the AACAR Executive Council. Accordingly, paid-up members were mailed ballots. The returns are announced by the President: Nominations Committee: Thomas Noonan (U Minnesota); Uli Schamiloglu (U Madison-Wisconsin); Nazif Shahrani (Indiana U)(Chair). Elections Committee: Iraj Bashiri (U Minnesota); Peter Golden (Rutgers U); H. B. Paksoy (Harvard U-CMES)(Chair).
The Members were informed that the term of the Founding Editor of the AACAR BULLETIN was completed under the AACAR By- Laws. The attendees of the Membership Meeting suggested that the members be polled as to a successor, even though there is no such provision in the By-Laws. That item was also placed on the ballot sent to Members. Having been duly nominated, agreed to serve, and obtained the necessary support from his institution, Reuel Hanks
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(Department of Political Science and Sociology, Kennesaw State College) has been appointed as the new Editor of the AACAR BULLETIN.
During its Annual Meeting, Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS) Board of Directors voted unanimously to elect AACAR an affiliate of AAASS, and so informed AACAR. AACAR would like to thank the AAASS Board of Directors.
AACAR also held its sponsored panel, Democratization in Central Asia, at the AAASS annual meeting.
AACAR will hold its next Membership Meeting in conjunction with the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), of which AACAR is an affiliate, 28-31 October 1992 in Portland, Oregon. AACAR Members are requested to register for the MESA convention.
26th Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) will convene in Portland, Oregon, 28-31 October, 1992. For registration information, contact: Secretariat, MESA, University of Arizona, 1232 Cherry Ave., Tucson, AZ 85721. Phone: 602/621- 5850; Fax: 602/321-7752.
The 44th Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) will convene in Washington DC, 2-5 April, 1992. For details, contact: AAS Secretariat, 1 Lane Hall, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109. Phone: 313/665-2490; Fax: 313/665-3801. Second Graduate Conference in Difference and the Turkish Language in the Arts: "Poetics of Change" has issued a call for papers. "Graduate students and recent PhD.'s are invited to submit paper abstracts for a conference to be held at the OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY on Saturday and Sunday May 9-10, 1992. Papers may analyze literary and social texts which espouse or disparage,
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conceal or claim title to change, in the Ottoman Empire, Turkish Republic, or Turkic Central Asia. Abstracts should specify sources, theoretical concerns, and conclusions. Accommodations will be provided, and plans to publish the papers are underway." Contact: Professor Victoria Holbrook, Director, Graduate Conference in Difference, The Ohio State University, JaNELL/256 Cunz Hall, Columbus, OH 43210. Tel: 614/292-8913.
Permanent International Altaistic Conference (PIAC) will hold its 35th Meeting in Taipei (Republic of China) September 12-17 1992, under the joint sponsorship of the National Taiwan University and the Center for Chinese Studies Materials of the United Press News Cultural Foundation. A circular providing details on accommodations, registration fees, visa requirements will be sent upon request. Contact: Prof. Denis Sinor, Secretary General. PIAC, Indiana U, 101 Goodbody Hall, Bloomington, IN 47405. Fax: 812/855-7500.
A circular is received extending an invitation to the conference "First Zeki Velidi [Togan] Reading," jointly sponsored by the BASHKURT STATE UNIVERSITY, INSTITUTE OF HISTORY, LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF BASHKURT SCIENTIFIC CENTER AT THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE, to be held in September (n.d.) 1992 at Ufa. The unsigned statement reads: "Zeki Velidi... led the national liberation movement of Bashkurt people in 1917-1920... a world famous orientalist, author of scores of fundamental works on history, culture, ethnography, folklore of Turkish peoples' history and languages. In 1990, his 100th birth anniversary was widely celebrated in Ufa, and a decision was taken to regularly hold "Zeki Velidi Reading" on a wide range of problems dealing with the famous scholar's heritage. The participants will discuss "History and Culture of peoples of Eurasia in Ancient Times, Middle Ages and Modern Times." Sections of History, Archeology, Historical Ethnography and History of Turkish Language." An abstract no more than two pages in length should be sent in
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duplicate, by 1 April 1992 to: 450074, Ufa 74, Frunze Street, University, Historical Faculty, Department of Archeology.
Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies (RIFIAS), INDIANA UNIVERSITY announces "Rockefeller Foundation Residency Fellowships aimed at exploring indigenous primary sources on the history and civilization of Inner Asia. The Fellowship program is intended to support the study of indigenous Inner Asian sources by specialists who are equipped with the necessary philological and disciplinary skills. The RIFIAS library, in addition to its general collections, and current journal subscriptions, also houses several special collections. The Tibetan collection, housed separately, consists of several hundred volumes of Tibetan texts reprinted in India, as well as 350 original Tibetan blockprints. The most recently developed special collection, the Central Asian Archives, comprises (1) a collection of microfilms and photocopies (obtained primarily from Soviet libraries) of out-of-print publications dealing with Central Asia (2) a collection of microfilms of Persian, Turkic and Arabic manuscripts containing historical, biographical and geographic works on Islamic Central Asia. This collection currently comprises nearly 750 microfilms of manuscripts and over 800 microfilms and photocopies of published works." Details may be obtained from Professor Yuri Bregel, Director, RIFIAS, Indiana University, Goodbody Hall, Bloomington, IN 47405. Phone: 812/855- 1605.
American Friends of Turkey voted to change its name to The American-Turkish Friendship Council. The Council issued a discussion paper "Issues and Opportunities in Turkish Education" by Prof. Howard Reed, Department of History, U of Connecticut. Copies may be obtained from: The American-Turkish Friendship Council, 1010 Vermont Ave., NW, Suite 1020, Washington, DC 20005-4902. Tel: 202/783-0483. Fax: 202/783-0511. The Council is also sponsoring an annual Conference and Exposition, with panels and lectures, details of which may be obtained from the above address. In the past, Profs. Walter Denny
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of U of Massachusetts-Amherst; Jane A. Scott of Harvard U; Stanford Shaw of UCLA; Justin McCarthy of U of Louisville presented papers.
The 5th International Conference on Central Asia, "Democratization in Central Asia," will be held at the UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON, 10-13 September, 1992. Topics include social, economic, political, cultural, literary and linguistic changes from 1600-1992. Contact: Prof. Kemal Karpat, 4121 Humanities Bldg., U Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706. Madeline Zilfi (Department of History, U of Maryland-College Park, MD 20742) has been appointed Editor of the Turkish Studies Association Bulletin.
Uli Schamiloglu (U of Wisconsin-Madison) has received a $30,000 grant from the National Council for Soviet and East European Research. This will fund the first year of a new project entitled "The Invention of National Identity and Historical Tradition: The Case of the Muslim Turks of Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union".
Prof. Warren Walker, Director of the Archive of Turkish Oral Narrative, TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY writes: "Next time you are in Santa Fe, New Mexico, you might be interested in visiting the Turkish Folk Art and Culture Exhibit at the Museum of International Folk Art. All of the items on display were purchased from living folk artists and artisans. The exhibit will remain in place until mid-1993. On weekends the exhibit is animated with performances (music, dance, storytelling), with demonstrations by artists and craftsmen, with slide lectures, and with Turkish folk poetry readings (in English)." For further details, contact: Prof. Warren Walker, Archive of Turkish Oral Narrative, Library, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409. Tel: 806/742-1922.
Silk Bridges, Inc., is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization. Jeff T. Cunningham, President, writes: "Silk Bridges was formed to conduct cultural exchange projects between the US and Central Asia... and is creating an exhibit involving contemporary art
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from Uzbekistan and related events, for rural and urban audiences in the US... which will offer people in the US a fresh perspective... The Silk Bridges exhibit tour in 1992-1993 to several sites, nationally (Washington DC, New York, Chicago, Minneapolis) with the aim of improving awareness across cultural, geographical and religious divides... The extraordinary cultural diversity of Uzbekistan is attributable to its place for over 2000 years on the East-West trade routes known as The Silk Road..." Contact: Jeff Cunningham, P O Box 1005, Brattleboro, VT 05302. Tel 802/257-4944; Fax: 802/257-0294.
Organized and hosted by the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, Centre d'Edtudes et de Recherches Internationales, the conference "LA TURQUIE ET L'AIRE TURQUE DANS LA NOUVELLE CONFIGURATION REGIONALLE ET INTERNATIONALE: mont e en puissance ou marginalisation?" was held in Paris 28-29 October 1991. A summary of transactions will be published in the FNSP/CERI journal Cahiers d'Etudes sur la M diterran e orientale et le monde turco-iranien. For subscriptions, contact: Semih Vaner, FNSP/CERI, 4 rue de Chevreuse, Paris 6e France.
Stiftung Bibliotheca Afghanica has issued: Strategic Surprise: The Afghanistan Example by Dr. J rg St ssi-Lauterburg. Copies of this work, and other documentation published by the SBA, may be obtained from: Paul Bucherer-Dietschi, Director, Stiftung Bibliotheca Afghanica, Benzburweg 5, CH-4410 Liestan, Switzerland. Tel. 061 921 98 38.
Modern China, an interdisciplinary quarterly, edited by Philip C. C. Huang (UCLA), is issued by SAGE Publications. Vol. 18 No. 1, January 1992 (Louis Putterman, Guest Editor) contains papers by Louis Putterman, Barry Naughton, Gary H. Jefferson & Thomas G. Rawski, Flemming Christiansen. Subscriptions: SAGE Periodical Press, 2455 Teller Road, Newbury Park, CA 91320. Tel: 805/499-0721. FAX: 808/499-0871.
Bulletin of the Asia Institute Vol. 4 (1990) Aspects of Iranian Culture. In Honor of Richard Nelson
68 AACAR BULLETIN Vol. V, No. 1 (Spring 1992)
Frye is available. Vol. 5 (1991) is also issued. Orders: $50 US + $5 postage per volume, Iowa State University Press, 2121 S. State Ave. Ames, Iowa 50010. Bulletin of the Asia Institute may be contacted at: 3287 Bradway Bld. Bloomfield Hills, MI 48301. Tel. 313/647-7917. Fax: 313/258-1439. Att: Cynthia Fogliatti or Carol Altmann Bromberg.
Annals of Japan Association for Middle East Studies [AJAMES], under the direction of Prof. YUKAWA Takeshi, Editor in Chief, is available. For subscriptions, contact: Prof. NAGATA Yuzo, ILCAA, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, 4-51-21, Nishigara, Kita-ku, Tokyo, 114, Japan.
Worldwide Antiquarian has two new catalogues: Orientalia (No. 120); The Middle East (No. 115). Worldwide Antiqiuarian, P O Box 391, Cambridge, MA 02141. Phone: 617/876-6220; Fax: 617/876- 0839.
Beyoglu Kitap ilik Ltd. issued a new catalogue entitled "Kirkambar." Beyoglu Kitap ilik Ltd. Galip Dede Cad, 141/5, T nel 80020, Istanbul, Turkish Republic. Bookshop Phone: 90/145 49 98; 90/152 30 78; Office Phone: 90/149 06 72. Fax: 90/149 16 24.
ISIS Ltd. is issuing its regular catalogues, entitled Books from Turkey. Contact: ISIS Ltd, Semsibey Sokak 10, Beylerbeyi-Istanbul 81210, Turkish Republic. Phone: 90/321 38 51; 90/321 66 00.
Camel Book Company Catalogue No. 7 is: Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan & India. Camel Book Company, P O Box 1936, Cathedral Station, NY, NY 10025.
The Studio/Johnstone--Fong Inc. Issued List # 101, containing selections from the library of Alice Boney. The Studio, 1600 East Street Road, Kennett Square, PA 19348. Phone: 215/739-3170. Fax: 215/793-3176.
Asian Rare Books Inc. issued a new list and has a new address: 175 Fifth Avenue Suite 2138, NY NY 10010. Phone: 718/259-3732. Fax: 212/529-3511. It should be noted that this is a new address.
Council on Foreign Relations Press has a new catalogue. Council on Foreign Relations Press, 58 East 68th Street, NY NY 10021.
Oxus Catalogue Sixteen is: War, Revolution and Diplomacy (Europe,
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Russia, Asia). Catalogue Fourteen is: Asian Travel, History, Memoirs. Oxus Oriental Books, 121 Astonville Str, London SW18 5AQ. Phone: 44/081 870 3854. Fax: 44/081 877 1173.
JOPPA Books Ltd. Continues to issue specialized lists. May '91 list is: Literature. JOPPA Books Ltd. 29 Milner Drive, Cobham, Surrey KT11 2EZ. Phone 44/0932 86 82 69. Fax: 44/0932 86 40 71.
Yak and Yeti Books issued Catalogue No. 20: The Himalayan Region, Central Asia and Tibet. Yak & Yeti Books, P O Box 5736, Rockville, MD 20855. Phone: Weekdays (6PM to 10PM; Weekends 9AM to 9PM) 301/977-7285.
TURQUOISE a book club, has issued a new catalog. Contact: 132 East 61st Str. 2nd Floor, NY NY 10021. Phone and Fax: 212/759-6424.
BIBLIOGRAPHY A work's being listed in this section does not preclude subsequent review in the AACAR BULLETIN.
Khairulla Ismatullaev, "AKS de Uzbek Tilinin Urgelinisi" Uzbek Tili ve Adabiyati (Tashkent) March-April, 1991.
Paul Henze, "Turkey and Georgia" [Interview] Yeni Forum (Ankara). October 1991.
Masayuki YAMAUCHI, The Green Crescent Under the Red Star: Enver Pasha in Soviet Russia 1919-1922 (Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, 1991). No. 42.
Christopher Cviic, Remaking the Balkans (NY: The Royal Institute of International Affairs/Council on Foreign Relations, 1991).
James Critchlow, Nationalism in Uzbekistan: A Soviet Republic's Road to Sovereignity (Westview Press, 1991).
The Soviet Nationality Reader: The Crisis in Context, Rachel Denber, Ed. (Westview Press, 1991).
Audrey L. Altstadt, The
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Azerbaijani Turks: Power and Identity Under Russian Rule (Stanford, California: Hoover Institution Press, 1992). Studies of Nationalities in the USSR Series.
ADDENDA TO:
SURVEY OF CENTRAL ASIA RELATED ACADEMIC PROGRAMS AND COURSEWORK IN NORTH AMERICA
(RECEIVED SINCE THE PREVIOUS ISSUE)1. INSTITUTION: University of Florida
DEPARTMENT/INSTITUTE/CENTER/PROGRAM: Anthropology Dept.
SURVEY RESPONDENT: Paul J. Magnarella, Professor of Anthropology
ADDRESS/PHONE: Anthropology Dept, U of Florida, Gainesville FL
32611
904/392 4453
FACULTY AND SPECIALIZATIONS:
Turkish Republic, Turkic peoples of the Middle East and Central Asia
FACULTY RESEARCH IN PROGRESS:
Political, Economic and Cultural Relations between the Turkish Republic and the Soviet Turkic Republics2. INSTITUTION: Oakland University
DEPARTMENT/INSTITUTE/CENTER/PROGRAM: Department of History
SURVEY RESPONDENT: Linda Benson, Assistant Professor of History
ADDRESS/PHONE:
Department of History, Oakland U, Rochester MI 48309
FACULTY AND SPECIALIZATIONS:
Xingjiang-Uygur Autonomous Region (Xingjiang, Chinese Turkistan)
Modern history; Uygur cultural and political history
FACULTY RESEARCH IN PROGRESS:
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Book length study of China's Uygur nationality, with emphasis on the 20th century and development of nationalism among China's Turkic peoples.
COURSES RELATED TO CENTRAL ASIA:
History 377: Empire of the Steppes (4 cr.)3. INSTITUTION: The University of Texas at Austin
DEPARTMENT/INSTITUTE/CENTER/PROGRAM: Department of Oriental and African Languages and Literatures
SURVEY RESPONDENT: G liz Kuruoglu, Lecturer
ADDRESS/PHONE:
Department of Oriental and African Languages and Literatures
2601 University Avenue
Austin TX 78712
CONTACT FOR ADMISSIONS:
Center for Middle Eastern Studies;
Center for Slavic and East European Studies
FACULTY RESEARCH IN PROGRESS:
Reciprocal construction in Turkic languages
COURSES RELATED TO CENTRAL ASIA:
Turkic Peoples of USSR
Uzbekistan, language and culture
Azerbaijan, language and culture4. The following update to previously published entry is received from:
INSTITUTION: The University of Wisconsin-Madison
DEPARTMENT/INSTITUTE/CENTER/PROGRAM: Central Asian Studies (Kemal Karpat, chair)
SURVEY RESPONDENT: Uli Schamiloglu, Assistant Professor
ADDRESS/PHONE:
Dept. of Slavic Languages
720 Van Hise Hall
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University of Wisconsin
Madison, WI 53706
(608)-262-3498
CONTACT FOR ADMISSIONS:
Graduate School, Social Sciences & Humanities
228 Bascom Hall, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Madison, WI 53706 USA
tel. 608-262-2433
Dept. of Anthropology
5240 Social Science Building, 1180 Observatory Drive
tel. 608-262-2866/2867/2868/2869Dept. of Economics
7122 Social Science Building, 1180 Observatory Drive
tel. 608-262-3559Dept. of Geography
M382 Science Hall, 550 North Park Street
tel. 608-262-3861Dept. of History
3211 Humanities Building, 455 North Park Street
tel. 608-263-1962/1800Dept. of Linguistics
1168 Van Hise Hall, 1220 Linden Drive
tel. 608-262-2292Dept. of Political Science
110 North Hall, 1050 Bascom Mall
tel. 608-263-1878/2414Dept. of Slavic Languages
73 AACAR BULLETIN Vol. V, No. 1 (Spring 1992)
720 Van Hise Hall, 1220 Linden Drive
tel. 608-262-3498Dept. of South Asian Studies
1244 Van Hise Hall, 1220 Linden Drive
tel. 608-262-0524FACULTY AND SPECIALIZATIONS:
Sarah Atis (South Asian Studies)--Turkish language and literature
Mark Bassin (Geography)--Geography of the Soviet Union
Mark Beissinger (Political Science)--Soviet domestic and nationality politics
Vincent Fourniau (History)--History of Central Asia
Kemal Karpat (History)--Modern Middle East, Ottoman Empire, and Central Asia
Anatoly Khazanov (Anthropology)--Central Asian and Soviet anthropology
David Knipe (South Asian Studies)--Religions of South Asia
David McDonald (History)--History of Imperial Russia
Muhammad Memon (South Asian Studies)--Islam, Urdu language and literature
Catherine Poujol (History)--Tajik language and civilization
Uli Schamiloglu (Slavic Languages)--Central Asian Turkic languages, history and linguistics
John Street (Linguistics)--Classical and pre-classical Mongolian
Andr Wink (History)--History of Medieval India and Central Asia
DEGREES RELATED TO CENTRAL ASIA:
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Students are encouraged to enroll in a discipline department.
The Graduate School allows independent Ph.D. programs (though not for the M.A.) for students admitted into an academic department. Interested students may contact the Dept. of Slavic Languages regarding a possible independent M.A.concentration in Central Asian languages. A proposed inter-disciplinary M.A. program in Soviet and East European programs could, if approved, also accommodate students interested in Central Asian Studies.
COURSES RELATED TO CENTRAL ASIA:
Anthropology:
Topics in Ethnology: Peoples and Cultures of the Asiatic Part of the Soviet Union
Topics in Ethnology: Peoples and Cultures of the European Part of the Soviet Union
Problems in Anthropology: Pastoral NomadismHistory:
Invasions and Empires: Central Asia from Genghis Khan to Stalin
Undergraduate Studies in History of Africa, Asia, or Latin
America: Central Asia
Seminar in Problems of Islamic History: Central AsiaCentral Asian Studies:
Elementary Kazakh I-II
Intensive Uzbek I-II
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Civilization of Central Asia
Proseminar: Introduction to Turkic Linguistics
Proseminar: The Golden Horde & The Rise of the Central Asian Nations
Individual Research in Central Asian StudiesSouth Asian Studies:
First, Second, Third, Fourth Semester Turkish
Readings in Modern Turkish
Islam: Religion and Culture
Proseminar in Languages and Literatures of South Asia: Turkish Folklore
Turkish Literature in Translation
Introduction to the Mongolian Languages: Classical Mongolian
Readings in Classical and Preclassical Mongolian
BOOK REVIEWS R. D. McChesney, WAQF IN CENTRAL ASIA: FOUR HUNDRED YEARS IN THE HISTORY OF A MUSLIM SHRINE, 1480-1889. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991) XV + 319 Pp. Maps, Glossary, Bibliography, Index.
This book follows the expansion of the shrine of 'Ali ibn Abi Talip and its awqaf in the vicinity of Balkh from their establishment by Sultan Husayn Bayqara in 1480 until their incorporation into the Afghan state in 1889. The author skillfully interweaves several general themes: the condition of
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the shrine's extensive awqaf, which included a vast irrigation system that sustained a large agricultural base, the political and administrative activities of the shrine's Ansari managers (mutawallis), and the rationale and policies of the various political regimes that controlled the region of BAlkh. McChesney has in fact also produced a useful chronological history of Balkh and the khanly or amirid states of Central Asia for the period 1480-1889. He points out the clash of the Chinggisid political principles of the steppeland with the centralizing tendencies of the Irano-Mughal states, provides a clearer history of the region by explaining the significance of such terms as amir, khan and sultan in their Central Asian context, and argues that under Chinggisid principles the waqf enjoyed, like Balkh itself, a large degree of autonomy.
By focusing on a single massive waqf over a period of four centuries the author is able to identify trends or major changes in the history of the shrine and to point out the importance of this massive waqf to the economy of the region. Although his analysis relies heavily on a handful of important documents spaced more than a century apart, and upon a wide array of Russian and Persian language studies, he manages to draw from these materials a detailed description of the political, economic and social forces with which the powerful mutawallis of the shrine complex had to contend. These documents, decrees of the ruling authority, waqf summaries of the Uzbek amirs who benefited the shrine, and inventories of waqf documents collected by Russian scholars, provide McChesney the opportunity to estimate the waqf's size and to describe its administration and functions. There are, however, gaps in the author's review.
Information about the shrine and its awqaf from its founding in 1480 to 1651 is rather scanty. Here McChesney offers only a suggestive interpretation of the shrine's relations with the various Chinggisid, Uzbek and Mughal leaders who conquered the region.
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The manshur of Subhan Quli of 1668-69, followed by a series of annexes, provides a wealth of information about the shrine and its awqaf from the middle of the 17th century to 1738. Following the withdrawal of the forces of Nadir Shah in 1747 the shrine experienced a period of virtual autonomy until it was incorporated into the expanding Afghan state. The Afghans, who benefited the shrine and made its surrounding town, Mazhar-i Sharif (the noble shrine), their provincial capital instead of Balkh, put an end to Chinggisid practices and the shrine's autonomy by extending a centralized state system over the area. With 'Abd al-Rahman's decree of 1889 the shrine and its awqaf fell under state control and its administrators were transformed into government employees. This process had already occurred in other Muslim countries as centralizing state bureaucracies gained control of religious institutions and revenues previously outside close government supervision.
McChesney clarifies many technical terms related to waqf administration, land tenure and political theory and emphasizes the enormous significance of waqf for the social, economic and political life of the Muslim community in the vicinity of Balkh. His work is a major addition to the growing number of studies on the institution of waqf. Throughout the study, however, the emphasis is on the small number of Ansari officials who administered the waqf and their relations with the different political regimes that dominated the region. Little information is provided on the educational, devotional or philanthropic activities of this great shrine. One gets little sense, for instance, of what daily life at the shrine was like. Despite the wealth of information contained in the materials he has consulted, large gaps remain in his chronology. Surprisingly, little is yet known about the shrine in the first half of the nineteenth century. A great deal of what McChesney has written on the history of the shrine, its administrators and its irrigation system remains speculative, as he himself repeatedly admits.
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This study is nevertheless a model of analysis that throws new light on the general topic of waqf. The author has successfully demonstrated the difficult task of the shrine's administrators to hold the waqf together over a 400 year period, defend the prerogatives of the shrine amid the shifting balance of power in Central Asia and to maintain the vast irrigation system which supported the shrine's huge landholdings. This study will also serve as a basic source for the history of Central Asia for years to come.
Daniel Crecelius
California State University -- Los AngelesEdward A. Allworth, THE MODERN UZBEKS, FROM THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT: A CULTURAL HISTORY (Stanford, California: Hoover Institution Press, 1990); xiv + 410 pp.
This latest volume in the Hoover Institution's "Studies of Nationalities in the USSR" series is the work of Professor Edward Allworth, whose extensive contributions to the study of Uzbekistan, and of Soviet Central Asia in general, stretch across four decades; he began laboring in this field when it was much less crowded than today, and his role in promoting Central Asian studies, from a time well before the region drew the scholarly and public attention it now enjoys, leaves all students of the region in his debt. With his extensive knowledge of Soviet and pr/e-revolutionary Central Asian literature and its "practitioners," Allworth is naturally well-suited to analyze and distill the cultural experience of "the modern Uzbeks" for a much-needed volume on what is arguably the most important Soviet (if that label retains any meaning today) nationality of Muslim heritage.
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Unfortunately the present work is a curious combination of creative insights and well-honed (if occasionally insufficiently substantiated) judgments reflecting his years of experience in the field, on the one hand, mixed with outdated approaches, omissions, technical lapses, and an "inventive" but ultimately lamentable organizational scheme, on the other. There is much that is good in the book, and with a number of caveats I will recommend parts of it to my own students; but there is much that is questionable, clearly flawed, or downright embarrassing, and it is a pity that it is this book, nonetheless, which will no doubt be consulted for years to come by non-specialists seeking to understand the Uzbeks and Uzbekistan.
To be sure, portions of the book were doomed to be quickly out of date due to the enormous changes throughout the Soviet Union and their belated effects in Central Asia beginning in earnest only in 1988; though published in 1990, the volume appears to have been substantially completed in early 1987. The author cannot be blamed for accidents of timing, but it is nevertheless a pity that the work does not reflect even the beginnings of the vigorous and open debates about nearly all aspects of Uzbekistan's experience under Russian and Soviet rule which prevailed from 1988 well into 1990.
Even so, a quite respectable purpose of such a book would be to acquaint the general reader with the historical and cultural heritage of the Uzbeks; and in pursuit of such an aim, clear presentation is essential, and selectivity is clearly unavoidable. On both counts, however, the book is flawed: its structure is often confusing, and its selection of material at worst appears haphazard and at best tells the story of only a thin layer of the Uzbek people.
The book is divided into two major sections. The first, entitled "The Bases of Uzbek Group Identity," contains a thematic treatment of aspects of Uzbek and Central Asian history, considered as formative elements which produced the Uzbek people
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and its culture, from the time of the first use of the term " zbek" as an ethnonym down to the 18th century. The second, labeled "Conflict between Old and New Modernity," contains 12 chapters which also appear, from their titles, to follow a thematic or topical approach, but which in fact provide an essentially chronological discussion of Central Asian and Uzbek history through the 19th and 20th centuries.
In order to begin on a positive note, let us consider the second section first, for not surprisingly, in view of Allworth's expertise, it offers the book's brightest spots. Here again, however, organization is a problem: where we expect in this section to find treatments of issues corresponding to the chapter titles such as "Education," "Culture and Religion," "Politics," or "Intelligentsia," we find instead an admittedly more inventive, but nonetheless misleading approach in which such headings implicitly signal major themes of successive periods in the 19th and 20th centuries. Thus chapter 7 ("History") deals in fact with 19th century Central Asian historical writing, chapter 8 ("Education") and 9 ("Culture and Religion") concentrate on the cultural developments of the Jadidists, and we follow in subsequent chapters the era of politicized Jadidism, the revolution, the national delimitation, the decimation of the Uzbek intelligentsia, and the revival of attention to remade "Uzbek" traditions beginning in the 1950s.
In this second section, several chapters stand out as good summary treatments of issues handled more thoroughly by others, while others offer real, original contributions thanks to Allworth's deep knowledge of the Uzbek literary scene. In the first category are chapters 10 and 11 ("Politics" and "Homeland"), covering the politicized reformists and the early post-revolutionary developments; here one may quarrel with the inadequate attention given to the Basmachi resistance, for instance, but on the whole we have a reasonably good summary of events and trends.
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In the second category fall chapters 12, 13, and 14 ("Disintegration," "Monuments or Trophies," and "Genealogy"). The first includes welcome remarks on the Central Asian distrust of what Allworth calls "Kazan Tatar tutelage," which provide a useful antidote to recently revived voices in "Pan-Turkic" mode (now heard more from Turkey than from Tataristan) that amount to implicit assertions of "cultural hegemony" over Turkistan; the same chapter also highlights the disproportionate pressures against the Uzbeks during the 1920s, pressures which are useful to recall when comparing Uzbek political attitudes and behavior, even today, with those of other Central Asian peoples. Likewise, chapter 13 provides an insightful discussion of the colonial-style treatment of Central Asia's cultural heritage in both the Tsarist and Soviet periods, while chapter 14 takes up the Soviet-era debate on Uzbek ethnogenesis and, as one example of the role of Soviet-era historiography of Central Asia in constructing a new Uzbek communal identity, focuses on the treatment of Timur.
With the remaining chapters we are on more "standard" ground as Allworth discusses the Uzbek intelligentsia and its evolving contributions to the understanding of what "Uzbek" means. Despite the value of such a focus -- for in large measure it is the Uzbek literary lite that has asserted the right to articulate the Uzbek people's national and cultural aspirations -- it is disappointing that Allworth seldom reaches beyond this lite to discuss the social and economic concerns of Uzbek villagers, for instance, or problems of younger Central Asians outside the educated urban upper class, or other issues less prominently evoked by the generation of Uzbek writers with whom Allworth shows the greatest familiarity.
In the latter regard it is particularly regrettable that there is greater attention given to an essentially "accommodationist" school of the literary lite than to the younger generation of Uzbek writers, especially poets, who though
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active through the 1980s have emerged into high-profile positions only in the age of glasnost'. Allworth is to be applauded for highlighting the work of Rauf Parfi (pp. 324-325), but he is accorded barely one page (as against three for Jamal Kamal, and over four for Raim Farhadii, who writes primarily in Russian and whom Allworth himself calls a "hybrid" and an "anomaly"); and where are Muhammad Solih, Zohir Alam, Khurshid Davron, Usmon Azim, Shavkat Rahmon, or other younger writers whose works promise so much more to our understanding of "Uzbekness" today? In effect Allworth has missed an opportunity to present the voices of this new generation of strongly (even stridently) nationalistic writers, many of whom are in the forefront of the political and cultural dynamism evident from 1988 on but whose stature deserved recognition well before this.
The most scandalous omission lies in the lack of any mention whatsoever of the role of cotton agriculture in Soviet-era Uzbek history. To be sure, Allworth labels his book a "cultural history," but to divorce such an overarching fact of Uzbek life as cotton monoculture --a target of Uzbek critics in the 1920s and 1980s-- from cultural history is to miss much of the story of Uzbekistan in the 20th century. Similarly, we find no discussion in the book of the enormous environmental problems with which Soviet rule has left Uzbekistan, nor any hint of the emergence of those problems as a rallying point for precisely the group --the literary lite-- which usually occupies the author's interest. The often groping process whereby the intellectual lite in Uzbekistan has sought, under the "unnatural" constraints imposed by Soviet rule, to come to terms with "Uzbekness" undeniably offers a fascinating case study in the construction of communal identities, but it does not serve the ends of "cultural history" to lose interest when the same intellectual lite grapples with more concrete problems of more urgent concern to the rest of the Uzbek people.
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This second section of the book is also flawed by other omissions and what would seem to be hackneyed emphases. We find virtually no discussion of any aspect of Uzbek "culture" outside literature and theatre; the visual arts and music, for instance, are essentially ignored. There is virtually no discussion, more importantly, of the Russian conquest of Central Asia, either in the form of a much needed narrative account to provide the reader some historical footing, or in the form of a discussion of Soviet historiographical treatment of the "unification" of Central Asia with the Russian empire; the latter would have been at least as illuminating as the discussion of Timur's image. The 1916 rebellion in Central Asia is also given short shrift, although here we detect something else at work: Allworth places himself squarely on the side of the Jadidists in their critical (or silent) stance toward the 1916 revolt (p.160). This is despite the clear weight of evidence that the revolt enjoyed widespread popular support and, more significantly, marked a spontaneous (if inchoate) reaction to the serious social and economic dislocations which affected the bulk of the Central Asian population -- but which many Jadidists, in their fascination with Russian and western culture, were quite late to appreciate. And indeed a dominant theme throughout Allworth's treatment of the Tsarist era is an implicit deprecation of traditional Central Asian civilization and a standard but tiresome overemphasis of the Jadidist reformers. Instead of providing insight into the patterns of traditional Muslim education or religious life or cultural expression --patterns which would go far to enhance the reader's understanding of contemporary Uzbekistan outside the cities and lite circles-- we find the same exclusive fascination with the indigenous "reformist" voices who often disparaged their own traditions in emulation of the "west" in the form of Russia. Reform schools, reformist religion, and the emulation of Russian literary genres are all discussed at length, even though these trends touched only a
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small layer of Central Asian society in their own time, and even today can help us tell much less than half the story of life in Uzbekistan; meanwhile, for example, the style of the traditional maktab (which survives to this day, in various guises, in villages and cities alike), the enormous strength of "popular" religion and its contribution to shaping group identity, and the vital oral literary traditions of Uzbekistan are ignored.
Allworth is occasionally explicit (and uncritical) in citing Tsarist- and Soviet-era assessments of Central Asian civilization which portray Central Asia in almost exclusively negative terms, but which quite transparently represent standard colonialist denigration of a colonized people's culture. A telling example is his citation (pp. 109-110) of a Russian traveler's scornful report of a Bukharan mulla who could recite the Muslim Alexander tale but "knew virtually nothing about the 'actual' history." Allworth seems to miss the irony of criticizing the learned Bukharan for belonging to his own cultural tradition with its own construction of "actual" history, instead of to the evidently "correct" tradition, that of 19th-century Europe.
Beyond such explicit cases, however, such an attitude --that the only thing positive about Central Asian society came from the Russian-influenced reformers-- is implicit in much of the book. To be sure, Allworth is hardly alone in his focus on the Jadidist lite; such attitudes are common in much of the writing of many who approach Central Asia from the standpoint of Russian and/or Soviet studies. In view of the "shallowness" of much of contemporary Central Asian studies, in which superficial discussion of part of the 19th century can pass for the historical and cultural background sought by specialists on contemporary Soviet Central Asia, it unfortunately appears that a deeper and more balanced appreciation of Central Asian civilization in the 19th century, free of the pre- and misconceptions derived knowingly or unknowingly from two layers of colonialist scholarship, remains far in the future.
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Allworth's perspectives on the 19th century are flawed by problems of other types as well, namely simple factual errors and omissions. His dismissal of 19th-century Central Asian historical tradition must rest on a lack of familiarity with the rich and largely untapped body of historical works produced in the khanates of Qoqand, Bukhara, and Khiva; virtually all of this remains unpublished and is of difficult access, but it is not impossible to have a clearer idea of its scope than is implied in Allworth's treatment. Even in the case of the Khivan material, which he discusses at length (pp. 114-118), he seems unaware of the scholarly studies on such figures as Mu'nis and Agahi, Bayani, and Thana'i, produced outside Tashkent.
Such problems are not uncommon in the second section of the book, but the first section is rife with these and similar flaws. This section, occupying the first 100 pages of the book, is divided into six chapters ("Ideas of Community," "Symbols and Values of Sovereignty," "Names and Tribes," "Leadership," "Ideology and the Literature of Praise," and "Diplomacy"), each of which stands as a separate meditation intended to illuminate some aspect of the Uzbek character or of the Uzbek value system. Here, as suggested, there are to be found interesting and insightful comments and anecdotal illustrations drawn from episodes in Central Asian history; but if a non-specialist seeks an extended historical narrative to orient himself in the Uzbek heritage before the Russian conquest he will not find it here or anywhere in this book. Although there is certainly merit in approaching the historical heritage of Central Asia through its reverberations and evocations in contemporary Uzbek intellectual life, such an approach presumes a familiarity with at least the outlines of Central Asian history which is hardly widespread among the expected readership of the Hoover Institution's series. Rather, we find for example bits and pieces of the career of Abu'l-Khayr Khan, ruler of the nomadic Uzbek confederacy in the 15th century, scattered through the various chapters and sections
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of chapters, with the same bits and pieces (e.g. his capture of Khorezm) recounted on several occasions for different purposes. And poor Sh bani Khan: he pops up again and again in fragments of his life or writings, and several sections in the "Leadership" chapter are focused (though that word does not quite apply) on him, but we never have a connected treatment of the career of the leader of the Uzbek conquest of Central Asia. Perhaps such a treatment would be considered old-fashioned today, and Allworth's shuffling of events and people through several chapters may represent a fresh organizational approach, but it is hardly appropriate for a book intended to introduce a reader more at home in the 20th century than in the 16th to the history of the Uzbeks or Uzbekistan; indeed, with major and regrettable exceptions there is more of a connected, chronological narrative, though disguised by the chapter headings, in the second part of the book, where most readers are arguably better informed. This first section of the book suffers not only from this scattershot approach to Uzbek history, but from a number of highly doubtful and in any case poorly argued conclusions and factual lapses. For instance, what is the point (and what is the basis!) for blaming Abu'l-Khayr Khan for introducing "Mongol vindictiveness" and "nomadic impatience" into "the developing Central Asian outlook" (p. 28)? Are we really still stuck with maintaining the contrast, entirely inappropriate in Uzbek-era Central Asia, between "mysticism" and the "narrow, fanatical rigidity" of the "clergy" (p. 70)?
In the latter regard it is disappointing to note that one of the weakest aspects in the book is the treatment of religion, despite the series editor's promise in the foreword that Allworth "offers cogent comments on the role of Islam as a spiritual force strengthening the Uzbek ethnic unity . . ." What we have instead is occasional discussion of traditional religious expression in literary form, factual errors and omissions (e.g. he equates the Qadiriyah with the Jahriyah [p. 73], and he mentions Sh bani
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Khan's pilgrimage to the shrine of "Khwajai Buzurg," where the ruler met "a grandson of Buzurg," hiding the fact that "Khoja-i Buzurg" ["the Great Khoja"] is Baha' ad-Din Naqshband), and a deplorable lack of attention to the enormous, and often definitive, political, social, economic, and cultural roles of Islamic figures and institutions in Uzbek-era Central Asia. To be sure, Allworth devotes a chapter in the second part of the book to "Culture and Religion," but here again, predictably and sadly, it is only the "reformist" aspect of religion in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that is given attention; this is in accord with the usual western fascination with the Jadidists, but does little to illuminate the traditional roots either of contemporary Islam in Central Asia or even of the patterns of religious life which the liberal Jadidists sought to reform.
In particular, in his treatment of the content of Uzbek communal identity and Uzbek ethnogenesis, minimal attention is given to the prevailing indigenous understanding of Uzbek origins as formulated and transmitted before the impact of Russian rule; such attention would require us to step back, however, from our overemphasis on precisely those elements of "Uzbek" culture most infused with Russian and western attitudes. At a time when it is more vital than ever to listen to indigenous Uzbek voices, and at a time when it is increasingly difficult to find indigenous voices throughout Central Asia untainted by the impact of the modern Soviet worldview, it is particularly unfortunate that Allworth has missed an opportunity to acquaint the general reader with more of what informed the pre-Russian Central Asian experience --especially insofar as that experience promises to be increasingly invoked in the process of re-constructing Uzbek identity.
In short, the book's treatment of the steppe period of Uzbek ethnohistory and of the first three centuries of the Uzbek era in Central Asia is grossly inadequate; one objects to facts,
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evaluations, and characterizations on virtually every page, and the fact that this section necessarily comes first seriously mars the impression the entire book gives. As "historical background" for a work focused exclusively on the life of a contemporary Soviet nation it is unsuitable enough; as a section in a book promising a study of the Uzbeks "from the 14th century," it is for the most part altogether without merit.
Finally, as yet another regrettable feature of a book intended for a general readership must be mentioned a number of technical problems, above all the deplorable transcription system, which often serves to make names of prominent people unfamiliar at first glance. If we can forgive the transcription of Arabic and Persian names from the 16th century as if their bearers were 20th-century Uzbeks, there seems to be no justification for "Uzbekifying" the Russian ending "ov"/-"ev" in Russianized Uzbek family names, especially when the figures under discussion are known already through too many transcribed forms. In this case one refrains from the otherwise justifiable criticism of the book's "foolish consistency," because in fact the element of consistency is lacking. These problems spill over into the bibliography, where in addition to the lack of notation, for instance, regarding what language particular works have been translated into when listed under an Uzbek and/or Russian title, we find an apparent disregard for the nature and status of the sources; Allworth cites such works as the MATLA' AS-SA'DAYN from the partial modern Uzbek translations rather than from standard published texts, and on at least one occasion cites, through a reference of Bartol'd's, a manuscript preserved in "Petrograd University."
Such flaws are, however, a relatively minor part of what is disturbing about this book. More serious is the pattern of errors and omissions and misleading emphases outlined here only in small measure. The book will undoubtedly be widely used and cited; its interpretations and priorities will be adopted in
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later non-specialist writings, and its transcriptions will creep into articles and term papers. As unfortunate as this may be for the goal of advancing Central Asian studies, the real disappointment lies in the fact that the book is not the one the modern Uzbeks deserve.
Devin DeWeese
Department of Uralic and Altaic Studies
Indiana UniversityCyril E. Black, Louis Dupree, Elizabeth Endicott-West, Daniel C. Matuszewski, Eden Naby, and Arthur N. Waldron. The Modernization of Inner Asia. An East Gate Book (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1991).
The Modernization of Inner Asia, an innovative and unique attempt to integrate theories of modernization with the data for Inner Asia (for the purpose of this volume a convenient geographic designation for the area stretching from Mongolia in the east to Iran in the west), appears as the third volume in the series Studies on Modernization of the Center of International Studies at Princeton University. Two earlier volumes have already appeared in the same series on the modernization of Japan and Russia (1975) and the modernization of China (1981); a fourth volume on the modernization of the Ottoman Empire and its Afro-Asian successors has been announced. The present volume is the result of the collaboration of a group of scholars, with Louis Dupree writing on Afghanistan; Elizabeth Endicott- West on Mongolia and Tibet; Daniel C. Matuszewski on the Turkic and Iranian regions of Russian and Soviet Central Asia; Eden Naby on modern Iran, knowledge and education in Central Asia, and modern Sinkiang; and Arthur N. Waldron on Turkic Sinkiang. Cyril
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E. Black wrote the introduction, conclusions, and interpretive sections and edited the text [p. xvi].
Modernization is defined as "the process by which societies have and are being transformed under the impact of the scientific and technological revolution". The three factors which this work considers particularly relevant to the concept of modernization are "the advancement of knowledge, as reflected mainly in the scientific and technological revolution, as the primary source of change that distinguishes the modern era from earlier eras; the capacity of a society in political, economic, and social terms to take advantage of the possibilities for development offered by the advancement of knowledge; and the utility of various policies that the political leaders of a society may follow in seeking both to convert its heritage of values and institutions to modern requirements and to borrow selectively from more modern societies". Modernity assumes the adoption of universal commitments, rational inquiry and behavior, a belief in mastery over one's environment as opposed to fatalism, the possibility of choice of identity, separation of work from family, a movement away from the predominance of age and gender, race giving way to common humanity, and government based on participation, consent, and public accountability [pp. 17-20]. This work organizes its treatment of these issues for the premodern era (-1920s) into chapters on the international context, political institutions, economies, social structure, and knowledge and education. The treatment of the modern era (1920s-1980s) is similarly organized into chapters on the international context, political development, economic growth, social integration, and advancement of knowledge. The concluding third part includes chapters on patterns of modernization and Inner Asia and world politics. This approach results in a refreshing focus on political, social, economic, and cultural data that often remain unconsidered in traditional scholarship on this part of the world. Given the theme and broad scope of this work, it would have made sense to
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also include separate coverage of the influential modernizing role of the Azeris, Crimean Tatars, and Kazan Tatars.
The sections devoted to Iran and to a lesser degree Afghanistan offer substantial factual information and analysis informed by a significant body of disciplinary research by Western and indigenous scholars who have enjoyed relatively free access to the data for these areas. What little Western disciplinary research exists for Soviet Central Asia, Sinkiang, Mongolia, and Tibet, however, has been hampered by limited access to quantitative data and to primary and secondary sources written in the indigenous languages for these areas. Moreover, scholarship in the PRC and the former USSR has usually been based on assumptions not shared in the West. As a result, much of the fundamental research on a broad range of topics for these same areas is yet to be carried out, and the confusion in the literature regarding a number of basic facts and concepts has carried over into this volume as well. Considering for a moment questions of fact, the statement that ethnicity patterns in Mongolia were not influenced by Turkic migrations [p. 12] ignores the T rk, Uygur, and other states (6th century C.E.-) centered in Mongolia as well as the Turkic origin of many of the Mongol tribes of the medieval period. Elsewhere there is the misleading statement relating to the years 1851-1914, which should be understood as the dates for Ismail bey Gaspirali and not for his newspaper Terj man (actually published 1883-1918) [p. 50].
Turning to conceptual issues, though it is stated that nomadic military leaders "helped bring into being states whose primary purpose was securing, usually by force or the threat of force, some share of the wealth of settled areas" [p. 10], elsewhere in the same volume this is dismissed as an "age-old stereotype concerning a supposedly eternal nomadic greed for the wealth of sedentary neighbors" [p. 64]. At one point it is stated that the nomads' "mobile way of life gives them little opportunity for handicrafts" [p. 7], though elsewhere it is stated that "nomads
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also produced rugs and embroidery on rough portable looms as well as felt, ropes, and leatherwork for their own use and barter with the towns and agricultural settlements" [p. 88]. At one point it is considered that conflicts among Mongolian factions over the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and the reassertion of local sovereignties contributed to the political disintegration of Inner Asia [p. 12], while elsewhere it is considered that fragmentation from the 16th century on was the result of the gunpowder revolution, changing trade patterns, and an increasingly conservative religious establishment [p. 64]. Especially revealing is the confusion over the premodern bases of identity. Language is considered one of the bases of premodern identity in Mongolia [p. 37], while elsewhere it is stated that religion formed a main basis of identity [p. 57]. This can also be compared with the statement that for most Mongols of the early 20th century "political power could be envisaged only in religious and imperial terms" [p. 202]. Elsewhere Central Asians are considered to have identified themselves "by regional, clan, or tribal designations or, alternatively, by simple designation as a Muslim" [p. 71] and that the jadid reformists raised the issue of language and identity [p. 148]. These various statements could reflect differing premodern bases of identity in these various societies, but more likely they reflect the differing assumptions of modern authors regarding the bases of premodern identity. Given such unresolved conceptual issues, it is difficult to avoid asking whether the state of scholarship on this region offers an adequate basis for a synthetic treatment of modernization for all of the modern political units included in this volume. The late editor, who was not a specialist on any area of Inner Asia, must also accept a share of the responsibility for such inconsistencies in this volume. Finally, the section in this work devoted to contemporary Central Asia has now taken on historical value as a result of the collapse of the USSR. This work states that there is a strong
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basis for a distinctive Uzbek identity, but that the basis for a Kazakh identity is weak. It also considers that "the Uzbeks are foremost among the Muslim peoples of this region in pressing for their own policies and in taking advantage of the Soviet-imposed institutions to pursue their goals", and that the Kirgiz and Turkmen republics lack the basis for asserting independent policies [pp. 326-327]. Events in the wake of the collapse of the USSR may suggest the need to question the validity of the assumptions upon which these and other statements in this work concerning Central Asia are based.
Uli Schamiloglu
University of Wisconsin-MadisonLee, Hong Yung, From Revolutionary Cadres to Party Technocrats in Socialist China (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991). xvi + 437 pp.
This is a work of exemplary scholarship: exhaustive and meticulous in its research, clear and crisp in style, comprehensive in substance, and analytically rich in interpretation. An opening theoretical chapter makes a persuasive case for the centrality of the cadre (i.e., political official) system for understanding Chinese politics and political economy. Two chapters then cover the cadre systems of the revolutionary and earlier Maoist periods and their legacies. Professor Lee makes precisely the right choice in devoting four chapters to the Cultural Revolution, a period which remains too little understood both in the West and in China too, but which we can be sure continues to shape China. Five chapters then treat the reform period, covering cadre rehabilitation and restructuring of the bureaucracy and the Communist Party. Two further chapters give
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historical and contemporary accounts of personnel management and the fascinating, dark world of China's system of dossiers. A long, meaty analytical conclusion follows, offering in which the author offers a perceptive political sociology of the 1989 events, and also has the courage to make some closely and perceptively argued predictions.
At bottom this is a work of political sociology as well as political science. An essential concern is the relationship of state and society. One of Professor Lee's starting points is "the simple premise that the less institutionalized a political system, the more likely political elites will bring the ideology, experiences and outlook of the social classes from which they came into the political process" (387). Though structuralists would argue that institutional arrangements can also be the bearers of class interests --a point to which I shall return-- he is certainly right that China's low level of political institutionalization in both the Maoist and reform periods permits class interest to be brought very directly into the state through the cadres who staff it. Thus, Maoist China was shaped by its cadres' "rural orientation, which stressed subsistence and self-sufficiency, moralized politics, distrusted exchange through a market mechanism, and knew little about the functional prerequisites of modern society" (392). In Professor Lee's analysis, then, the Maoist state and political economy is a reflection of aspects of Chinese society, rather than a totalitarian deus ex machina, charismatic creation, or imperial holdover. (On the last point, he elucidates a number of very important differences between the Maoist leadership and its imperial predecessor, helping to undercut simplistic notions about a Mao Dynasty. And on the first, he strikes a blow at totalitarian theory by offering several fascinating contrasts with the state socialisms of Eastern Europe and the USSR.) Likewise, the post-Maoist state is beginning to reflect the
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character of its rising class of technocratic elites, which is his major theme. This does not augur well for democracy. In a well textured, complex analysis, Professor Lee argues that the technocrats are "more prone [than their Maoist predecessors] to bargain and compromise". They are capable of developing "a collective style of leadership and formal procedural rules in making decisions" (407). But "the new Chinese leaders are authoritarian in their political outlook" (289); "they are not democrats politically. Because of their training, they are averse to uncertainty and the slow process of decision making" (411-412). They were, after all, relatively passive in the spring of 1989. Like their Maoist predecessors, many of them believe that they know what is best for China, though they base their claim on knowledge, rather than political virtue as the Maoists did. (Fang Lizhi's almost Platonic elitism is a fine example, though Professor Lee's generosity of spirit probably spares Fang specific mention.) Yet, the technocrats will have difficulty becoming a political elite, because of their long exclusion from politics in the Maoist and even the post-Maoist period. This, he argues, is a major difference between China and the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, where technocrats were coopted early into the state. Another obstacle is the deep roots and resilience of the rural-based revolutionary leadership, which showed its power in 1989.
Moreover, it is to Professor Lee's great credit that he does not fall into the common trap of overrating the importance of his subject of study. He is acutely cognizant of the continuing power of rival social groups and their political leaders. He knows that rural leaders support "political Leninism" (412). He knows that even in the spring of 1989 workers "had few interests in common with the students and intellectuals" (i.e., the fledgling technocrats). And he knows that these are enormous, strategically located, and crucially important groups that cannot
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be written out of the political system or analysis of it. Toting all this up, Professor Lee expects China to move toward a more pluralistic one-party dominant system, in which the Communist Party "may become like the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party, with various factions that hold slightly disparate policy preferences but work together within a broad ideological consensus" (427). If the technocratic bureaucrats have a constructive role to play, it can be as "political managers" (426) or "power brokers" (384). But this outcome is far from assured, for it assumes some democratization of the Party (426). Perhaps more thorny, the repositioning of political elites into loci where they can mediate disputes and engage in rational allocation of resources also presumes the separation of the state from the economy. This has not happened in the first thirteen years of reform even in its urban strongholds (not to mention a good deal of the countryside in the hinterlands, where the Party retains powerful levers of economic regulation and, in the crucial sector of rural industry, even entrepreneurship). The result has been the crisis of economic overheating and corruption which underlay the 1989 blowup and blowout.
Thus, Professor Lee's final section is appropriately entitled "Uncertain Future". This is no analytical cop-out, for he does argue with great analytical acumen (as well as courage!) why one outcome (one-party politics dominated but not controlled by the new technocratic elites) is more likely than others (democratization or renewed Maoism). Returning to an earlier point, I might add that, in the view of the technocrats' own social and political weakness, the mode of class determination in the new state will be structural and indirect rather than personal and direct. That is, what will be important in the new state, and what will be a source of technocratic power, will not be who rules, but rather the rules of the games.
Marc Blecher
Oberlin College
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TURKS AROUND THE WORLD
June 6 & 7, 1992
Vista Hotel, New York CityAssembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA) the national representative of Turkish Americans and friends of Turks invites you to a unique yearly event "Second Annual Conference on Turks Around the World" to be held during ATAA's annual convention on June 4-7, 1992, Vista Hotel in New York City.
If you have been monitoring the ebvents in the Eurasian Republics, or studying Turks around the world, or just simply want to learn more about them, you should be there. Hear the reports on what happened in the past 12 months and what may happen in the next 12 months. It is the only scheduled event where you can network with academicians, representatives from most of the Turkish republics, the US government representatives, and Turks in the US.
To receive registration information, call (202) 483-9090, or write to:
ATAA,
Committee on Turks Around the World,
1522 Connecticut Avenue NW, 3rd Floor,
Washington, DC 20036.
98 AACAR BULLETIN Vol. V, No. 1 (Spring 1992)
ISLAM and DEMOCRATIZATION in CENTRAL ASIA
26-27 September 1992
UMASS-AmherstConference on ISLAM AND DEMOCRATIZATION IN CENTRAL ASIA will be held at UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS-Amherst, on 26-27 September 1992. The program contains papers by: Audrey L. Altstadt (UMASS- Amherst); Muriel Atkin (George Washington U); Dru Gladney (U Southern California); H. B. Paksoy (Harvard U-CMES); Uli Schamiloglu (U of Wisconsin-Madison); Masayuki Yamauchi (U of Tokyo). Commentators will be announced separately. The Second day is devoted to outreach for pre-college teachers. Registration for attendance is $100, for conference only. Accommodation reservations may be made on campus at participant's expense, by contacting the Campus Center, UMASS-Amherst, MA 01003. Phone: 413/549-6000; or at motels in the city of Amherst and immediate environs. For registration applications, contact: Prof. Audrey L. Altstadt, History Department, Herter Hall, UMASS, Amherst, MA 01003.