Women in the Soviet East
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Fannina W, Halle WOMEN IN THE SOVIET EAST TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BV Margaret M. Green Lmdm MARTIN SECKER & WARBURG LTD. 22 Essex Street, Strand, W.C.2 1938 rRWTBD XM GREAT BRITAIN BY TURNStL AKO SONSi LTD, PXuETON (SOMSBBBl) AVO LQKDOY If ,i true believci seeks counsel, lei liim ask the Mullah; if the latter is absent, then hia father, his elder brother, his uncle, hjs neighbour; but if nobody is at hand, then let him ask his wife, and follow tlie contrary course. Qttental Pteverb. You see, I am one of the cooks of whom Lenin said that they must learn to guide the State. From a conversation with the " Ci/y Manageress ” of Tashkent. PREFACE The kind reception accorded to my book on Women in Soviet Russia^ which appealed at the end of 1932, encouraged me in the intention I had already conceived of investigating the position of women in the non-Russian, eastern territories of the Soviet Union. Quite apart from the technical impossibility, it seemed to me bettei for practical reasons to describe separately two aspects of the same historical process which, though they coincided in date, were yet diffeient in character —the process actually accomplished in the Soviet Union of equalizing the position of men and women. The fundamental difference lies in the fact that the Russian women were Europeans, who had been seized by the current of western culture long before the October Revolution and the World War, indeed, in the middle of the nineteenth century, and Ijiad often played a lead- ing part In the general emancipation of women, whilst the women of the Russian East took part in a move- ment which started with elemental force after the end of the World War in almost all the hitherto intensely patriaichal peoples of the East. For it is no accident that almost simultaneously in Turkey, in Persia, in Afghanistan, and in other countries, the women of Islam were roused and endeavoured to break completely with a past unworthy of human beings, hitherto forced upon them, with the slavish life they had led for centuries. Undoubtedly the war, but no less the great social upheavals and changes that fol- lowed it, prepared the ground for ’what was to come. Vm PRETACE But naturally the speed of the process differed very much in difcrent countries. ^ The October Revolution of 1917 in Russia, with its tendency towards social equalization that was particularly vigorous at first, did much to hasten the process of equalization of the sexes. Nevertheless, it is not only here that we must look for the great con- trast to the parallel process in the non-Soviet countries. For amongst the millions of women, for the most part Mohammedan, in the Soviet East we have a threefold emancipation: as belonging to their nation, to their social class, and to their sex. And, moreover, without restriction to a relatively small upper class, a regenerative mass movement embracing all classes from the bottom upwards, a real uprising of the masses. And it really is a transformation in a single night from a creature hardly distinguishable from a domestic animal to a full member of the community, self-reliant and conscious of her strength, progressive and capable of develop- ment; it is a true attainment of human stature, a new creation. What confronts us, then, is a phenomenon that places immense masses of women in the foremost ranks of the “ Europeanization ” and emancipation of the East, the mobilization of vast forces, hitherto passive, which promise wholly new contributions to the en- richment of human culture, and we must recognize its bearing as gigantic, its significance as worldwide. And, whatever may have occurred in the past two decades in the immense territories of the Soviet Union, stretching across two continents—^whatever .attitude one may assume towards it'—the fact remains that recon- struction is nowhere more clearly to be seen; nowhere is the gulf between yesterday and to-day wider. One thing, therefore, is now placed beyond question: a new leaf has been turned in the history of the ancient continent of Asia, and half of it at least will be written by the awakening women of the Russian East. — PREFACE IX In this sense, then, we are doubtless justified in detachings the liberation of women in the Soviet East from the complex whole—alike from that of European Russia and that of women in the non-Russian East and treating it separately. In this book I shall endeavour to show in what manner, and on what historical foundation, under what con- ditions and with what success in each separate case, the transformation of women in the Soviet East has hitherto been accomplished. In the present book, un- like its predecessor, it has been impossible to attempt, much less achieve, any exhaustive description, in view of the extreme variety of the material. I have been obliged, therefore, to trace the main lines of develop- ment in the various territories of the Soviet East, which is inhabited by nearly two hundred peoples, and to report on the state of affairs up to the end of 1936. The material treated in the following pages, of which no systematic study has hitherto appeared, has been drawn from very many sources, and it has often been necessary to devote much labour to testing their re- liability, since many questions had either not been raised at all previously, or had been treated in a thor- oughly uncritical way. But I have also drawn from my own experience, acquired on repeated lengthy journeys in recent years, especially in Central Asia and the Caucasus, journeys which often brought me to exceed- ingly remote spots, to the Persian, Afghan, and Chinese frontiers, and not far from the Indian frontier; some of these places are, as a rule, barely accessible to Western Europeans. I owe a deep debt of gratitude to the many scientific and cultural authorities and institutes in Moscow, Leningrad, Baku, Tiflis, Makhach-Kala,- Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara, Ferghana, Ashqabad, Merv, and Stalinobad, and to their branches in many other places, which cannot be enumerated here, and further to all those persons who frequently gave me the most friendly X PRETACIi and generous assistance. More especially I thank the Foks ^Society for Cultural Relations of the Soyiet Union with Foreign Countries), which was always most kind in securing" for me the opportunity of getting into contact with all the requisite authorities, and of investi- gating, extending, and improving my material. I owe, further, warm thanks to Dr. Andreas Gasper, of Vienna, who has rendered me the most valuable help in sifting and arranging the material. Fannina Halle Vienna, August, 1937 CONTENTS PAGL PatrACE vii Introduction 17 THL aOVIEI EAST BFGINS IN MOSCOW . I7 THE ORIENT AND MATRIARCHY .... 20 THE CAUCASUS 22 CENIRAL ASIA 3O NORTHERN ASIA .36 of • Lingiring Echoes Matriarchy • 39 TRACES OF THE AMAZONS AND FEMAI E DEiriES IN THE CAUCASUS 39 PRIESTESSES AND AMAZON WARS AMONG THE POLAR PEOPLES 51 MATRIARCHAL FEATURES THROUGHOUT' THE SOVIPT IAS r 54 Patriarchy 65 ISLAM AND WOMAN 66 THE WIFE AS “ IMPURE THE DAUGHTER AS AN “ ” ALIEN BURDEN . -73 WOMAN AS A CHATTEL 8 1 patriarchal MARRIAGE . , . 91 ” , MAN AS THE “YOUNGER GOD , . .100 The Dawn of the New Era . no OCTOBER AND THE QUESTION OF NATIONALITIES . HO THE WOMEN OF THE EAST IN THE CIVIL WAR , IZO WOMEN LIBERATED BY THE LAW . > , 126 ad xii CONTENTS PACfI. BYT CRIMES IN THE COURTS .... 1'he Women op the E^st Awake , . / , 140 WHFRE AND how PROPAGANDA IS CARRIED ON 140 AWAY WITH THE VEIL ! 167 THE REVOLT OF THE WOMEN THE RESISIANCE OF THE MEN 178 SHE IS awake! 200 Women in the East help to build up the New Life 209 LIGHT FOR the EAST I 209 TWO COLLEGES FOR THE EAST AND THE NORTH . 219 THE WOMEN OF THE EAST BECOME ACTIVE . 243 The Sphere of Women in the Soviet East—Yester- day AND To-day 271 IN THE LAND OF QUEEN TAMARA AND THE AIRWOMEN OF BAKU 271 THE NEW ASPECT OP ANCIENT TURKI3TAN . 296 Interpretation of Names and Abbreviations. 34S Ethnographical, Statistical, and Political Glossary 347 Bibliography ........ 353 Map SEE END of book LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS (See end of the book) 1. KURDISH WOMAN ORGANIZER IN ERIVAN, ARMENIA 2 . THE DARIAL RAVINE AND GRUSINIAN MILITARY ROAD IN THE CAUCASUS 3. VIEW OF A SVANETIAN SETTLEMENT (tRANSCAUCASIA) 4. “ LENIN AND THE PEOPLES OF THE EAST ” (aSERBEIDSHAN- TURKISH TAPESTRY IN THE MUSEUM OF EASTERN CULTURE IN Moscow) 5. LIKBES (liquidation OF ILLITERACY) IN THE NORTHERN CAUCASUS 6. DELEGATES AT A WOMEN’S CONFERENCE IN THE CULTURAL PALACE OF EMANCIPATED TURKISH WOMANHOOD AT BAKU 7. DELEGATES AT A WOMEn’s CONFERENCE IN THE CULTURAL PALACE OF EMANCIPATED TURKISH WOMANHOOD IN BAKU 8. LEILA MAHMEDBEKOVA, THE FIRST TURKISH AIRWOMAN, IN AZERBAIJAN 9. CONFERENCE OF MIDDLE-’AGED K0LKH03 (COLLECTIVE FARM) PEASANT WOMEN IN THE KABARD-BALKAN REPUBLIC (northern CAUCASUS) 10, IN THE JIIRECTORS’ ROOM AT KUTV (COMMUNIST UNIVERSITY OF THE LABOURING EAST) IN MOSCOW 11. TREK OF NOMAD KALMUCKS IN THE CASPIAN STEPPES 12 . PITCHING A KIBITKA (nOMAD TENt) OF THE KALMUCKS 13, KALMUCK WOMEN AT WORK 14. TYPES OF KALMUCK WOMANHOOD 15, A NUKHRAT, THE CSURASH-RUSSIAN AUTHORESS XIV LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1 6. KALMUCK WOMEN STUDENTS IN GALA DRESS 17. SUMMER HEADftUARTERS OF THE NOMADS IN THE HIGH- LANDS OF KAZAKSTAN 18. A DELEGATE FROM KAZAKSTAN SPEAKING AT A WOMEn’s CONFERENCE IN CATHARINE’S HALL IN THE GREAT KREMLIN PALACE, MOSCOW 19. KAZAKH WOMEN ON THEIR WAY TO THE TOWN TO DE- LIVER CORN 20 .