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UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Settling the past: Soviet oriental projects in Leningrad and Alma-Ata Bustanov, A.K. Publication date 2013 Document Version Final published version Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Bustanov, A. K. (2013). Settling the past: Soviet oriental projects in Leningrad and Alma-Ata. General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:06 Oct 2021 Soviet Oriental Projects in Leningrad and Alma-Ata in Leningrad Projects Oriental Soviet Past: the Settling INVITATION Settling the Past: You are cordially invited for the public defense of Soviet Oriental Projects in Leningrad and Alma-Ata my PhD thesis, entitled: Settling the Past: Soviet Oriental Projects in Leningrad and Alma-Ata On Wednesday February 27th, 2013 at 10:00 h in the Agnietenkapel of Amsterdam University, Oudezijds Voorburgwal 231, Amsterdam. Alfrid K. Bustanov Alfrid K. Bustanov [email protected] Alfrid K. Bustanov BUSTANOV_cover.indd 1 17-12-12 09:41 Settling the Past Soviet Oriental Projects in Leningrad and Alma-Ata ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam op gezag van de Rector Magnificus prof. dr. D.C. van den Boom ten overstaan van een door het college voor promoties ingestelde commissie, in het openbaar te verdedigen in de Agnietenkapel op woensdag 27 februari 2013, te 10:00 uur door Alfrid Kashafovich Bustanov geboren te Omsk, Rusland Promotiecommissie: Promotor: Prof. Dr. M. Kemper Co-Promotor: Dr. S. A. Dudoignon Overige leden: Prof. Dr. D. DeWeese Prof. Dr. J. Leerssen Prof. Dr. D. Schimmelpenninck van der Oye Prof. Dr. M. Wintle Dr. A. Kalinovsky Dr. Chr. Noack Faculteit der Geesteswetenshappen 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgments 6 Map 7 Notes on transliteration 8 Introduction 9 Chapter I: The Leningrad Connection: Oriental Projects of Source Editions 1.1. Classical Oriental Studies and Soviet Politics 35 1.2. Towards the New Scholarship: Planning and Collective Work 37 1.3. The First Attempts: Political Actuality of Classical Texts 48 1.4. Islamic Scholars and Classical Orientology 56 1.5. Dividing Sources into National Pieces: the Turkmen Project 61 1.6. Semen Volin: Bartol’d’s Unacknowledged Successor 66 1.7. Evgenii Bertel’s and the Crown of Source Edition: Jāmi‘ at-taw ārīkh 71 1.8. The Kirgiz Group in Leningrad 89 1.9. The Kazakh Project: Completion of the Program 92 1.10. Conclusion 104 Chapter II: Nationalism and Regionalism: Dividing and Integrating Soviet Central Asia in Meta-Histories 2.1. Regional and National Perspectives of History Writing 107 2.2. An Early Soviet Discourse on Nomads 110 2.3. The Impact of National Delimitation and Sedentarization 112 2.4. Sandzhar Asfendiiarov: The Nomadic Concept of Kazakh History (1920s-30s) 124 2.5. Mikhail Viatkin on the Kazakh Ethnogenesis 132 2.6. Aleksandr Iakubovskii and the Soviet Concept of Ethnogenesis in Central Asia 137 3 2.7. Anna Pankratova and the Official Kazakh History of the 1940s 141 2.8. Discussions around the Kazakh History: the late 1940s-50s 146 2.9. The 1954 Tashkent Conference: Freezing of the Dogma? 158 2.10. The Rehabilitation of ‘Bourgeois’ Orientalists: Bartol’d Re-Emerging in the 1950s-70s 166 2.11. A Great Provocation? A Tentative Switch to the Regional Concept of History in the USSR 174 2.12. Conclusion 183 Chapter III: The Establishment of Kazakh Orientology 3.1. The Institute of History and its Structure 186 3.2. The Nusupbekov – Dakhshleiger Tandem 187 3.3. Reincarnations of Orientology in Kazakhstan 192 3.4. Sapar Ibragimov: between Alma-Ata and Leningrad 208 3.5. Veniamin Iudin: an Oppressed Orientalist 211 3.6. Klavdiia Pishchulina: Continuity of Kazakh Statehood 217 3.7. Sergei Kliashtornyi: Orientalists in the State Service 221 3.8. The Team of Young Orientalists in Alma-Ata 230 3.9. In Search of Shajara s: Genealogical Narratives of the Kazakh Tribes, 1970-80 239 3.10. Conclusion 249 Chapter IV: Soviet Oriental Archeology: ‘Sedentarization of the Past’ 4.1. The Soviet Oriental Archeology 252 4.2. Culture History and Ethnicity in the Past 256 4.3. The Tsarist Archeology in Transition: Early Expeditions in Kazakhstan, 1867-1918 258 4.4. Iranian Roots of Central Asian Cities, the 1920s 261 4.5. Awq āf, Irrigation Systems, and Archeology, 1935-1936 268 4.6. The GAIMK Central Asian Committee and the 1936 Plenum 272 4.7. The Establishment of Archeological Expeditions in Kazakhstan 276 4 4.8. The Institutionalization of Kazakh Archeology in the 1940s-50s 284 4.9. Kimal’ Akishev and the ‘Otrar Catastrophe’ 295 4.10. Kazakh Urban Civilization: Crystallization of the Concept 304 4.11. The Fate of Islamic Architecture: the Yasawī Shrine 311 4.12. Conclusion 325 General Conclusion 328 Appendixes Appendix 1: The Main Personalities 339 Appendix 2: Networks of Soviet Orientalists: The Teacher-Student Relations 344 Appendix 3: Networks of Soviet Orientalists: Relations with Islamic Scholars 345 Appendix 4: Discourse Development 346 Appendix 5: Institution Building 348 List of Interviews 349 List of Archival Sources 350 Bibliography 357 List of Abbreviations 393 Summary in English 394 Samenvatting 396 5 Acknowledgments My foremost gratitude goes to the initiators of my thesis Michael Kemper (Amsterdam) and Stéphane Dudoignon (Paris). They made possible my resettling to Amsterdam in 2009, opened for me the doors into the Western scholarship and in many respects reshaped my attitude towards scientific work. At the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts (formerly St. Petersburg/ Leningrad Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies) the renowned specialist in Old-Turkic history Sergei G. Kliashtornyi generously acted as my mentor. At the Oriental faculty of St. Petersburg Uni- versity I was guided by the expert in Central Asian Islamic historiography Tursun I. Sultanov. I thank Stanislav M. Prozorov, Roman Iu. Pochekaev, Dmitrii Rukhliadev, Aleksandr G. Iurchenko, Irina R. Katkova, Pavel Lur’e and Asan Torgaev for fruitful dis- cussions, academic advice and organizational help every time when I appear in St. Peters- burg. I furthermore thank Svetlana N. Korusenko who supported my undergraduate work at Omsk University. It was a great pleasure for me to experience the Kazakh hospitality during my trips to Almaty, Turkestan, Sayr ām and Chimkent in 2009 and 2010. Many thanks go to Ashirbek K. Muminov, Mervert Kh. Abuseitova, Kanat Uskenbay, Safar Abdullo, Erbulat A. Smagulov and the collective of the Turkestan Archeological Expedition who made my trips fascinating and useful. During a joint visit to Almaty Nicolló Pianciola (Hong Kong) shared with me his experience in writing about early twentieth century Kazakh society. I received positive critique, help with sources and literature and wise recommenda- tions from many colleagues all over the globe: Devin DeWeese (Bloomington, USA), Allen J. Frank (Takoma-Park, USA), Paolo Sartori (Vienna, Austria), Bakhtiyar Babadjanov (Tashkent, Uzbekistan), Sergei Abashin, Vladimir Bobrovnikov, Vadim Trepavlov, Il’ia Zaitsev, Shamil’ Shikhaliev (Makhachkala), and Pavel Petrov (Nizhnii Novgorod). This dissertation was written in a great intellectual atmosphere created by my colleagues at the Eastern European department of Amsterdam University including Hanna Jansen, Sara Crombach, Artemy Kalinovsky and Christian Noack. 6 Map of the Kazakh SSR 7 Note on Transliteration From Arabic and Persian و u/v ص ṣ ء ’ ی y ض ḍ ب b آ ā ط ṭ ت t ی ī ظ ḏ ث th و ū ع ‘ ج j َ ◌ — a غ gh ح ḥ ُ ◌ — i ف f خ kh ِ ◌ — u ق q د d پ p ک k ذ dh چ ch ل l ر r zh م m ز z گ g ن n س s ه h ش sh From Cyrillics а a л l ф f б b м m х kh в v н n ц ts г g о o ч ch д d п p ш sh ж zh р r щ shch з z с s э e и i т t ю iu к k у u я ia 8 Introduction The Politicization of Oriental Studies The main goal of this dissertation is to analyze the history of Kazakh Oriental studies be- tween the 1920s and 1980s in the Soviet context of science-power relations. My focus is on the academic discourse of Soviet Orientalists about historical sources from Central Asia. I thereby focus on the connection between philological/ historical research and archeological work on the medieval and early modern periods. The research literature on my topic reveals two opposing opinions on my subject. On the one hand, scholars who had been part of the scientific projects that my thesis is about give generally a very positive evaluation of those projects; they maintain that these projects were characterized by a purely scientific approach. On the other hand, the critics of Soviet sciences consider all Orientalist work to be political in the first place. In between there are several major authors who maintain intermediary positions, who concede that there was a clear political agenda behind the state support for Orientalist work on Kazakhstan, but who also say that individual scholars maintained their agency, and that Soviet Oriental Studies did indeed produce a significant amount of important research that has not lost its value, and that was not compromised by the political setting to a high de- gree.