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Title Minorities, Mullahs and Modernity: Reshaping Community in the Former Soviet Union

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Authors Saroyan, Mark Walker, Edward W.

Publication Date 1997

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Minorities, Mullahs and Modernity: Reshaping Community in the Former Soviet Union

Mark Saroyan

Edited by Edward W. Walker

Description: With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Caucasus and Central Asia suddenly became significant actors on the world stage. Yet outside knowledge of this vast region has been limited and superficial. This collection of essays and lectures by the late Mark Saroyan (1960-1995, UCB Ph.D. 1990) is a major contribution to understanding the interaction among the region's religious traditions, cultures, and politics. Saroyan's command of five regional languages and extensive fieldwork both before and after the Soviet collapse yielded numerous original insights into the identity politics of the region. The volume will be of great interest to political scientists, anthropologists, historians, and students of religion — as well as to specialists on Central Asia and the Caucasus.

RESEARCH SERIES / NUMBER 94

Minorities, Mullahs, and Modernity: Reshaping Community in the Late Soviet Union

Mark Saroyan

Edward W. Walker, Editor

With an introduction by Gail W. Lapidus and Ronald G. Suny

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY Some of the articles in this collection originally appeared in other publications. We are grateful to the following publishers for granting us permission to include them here: “The Armenian Protests: Is It Passion or Politics?” Deadline (New York) 3, 4 (July/August 1988). “Beyond the Nation-State: Culture and Ethnic Politics in Soviet Transcaucasia.” Soviet Union/Union Sovietique 15, 2–3 (1988). “‘The Karabakh Syndrome’ and Azerbaijani Politics.” Problems of Communism, September–October 1990. Majority-Minority Relations in the Soviet Republics." In Soviet Nationalities Problems, ed. Ian A. Bremmer and Norman M. Nai- mark. Stanford: Center for Russian and East European Studies. “Rethinking Islam in the Soviet Union.” In Beyond Sovietology: Essays in Politics and History, ed. Susan Gross Solomon. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1993. “Trouble in the Transcaucasus.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 45, 2 (March 1989).

The remaining articles are from the estate of Mark Saroyan, and we thank his family for allowing us to include them.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Saroyan, Mark. Minorities, mullahs, and modernity : reshaping community in the former Soviet Union / Mark Saroyan ; edited by Edward W. Walker. p. cm. — (Research series ; no. 95) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-87725-195-9 (pbk.) 1. Transcaucasia—Ethnic relations. 2. Asia, Central—Ethnic rela- tions. 3. Islam—Asia, Central. 4. Islam—Transcaucasia. 5. Transcau- casia—Politics and government. 6. Asia, Central—Politics and government—1991– I. Walker, Edward W. II. Title. III. Series: Research series (University of California, Berkeley. Institute of Inter- national Studies) ; no. 95. DK509.S26 1997 305.8’00958—dc21 97-19310 CIP

©1997 by the Regents of the University of California

Printed in the United States of America CONTENT S

Preface vii

Introduction 1

Rethinking Islam in the Soviet Union 8

The Islamic Clergy and Community in the Soviet Union 43

The Reinterpretation and Adaptation of Soviet Islam 58

The Restructuring of Soviet Islam in the Gorbachev Era: Interethnic Fragmentation and Thematic Continuity 88

Ambivalence, Authority, and the Problem of Popular Islam 104

Majority-Minority Relations in the Soviet Republics 125

Beyond the Nation-State: Culture and Ethnic Politics in Soviet Transcaucasia 135

Trouble in the Transcaucasus 167

The “Karabakh Syndrome” and Azerbaijani Politics 175 The Armenian Protests: Is It Passion or Politics? 204

Representation as a Realm of Conflict: Two Examples from Soviet Armenian Literature 211

Azerbaijan Looks “West”: New Trends in Foreign Relations with Iran and Turkey 221

About the Author 231

❖ Pref ace

Mark Saroyan was one of the first asso ci ated gradu ate students of what was then called the Berkeley-Stanford Program in Soviet In ter na- tional Behav ior (now the Berkeley Program in Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies). Mark arrived at Berkeley in 1986 and gradu ated with a Ph.D. in polit i cal science in Decem ber 1990, at which point he took up a po si- tion as an assis tant profes sor of polit i cal science at Har vard. Tragically, Mark was diag nosed with a fatal illness shortly be fore his arrival at Har vard. As Mark ’s illness worsened, it becam e in creas- ingly diffi cult for him to meet his teaching obli ga tions, so in 1993 he returne d to Berkeley, where, at the urging of his former disser ta tion adviser, Gail Lapidus, he began to collect his published and unpub lished papers, and to com - plete vari ous works-in-progress, includ ing a co-authored paper with a Berke - ley gradu ate student, Maranatha Ivanova. His hope was that he would be able to publish the collec tion as a book. But Mark ’s health dete ri o rated rapidl y, and he was unable to complete the project be fore his death on 21 July 1994 at the age of 34. Mark ’s death was a terri ble loss for his famil y, friends, and col - leagues; it was also a great misfor tune for his profes sion. Mark was a brilliant scholar. Unlike many of his contem po rar ies in polit i cal sci - ence, he had both the ability and the desire to study not only “pol i- tics,” but also culture, and the inter ac tion between them. Mark traveled exten sively throughout the former Soviet Union at a time when most of his colleagues would visit the USSR only rarely, usu - ally confin ing their visits to Mosco w. He was a talented linguist who was fluent in Russian, Arme nian, Azeri, and Turkish. As the paper s in this volume attest, he used his prodi gious linguis tics abili ties and powers of empa thy to great effect in his study of Islam in the forme r Soviet Union; Soviet nation al ity policy; and poli tics, soci et y, and cul - ture in the Cauca sus and Central Asia. Although I had heard of Mark and had admired his schol ar ship, I met him for the first time in 1993 after his return to Berkele y. He struck me as a truly decent human being who cared deeply about the peoples and cultures he was studying and who at the same time re - fused to accept conven tional wisdoms about his objects of study. I

vii viii Prefac e was therefore honored to be asked to pick up where he had left off prior to his death and put together a collec tion of his works for pub li - cation. This volume is the result of those efforts, and it is dedi cated to his memory . This was, I confess, a diffi cult book to edit, and I apolo gize to Mark for any injus tice I have done to his ideas. His unpub lished papers were clearly not intended for imme di ate publi ca tion, and there was a con sid- erable de gree of dupli ca tion in them, which I have attempted to min i- mize. Also, his paper with Maranatha Ivanova was still in progress at the time of his death, and I thank her for her consid er able efforts to com - plete the paper in accor dance with Mark ’s instruc tions . Many people made this volume possi ble. Thanks go first and foremost to Mark ’s family for giving us permis sion to proceed with the volume; to Ron Suny and Gail Lapidus for their excel lent in tro- duction; to Timo thy Colton and Susan Pharr for estab lish ing a Mark Saroyan Fund at Harvard that helped make the volume possi ble; to Bojana Ristich for her careful and profes sional copyedit ing; to Ste - phen Pitcher for the excel lent layout and design of the volume; to Nayereh Tohidi for checking the Azeri spellings; and to In ter na tional and Area Studies at Berkeley for agreeing to publish the volume . Finally, I would like to acknowl edge the gener ous con tri bu tions of the follow ing indi vid u als to Mark Saroyan Funds at Berkeley and Harvard: Michele Albanese · Robert Bates · Peter Berkowitz · Mark Bousian · Liliana Botcheva · Houchang Chehabi · Timo thy Colton · Thomas Cushman · Jorge Dominguez · Gordon Furth · John Gershman · Albert Grote · Michael Hagen · Henry Hale · Elaine Haw thorne · Joel Hellman · Arthur Hoff · Stanley Hoffmann · Rob - ert and Yasuko Ikeda · Iain Johnston · Fu Jun · Robert Keohane · Ruth Lewis · Roderick MacFarquhar · Judith Mehrmann · Mary E. Merschen · Andrew Moravcsik · David Nalle · Jean Oi · Mark Pe ter- son · Susan Pharr · Daniel Posner · Paul Quinlan · Louise Rich ard- son · Peter Rutl and · Caro lyn Sheaff · Kenneth Shepsle · James Tracy · Ronald and Doro thy Ty ler · Janet Vaillant · Celeste Wallander · Robert Weiner · Perdita Welch · Deborah Yashar.

Edward W. Walker June 1997 INTRODUCTION

Gail W. Lapidus and Ronald G. Suny

Some deaths come when they are expected, in the course of things; others arrive far too early. The loss that we feel reflects how much we cared for the person who has left us, but the tragedy is com - pounded when the leaving is abrupt and untimel y. There ought to have been much more time for Mark Saroyan: he had much yet to give, both as a uniquely talented scholar and as a human being. But what he left is much more than the sense of great unre al ized pos si bil- ities. It is also the recog ni tion of rare achievement by one so young and a deep sorrow that we will never know what he might have achieved. Mark began his study of Soviet poli tics at Berkeley at a time when a narrow focus on elite poli tics domi nated the field. Scholarl y research and training were Russia-centered, and the non-Russian re - gions—espe cially the Cauca sus and Central Asia—were assumed to be either carbon copies of what went on in Russia, or a source of un - derground oppo si tion to the regime. Mark not only recog nized the limi ta tions of this approach, but also grasped that poli tics could not be under stood in isola tion from a broader cultural context . These views did not always endear Mark to the more rigid po - liti cal science faculty and fellow students, who could not un der stand why he spent so much time studying eso teric languages or takin g courses in anthro pol og y. But Mark followed his own instincts, and they led him in extraor di narily produc tive direc tions. He had an ex - ceptional gift for languages—not only Russian and Arme nian , French and German, but also Azeri, Turkish, and Uzbek. Indeed he was even a talented transla tor of Persian poetr y. To these linguis tic gifts were joined both great empa thy for other cultures and pride in his Arme nian background. A gifted ob - server of his envi ron ment, he took to anthro pol ogy early in his ac a -

1 2 Intro duc tio n demic career. Wherever he traveled—whether in Berkeley or Baku, Tehran or Cambridge—he immersed himself in the local culture and absorbed its discourse. His knowledge and under stand ing of Cen - tral Asia won the admi ra tion and respect of Soviet and Wester n scholars alike, and he eagerly shared that knowledge with col - leagues and students. A gifted teacher, Mark inspired hundreds of students, for whom he made the subject come alive. It was espe cially grati fy ing and something of a vindi ca tion that upon receiv ing his doctor ate from Berkele y, Mark was offered the most presti gious aca demic posi tion available at the time—an as sis - tant profes sor ship at Harvard. Perhaps Cambridge was not the most conge nial envi ron ment for him, intel lec tu ally or person all y. Though forthright in his criti cism of its shortcom ings, Mark also made se ri - ous efforts to remedy them. He created new courses, worked closely with students, and had an impor tant impact on a number of them. Mark Saroyan also made impor tant contri bu tions to the polic y commu nit y. He was a frequent visi tor to Washing ton, D.C. and par - tici pated in confer ences in the United States, Western Europe, Tur - key, and Iran. While members of his family felt that he might one day become secre tary of state, he may more accu rately be imagined as the secre tar y ’s most persis tent critic. Precisely because he was pro - voca tive and prepared to challenge received wisdom, he compelle d many in the policy arena to reex am ine their assump tions . After he became ill, Mark ’s deci sion to return to Berkeley was a homecom ing, however bitter sweet. In his last months, Mark sought to work on a collec tion of his writings. This volume of his essays and arti cles (some published and some unpub lished) is therefore a trib - ute to Mark ’s accom plish ments and a very special gift—his leg - acy—to future gener a tions . Mark ’s contri bu tion to Sovietology was inno va tive in severa l ways. First, his major concern—cler i cal elites and Soviet Islam—wa s an unusual one. Polit i cal science and reli gious studies seldom cross the chasm that sepa rates them, and nowhere was the distance be - tween the analy sis of poli tics and the study of reli gion greater than in Sovietology. Those who studied reli gion in the USSR almost uni - formly presented it as an essen tial oppo si tion to Soviet commu nism , repro duc ing with inverted norma tive signs the dichot omy set up by the Sovi ets themselves—an atheis tic, modern iz ing, transformative regime challeng ing tradi tional, static leftovers from an earlier era. Intro duc tion 3

Saroyan began by de-essentializing reli gion, placing it back into his - tory and a sociopolitical context in which it was constantly chang ing. Thus his work was from the outset revi sion ist, challeng ing those scholars—no ta bly Alexandre Bennigsen and Hélène Carrère d’Encausse, who portrayed Soviet Islam as a rela tively static, re sis - tant force sepa rate from, and hostile to, its Soviet surround ings . Mark treated the Soviet Islamic elite not simply as agents of the Soviet state or objects acted upon by cyni cal polit i cal oper a tives, not as “mere mouthpieces for the regime,” as they were often char ac ter- ized, but as actors complexly impli cated in the Soviet expe ri ence , having appro pri ated certain Soviet values and symbolic systems. “In express ing those values through its own ideolog i cal constructs,” he writes, the Soviet Muslim elite “reas serts its own social legit i macy ” (“The Rein ter pre ta tion,” p. 63 below). Modern izing Soviet Islam was recon struct ing its own social identity “by using Islamic theolog i ca l concepts to artic u late domi nant, secu lar values,” marry ing the tra di - tional to the modern in a process that has its ana log in non-Soviet Is - lamic countries. Against the domi nant Western expec ta tions of the 1970s and 1980s, Saroyan asserted that Soviet Islam was not a cen trif- ugal threat to the Soviet state, and against the domi nant Soviet view of Islam, he insisted that it was not simply a vesti gial phenom e non , destined to die out soon. He returned poli tics to the study of reli gio n and reli gion to the study of social histor y. Saroyan also disaggregated Soviet Islam, distin guish ing be - tween commu ni ties and reli gious boards. Whereas Central Asian Muslims were less hier ar chi cal, though domi nated in many ways by Uzbeks, the North Cauca sians were divided between power ful and influ en tial Sufi groups and an offi cial hier ar chy that promoted a dogmatic Muslim identit y. Transcaucasian Islam was largely an Azerbaijani affair, and this Shi ’i Islam was even more comfort abl e with an insti tu tion al ized estab lish ment. He also historicized the de - velop ment of Soviet Islam when he discussed the changes that took place in the Gorbachev period. Instead of a unified Islamic challeng e to Soviet rule, Muslims used the new freedom to ethnicize their re li- gious insti tu tions. Reli gious boards and medresas came under loca l leader ships in each repub lic, and the instruc tion in the schools was nation al ized along repub lic lines. Rather than a return to some pri - mordial ethnic it y, this process was shaped by the ethnocultural bor - ders created in the decades of Soviet power. Most striking was 4 Intro duc tio n

Mark ’s finding, based on exten sive inter views and travel in the last years of the Soviet Union, that even as the Soviet state was col laps - ing, the Muslim clergy remained “an unusu ally loyal oppo si tion ” and “did not reject the Soviet Union or the Soviet polit i cal syste m wholesale,” in contrast to other polit i cal movements of the late 1980s and early 1990s (“The Restruc turing of Soviet Islam,” p. 101 below) . Mark ’s rein ter pre ta tion of Soviet Islam has an even deeper sub ver - sive effect than simply revi sion of Western histo ri og ra phy or of So - viet marginalization of Islam. He shows how both Soviet so ci ol o gists and Western histo ri ans worked within the larger tradi tion of socia l science laid down by Marx, Durkheim, and Weber. Begin ning with a narra tive of progres sion from the tradi tional (or feudal) to the mod - ern (capi tal ist or social ist), scholars constructed reli gion as the nonmodern “other,” an anachro nism that would be eradi cated by in - dustri al iza tion, secu lar edu ca tion, ratio nal ism, or social ism . Saroyan was suspi cious of this master narra tive, so perva sive in so - cial science that it is able to resist frequent criti cism.Mar k ’s retell in g of the devel op ment of Soviet Islam (actu ally of multi ple expe ri ence s of Muslims) challenges other polar i ties as well: the state/soci et y para digm so famil iar to students of Russia and the Soviet Union, and its cousin, the total i tar ian model, in which the state is all and soci et y nothing. He rejects the view, expressed most vividly by Ender s Wimbush, that for a Soviet Muslim the only choice was between the Qur ’an and Lenin. Rather than attempt ing to medi ate tradi tion and moder nity by seeing in what ways they are inter re lated (and thereby preserv ing the two cate go ries), Saroyan moves to an inves ti ga tion of the meanings that Muslims attach to their reli gious forms and prac - tices. In his most anthro po log i cal piece (written with Maranatha Ivanova), he shows how popu lar and offi cial reli gion inter pen - etrated. In another essay, by turning toward an analy sis of the in dig - enous discourses and practices of Soviet Muslim insti tu tions, he moves beyond reify ing Islam or settling on the conven tional mean - ings imposed on this reli gion. As he puts it, “the totalizing con struc- tions of Soviet Islam offered in Soviet and Western texts need to be replaced instead with the ‘texts ’ of Muslim socio-religious life as the basis for analy sis and inter pre ta tion” (“Rethinking Islam,” p. 30 be - low). Instead of unme di ated facts exist ing in an objec tive vacuum , Saroyan looks at the “orga nized system of meaning” to find out what should count as rele vant facts and what they might mean. Muslims , Intro duc tion 5 then, are not just a given cate gory, but people who consti tute their identi ties over time, giving meaning to their expe ri ences and their lives. Employing Hayden White and Michel Foucault, Saroyan works toward a new under stand ing of power in the Soviet Union, one that is not simply state-centered but “dispersed and consti tuted at dif fer- ent levels within a given social order” ( ibid., p. 33 below). His in ves ti- gation of Islamic reli gious insti tu tions is thus more than an analy si s of reli gion and its rela tion ship to the state or reli gion in soci et y, but an explo ra tion of how power is consti tuted in insti tu tions and socia l practices outside the state. He is inter ested in power not only in its repres sive functions, but also in its consti tu tive functions. As he writes, “the Muslim clergy can be seen as engaged in a creative pro - cess of construct ing new forms of identity and reli gious or ga ni za tion in order to situ ate and estab lish itself and its commu nity in a com - plex set of constantly changing power rela tions. The repres siv e means by which the Muslim clergy consti tutes itself and its image of the Muslim commu nity are much more rele vant to its aspi ra tions for hege mony in Muslim soci ety than to its rela tions with state au thor i- ties” ( ibid., pp. 26–27 below) . Muslim clerics in the Soviet Union could not and did not openly challenge the Soviet regime. Rather, they expressed their own view of Islam and the Muslim commu nit y, a view that differed from the of - ficial Soviet version. While the Sovi ets saw Islam as sepa rate from and alien to Soviet social ism, clerics preached about the simi lar i tie s of social ist and Muslim values. Whereas clerics might agree with So - viet offi cials that Muslims had fallen into super sti tious practices , their solu tion was a return to more authen tic Islam. Clerics es tab - lished their own author ity in the commu nity through the practice of ijtihad, the theolog i cal inter pre ta tion of sacred texts. Through in ter- preta tion authen tic ity was rees tab lished and adap ta tion to con tem - porary condi tions was effected. In any case, it was the clerics who showed the way back to the “true Islam.” While they sought a form of coex is tence with the Soviet system, they assid u ously maintaine d the distinc tive ness of Muslim culture and avoided full synthe si s with the hege monic Soviet culture . While his disser ta tion and much of his writing focused on the Muslim clerics and Soviet Islam in its all-Union, compar a tive di men - sion, Mark also invested much of his intel lec tual capi tal in explor in g 6 Intro duc tio n the culture and poli tics of Arme nia and Azerbaijan. Here again his approach was to consider the vari ous discur sive universes in which poli tics devel oped, thus bringing culture and poli tics into com mu - nion with each other. Even when he looked at liter a ture, as in his short piece on Mushegh Galshoyan ’s novel and Gevorg Emin ’s poem, Saroyan delved into the polit i cal-cultural meanings of the charac ter s ’ words and actions. Within late Soviet Arme nian lit er a- ture, as he reveals, the ethnic and national dimen sions were ev ery - where, fiercely contest ing the more schematic Soviet identi ties by subvert ing and adapting them. In two major pieces, Mark looked at the Karabakh conflict, reject ing conven tional views that this was simply a reli gious or an ethnic conflict, and expos ing the comple x poli tics that informed the two sides. Like a number of his scholarl y contem po rar ies, he connected the conflict back to the structure of So - viet nation al ity insti tu tions, the ethnonational repub lics and lesser auton o mies, and the nonlin ear evolu tion of nation al ity policy, from korenizatsiia through Stalin ist Russification to the gentler forms of in - direct rule that were the imme di ate prece dents of the Gorbachev re - treat from repres sion . Mark traces the linkage of terri tory with nation and culture, the nativization of toponyms, the reverse reading of history so that cur - rent occu pants of the “homeland” become not only the titu lar own - ers of the repub lic but of the past of that terri tory as well. Though many would see the coming conflict as inev i ta ble and natu ral, Mark linked it inti mately to the partic u lar forma tion of ethnic identity in Transcaucasia, to the estab lish ment of national repub lics, and to the privi leg ing of the titu lar nation al it y. Yet both for Azeris, with their links to Iranian Azeris to the south, and for Arme ni ans, with their support for repa tri a tion of foreign Arme ni ans and ties to the Ar me - nian dias pora, “nation” came to mean more than the “nation-state ” within the USSR. The Karabakh conflict proved an abrupt turnin g point between terri to rial “nation-state” nation al ism and a broader nation al ism that embraced all people of the nation wherever they may live. Thus already in 1988 Saroyan saw that Gorbachev ’s at - tempt to find polit i cal solu tions to deeply imbed ded insti tu tiona l problems was doomed. Ethnic poli tics had moved beyond the struc - ture of the national-republic system that made up the Soviet Union . Despite his sympa thy for the peoples of the region, Mark could write about Transcaucasia without displays of favor it ism or chau - Intro duc tion 7 vinism. An ethnic Arme nian, Ameri can-born, he adopted Azerbaijan as one of his princi pal sites for research. Fluent in Ar me - nian, Azeri, and Russian, he demon strated a multi fac eted ap pre ci a- tion for the intri ca cies of Azerbaijani poli tics and an extraor di nar y sensi tiv ity to their cultural aspi ra tions. His writings displayed both sympa thy and regret for the eventual turn of Azerbaijani poli tics , away from an ethnic asser tion of identity toward a deadly chau vin - ism, away from demo cratic impulses toward vio lence, repres sion , and dicta tor ship. While he was alive, the trajec to ries of Azerbaijan and Arme nia were almost exact oppo sites, with Arme nia moving to - ward demo cratic poli tics. But Mark was never sanguine about the present and the appar ent in poli tics. He always looked for the dis - cursive and cultural, for the structural and dynamic factors that made poli tics so unpre dict able. He therefore would proba bly not have been surprised, but certainly would have expressed dismay, at the falter ing of Arme nian democ racy. He saw poli tics as an open-ended game, not fatally deter mined, and even in his final years he remained an opti mist—not a naive one, but with full awareness of the poten tial in humans for both great evil and extraor di nary good. RETHINKING ISLAM IN THE SOVIET UNION

One did not need to be a Sovietologist to recog nize the depth and scope of the transfor ma tions that had taken place in the Sovie t Union by the end of the 1980s. Mikhail Gorbachevs program of rad i- cal socio eco nomic and polit i cal reform touched virtu ally all spheres of Soviet life and resulted in a climate of near-permanent crisis in a country that once boasted of its social and polit i cal stabil it y. Despit e a protracted civil war between the Cauca sian repub lics of Arme ni a and Azerbaijan, asser tive inde pend ence movements in the Baltic re - publics, and a seemingly unend ing list of strikes, social movements , demon stra tions, and peri odic vio lence throughout the countr y, something was missing from the USSRs increas ingly unsta ble po lit i- cal scene: the emergence of an Islamic oppo si tion to Moscows rule. In the 1970s and 1980s, expec ta tions of insta bil ity among the USSRs Muslim popu la tions were fueled by journal is tic reports and scholarly studies which, having discov ered the large and divers e Muslim commu ni ties of the Soviet Union, outlined the features of a Muslim “arc of insta bil ity” across the USSRs southern tier.1 The Is - lamic Revo lu tion in Iran, the Soviet inva sion of Afghan i stan, and the war against the Muslim insur gency there, coupled with a de mo- graphic boom among the Soviet Unio n s Muslim popu la tions, served only to highlight what was viewed as the intrin sic incom pat i bil ity of the Soviet state and the Muslim commu nit y. In this context, the ab - sence of a massive, mili tant Muslim insur gency in a Soviet Union of glasnost and perestroika appeared a striking anomal y.2 Despite the few voices raised against the conven tions of West - ern thinking about Islam in the Soviet Union, there has been little in the way of a rigor ous assess ment of this growing field of knowl -

This es say was orig i nally writ ten dur ing 1988–89 and re vised with mi nor al ter- ations in 1990. The au thor is grate ful to Gail Lapidus, Vic to ria Bonnell, George Breslauer, Mi chael Coo per, and Russ Faeges for their crit i cal com ments on these early drafts, and to the ACLS/SSRC Joint Com mit tee on So viet Studies for fi nan- cial sup port dur ing the writ ing of this es say.

8 Re thinking Is lam in the So viet Un ion 9 edge.3 By contrast, a thoughtful subliterature that explores the the o- reti cal methods and substance of the ever-more exten sive discours e on Islam has devel oped in tandem with the expan sion of Musli m studies outside the Soviet field.4 Given the need for a reex am i na tio n of the assump tions and method ol o gies that have shaped study of the Soviet Unio n s Muslim commu ni ties, my purpose here is not to ex - amine Soviet Islam itself but to engage in a criti cal analy sis of West - ern and Soviet repre sen ta tions of Soviet Islam as they are orga nize d in a scholarly discourse. The funda men tal question of this essay is thus not what we know about Islam in the Soviet Union, but how we know about it. Students of the Soviet Union have frequently viewed access to infor ma tion as a problem equal to if not greater than that of the o ret i- cal approach. But contem po rary poli cies ema nat ing from Mosco w have resulted in a virtual explo sion of infor ma tion about the for - merly “blank pages” of Soviet history and poli tics, thus miti gat in g the problem of access. In the context of this new wave of data, the ex - citement over the infor ma tion itself has frequently resulted in a lack of atten tion to the manner by which infor ma tion is received and pro - cessed for use in scholar ship and analy sis. The need to reeval u ate the ways in which scholars use theo ries and para digms to select, re ceive, and orga nize data is espe cially acute. The problems of infor ma tion and concep tual approach are closely inter twined, but for reasons of clarity I discuss them sep a - rately. In the first instance, a review of the empir i cal sources for the Western special ist liter a ture on Soviet Islam reveals the intertextuality of this scholarly writing. In other words, the West ern liter a ture has devel oped more in rela tion to studies of Islam pro - duced in the Soviet Union than it has to the sociopolitical and re li - gious processes that charac ter ize contem po rary Soviet Islam. But there is more than simply a textual kinship between Western and So - viet thinking about Soviet Islam. The concep tual founda tions of both Western and Soviet thinking about Islam in the Soviet Union are in fact informed by the same kinds of theo ret i cal assump tions about the nature of reli gion and social change. I therefore suggest a critique of the way in which the domi nant para digms inform the conven tiona l inter pre ta tions of Soviet Islam and the ways in which they are pro - duced and repro duced irre spec tive of the socio-religious world they seek to explain. Based on this critique of the texts and of the par a - 10 Mark Saroyan digms that inform contem po rary scholar ship, the third part of this essay presents a prelim i nary outline of an alter na tive way of in ter - preting Soviet Islam inde pend ent of the concep tual framework pro - duced by Soviet scholar ship .

READING BETWEEN THE TEXTS: STUDIES OF SOVIET ISLAM

Western scholar ship on Islam in the Soviet Union origi nated with the work of histo ri ans concerned with the fate of Muslim peoples in the Russian Empire. Although more recently some polit i cal scien tists have contrib uted to the forma tion of this special ized field of knowledge, the produc tion of a scholarly liter a ture on Soviet Islam is domi nate d mostly by histo ri ans who are at times openly hostile to the concep tua l methods of the social sciences. 5 Despite the atheoretical, perhaps even anti-theoretical inten tions of many observ ers, histor i cal and other scholar ship on Soviet Islam has nonethe less been produced within a framework of concep tual assump tions and has therefore resulted in theo ret i cal outcomes . The Western liter a ture on Soviet Islam, howeve r, would not ex - ist without special ized studies of Islam produced in the Soviet Un ion itself. Building on its own tradi tions of nineteenth-century Russia n Orien tal ism, Soviet scholarly publish ing in both central Russia and the repub lics has been indis pens able in the forma tion of a West ern discourse on Soviet Islam. But Soviet scholar ship and media sources are not simply a vast source of empir i cal data for Western scholars . They also provide Western scholars with concepts and a theo ret i ca l framework. From the point of view of the soci ol ogy of knowledge , then, on many levels Soviet scholar ship has effected an intel lec tua l colo ni za tion of Western thinking on Soviet Islam . Whether they are simply re-presenting the evolu tion of Sovie t views of Islam or engag ing in second ary research on Soviet Islam it - self, virtu ally all Western students of Soviet Islam depend on the spe - cialized liter a ture produced in the Soviet Union. The signif i cance of these Soviet sources for Western inter pre ta tions is widely rec og nized by Western special ists. “Soviet sources, because of their abundance , can provide a more or less coher ent picture of Islam in the Soviet Un - ion,” write Alexandre Bennigsen and Enders Wimbush. “But it is ob - Re thinking Is lam in the So viet Un ion 11 vious,” they continue, “that this picture is incom plete, biased and falsi fied.” 6 The nature of that biased and falsi fied charac ter of Sovie t writing on Islam, however, is nowhere clearly speci fied in the West - ern special ist liter a ture. Partially as a result of this problem, Wester n scholarly disputes over both concep tual and empir i cal issues ofte n revolve around the use and inter pre ta tion of Soviet scholar ship and press cover age of Soviet Islam. 7 Western scholars of Soviet Islam employ two inter pre tive strat - egies in their use of Soviet texts for empir i cal data. These can be re - ferred to as direct and indi rect extrap o la tion. The first strateg y assumes that Soviet polem i cal discourse on Soviet Islam can be in ter - preted as reflect ing directly or by impli ca tion a “real” situ a tion in So - viet soci et y. In the second, “facts” taken from Soviet sources are reworked into a discourse whose charac ter or inten tions has little to do with the context of the origi nal texts in which these “facts” first appeared . Despite doubts expressed by vari ous authors about the re li abil- ity of Soviet data and inter pre ta tions, a strategy of direct ex trap o la - tion in which Soviet data, orga niz ing concepts, and inter pre ta tion s are repro duced in Western special ist liter a ture is in fact widespread . At times entire arti cles published by Western special ists are con - structed around a single Soviet source or a very limited number of publi ca tions. 8 Even in those studies that move beyond a mere para - phrasing of Soviet texts, Western scholars often extract concepts pro - duced in the Soviet liter a ture and employ them to “describe” the Soviet Muslim commu nit y. An exam ple of this is the cate go ri za tio n of Muslims based on a contin uum of reli gious thought and practice . In their effort to distin guish among practi tio ners of Islam betwee n “believ ers” and “nonbe liev ers,” Soviet soci ol o gists have devel ope d as many as seven differ ent schemes of cate go riz ing Muslims, rang - ing from “firm believ ers” to “hesi tant believ ers” to “commit ted athe - ists.” These cate go ries have been adopted wholesale into the descrip tive Western analy sis of Islam. And when disputes arise over the polit i cal signif i cance of Islamic beliefs, these same cate go ries are invari ably invoked to substan ti ate one case against anothe r.9 Apart from culling data from Soviet sources and repro duc in g Soviet socio log i cal charac ter iza tions of Muslims, Western spe cial ists also depend on Soviet sources more broadly in their inter pre tiv e strate gies. Not only the content of the Soviet liter a ture but the po lit i - 12 Mark Saroyan cal condi tions of its produc tion and transmis sion influ ence Wester n thinking. In substan ti at ing his thesis of “two Islams,” Bennigsen draws conclu sions not just from the content of Soviet texts, but also from the fact of a flurry of Soviet publish ing on Islam . That Islam has anothe r, unof fi cial, and more impor tant face in the Soviet Union is suggested by the vocif er ous anti-religious cam - paigns directed against Muslim believ ers, campaigns that would hardly be neces sary were Islam as weak as its offi cial face sug - gests, and by the increas ing number of seri ous monographs on Is - lam. From these two sources we learn much of what we know about the real situ a tion of Muslims in the USSR: from the first, be - cause of what is attacked, and from the second, because of what is inves ti gated.1 0 Bennigsens second propo si tion that the issues inves ti gated in the So - viet liter a ture form the founda tions for the Western produc tion of a discourse on Soviet Islam confirms the lines of argu ment presente d here. His first propo si tion is likewise problem atic. 11 It assumes that Soviet polem ics directed at Muslims, their beliefs, or practices can be inter preted as reflec tive of the actual state of affairs in Soviet Mus lim soci et y. Follow ing from this assump tion, for exam ple, the in ten si fi- cation of a govern ment ideolog i cal campaign against pilgrim ages to local shrines is inter preted to mean that there is in fact an upsurge of pilgrim ages. This practice of directly extrap o lat ing social processe s from ideolog i cally inspired decla ra tions can be an extremely mis - leading inter pre tive method, since there is no rigor ous way to eval u - ate exactly what kinds of social processes are actu ally reflected in Soviet polem ics and polit i cal campaigns . Simi larl y, in their charac ter iza tions of Soviet Islam, Wester n special ists often directly annex inter pre ta tions proposed in Sovie t texts. In a manner indic a tive of a perva sive practice, Bennigsen and Broxup note that “accord ing to Soviet sources . . . Sufi orga ni za tion s are mass orga ni za tions number ing hundreds of thousands of adepts” and that “Soviet sources present Sufi brotherhoods as ‘dan - gerous, fanat i cal, anti-Soviet, anti-Russian reac tion ary forces.”12 Though in princi ple Bennigsen and others question the reli abil ity of Soviet inter pre ta tions, in practice these author s own analy sis fol lows closely from what they read in the Soviet liter a ture. In line with So - viet views, Bennigsen s exten sive publi ca tions also portray Sufi or - Re thinking Is lam in the So viet Un ion 13 ders as carri ers of a popu lar anti-Soviet, anti-Russian Musli m fanat i cism.1 3 In effect, the authors transform textual mani fes ta tion s of Soviet ideolog i cal anxi ety about the reli gious activ i ties of Sovie t Muslims into real, active polit i cal threats to the hege mony of the Commu nist Party and the stabil ity of the Soviet state. Indi rect elabo ra tion from Soviet texts is another method em - ployed in Western scholar ship. Through indi rect elabo ra tion, West - ern writers use infor ma tion or ideas produced in Soviet texts and transform them into new ideas or infor ma tion not intended by the origi nal source. An arti cle on pilgrim ages in Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan is indic a tive of the transfor ma tions that Soviet data can undergo in Western work. Employing Soviet press accounts that simply identify and describe pilgrim ages to holy sites in the two re - publics, with the stroke of a pen an Ameri can author transforms the descrip tions of these pilgrim ages into orga nized “Muslim socia l movements” that become the arti cles concep tual leitmo tif.1 4 In a simi lar fashion, Bennigsen and Wimbush employ Sovie t sources to argue that the Naqshbandi Sufi orders are widespread in Azerbaijan. After criti ciz ing Soviet special ists for not linking ritua l practices around the repub lics shrines to the Naqshbandi, they point to two proofs of oper a tive Sufi orga ni za tions presum ably not openly acknowl edged or under stood by the Sovi ets. One proof is that Sovie t authors often refer to the presence of charla tans, self-appointed mullahs, para sites, crooks, vaga bon d fanat ics [that have] invaded the holy places [of Azerbaijan], es pe- cially since the fall of Khrushche v. These expres sions, as we have seen, gener ally refer to Sufi adepts. Their other piece of evi dence is the fact that there are refer ences to “obscu ran tist charla tans [who] are system at i cally engaged in the transfor ma tion of histor i cal monu ments into places of pilgrim age. ” Drawing what they repre sent as clear conclu sions from such ref er- ences, the authors add: “It is obvi ous that such a transfor ma tio n could not be the work of indi vid ual ‘charla tans who would be un - likely to defy Soviet power single-handed.”1 5 Bennigsen and Wimbushs indi rect elabo ra tion from Sovie t sources is problem atic on a number of counts. First, the authors un - criti cally assume that denun ci a tion of pilgrims as “para sites,” etc., in fact signals that these terms refer to Sufi orga ni za tions. Rather than 14 Mark Saroyan studying the actual practices around the shrines in question, they draw the specious conclu sion from Soviet polem ics that such pil - grimages must in fact be orga nized “system at i cally” and oper ate on a mass scale. In an instruc tive manner that reveals their meth od ol- ogy, moreover, they gener al ize from Soviet scholar ship on the North Cauca sus, where Sufi practices are in fact widespread, to argue that Sufi orders perme ate the Soviet Muslim commu nity more gener ally . Partic u larly in the case of Azerbaijan, pilgrim ages to shrines and even unof fi cial reli gious networks rarely entail any connec tion with Sufi asso ci a tions.1 6 Not only are the “factual” products of Soviet research as sim i- lated into Western discourse, but Soviet inter pre tive schemes have also played an impor tant role in the forma tion of the concep tual out - look of Western scholar ship. The idea of “paral lel Islam” became a hallmark of Bennigsens scholar ship on Soviet Islam and served as a funda men tal orga ni za tional concept for the work of Bennigsen and his asso ci ates since the late 1970s. Indeed it is one of the discur siv e objects around which the contem po rary Western liter a ture on Sovie t Islam has come to revolve. The notion “paral lel Islam” is connecte d with the concep tual practice of distin guish ing two forms of Islam , “offi cial” and “unof fi cial,” whereby “unof fi cial,” popu lar Musli m ritual practices are viewed as sepa rate, “paral lel,” and even hostil e to the “offi cial” Soviet Muslim hier ar chy that staffs the cleri cal ad - minis tra tions and mosques. Although the notion of two Islams—that is, an “offi cial” Isla m and an “unof fi cial Islam”—has an earlier ori gin, it was only in 1980 that the concept became identi fied and codi fied as “paral lel Is - lam.”17 A gene al ogy of the concept of “paral lel Islam” reveals that it origi nated not with Bennigsen in the West but with his counter par t in the Soviet Union, the dean of Soviet Islamic studies, Lusitsian Klimovich. One of the founding texts that informs Bennigsen and Quelquejay s concep tion of paral lel Islam is an arti cle published in 1966 by Klimovich. In the piece, Klimovich writes: In Sunni and Shii denom i na tions [of Islam] there are . . . two ten - dencies. One is the mosque [tendency], now headed in our coun - try by the muftis, the sheikh-ul-Islam and the other function ar ie s of the four offi cial Muslim Reli gious Boards. The second is the ex - tra-mosque, commu ni tarian, sufi-dervish, or in other words Re thinking Is lam in the So viet Un ion 15

murid [tendency] headed by ishans, pirs, sheikhs and ustazs, whose follow ers live mostly outside the cities in the kishlaks, auls and villages.1 8 In their first major study of Soviet Is lam, Islam in the Soviet Un - ion, written before the Klimovich piece was published, Bennigsen and Quelquejay do not as yet empha size this dichot o mous of fi - cial/nonof fi cial scheme. Nonethe less, their limited discus sion of the signif i cance of “unof fi cial” Islam repro duces analy sis presented in the Soviet press accounts from which they admit tedly derive their views.19 It was on the basis of this oppo si tion that Bennigsen and Lemercier-Quelquejay, and later Bennigsen and Wimbush, con sol i- dated their views of two Islams that have come to perme ate Wester n thinking about Soviet Islam. Follow ing the concep tual framewor k provided by Klimovich, the authors devel oped a posi tion that con - flates Sufi orders with extra-mosque reli gious practices and un reg is- tered reli gious figures into the broad cate gory of an “unof fi cial ” Muslim world sepa rated from an “offi cial” Muslim world com posed of mosques and regis tered clerics. Having obtained a promi nent po - sition in Western analy sis of Soviet Islam, the concept of two Islams has more recently attracted renewed atten tion in its intel lec tua l homeland, the Soviet Union .

GLASNOST AND SOVIET ISLAM: A HALL OF MIRRORS

Considering the impor tance of Soviet Islamicist liter a ture in the devel op ment of Western thinking about Soviet Islam, it would nat u - rally be inter est ing to exam ine the current direc tion of Soviet schol - arship in light of changes in Soviet poli cies brought about by the Gorbachev leader ship after 1985. But, at least within the Soviet ac a - demic and journal is tic commu nit y, the campaign for more publi c discus sion of the problems faced by Soviet soci ety has brought thus far rela tively little reeval u a tion of tradi tional assump tions about the nature of Islam within Soviet borders.2 0 Thus when new in ter pre ta- tions of the Soviet Unio n s “Islamic question” are offered, they are of - ten accorded a great deal of atten tion . 16 Mark Saroyan

One such milestone in changing Soviet views of domes tic Isla m was a two-part essay on “Islam and Poli tics,” published in 1987 in the weekly pa per Literaturnaia gazeta and authored by one of the pa - pers influ en tial inter na tional affairs corre spon dents, Igor Beliaev. Written in a daring and frequently sensa tion al ist tone, Beliaevs ar ti - cle caught the atten tion of both Soviet and Western readers and has, in fact, become a frequent point of refer ence for both Soviet and Western ana lysts of Islam and Muslims in the USSR. One of the remark able things about Beliaevs arti cle, at least for some Western observ ers, was the posi tive atti tude taken toward a number of Western ana lysts of Soviet Islam who had usually been vili fied in the Soviet press.21 Most promi nent among the ana lyst s “reha bil i tated” by Beliaev is Alexandre Bennigsen, who, both lit er- ally and figu ra tivel y, can be consid ered as repre sent ing the dom i - nant para digm of Western thought on Soviet Islam. After a discus sion of Bennigsen s views of the threat to the Soviet state of an oper a tive “Islamic infra struc ture” and the orga ni za tion of un der - ground Sufi brotherhoods, Beliaev asks: “How seri ous are Bennigsen s argu ments? I think it is time to turn seri ous atten tion to them.”22 In addi tion to Bennigsens, Beliaev draws on a range of West ern work on Islam in order to remake a research agenda for Soviet spe - cialists of Islam. But it is evi dent from Beliaevs text that he has not read, perhaps not even seen, the sources to which he refers. Nev er- theless, Beliaev manip u lates his well-selected library of Ameri can , West German, French, and British sources in order to enhance his own views of the impor tant issues concern ing Islam in the Sovie t Union. In this sense, Beliaev draws on these Western texts as tal is- mans, the cultural author ity of which he deploys to legit i mate his construc tion of a new agenda for Soviet Muslim studies . For exam ple, Beliaev refers to the view that Muslim Centra l Asia could become a Poland within Soviet borders. He was para - phrasing a passage from the two pages devoted to Soviet Muslim s toward the end of a 350-page book by Wilhelm Dietl, a West Germa n journal ist with little if any expe ri ence in the USSR.23 Simi larl y, Beliaev asserts that in an edited volume en ti tled Shiism and Socia l Protes t published in the United States, “empha sis is placed on Sovie t Shii Muslims.” In fact, only one essay of the eleven that comprise the book exam ines Shii Muslims in the USSR.24 Re thinking Is lam in the So viet Un ion 17

As inter est ing as Beliaevs manip u la tion of Western talis mans , howeve r, is the gene al ogy of the texts to which he refers. It is ironic that Beliaevs Western texts repre sent and are at times based almos t entirely on research produced by Soviet authors and published in the Soviet Union. In argu ing for a new agenda for the study of Islam in his countr y, Beliaev thus refers to the products of Western schol ar- ship that depend in a very imme di ate way on the images about So - viet Islam gener ated by Beliaev and his special ist colleagues !

THINKING SOVIET ISLAM: READING THE THEORIES

So far my discus sion has exam ined the intertextual refer ence s that link Soviet and Western liter a ture on Soviet Islam. In fact, the re - lation between Soviet and Western discourse on Soviet Islam goes far beyond the surface of these texts. Soviet and Western scholar shi p share a broader set of assump tions and approaches in their un der- standing of reli gion and its place in social change. This is not to deny any distinc tive ness to either Soviet or Western studies. Ideolog i ca l partic u lar i ties aside, the Soviet liter a ture on Islam is produced by scholars trained in soci ol ogy or philos o ph y, whereas most West ern special ists on Soviet Islam are histo ri ans and to a lesser extent po lit i - cal scien tists. Apart from these purely disci plin ary distinc tions, So - viet and Western scholars often draw very differ ent conclu sion s about the charac ter and signif i cance of reli gious expres sion in the contem po rary Soviet Union . But even the conflict of inter pre ta tions that charac ter izes cur - rent Soviet and Western discus sions of Soviet Islam is rooted in a se - ries of largely unex am ined assump tions of a social-theoretical orde r. Thus, despite the contro ver sies concern ing Soviet Islam that mark current Western and Soviet discus sions of the problem, there are a number of common theo ret i cal notions that unite them. Indeed, it is in the context of these deep structures of signif i cance, which will be worked out in the follow ing pages, that the diverse Soviet and West - ern studies read often more like a single discourse than two an tag o- nistic, mutu ally exclu sive discourses . 18 Mark Saroyan

THE CLASSICAL TRADITION ON RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE

At the founda tion of Soviet and Western thinking on Islam lies a nineteenth-century tradi tion of social thought on the impli ca tions of social change for reli gion. In this view, the emergence of a “modern ” indus trial soci ety portends the end of reli gion, often referred to by Soviet writers as reli gious ideol og y, as a domi nant ideolog i cal and insti tu tional force in soci et y. In recent decades, the term sec u lar iza- tion, which has come to signify the process by which modern ide ol o- gies and insti tu tions replace reli gion (in both its spiri tual and insti tu tional aspects), has been rejected or rede fined, but the es sen - tial assump tions of this view have been maintained . The assump tion of contem po rary modern iza tion theo ries that the phenom e non of moder nity is essen tially secu lar finds its ori gin s in the writings of the founders of modern social science, Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, and Max Weber. These three theo rists base their in - terpre ta tions of reli gion and social change on the common as sump - tions of a dichotomized concep tual framework. This twofold scheme of a reli gious, tradi tional soci ety and a secu la r, modern soci et y, though formu lated in differ ent ways by the differ ent authors, re - flects a view of social change sometimes referred to as the theory of “the great divide.”2 5 This type of dichot o mous formu la tion is ex - pressed as feudal ism and capi tal ism in Marx, mechan i cal and or - ganic divi sion of labor in Durkheim, and tradi tional and legal-rational (or modern) in Weber. Marx never wrote system at i cally on reli gion, but his writing s on problems of ideol ogy and conscious ness, along with work on the devel op ment of capi tal ism, have served as the basis for a “Marxist ” theory of reli gion and social change. For Marx, reli gion can be un der - stood only in rela tion to the mate rial condi tions in which it exists. He held that with the devel op ment of the capi tal ist mode of produc tion , workers would move from the “illu sory” (i.e., reli gious) in ter pre ta- tion of their condi tions and regain a sense of reason. In this way, workers would recog nize that their “real” happi ness would be achieved not through reli gious or other “illu sions” but through a ra - tionally moti vated revo lu tion ary transfor ma tion of the very socia l structure gener ated by the capi tal ist mode of produc tion.2 6 The po - liti cal structure of capi tal ism only provides for the freedom from the Re thinking Is lam in the So viet Un ion 19 hege monic domi na tion of reli gious ideol ogy, but progress towar d social ist revo lu tion would elimi nate exploi ta tion, which for Marx served as the mate rial basis of all reli gious “illu sions.”2 7 Thus, Marx s view that capi tal ism brings the inev i ta ble decline of reli gion is joined with a theo ret i cally based predic tion that the evolu tion ar y path from feudal ism to capi tal ism to social ism would completel y elimi nate reli gion as a sphere of human intel lec tual produc tion . Like Marx, Durkheim saw modern iz ing, revo lu tion ary changes in the rise of modern capi tal ism. The devel op ment of the social di vi - sion of labo r, the dimen sion of capi tal ist devel op ment that Durkheim identi fied as the focus of his work, gener ates a new form of soli dar ity referred to as “organic” in the Durkheimian scheme. In his analy sis of tradi tional soci et ies, Durkheim relies on an ideal ist in - terpre ta tion of social cohe sion by posit ing that soli dar ity is main - tained through a commonly held set of reli gious beliefs. In his concep tion of contem po rary soci et y, howeve r, his analy sis re sem bles the mate ri al ist inter pre ta tion offered by Marx. It is not some set of beliefs or ideas but the mate rial social condi tions gener ated by the divi sion of labor that estab lishes a basis for social soli dar it y.28 As in Marxs theor y, the tradi tional social role played by re li gion is replaced in capi tal ism by the primacy of a more “ratio nal” eco - nomic calcu la tion: “In the face of the economic, the admin is tra tive , mili tary and reli gious functions become steadily less impor tant.”2 9 Durkheim regarded the inev i ta ble decline of reli gion as part of the process of the emergence of a complex, “organic” social divi sion of labor in soci et y. What is impor tant for Durkheim is the persis tent ne - cessity of moral regu la tion, which in modern soci ety takes on a clearly nonre li gious, secu lar charac te r.30 For Max Weber, one of the founders of the soci ol ogy of reli gion , the rise of modern capi tal ism also portended an inev i ta ble process of secu lar iza tion, captured in his use of Schillers phrase to describe this trend as the “disen chant ment of the world.”31 Although Weber gen- erally sought to eschew evolu tion ary approaches to social change, his descrip tion of the fate of reli gion in modern social change belies a strongly evolu tion ary charac te r. In Weber as in Marx and Durkheim, reli gious beliefs as a tradi tional form of legit i mate domi na tion give way to the predom i nance of economic calcu la tion and ratio nal ity in modern capi tal ism . 20 Mark Saroyan

For Weber, secu lar ism also appears as an inex o ra ble con se - quence of modern capi tal ist devel op ment, but the charac ter of Web - ers argu ment differs from that of Marx and Durkheim, for whom secu lar iza tion occurred as an appar ently natu rally (unilinear) de ter - mined conse quence of the social changes attend ing capi tal ist de vel - opment. Instead, Webers argu ment on capi tal ism and secu lar iza tio n is charac ter ized by what Hayden White has termed an “ironic” mode.32 A promi nent point in Weber s thought is the notion that sec - ular iza tion devel ops from essen tially reli gious ori gins. Thus, a pro - cess of secu lar iza tion follows out of an essen tial fundamentalization of reli gion expressed in Protestant Christian it y. In other words, it is out of the funda men tal ist return to reli gion, charac ter is tic of the Protes tant ism as inter preted by Weber, that the secu lar nature of modern soci ety ironi cally emerges.33 To a much greater extent than Marx, and to some exten t Durkheim, Weber empha sizes not only the intel lec tual sec u lar iza- tion engen dered by the modern ratio nal spirit, but also the in sti tu- tional founda tions of secu lar iza tion. Thus, it is the moder n bureau crac y, born of the needs of a capi tal ist market econom y, that dises tab lishes reli gious consid er ations in face of an ascen dent ra tio - nal, economic calcu la tion : Bureau cracy devel ops the more perfectl y, the more it is “de hu - manized,” the more it completely succeeds in elimi nat ing from offi cial business love, hatred and all purely personal irra tio na l and emotional ele ments which escape calcu la tion.3 4

THE CLASSICAL TRADITION APPLIED: SOVIET AND WESTERN LITERATURE ON SOVIET ISLAM

Soviet and Western studies of Islam in the USSR often come to differ ent conclu sions about the “Muslim question” in Soviet pol i tics, but beneath these disagree ment lies a common set of assump tion s about reli gion in contem po rary soci ety that have been derived from the classi cal tradi tion. The theo ret i cal assump tions of the Soviet lit er - ature are more salient than those of Western studies. This is partly ex - plained by the fact that most Soviet scholar ship on Islam is pro duced by soci ol o gists who often deal with explic itly theo ret i cal issues , Re thinking Is lam in the So viet Un ion 21 while many Western special ists of Soviet Islam are histo ri ans who, at times, are self-consciously atheoretical in their inten tions.3 5 What distin guishes Soviet and Western scholar ship on Islam in the Soviet Union is their respec tive concep tion of reli gion and mod - erniza tion. Briefly stated, the Soviet liter a ture follows from the as - sumption that modern iza tion has indeed taken place in the USSR; hence what remains of Islam are only its “vestiges.” In contrast, the Western special ist liter a ture focuses on the fact of an exist ing Isla m and thus draws the conclu sion that the Muslim soci et ies in the USSR have not in fact been modern ized.3 6 Unlike Marx and Engels, from whose works they actively draw, Soviet special ists on Islam identify the ori gins of secu lar iza tion in the countrys Muslim lands not with the estab lish ment of capi tal is m but with its dises tab lish ment by the revo lu tion of 1917: “The be gin - ning of the process of secu lar iza tion in the regions of the tradi tiona l spread of Islam was set by the Great Octo ber Social ist Rev o lu- tion.”37 Though the emergence of capi tal ism had contrib uted to sec - ular iz ing forces in the Euro pean states, Soviet scholars often note, in Russia’s Muslim areas capi tal ism was so weak and tenu ous even at the begin ning of this century that secu lar iza tion had not taken hold eithe r.38 But social ist construc tion, like capi tal ism in Western Europe , was the form that modern iza tion took in the Soviet Union. Social is m as a devel op men tal alter na tive to capi tal ism has been partic u larl y stressed in Soviet studies of modern iza tion of the lesser-developed Central Asian repub lics. In this sense, it is possi ble to describe So - viet-style social ism as a functional equiva lent to capi tal ism, es pe - cially in cases where capi tal ist devel op ment is unsuc cess ful in overcom ing obsta cles to its full emergence.3 9 For Soviet writers, so - cialism has been the same inev i ta ble secu lar iz ing force as was cap i - talism for writers of the classi cal tradi tion. As described in a collec tive work produced by leading Soviet special ists: “The proces s of secu lar iza tion, which has an objec tive charac te r, is condi tioned by the profound socio-economic, polit i cal and cultural transfor ma tion s that occurred during the years of Soviet power.”40 It is the grand processes of social ist economic devel op ment that are highlighted as the basis for an end to tradi tional reli gious forms of ideol ogy and the emergence of a ratio nal, scien tific (modern) out - look among Soviet citi zens. In this argu ment, secu lar iza tion began in 22 Mark Saroyan earnest not with the revo lu tion and estab lish ment of Soviet power but with the campaigns for indus tri al iza tion and collec tiv iza tion im - plemented from the end of the 1920s. Mobi li za tion and inte gra tion of the Muslim popu la tions into the state system of produc tion, ur ban - ization and social mobil ity, the imple men ta tion of land and water re - forms that not only dises tab lished reli gious elites but also brought quali ta tive changes to economic and social rela tions—all es tab lished the mate rial social basis for the decline of reli gion.4 1 Much like the emergent complex divi sion of labor described by Durkheim, these changes, Soviet authors assume, lead natu rally to new, secu lar so - cialist mental i ties. Convinced of their theory that level of reli gi os it y can be directly corre lated with level of social and economic de vel op- ment, Soviet authors often point out that reli gious beliefs tend to be stronger and more tena cious in less urban ized, less devel oped—tha t is, less “modern”—ar eas.4 2 But it is not merely changes in the economic and social struc - tures of the country that have promoted secu lar iza tion. Follow in g from Lenins voluntarist posi tion that commu nism can be “taught” to the people,4 3 Soviet authors also empha size changes in the social su - perstruc ture that have promoted the spread of secu lar iz ing ten den - cies, includ ing the edu ca tional system, scien tific-technical progress , and of course, anti-religious agi ta tion and propa ganda carried out by Commu nist Party orga ni za tions.4 4 But Soviet authors have been confronted with a theo ret i cal as well as a practi cal dilemma. Despite their argu ments that social is m has defin i tively estab lished the hege mony of secu lar ideas in Sovie t soci ety and that the process of secu lar iza tion is contin u ally movin g forward,4 5 they have become increas ingly cogni zant of contin u in g practices and beliefs asso ci ated with the Muslim faith. If sec u lar iza- tion is an inev i ta ble result of modern iza tion, and if modern iza tio n has been funda men tally achieved in the USSR, then any contin u in g mani fes ta tions of Islam, whether in beliefs or practice, must be, in the Soviet concep tual framework, quali fied as the remnants of the previ ous era. Since the mate rial basis for the repro duc tion of Isla m has essen tially been elimi nated, what Soviet authors see, con cep tu- ally at least, is the objec tively baseless mainte nance not of Islam as a total ity but only of its vestiges. In this context, Soviet special ists at times argue that it is not Islam that they study but only vestiges of Is - lam.46 Re thinking Is lam in the So viet Un ion 23

In explain ing the persis tence of Islam in Soviet soci et y, nu mer - ous authors maintain, bolster ing their posi tion with rele vant pas - sages from Marx and Engels, that conscious ness changes at a much slower pace than social forma tions. In this view, then, the trans for- mation of conscious ness from reli gious to secu lar princi ples has “lagged” behind changes in the structure of soci ety and the econ - omy. Within the Soviet liter a ture many argu ments revolved around the charac ter and persis tence of this “lag,” but the concept of a “lag,” structured by Soviet theory of reli gion and social ist “mod ern iza- tion,” remains an essen tial founda tion assumed by the vari ous par - tici pants in the debate . Simi larl y, Soviet Islamicists have produced a fairly exten siv e liter a ture on the nature of these vestiges and the charac ter of the forces that contrib ute to their repro duc tion. They have identi fied the spheres of social life where vestiges are stronger or weaker, and dis - tinguish between the objec tive, mate rial condi tions and the his tor i - cal and cultural (i.e., superstructural) factors that contrib ute to the mainte nance, even “reju ve na tion,” of reli gious vestiges. But a fun da - mental assump tion of all these discus sions is the superstructural re - produc tion, at times revival, of only vestiges of an objec tivel y bygone era. In contrast to the Soviet image of success ful modern iza tion and the remnants of Islam, mainstream Western writing on Soviet Isla m repre sents an inver sion of Soviet views. Soviet modes of in ter pre ta- tion are evolu tion ary and come dic, in that history appears to have a clear, unilinear path from reli gion to secu lar ism, even if this tra jec - tory is encum bered by the persis tence of vestiges along the way.47 The thrust of Western discourse on Soviet Islam, in contrast, posit s that, despite all efforts, modern iza tion has not taken place in the So - viet Union, at least for Soviet Muslims.4 8 Thus, in this vein main - stream Western discourse asserts that if Islam has appar entl y remained intact, then Soviet social ist construc tion has failed. Em - phasizing the “resil ience” of Islam to social ist construc tion , Bennigsen writes that: Islam has in no way been contam i nated either by Marxism or sec - ular ism. . . . Islam in the USSR is the same unadul ter ated, pure re - ligion that it had been before 1917.49 24 Mark Saroyan

In the Western view of Islam and social ist modern iza tion, it is not the social or economic aspects of modern iza tion that are denied ; rather, empha sis is placed on the failure of the psycho log i cal di men - sion of modern iza tion. Thus, Carrère-dEncausse argues that tra di- tional soci ety has not been erased by social ist construc tion but rein forced : In the USSR today there is a Moslem soci ety which is united by the bonds of histor y, culture and tradi tion. . . . The Homo Islamicus has in effect behind him more than a half-century of cultural revo lu tion intended to create a Homo Sovieticus. . . . [But] he demon strates that the human proto type which social is t soci ety was to shape does not exist. . . . Above all, he dem on - strates that while it is rela tively easy . . . to change the structure s of soci et y, it is extremely diffi cult to alter minds.50 Indeed, the failure of psychosocial modern iza tion in spite of economic and polit i cal modern iza tion is a view that pervades West - ern scholar ship of Soviet Islam.5 1 For Michael Rywkin, the failure of Muslims to inte grate into the larger Soviet soci ety is explained by an amorphous and monolithic “Muslim commu nity spirit.”52 In like manne r, Bennigsen writes of an “inborn sense of umma [com mu- nity]” among Soviet Muslims as if it were a genetic and not a socia l cate gor y.53 In argu ing that the Islamic “vestiges” repre sent the per - sistence of a deeply reli gious, tradi tional soci et y, Western special ist s have created a portrait of tradi tional soci ety protect ing itself from Soviet attempts at modern iza tion . Whether viewed as a totalizing social order or the vestiges of such an orde r, Soviet and Western special ists agree in their rep re sen- tation of Islam as the force of tradi tion pitted against the forces of So - viet moder nit y. For the Western scholars, “tradi tion” is portrayed as a kind of transhistorical essence that inheres in the soci ety that they describe. In contrast, Soviet scholar ship suggests that the inex o ra bl e forces of history are success fully transform ing soci et y, leaving Is lam, as it were, as an expend able encum brance. Despite the differ ence in their conclu sions, both Soviet and Western scholar ship rely on the tradi tion/mo der nity dichot omy to construct their argu ments . Re thinking Is lam in the So viet Un ion 25

THE TOTALITARIAN PARADIGM AND SOVIET ISLAM

The notion that “Islam remains the alien body that it was a cen - tury ago in Tsarist Russia,” as Bennigsen puts it,54 follows from a view of the Soviet Union, and Soviet soci ety in partic u la r, which is based on the total i tar ian model. The view that vari ous forms of com - munity assumed to be unaf fected by the total i tar ian state are in fact “islands, islands of sepa rate ness in the total i tar ian sea” directl y informs Western scholar ship on Soviet Islam.5 5 Thus, the same ar gu- ment is constructed in terms either of the failure of psycho log i cal or cultural modern iza tion or, in this case, the resis tance of social group - ings to the “pene tra tion” of “alien” forms of sociocultural ideas and orga ni za tion. The idea that the Soviet Muslim commu nity forms an “island of sepa rate ness” in the Soviet Union follows from a view which posits an a priori rela tion of mutual exclu siv ity between con - tempo rary Soviet ideol ogy and insti tu tions and “tradi tional” Mus - lim ideol ogy and insti tu tions. Just as the total i tar ian theo rist s assumed that both reli gion and total i tar i an ism make a total claim on the indi vid ual, so do ana lysts of Soviet Muslims assume that there is an unrec on cil able antag o nism between Islam and the Soviet state.56 The total i tar ian para digm is orga nized around a sharp con cep - tual distinc tion between state and soci et y, and indeed implies the ab - solute and total oppo si tion of these two cate go ries.5 7 In discus sion s of Islam in the Soviet Union, then, “things Soviet” refer to the party-state, whereas “things Muslim” are described as aspects of so - ciet y. As with ideal-type analy sis in general, the cate go ries of state/soci ety orga nize a concep tual framework to which empir i ca l data are then assim i lated. The intrin sic tendency toward such rei fi ca - tion of concepts was recog nized by Max Weber, himself a pro po- nent—indeed the modern founder—of ideal-type analy sis, who warned against the “danger that the ideal-type and real ity will be confused with one anothe r.”58 Concep tual distinc tions never the less tend to be transforme d into empir i cal distinc tions that domi nate repre sen ta tions of actua l social processes in both total i tar ian and the more special ized study of Soviet Islam. In fact, a whole series of abso lute dichot o mies such as state/soci ety consti tute the concep tual founda tions and or ga ni za- tional princi ples of the total i tar ian para digm.5 9 Conse quentl y, stud - 26 Mark Saroyan ies that are conducted within this para digm, includ ing those on Soviet Islam, reflect and repro duce these dichot o mies . For the total i tar ian theo rists, resis tance is activ ity designed to overthrow the total i tar ian regime. Thus resis tance is quali fied as the abso lute antith e sis to domi na tion and thus precludes within-system resis tance or a loyal oppo si tion. Total i tar ian domi na tion is con sid - ered to be vio lent and restric tive, whereas resis tance in the texts of the total i tar ian writers appears to be inher ently free and demo cratic . Total i tar ian domi na tion repre sents the nega tion of human values , and thus resis tance to total i tar i an ism is constructe d definitionally—but not neces sar ily empir i cally—as affirm ing hu - man values.6 0 The role of these concep tual dichot o mies is revealed not only in the concept “total i tar ian” itself, but also in second ary meta phor s that shape thinking about social and polit i cal processes. For ex am - ple, the concept of “islands of sepa rate ness” is presented to the reader as an image of land in a total i tar ian sea. But the mutual ex clu - sivity of the concept goes beyond the transpar ent meta phor i cal di - chotomy of land and wate r. One of the means through which the state maintains its power and author it y, accord ing to total i tar ian the - ory, is by the use of terro r. Hence the state is an unabash edly vio len t state. By contrast, in the univer si ties, assur edly one of the “islands of sepa rate ness” that by defi ni tion falls into the realm identi fied as “so - ciet y,” the reader discov ers the oppo site of the states vi o - lence—peace. Describing students in the univer sity setting, two founders of the total i tar ian para digm present the reader with an im - age of two sepa rate, indeed oppo site, worlds: As they enter the island where the quiet of study and inquir y reigns, they become sepa rated from the loud battle cries of the to - tali tar ian regime.6 1 The island of sepa rate ness repre sents not just land as opposed to the total i tar ian sea, but also repre sents the “inside” features of peace, truth, harmon y, ratio nal it y, resis tance, and liber a tion in contrast to the states war (“battle cries”), falsehood, conflict, irra tio nal ity (the charis matic quality of the total i tar ian regime), confor mit y, and dom - ina tion. Within such an “island of sepa rate ness” as constructed by the total i tar ian authors, any diver gent inter ests in conflict are at worst definitionally precluded or at best concep tu ally under val ued . Re thinking Is lam in the So viet Un ion 27

One can construct a simi lar list of paired oppo sites upon which the study of Soviet Muslims is conven tion ally based. At times, the di - choto mies are quite openly expressed, as with the notion of offi cia l and unof fi cial or paral lel Islam. And as Enders Wimbush comments , the only choice open to Soviet Muslims is between the Quran and Lenins works—that is, between Islam or commu nism.6 2 The paired oppo sites that inform Western writing on Islam in the Soviet Unio n include : state (pro-state) soci ety (anti-state) Sovie t Musli m moder n tradi tiona l arti fic e authen tic it y nation al it y pan-Turkism/pan-Islam “offi cial Islam ” “paral lel Islam ” ille git i mac y legit i mate social author it y false ideol og y true reli gio n

MUSLIM INSTITUTIONS AND THE SOVIET STATE

The impact of these paired oppo sites on the concep tu al iza tio n and practi cal empir i cal analy sis of Soviet Islam is espe cially evi den t in the study of Muslim insti tu tions in the Soviet Union, partic u larl y the offi cially recog nized Muslim Reli gious Boards. Bennigsen and Wimbushs rhetor i cal question, “On whose side, therefore, does of fi- cial Islam stand?” thus more aptly reflects the authors concep tual ap - proach than it does the actual choices open to Soviet Muslims. In a concep tual framework that insists that Islam must be classi fied ei - ther on the side of the state or that of soci et y, conven tional Wester n discourse has opted to identify the insti tu tions of “offi cial Islam ” with the Soviet state. During the Second World War, Muslim Reli gious Boards were founded, though in some regions simi lar admin is tra tions had been estab lished in the Tsarist period. Orga nized as four region ally based, inde pend ent admin is tra tions, these insti tu tions served as reg u la tors of Soviet Muslim reli gious life. Their functions included the trainin g and appoint ment of clerics, the oper a tion of mosques, the holding of 28 Mark Saroyan confer ences and semi nars, and the publi ca tion of reli gious books, peri od i cals, and calen dars. Western under stand ing of these key in - stitu tions is limited, in part due to the lack of atten tion to them by So - viet scholars, but more funda men tally due to the neglect by Wester n scholars of Soviet insti tu tions other than the Commu nist Party.63 In consid er ing the activ ity of the Soviet Unions Muslim ad min - istra tions, Western special ists speak with one voice. Conven tiona l analy sis works from an a priori assump tion that the state is mono - lithic and conflates the Muslim Reli gious Boards with the Sovie t state. From this perspec tive, while the Muslim admin is tra tions op er - ate inde pend ently of the state in a formal manne r, in real ity their ac - tivity reflects and promotes the inter ests of the Soviet state. In this sense, the Muslim Boards could be included in what Louis Althusser has termed “ideolog i cal state appa ra tuses”—that is, nonstate or ga- niza tions that serve to repro duce the hege mony of the state not through directly repres sive means but through the produc tion and transmis sion of state-oriented ideol og y.64 Writing on the orga ni za tion of the Muslim Boards during World War II, one author asserts that the Sovi ets decided to create a group of Soviet reli gious in tel li- gentsia[s] that would be the paid workers of the Soviet gov ern- ment and would work as a support ive organ of the commu nis t party.65 In a simi lar vein, Bennigsen and Lemercier-Quelquejay describe the Muslim admin is tra tions as “a central Muslim orga ni za tion which would be loyal and submis sive, and through which the Soviet gov - ernment could exer cise complete control over its Muslim sub - jects.”66 Indeed, virtu ally all Western commen tar ies on these reli gious admin is tra tions agree that their role is limited to the two realms of domes tic control and foreign policy propa ganda . Numer ous ana lysts labor under the impres sion that the Mus lim Boards have been deployed as an instru ment of the state to coun ter- balance the presum ably more threaten ing “paral lel” mani fes ta tion s of Islam.6 7 In the case of Muslim insti tu tions, then, Western dis - course again imposes a dual concep tion based on the mutu ally ex - clusive cate go ries of state and soci et y. The legally sanctione d Muslim Reli gious Boards are, in Western thinking at least, as sim i- lated to the state, while Sufi orga ni za tions along with other “non of fi- Re thinking Is lam in the So viet Un ion 29 cial” Muslim practices defined as a “paral lel Islam” are identi fie d with a resis tant, unas simil able “soci ety. ” Atten tion has also been devoted to the role of the Muslim Re li - gious Boards as propa ganda tools in the real iza tion of Soviet foreig n policy aims. Arguing that the Boards were created only to serve So - viet foreign policy inter ests, Baymirza Hayit claims that they serve as “more of a mouthpiece” for Soviet foreign policy than for Sovie t Muslims.6 8 Echoing this perspec tive, Bennigsen, too, has em pha- sized foreign policy concerns as an impor tant function of the ad min - istra tions.6 9 The view of the Muslim reli gious admin is tra tions as ap pend - ages of the Soviet state appa ra tus is based on a concep tual preju dice . This preju dice is symptom at i cally expressed by Timur Kocaoglu, who claims that these [Muslim] admin is tra tive bodies exist in name only, since they have no powers whatso ever to safeguard the inter ests of Is - lam, i.e., to defend Islam against anti-Islamic attacks in publi c life.70 As a result of this orien ta tion, the domes tic role of Soviet Muslim in - stitu tions has rarely been system at i cally explored by scholars. In - stead, argu ments have been proposed that rely more heavily on the concep tual stereo types than on empir i cal research. One of the aims of this essay is to suggest the poten tial value of an in-depth study of the status and activ ity of these reli gious insti tu tions, which play a much more complex social and reli gious role than is usually at trib - uted to them. But accom plish ing this task calls for a double re ori en - tation in the study of Soviet Islam: what is needed is not just new subjects for research, but also a new theo ret i cal approach to com ple - ment such a shift. 30 Mark Saroyan

REPRESENTING ISLAM: FORM AND FUNCTION IN DISCURSIVE PRACTICE

The tradi tion/mo der nity para digm, upon which conven tiona l study of Islam is founded, has been exten sively debated and crit i - cized, at least in the West.71 With specific regard to the place of re li- gion in this dichot o mous scheme, histo ri ans and social theo rist s have criti cized the notion of a “great divide” that arti fi cially oppose s an authen ti cally reli gious pre-industrial feudal soci ety and an in her - ently secu lar ized modern social orde r.72 Simi larl y, recent theo ret i ca l work on secu lar iza tion also rejects the dichot o mies of tradi tion and moder nity and the corre spond ing cate go ries of “reli gious” and “sec - ula r.”73 The theo ret i cal recon struc tions of modern iza tion theor y, how - ever, often affirm the very assump tions they seek to under mine . Thus, whether they suggest the “moder nity” of tradi tions or the traditionalization of modern life, recon struc tions of the para dig m suggest a view of tradi tion and moder nity that nonethe less retain s the oper a tive value of these cate go ries. In such recon struc tions, the idea of medi a tion, whereby tradi tion and moder nity are synthe size d in social practice, seems to dissolve the dichot om y. In fact, me di a tion only serves to reify social life into a “mix” of these concep tu ally sep a - rate cate go ries.7 4 In bypass ing the question of tradi tion and moder nit y, the ap - proach suggested here begins from a critique of the liter a tures con fu - sion of form and function. Both Soviet and Western observ ers have uncov ered what they consider to be indi ca tors of tradi tional forms, whether in orga ni za tion, mental i ties, or practices, and they assum e that these reflect simi larly tradi tional functions. The assump tion that form defines function, in effect, leads Western and Soviet discours e on Soviet Islam to confuse function with form.75 For exam ple, West - ern and Soviet observ ers agree that Sufi practices that are rep re- sented as a so-called “paral lel Islam” and which predate Soviet rule should be quali fied as tradi tional, conser va tive, and hence oppose d to the modern iz ing power of Soviet rule since their tradi tional or ga - niza tional forms are seen to reflect a wholly tradi tional outlook and function. While such an argu ment may appear sound, what is miss - ing from this account is analy sis of the discur sive practices of the Re thinking Is lam in the So viet Un ion 31 given Muslim movements. Without due atten tion to the meaning s that Muslims attach to these practices, the assump tion that these meanings have not changed or do not change—that is, that they re - main “tradi tional”—an a lyt i cally precludes explo ra tion of the prac - tices and their contem po rary meaning.7 6 These comments suggest that Western thinking should move from a discus sion of Soviet Islam in the dichot omy of tra di tion/mo - dernity to one that explores the forms and functions of Islam in So - viet soci et y. By forms, I mean the orga ni za tion of Muslim practices , includ ing the structures of the cleri cal admin is tra tions and the rites of Islam: the daily and Friday prayers, sermons, the obser vance of re - ligious holi days, and other ritual conduct. While commen tary on these “forms” has consti tuted the bulk of Soviet “concrete so cio log i- cal inves ti ga tions” and Western studies of Soviet Islam, what is cru - cial is the socio-religious functions of these practices. By explor in g the function of form—that is, the cultur ally constructed meaning s given to Islamic practices and the result ing meanings that they con - vey—the ana lyst is better situ ated to evalu ate the actual role that Is - lam plays in contem po rary Soviet soci et y. This mode of analy sis entails a rejec tion of monolithic con struc - tions of Islam that origi nate in ideolog i cal or polem i cal texts outsid e of the Muslim commu nity and its insti tu tions. In its place I propos e an explo ra tion of the actual practices of Muslims and their reli giou s insti tu tions and the diverse meanings that Muslims themselves in - vest in these practices. Totalizing terms like “Islam,” because of their vagueness, often lead to inter pre ta tions that may be easy to make but nonethe less fail to capture the actual nuances of social and reli giou s life. In this sense, Islam as a social phenom e non cannot be reduced to the prescrip tions of the Quran or the written tradi tions of the prophet Muham mad.7 7 Rather, “Islam” must be located in concret e discourses and practices that identify themselves as Muslim. For this reason, the totalizing construc tions of Soviet Islam offered in Sovie t and Western texts need to be replaced instead with the “texts” of Muslim socio-religious life as the basis for analy sis and in ter pre ta- tion. What I am thus suggest ing is a shift from the conven tional ob - ject of socio log i cal and polit i cal analy sis—ideo log i cal and polem i ca l texts produced by offi cials of the party and state appa ra tus—to the indig e nous discourses and practices of Soviet Muslim insti tu tion s 32 Mark Saroyan themselves. One of the advan tages of this approach is that it allows a point of access to Soviet Islam which is unme di ated by ideolog i call y infused Soviet repre sen ta tions of Muslims and their reli gion . Social practice is an aspect of compar a tive polit i cal analy sis that should require no intro duc tion. But what is “discourse,” and why should it be studied? Simply put, discourse is speaking and writin g which through the concepts it gener ates estab lishes a mode of think - ing about things. I reject the notion that facts simply exist in a dis - crete and appar ently objec tive fashion. Rather, such “facts” must be consid ered in connec tion with the orga nized system of meanings in which they are produced. This orga nized system of meaning is what I refer to as a “discourse.” As Hayden White points out, Discourse is intended to consti tute the ground whereon to decid e what shall count as a fact in the matters under consid er ation and to de ter mine what mode of com pre hen sion is best suited to the un der- standing of the facts thus consti tuted.7 8 In this way, discourse is both a field of thoughts and a way of un der - standing those thoughts. It follows, then, that in question ing the so - cial identity and posi tion of Soviet Muslims, it is useful to exam in e the way in which Muslims define themselves and situ ate them selves in Soviet soci et y. Although it is impor tant to distin guish betwee n discourse and social conscious ness, I nonethe less agree with Hayden Whites propo si tion that discourse can provide one with in - sights into the actual forma tion of conscious ness. White argues that A discourse is itself a kind of model of the processes of con scious - ness by which a given area of expe ri ence, origi nally appre hende d as simply a field of phenom ena demand ing under stand ing, is as - simi lated by analogy to those areas of expe ri ence felt to be alread y under stood as to their essen tia l natures.7 9 Stated thus, discourse can provide a point of access to the way Muslims think about themselves and consti tute themselves as Mus - lims. While to a certain extent this has been the occu pa tion of pre vi - ous studies of Soviet Islam, these other studies have largely ignore d the indig e nous discourse of Soviet Muslims and their insti tu tion s and instead have concen trated on analy sis of aca demic or polit i ca l dis courses about —but not by —Soviet Muslims. By contrast, researc h that explores the local forma tion of a Muslim discourse in terms of Re thinking Is lam in the So viet Un ion 33 the distinct forms and functions that it exhib its in social process can avoid an a priori assig na tion of meaning to reli gious practice and ex - amine the changing vari ety of meanings that Soviet Muslims them - selves invest in their insti tu tions and practices . In combi na tion with atten tion to the patterns of social and re li - gious practice, my empha sis on discourse follows from an implici t assump tion about its role in any social forma tion. Discourse is not some kind of superstructural phenom e non that “floats” above the soci ety in which it is produced. Rather, language and discourse more gener ally actively inform the social construc tion of real ity and thus partake in the orga ni za tion of human rela tions while at the same time reflect ing the charac ter of the condi tions in which it is pro - duced.80 Empha sizing the impor tant role of discourse in produc in g and repro duc ing social rela tions, Foucault has written that “re la - tions of power cannot themselves be estab lished, consol i dated nor imple mented without the produc tion, accu mu la tion, circu la tion and function ing of a discourse.”8 1

DOMINANT CONCEPTIONS OF POWER AND SOVIET ISLAM

At the base of discus sions constructed around the cor re spond- ing oppositions of Soviet state and Muslim soci et y, offi cial and par al - lel Islam, is a distinct view of power. Common to both total i tar ia n theory and its practi cal appli ca tions in the study of Soviet Islam is a descend ing concep tion of power, in which power is consid ered to be vested wholly in the organs of state and imposed downward on a passive soci et y. Formed in terms of a concep tual dichot omy betwee n state and soci et y, Althussers analy sis of “ideolog i cal state ap pa ra - tuses” belies a simi lar under stand ing of power in its state-reductionist orien ta tions.8 2 The concep tion of power presented here rejects the restricte d choice offered by the state/soci ety dichot om y. Rather, I assume that power is dispersed and consti tuted at differ ent levels within a given social orde r. In this sense, Foucaults critique of concep tions of bour - geois domi na tion is appli ca ble to total i tar ian concep tions of the state. In outlin ing his method for ana lyz ing power, Foucault writes: 34 Mark Saroyan

The impor tant thing is not to attempt some kind of deduc tion of power starting from its centre and aimed at the discov ery of the extent to which it perme ates into the base. . . . One must rather conduct an ascend ing analy sis of power, starting, that is, from its infin i tes i mal mecha nisms, which each have their own histor y, their own trajec tor y, their own techniques and tactics.8 3 In this sense, the analy sis of power need not be a priori as sim i- lated to and identi fied with the impre cise construc tions of “state” or “soci et y.” Follow ing the propo si tion that power is in fact disperse d and not concen trated in the organs of state, power can be ana lyzed at its points of consti tu tion, as Foucault puts it, “outside, below and alongside the State.”84 Working from this posi tion that allows for a “bottom-up” mode of analy sis, the consti tu tion of power can be lo - cated and assessed in a specific set of insti tu tions and social prac tices outside the state. The aim of research thus shifts to explore the ways in which what Foucault calls technol o gies of power are consti tute d and deployed—in effect concretized—in specifiable insti tu tional set - tings.85 The line of theo ret i cal question ing that I am propos ing, then, moves from the restricted one of “on whose side the Muslim Boards stand” to the open one of how power is consti tuted in Soviet Musli m reli gious insti tu tions. Here I should under line my use of the term consti tu tion. Unlike much of Foucaultian-oriented research, which empha sizes power as a repres sive force, I would highlight power s consti tu tive dimen sion in contrast to its repres sive function. While I do not reject the connec tion of power with domi na tion, analy sis of the activ i ties of Muslim insti tu tions shows them to be bodies in which power has been consti tuted in a struggle against both soci et y and the state. Thus, the Muslim clergy can be seen as engaged in a creative process of construct ing new forms of identity and reli giou s orga ni za tion in order to situ ate and estab lish itself and its com mu - nity in a complex set of constantly changing power rela tions. The re - pressive means by which the Muslim clergy consti tutes itself and its image of the Muslim commu nity are much more rele vant to its as pi - rations for hege mony in Muslim soci ety than to its rela tions with state author i ties . Method olog i call y, the novelty of this approach lies in movin g away from a medi ated analy sis of ideolog i cal formu la tions and po - Re thinking Is lam in the So viet Un ion 35 lemics produced in Soviet scholarly and polit i cal discourse. In its place, I propose a socio log i cally oriented exam i na tion of actual in sti - tutions and the discur sive practices which oper ate in, around, and through them. The analy sis of the forms and functions of these in sti - tution ally based discourses and practices, together with an eval u a- tion of the ways in which power is consti tuted, will allow social and polit i cal research to move away from the concep tual constraints im - posed by the dyadic mode of thinking inher ent in both the tra di - tion/moder nity and state/soci ety approach and into the realm of compar a tive polit i cal studies .

NOTES

1. See, for ex am ple, for mer Mos cow bu reau chief Philip Taubman in the New York Times , 6 March 1988. 2. In a post hu mously pub lished es say, Alexandre Benningsen qual i fied the Ar- me nian-Azerbaijani con flict in the Cau ca sus as the har bin ger of an im pend- ing cri sis through out the So viet Mus lim lands: “Is lam soviétique: Le détonateur caucasien,” Arabies, no. 19–20 (July–Au gust 1988). 3. See Mar tha Brill Olcott, “So viet Mus lims and World Rev o lu tion,” World Pol- i tics 34, 4 (July 1982): 487–504; and more re cently, Muriel Atkin, The Sub tlest Bat tle: Is lam in So viet Tajikistan (Phil a del phia: For eign Pol icy Re search In sti- tute, 1989). 4. This subfield is most im me di ately con cerned with the sym bolic re la tions be- tween Eu rope and the Is lamic Mid dle East. See, for ex am ple, Ed ward Said, Orientialism (New York: Vin tage, 1979); Thierry Hentsch, LOrient imaginaire (Paris: Minuit, 1988); Maxime Rodinson, Eu rope and the Mys tique of Is lam (Se- at tle: Uni ver sity of Wash ing ton Press, 1987). 5. Hans Bräker in his in tro duc tion to Alexandre Bennigsen and S. End ers Wimbush, Mus lims of the So viet Em pire: A Guide (Bloomington: In di ana Uni- ver sity Press, 1986), and Bennigsens let ter pub lished in Prob lems of Com mu- nism 34 (May–June 1985): 87–91. 6. A. Benningsen and E. Wimbush, Mys tics and Com mis sars: Suf ism in the So viet Un ion (Berke ley: Uni ver sity of Cal i for nia Press, 1985), p. 162. Ap pen dix B of the book (pp. 157–64) pro vides a con cise out line of Benningsen and Wimbushs ap proach to the use of So viet sources. 36 Mark Saroyan

7. See, for ex am ple, the lengthy ex change of let ters be tween Mar tha Olcott, Muriel Atkin, and Alexandre Bennigsen, in which the prob lem of So viet sources and their (mis)use is of cen tral im por tance: Prob lems of Com mu nism 34 (May–June 1985): 87–91. 8. See, for ex am ple, Ma rie Broxup, “Is lam and Athe ism in the North Cau ca- sus,” Re li gion in Com mu nist Lands 9, 1–2 (Spring 1981): 40–49, and her “Re- cent De vel op ments in So viet Is lam,” Re li gion in Com mu nist Lands 11, 1 (Spring 1983): 31–35; Jon Soper, “Un of fi cial Is lam: A Mus lim Mi nor ity in the USSR,” Re li gion in Com mu nist Lands 7, 4 (Win ter 1979): 226–31; Da vid Nissman, “Iran and So viet Is lam: The Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan SSRs,” Cen tral Asian Sur vey 2, 4 (De cem ber 1983): 45–60. 9. For ex am ple, Olcott, “So viet Mus lims and World Rev o lu tion.” 10. A. Bennigsen, “Mus lim Con ser va tive Op po si tion to the So viet Re gime: The Sufi Broth er hoods in the North Cau ca sus,” in So viet Na tion al ity Pol icies and Prac tices, ed. Jeremy R. Azrael (New York: Praeger, 1978), p. 336. 11. It is also per va sive. Con sider Benningsens state ment in Alexandre Bennigsen and Ma rie Broxup, The Is lamic Threat to the So viet State (New York: St. Mar tins, 1983), p. 77: “For the last ten years, anti-religious agit prop in Cen tral Asia and the North Cau ca sus has been di rected against Sufi Is lam, a fact which tes ti fies to its power and hold on the pop u la tion.” See also Rois com ments that “The fact that the re pub li can party press has spelt out its anx- i eties so plainly clearly dem on strates a se ri ous prob lem. . . . Surely . . . the fact that the So vi ets dwelt on the role of the mosques and the Mus lim clergy as sources of trou ble in Iran is ev i dence that Mos cow has ear marked them as po ten tial sources of dan ger to it self and has no in ten tion of let ting ei ther the of fi cial mosque and Es tab lish ment Mus lim func tion ar ies or the less eas ily con trol la ble un of fi cial clergy . . . in cite be liev ers against the re gime” (Yaacov Roi, “The Im pact of the Is lamic Fun da men tal ist Re vival . . . ,” in The USSR and the Mus lim World, ed. Yaacov Roi [Lon don: Al len and Unwin, 1984], p. 168). 12. Bennigsen and Broxup, The Is lamic Threat to the So viet State, p. 74. 13. This is the view elab o rated in Bennigsen and C. Lemercier-Quelquejay, “LIslam parallèle en Un ion Soviétique,” Ca hiers du monde russe et soviétique 21, 1 (Jan u ary–March 1980): 49–63, and their “Mus lim Re li gious Con ser va- tism and Dis sent in the USSR,” Re li gion in Com mu nist Lands 6, 3 (Au tumn 1978): 153–61. See also Bennigsen and Wimbush, Mys tics and Com mis sars. 14. Nissman in fact uses a very lim ited num ber of sources, mostly from re pub li- can news pa pers, in con struct ing his idea of “Mus lim so cial move ments” in these ar eas; Nissman, “Iran and So viet Is lam.” 15. Bennigsen and Wimbush, Mys tics and Com mis sars, pp. 126–27. 16. More over, the po ten tial for mis in ter pre ta tion in her ent in fac ile elab o ra tion from more com plex So viet com men tar ies is ex em pli fied by Bennigsen and Wimbushs ref er ence to the shrine of Kanzasar among the holy sites, where they ar gue that Sufi or ders are ac tive. Iden tified by the au thors as a “mon u- Re thinking Is lam in the So viet Un ion 37

ment of the thir teenth cen tury,” Kanzasar is in fact the for mer seat of the Al- ba nian Chris tian Church which has been trans formed into an im por tant shrine for the Chris tian Ar me ni ans of the Moun tain ous Karabakh Au ton o- mous Prov ince. For a de scrip tion of the mon as tery and its use by Ar me nian pil grims, see Abdulla Ähädov, “Mügäddäslärä” pärästishin mahiyyäti vä müasir galïglarï haggïnda (Baku, 1986), p. 34, as well as his “Ganzasar mon as- tery,” Elm vä häïat, no. 8 (1985): 17–19. 17. For an ex am ple of a pre-1980s use of the no tion of two Islams, see any of Bennigsens and Lemercier-Quelquejays ar ti cles from the late 1970s, in clud- ing: “Mus lim Con ser va tive Op po si tion,” in So viet Na tion al ity Pol icies and Prac tices, ed. Azrael; “‘Of fi cial Is lam in the So viet Un ion,” Re li gion in Com- mu nist Lands 7, 3 (Au tumn 1979): 148–59; “Mus lim Re li gious Con ser va tism and Dis sent in the USSR.” 18. L. Klimovich, “Borba ortodoksov i modernistov v Islame,” Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma, vyp. 2 (1966): 65–87. This pas sage is quoted in Bennigsen and Lemercier-Quelquejay, “LIslam parallèle en Un ion Soviétique,” p. 54. It is note wor thy that their trans la tion of this pas sage con sis tently re works the terms “mosque” and “ex tra-mosque” by amend ing re spec tively to each “of- fi cial” and “non of fi cial,” thus im ply ing a re la tion to the state not nec es sar ily in tended by Klimovich. The same mis trans la tion is re pro duced in Bennigsens “Mus lim Con ser va tive Op po si tion,” in So viet Na tion al ity Pol- icies and Prac tices, ed. Azrael, pp. 336–37. 19. See A. Bennigsen and C. Lemercier-Quelquejay, Is lam in the So viet Un ion (Lon don: Pall Mall, 1967), es pe cially pp. 180–81. 20. In a re cent ex cep tion to this trend, Stanislav Prozorov of the In sti tute of Ori- en tal Studies in St. Pe ters burg con demned the per sis tence of So viet “Islamophobia” as a hin drance to an en hanced un der stand ing of Is lam. On his com ments, see Paul Goble, “Is lamic ‘Ex plo sion Pos si ble in Cen tral Asia,” Re port on the USSR 2, 7 (16 Feb ru ary 1990). 21. Ann Bohr, “Is lam in the So viet Un ion: Fer tile Ground for For eign In ter fer- ence?” Ra dio Lib erty Re search Bul le tin 87/88 (2 Feb ru ary 1988). In fact, Beliaev is hardly alone in his use of West ern sources to back up his views. De spite a long his tory of at tacks, in ven to ried by Mi chael Rywkin in his ar ti- cle “Alexandre Bennigsen in the Eyes of the So viet Press,” in Passé turco-tatar, présent soviétique: Études offertes à Alexandre Bennigsen (Paris: École des Hautes Études en Sci ences Sociales, 1986), Nugman Ashirov cites Bennigsen and Lemercier-Quelquejay in sup port of his ar gu ment that So- viet Mus lim so ci ety is more sec u lar than re li gious. See Ashirovs Evoliutsiia islama v SSSR (Mos cow: Politizdat, 1973), p. 7. 22. Literaturnaia gazeta, no. 21 (1987). 23. For the Eng lish trans la tion, see Wil helm Dietl, Holy War (New York: Macmillan, 1984). 24. En ti tled “So viet At ti tudes To wards Shiism and So cial Pro test,” the chap ter by Muriel Atkin pres ents a sum mary re view of the chang ing So viet eval u a- tions of Shiism within both So viet and non-Soviet Mus lim so ci et ies, though 38 Mark Saroyan

the em pha sis is placed on Iran and Af ghan i stan, not the USSR. Atkins in ten- tion is not to com ment on what Beliaev pres ents as the threat of Is lam to the USSR but sim ply to fa mil iar ize a West ern au di ence with what the So vi ets them selves con sid ered the fun da men tal is sues in study ing Is lam; Shiism and So cial Pro test, ed. Juan R. I. Cole and Nikki R. Keddie (New Ha ven, Conn.: Yale Uni ver sity Press, 1986). 25. See Nich o las Aber crom bie et al., eds., The Dom i nant Ide ol ogy The sis (Lon don: Al len and Unwin, 1980), pp. 65–70. 26. Karl Marx, Cri tique of Hegels The ory of Right (Cam bridge: Cam bridge Uni ver- sity Press, 1978), pp. 131–32. 27. Marx, “On the Jew ish Ques tion,” in Early Writ ings (New York: Vin tage, 1975). 28. Durkheim also in tro duces the idea that in sti tu tional mech a nisms, such as the state and cor po ra tions or oc cu pa tional guilds/groups, aid in con sol i dat- ing so cial sol i dar ity; The Di vi sion of La bor in So ci ety (New York: Free Press, 1964). 29. Ibid. , p. 3. 30. An thony Giddens, Cap i tal ism and Mod ern So cial The ory (Cam bridge: Cam- bridge Uni ver sity Press, 1971), p. 221. In a sim i lar fash ion, Ste ven Lukess claim that Durkheims po si tion on re li gion was more com plex and changed in later years lacks tex tual sup port. Lukess no tion fol lows mostly from his con fus ing of “re li gion” and Durkheims ar gu ment as to the func tional per- ma nence of col lec tive rep re sen ta tions; Ste ven Lukes, Émile Durkheim: His Life and Work (Stan ford, Ca lif.: Stan ford Uni ver sity Press, 1985), pp. 474–76. 31. For a cri tique of Weber and the Weberian tra di tion on sec u lar iza tion with ref er ence to Is lam, see also Bryan S. Turner, Weber and Is lam: A Crit i cal Study (Lon don: RKP, 1974), pp. 151–70. 32. Hayden White, Metahistory: The His tor i cal Imag i na tion in Nine teenth-Century Eu rope (Bal ti more, Md.: Johns Hopkins Uni ver sity Press, 1973). 33. Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Cap i tal ism (New York: Scribners Sons, 1958). 34. Weber, Econ omy and So ci ety, vol. 2, p. 975. 35. Hans Bräker, for in stance, at tacks the o ret i cal po lit i cal sci ence as more ob- scur ing than en light en ing about So viet Is lam and So viet Mus lims in his in- tro duc tion to Bennigsen and Wimbush, Mus lims of the So viet Em pire, p. vii. 36. In con trast to the spe cial ist lit er a ture, tra di tional gen er a list work on the USSR as sumed that sec u lar iza tion is a nat u ral part of So viet mod ern iza tion. See, for ex am ple, Alex Inkeles, So cial Change in So viet Rus sia (New York: Si- mon and Schuster, 1971). 37. Is lam v SSSR (Mos cow: Mysl, 1983), p. 7. 38. T. S. Saidbaev, Is lam i obshchestvo, 2d ed. (Mos cow: Nauka, 1984). Re thinking Is lam in the So viet Un ion 39

39. This has been noted in So viet as well as West ern lit er a ture on So viet so cial and eco nomic de vel op ment. Trotsky noted that “Rus sia took the road of pro le tar ian rev o lu tion, not be cause her econ omy was the first to be come ripe for a so cial ist change, but be cause she could not de velop fur ther on a cap i tal ist ba sis” ( The Rev o lu tion Be trayed [New York: Path finder, 1972], p. 5). Trotskys sem i nal in sight was de vel oped more broadly in the later work of Al ex an der Gerschenkron and Ken neth Jowitt. 40. Is lam v SSSR, p. 3. 41. For a de scrip tion of these changes in greater de tail, see Is lam v SSSR; V. A. Saprykin, “Sotsialisticheskii gorod i razvitie ateizma,” in Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma, no. 22 (1978); N. Bairamsakhatov, Novyi byt i Is lam (Mos cow, 1979). 42. See, for ex am ple, M. V. Vagabov, Is lam i voprosy ateisticheskogo vospitaniia, 2d ed. (Mos cow: Vysshaia Shkola, 1982), pp. 109–18; and Is lam v SSSR, pp. 9ff. So viet so ci ol ogy of re li gion also re lied on a type of quan ti ta tive anal y sis rem i nis cent of West ern stud ies of in di ca tors of mo der nity (e.g., Alex Inkeles and Da vid H. Smith, Be com ing Mod ern [Cam bridge, Mass.: Har vard Uni ver- sity Press, 1974]) in de scrib ing the “tran si tion” from re li gious to sec u lar world views. 43. V. I. Le nin, “The Tasks of the Youth Leagues,” Se lected Works (Mos cow: Prog- ress, 1971), vol. 3, pp. 470–83. 44. Most So viet au thors em pha size the im por tance of the ma te rial as op posed to the superstructural changes in con di tion ing sec u lar iza tion. Nev er the less, at times the voluntarist ten dency be comes dom i nant, as with one Azerbaijani au thor who dis pro por tion ately em pha sizes the the o ret i cal con- tri bu tions of Marx, Engels, Le nin, and the Azerbaijani Com mu nist leader Narimanov in sec u lar iz ing the Azerbaijani pop u la tion. See Ä. J. Gurbanov, “Azärbayjanda sekulyarizasiya,” in Is lam tarikhdä vä müasir dövrdä (Baku: Azärbaïjan Dövlät Universitetinin Näshri, 1981). 45. Ashirov, Evoliutsiia, p. 8. 46. Pri vate dis cus sion with Räbiyyät Aslanova, an Azerbaijani scholar of Shii Is lam. 47. For an in sight ful use of the term co me dic to de scribe modes of in ter pre ta- tion, see White, Metahistory. 48. In his in tro duc tion to a vol ume on re li gion and mod ern iza tion in the USSR, Den nis Dunn notes the per sis tence of re li gion but as serts that no one has claimed that the con tin ued vi tal ity of re li gion is due to the fail ure of the So- viet mod ern iza tion drive. In fact, the fail ure to mod ern ize is claimed by Bennigsen and his as so ci ates with re gard to So viet Mus lims. Cf. Re li gion and Mod ern iza tion in the So viet Un ion, ed. Den nis J. Dunn (Boul der, Colo.: Westview, 1977), p. 2. 49. A. Bennigsen, “So viet Mus lims and the World of Is lam,” Prob lems of Com mu- nism 29 (March–April 1980): 39. The es sen tial con ti nu ity of the pre-socialist and so cial ist pe ri ods is also as serted by Hans Bräker in his fore word to Bennigsen and Wimbush, Mus lims of the So viet Em pire , p. ix. 40 Mark Saroyan

50. Hélène Carrère-dEncausse, De cline of an Em pire: The So viet So cial ist Re pub lics in Re volt (New York, N.Y.: Newsweek Books, 1979), pp. 248 and 263–64. 51. This ten dency per me ates not just the spe cial ized dis course but also more gen eral dis cus sion. Thus, John Armstrong em ploys the no tion of a “cul tural im pen e tra bil ity of [So viet] Is lamic pop u la tions” in his “To ward a Frame- work for Con sidering Na tion al ism in East Eu rope,” East ern Eu ro pean Pol i tics and So ci eties 2, 2 (Spring 1988): 280–305. 52. Mi chael Rywkin, Mos cows Mus lim Chal lenge: So viet Cen tral Asia (Armonk, N.Y.: Sharpe, 1982), p. 115. 53. A. Bennigsen, “Mod ern iza tion and Con ser va tism in So viet Is lam,” in Re li- gion and Mod ern iza tion, ed. Dunn, p. 258. In his as sump tion of a transhistorical “Mos lem unity,” Bennigsen also re fers to the “Mos lem mil- let ” of Tsar ist Rus sia, thus draw ing a false anal ogy be tween a spe cific Ot to- man in sti tu tion, the mil let sys tem (along with all its sociohistorical im pli ca- tions), and the so cial struc ture of the Mus lim re gions un der Tsar ist Rus sian do min ion; A. Bennigsen and C. Lemercier-Quelquejay, Les musulmans oubliés: LIslam en U.R.S.S. aujourdhui (Paris: Maspero, 1981), pp. 29 and 35, as well as in other works by the same au thors. 54. Bennigsen and Broxup, The Is lamic Threat, p. 54. 55. Carl J. Friedrich and Zbigniew K. Brzezinski, To tal i tar ian Dic ta tor ship and Au toc racy, 2d ed. (New York: Praeger, 1961), p. 279. 56. Ibid., p. 302. On the to tal com mit ment de manded by each side and the an tag- o nisms that re sult, see Bennigsen and Lemercier-Quelquejay, Is lam in the So- viet Un ion, p. 139. 57. See, for ex am ple, the ar ti cles in cluded in To tal i tar i an ism, ed. Carl J. Friedrich (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1964); and Change in Com mu nist Sys tems, ed. Chalmers John son (Stan ford, Ca lif.: Stan ford Uni ver sity Press, 1970). 58. Weber sim i larly com mented on the “al most ir re sist ible temp ta tion to do vi o- lence to re al ity in or der to prove the real va lid ity of the con struct” (Max Weber, The Meth od ol ogy of the So cial Sci ences [Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1949], pp. 101–3). 59. In one of the clas sic texts of to tal i tar ian the ory, To tal i tar ian Dic ta tor ship and Au toc racy, one can un cover a num ber of these di chot o mous con cep tual con- structs around which the par a digm is ar tic u lated. Some of these par al lel di- chot o mies in clude: state/so ci ety; to tal i tar i an ism/de moc racy; con trol/free- dom; con for mity/re sis tance; vi o lence/peace; or der/dis or der; fact/value; bad/good; false/true. These con cep tual di chot o mies do not sim ply stand as ab stract “ideal types” that help to iden tify ob jects of study. They ac tively or- ga nize a so cial and po lit i cal anal y sis char ac ter ized by these mu tu ally ex clu- sive, absolutized cat e go ries. 60. Friedrich and Brzezinski, To tal i tar ian Dic ta tor ship and Au toc racy, pp. 279–89. 61. Ibid., p. 328. Re thinking Is lam in the So viet Un ion 41

62. S. E. Wimbush, “So viet Mus lims in the 1980s,” Jour nal In sti tute of Mus lim Mi- nor ity Af fairs, pp. 152–53. 63. Ar guing from what can be best de scribed as struc tural-functionalist po si- tions, re cent work by lead ing So viet re search ers re jected ap proaches that con sider the ac tiv ity of Mus lim or ga ni za tions as im por tant. See Talib Saidbaev, Literaturnaia gazeta, no. 24 (10 June 1987): 14 and his Is lam i obshchestvo, as well as Ashirov, Evoliutsiia islama. 64. Louis Althusser, “Ide ol ogy and Ideo log i cal State Ap pa ra tuses,” in Le nin and Phi los o phy (New York: Monthly Re view Press, 1971). 65. Shams Ud-Din, “Rus sian Pol icy To wards Is lam and Mus lims: An Over- view,” Jour nal In sti tute of Mus lim Mi nor ity Af fairs 5, 2 (July 1984): 326. 66. Bennigsen and Lemercier-Quelquejay, “Of fi cial Is lam in the So viet Un ion.” 67. Ibid., pp. 153, 157. 68. Baymirza Hayit, “West ern Turkestan: The Rus sian Di lemma,” Jour nal In sti- tute of Mus lim Mi nor ity Af fairs 6, 1 (Jan u ary 1985). 69. Bennigsen, “So viet Mus lims and the World of Is lam.” For writ ing in formed by sim i lar ar gu ments, see also So viet Na tion al ities in Stra te gic Per spec tive, ed. S. E. Wimbush (Lon don: Croom Helm, 1985). 70. Timur Kocaoglu, “Is lam in the So viet Un ion: Athe is tic Pro pa ganda and ‘Un- of fi cial Re li gious Ac tiv ities,” Jour nal In sti tute of Mus lim Mi nor ity Af fairs 5, 1 (Jan u ary 1984): 147. 71. See, for ex am ple, Reinhard Bendix, “Tra di tion and Mo der nity Re con- sidered,” in Na tion-Building and Cit i zen ship (Berke ley: Uni ver sity of Cal i for- nia Press, 1977). 72. Bryan S. Turner, Re li gion and So cial The ory (Lon don: Heinemann; New Jer- sey: Hu man ities Press, 1983); Aber crom bie et al., eds., The Dom i nant Ide ol ogy The sis. 73. Da vid Mar tin, The ory of Sec u lar iza tion [Ed i tors note: Pos si bly A Gen eral The- ory of Sec u lar iza tion (Ox ford: Blackwell, 1978).] 74. For a use ful cri tique of me di a tion, see Ray mond Wil liams, Marx ism and Lit- er a ture (Ox ford: Ox ford Uni ver sity Press, 1977), pp. 95–107. 75. My use of the form/func tion dis tinc tion is in formed by Ab ner Cohens dis- cus sion of sym bolic form and sym bolic func tion in his Two-Dimensional Man (Berke ley: Uni ver sity of Cal i for nia Press, 1974), pp. 3–4, 26–30. 76. For a use ful ex plo ra tion of form and func tion in So viet Buryat re li gious iden tity and rit ual, see Caro line Humphrey, Karl Marx Col lec tive: Econ omy, So ci ety and Re li gion in a Si be rian Col lec tive Farm (Cam bridge: Cam bridge Uni- ver sity Press, 1983). 77. In both West ern and So viet gen er a list stud ies of Is lam and Mus lim move- ments, “Is lam” is of ten re duced to Quranic ci ta tions or theo log i cal dis- course ex tracted from its so cial and his tor i cal con texts. For an im por tant ex- cep tion to this trend, see Said Amir Arjomand, The Shadow of God and the 42 Mark Saroyan

Hid den Imam (Chi cago, Ill.: Uni ver sity of Chi cago Press, 1984), in which the au thor ex plores how Shii Mus lim doc trines re la tion to tem po ral po lit i cal au- thor ity has been con structed and re con structed in vary ing his tor i cal and po- lit i cal sit u a tions. 78. Hayden White, Tropics of Dis course: Es says in Cul tural Crit i cism (Bal ti more, Md.: Johns Hopkins Uni ver sity Press, 1978), p. 3. 79. Ibid., p. 5. 80. This view has been in flu enced by Althussers dis cus sion of the so cial role of “ideo log i cal state ap pa ra tuses.” See Louis Althusser, “Ide ol ogy and Ideo- log i cal State Ap pa ra tuses,” in his Le nin and Phi los o phy. 81. Michel Foucault, Power/Knowl edge: Se lected In ter views and Other Writ ings, 1972–77 (Sus sex: Har vester, 1980), p. 93. 82. A cor ol lary to this view is its in ver sion: that power is or ga nized in so ci ety and chal lenges the state from be low. Given the dichotomization of the to tal i- tar ian con cep tual frame work, power must be lo cated ei ther in the “state” or in “so ci ety.” 83. Foucault, Power/Knowl edge, p. 99. 84. Ibid., p. 60. 85. For a dis cus sion of Foucaults un der stand ing of power with re gard to in sti- tu tions, see Foucaults afterword to Hubert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow, Michel Foucault: Be yond Structuralism and Her me neu tics, 2d ed. (Chi cago, Ill.: Uni ver sity of Chi cago Press, 1983), as well as Dreyfus and Rabinows own eval u a tion of this prob lem, pp. 184ff. THE ISLAMIC CLERGY AND COMMUNITY IN THE SOVIET UNION

When we think about the Islamic world, the Soviet Union does not commonly come to mind. But with nearly 50 million adher ents of the Muslim faith, the Soviet Union had one of the world’s larges t Muslim popu la tions. Moreover, the Soviet Union was distinc tive in more than simply numbers. Though rele gated to the geopolitical and reli gious periph ery of the Islamic world, Soviet Muslims were heirs to once flourish ing centers of Islamic civi li za tion: one need only re - call the origi nal founders of Islamic reli gious science such as al-Bukhari and at-Termezi—both of whom lived on what was the ter - ritory of Soviet Central Asia—or view the grandeur of the great Mus - lim cities of Bukhara, Khorezm, and, of course, Samarkand, which was founded as the capi tal of Tamerlane’s medi eval empire . Most Soviet Muslims lived in the five repub lics that compris e Central Asia, but the Soviet Muslim lands stretched from the Centra l Asian steppes and oases to the Middle Volga region in the heart of Russia through the northern Cauca sus and into Azerbaijan. The geo - graphic size of the Soviet Islamic world was comple mented by a di - versity of popu la tions. Turkic speakers such as Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Azerbaijanis, and Tatars predom i nated numer i call y, but the USSR was also home to the Iranian-speaking Tajiks and a myriad of smaller nation al i ties speaking a range of Turkic, Iranian, and Ibero-Caucasian languages. Reli giousl y, the Muslims of Central Asia and the Middle Volga are overwhelm ingly follow ers of the Hanafi school ( mazhab ) of Sunni Islam, while the north Cauca sians are pri - marily Shafi’i Sunnis. The major ity of Azerbaijanis in the souther n Cauca sus are Jafari Shi’is, and other pockets of Shi’is can be found in the north Cauca sus and in Central Asia (for exam ple, Ismaili Shi’is in Tajikistan). Despite the geographic, cultural, and reli gious diver sity of the Soviet Muslim popu la tion, the reli gious insti tu tions of the or ga nized Muslim commu nity in the USSR devel oped a remark able degree of

43 44 Mark Saroyan standard iza tion and unifor mity in Soviet rule. In large part, this re - sulted from decades of anti-religious poli cies and restric tions im - posed by the Soviet govern ment on orga nized reli gious activ i ties of any kind, includ ing Islam. Begin ning in the mid-1920s, the Sovie t govern ment imple mented a radi cal program sepa rat ing reli gio n from the state and carried out an often vio lent campaign against re li - gious insti tu tions and reli gious belief more gener ally. 1 Mosques and reli gious schools were closed down, reli gious endow ments ( waqf ) were nation al ized, and Muslim reli gious offi cial dom was disperse d through relo ca tion, exile, impris on ment, and assas si na tion . Mosques contin ued to function and clerics contin ued to preach well into the 1930s, but they did so in vastly reduced numbers and unde r condi tions of often extreme and persis tent perse cu tion. Indeed, by the 1930s the orga nized Muslim commu nity had been effec tivel y closed down. It was not until World War II, when Moscow sought to tap re li- gious senti ments as a source of support against the Nazi inva sion , that a new era in rela tions between orga nized reli gion and the state began. Many mosques reopened, reli gious training for clerics was re - estab lished on a limited scale, and the Muslim clergy was allowed to reor ga nize itself. In the follow ing decades, while anti-religious pro - paganda waxed and waned at the whim of Soviet leaders, the cleri - cally led Islamic reli gious insti tu tions that reemerged during the war survived as vital centers for the Islamic faith in the Soviet Un - ion—despite a widespread wave of mosque closings and other in - creased restric tions imposed on them during the Khrushchev years. As a result, in the post–World War II period the reli gious or ga ni za- tions under the Muslim clergy’s control became the sole effec tive ar - biters of Islam . In this paper we shall ana lyze the activ ity of these surviv ing re - ligious asso ci a tions, known as Muslim Reli gious Boards ( dukhovnoe upravlenie ). Until the Gorbachev era, these boards were the only mani fes ta tion of an orga nized Islamic reli gious movement in the So - viet Union. 2 In both structure and beliefs, I argue, the clerically led Muslim Boards reflected a polit ico-religious orien ta tion that was both funda men tal ist and accommodationist. The boards were fun - damen tal ist in their dedi ca tion to a “return” to the scriptural foun da - tions of Islam, from which, they argued, the Soviet Musli m commu nity had strayed. At the same time, how ever, they promote d Islamic Clergy and Commu nity in the Soviet Union 45 a concep tion of a “puri fied” Islam which was conso nant not only with modern social and economic devel op ment, but also en cour- aged loyal citi zen ship and polit i cal partic i pa tion in the Soviet Union .

STRUCTURE OF THE SOVIET MUSLIM COMMUNITY

As in most Muslim soci et ies, the basic orga ni za tional unit of the Muslim reli gious commu nity in the Soviet Union was the mosque. After the elimi na tion of reli gious endow ments and reli gious schools, the mosque stood as one of the few remain ing reli gious insti tu tion s in the post-World War II Soviet Union. Like other reli gious as so ci a- tions in the countr y, mosques were allowed to oper ate legally by reg - ister ing with their local govern ments. To form a reli giou s asso ci a tion, a mini mum of twenty people ( dvatsatka ) of the same faith was required to peti tion the local govern ment for regis tra tion of their reli gious commu nit y. Upon regis tra tion, the local govern men t would gener ally provide the given reli gious commu nity with a building (in the case of Islam, a mosque), but other wise the mosque-based reli gious asso ci a tion financed itself almost entirel y through the volun tary dona tions of its parish io ners and support ers . In princi ple as well as in practice, orga nized Islam was virtu all y confined to the activ ity of the mosques.3 Soviet legis la tion on the op - era tion of these reli gious commu ni ties defined more restric tions than rights for them. The most signif i cant restric tions provided that re li- gious asso ci a tions, includ ing the mosques, confine themselves to the conduct of reli gious rites. Thus mosques were legally prohib ite d from engag ing in “nonre li gious” activ i ties such as social services (in - cluding health care and housing), edu ca tion (includ ing the es tab lish- ment of schools or librar ies), or any kind of economic or commer cia l enter prise. However, some of these restric tions were not regu larl y enforced by the Soviet govern ment. For instance, larger mosques of - ten possessed sizable librar ies of reli gious publi ca tions, and in Uzbekistan reli gious edu ca tion survived at two reli gious acade mie s in Bukhara and Tashkent, where clerics were trained for reli gious ca - reers. Mosques formed the founda tion of the Soviet Muslim com mu- nity, but they did not oper ate as inde pend ent reli gious asso ci a tions . 46 Mark Saroyan

Each regis tered mosque was affil i ated with one of four inde pend ent , region ally orga nized Muslim Reli gious Boards and was subject to the admin is tra tive juris dic tion of these boards. The largest of these orga ni za tions was the Muslim Reli gious Board for Central Asia and Kazakhstan, which regu lated the reli gious life of Muslim com mu ni- ties in the Central Asian repub lics of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Kirgizia, as well as Kazakhstan.* The ad min is tra- tive headquar ters of the Central Asian board was in Tashkent, the capi tal of Uzbekistan. The Muslim Reli gious Board for the Transcaucasus, centered in Baku, super vised the Muslim com mu ni- ties of Azerbaijan, Arme nia, and Georgia and served as the nomi na l reli gious center for Shi’i minor i ties outside the board’s terri to rial ju - risdic tion. The North Cauca sian Muslim Reli gious Board worked out of Makhachkala, the capi tal of Dagestan, and coor di nated the mosques of the auton o mous ethnic terri to ries of the North Cau ca sus, includ ing Dagestan, Checheno-Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, and North Ossetia, as well as parts of southern Russia. The geo graph i- cally most exten sive admin is tra tion was the Muslim Reli gious Board for the Euro pean USSR and Sibe ria. Its center was in Ufa, and it ad - minis tered the reli gious life of Muslims living in the Middle Volga (Tatarstan and Bashkiria), as well as commu ni ties scattered through - out the rest of the Russian repub lic and the Euro pean parts of the country . The Muslim Boards, like the mosques they oversa w, ad min is- tered themselves. They were regis tered with the state as reli gious as - soci a tions, and though they had been subject to a vari ety of exter na l polit i cal pressures, they nonethe less oper ated formally as private or - gani za tions. Hier ar chically structured orga ni za tions led by self-certified Muslim reli gious leaders, they defined their main task as orga niz ing and regu lat ing the reli gious life of the Muslim com mu - nity. Their exis tence therefore challenged a common stereo typ e about Islam, accord ing to which Islam has no church and no clergy. Moreover, unlike estab lish ments in “Muslim” countries where “of fi- cial” reli gious hier ar chies oper ate under the direct auspices of the state (e.g., Egypt), the Soviet Union’s “offi cial” Muslim es tab lish- ment was nomi nally inde pend ent and self-financing. The activ i tie s

*Edi tor’s note: It was standard Soviet practice not to treat Kazakhstan as part of “Central Asia.” Islamic Clergy and Commu nity in the Soviet Union 47 of the Muslim Boards were funded through volun tary contri bu tion s (sadaqa ), and the sala ries of local mosque offi cials were deter mine d by contract with a given mosque’s exec u tive board. Each of the boards was admin is tered by an exec u tive counci l and was headed by a reli gious offi cial. The exec u tive councils were formally elected by peri odic congresses of clerics and lay rep re sen ta- tives of the reli gious commu ni ties under a partic u lar board’s ju ris - diction. In a practice that paral leled the oper a tion of the Commu nis t Party, the leaders of the Muslim Boards typi cally presented a pre se- lected slate of candi dates to the exec u tive councils which in turn were “approved” by the congresses . The exec u tive council of a Muslim Board selected its own chair - man. These leaders were elected to posi tions of admin is tra tive rank but also bore titles of reli gious distinc tion. The Central Asian, Eu ro - pean, and North Cauca sian boards were led by a mufti, a perso n learned in the Islamic reli gious sciences. Given the Shi’i major it y compo si tion of its constit u enc y, the Transcaucasian board was headed by a Shi’i reli gious figure known as the sheikh-ul-Islam. In this respect, the leader ship of the Muslim Boards combined features of both “tradi tional” Muslim reli gious insti tu tions and modern, im per - sonal bureau cra cies . Like other reli gious orga ni za tions in the postwar Soviet Union , the Muslim Boards oper ated under the harsh restric tions of Sovie t reli gious legis la tion and polit i cal pressures. This meant that the Muslim Boards were gener ally restricted to meeting the purely “re li- gious” needs of the popu la tion. Never the less, the inter nal or ga ni za- tion and admin is tra tion of the boards was gener ally left to Musli m reli gious leaders themselves. 4 For exam ple, each Muslim Board was run accord ing to an inter nally adopted set of bylaws that defined its rights and respon si bil i ties with regard to the Muslim commu ni tie s under its admin is tra tion. Each Muslim Board reserved the right to define the princi ples of the Islamic faith and decide questions of re li - gious dogma by fetwa (an expla na tion based on reli gious science) if neces sar y. The boards also issued guidelines on the proper forms of reli gious conduct, from the Friday prayers to obser vance of vari ou s calen dar rites and holi days . The fetwa provides another exam ple of the Muslim Boards’ synthe sis of tradi tional Muslim practices and modern bureau crati c inno va tions. Custom aril y, a fetwa is the prerog a tive of a mufti, who 48 Mark Saroyan in the Soviet case also headed the Muslim Board. In the Soviet Un ion, however, the larger admin is tra tions had fetwa depart ments which were involved in research ing and prepar ing the issu ance of a fetwa. Prior to the announce ment of a fetwa, the mufti discussed the re - search of the fetwa depart ment with the board’s exec u tive council . Then the fetwa was issued on behalf of the Muslim Reli gious Board as a whole and not simply an indi vid ual mufti. Apart from their general super vi sion of reli gious dogma and practice, the Muslim Boards regu lated the admin is tra tive oper a tio n of the mosque-based reli gious commu ni ties under their juris dic tion . In this role, the Muslim Boards acted in a fashion that resem bled the Commu nist Party appa ra tus—cen tral ized and highly bu reauc ra- tized. Mosques and local reli gious offi cials were not only regis tere d by govern ment agencies, they were certi fied by an appro pri ate Mus - lim Reli gious Board as well. The boards orga nized reli gious trainin g for the clerics at all levels and provided an offi cial certif i ca tion that autho rized an indi vid ual to perform reli gious services. Only the Muslim Boards retained the right to appoint clerics to posi tions of re - ligious respon si bil ity in the mosques, and likewise only the boards could transfer offi cials from one mosque to another. Finally, the Mus - lim Boards had the right to revoke the certif i ca tion of clerics unde r their super vi sion for vio la tions of reli gious or admin is tra tive codes of a given Muslim Board.

THE CLERGY’S IMAGE OF ISLAM AND COMMUNITY

One of the main concerns reflected in cleri cal argu ments about the nature of Islam and the Soviet Muslim commu nity after World War II was a “return” to Islam in its purest forms.5 The Soviet Mus - lim clergy sought to mobi lize the reli gious insti tu tions that they led in order to revi tal ize the reli gious life of the commu nity around the textual ori gins of Islam—the Qur’an and the prophetic tradi tions . The clergy’s argu ment about the need to return to the fun da- mentals of Islam was based, of course, on the assump tion that the commu nity had strayed from those funda men tals. Ortho doxy is con - stituted only in rela tion to hetero dox y, as Pierre Bourdieu has ar - gued, and the clergy’s depic tion of a Muslim commu nity havin g Islamic Clergy and Commu nity in the Soviet Union 49 strayed from Islam provided the neces sary contrast. 6 Given what the clergy portrayed as the reli giously igno rant—in deed de gen er- ate—state of the Muslim commu nity, this posi tion in turn created a need for reli gious leader ship, which could best be provided, the ar - gument went, by the edu cated Muslim clergy. In this way, cleri cal ar - guments about the need to return to an authen tic Islam were closely linked with the legit i ma tion of the activ ity of the Muslim Boards and the network of clerics and mosques under their juris dic tion. By as - serting that the Muslim commu nity had fallen into super sti tious and heret i cal ways, the clergy simul ta neously fixed a place for itself and its insti tu tions in Muslim soci ety . The Muslim clergy’s argu ments about Islam and the Musli m commu nity reflected a struggle for leader ship within Soviet Musli m soci et y. Ironically, the clergy’s claim to leader ship within the com - munity was based on the theolog i cal condem na tion of that very same commu nit y. But cleri cal discourse was directed not only in ter- nally toward Muslim soci et y. It also aimed exter nally at the Sovie t polity and soci ety more gener all y. Over its decades-long de vel op- ment, Soviet polit i cal discourse painted Islam, like all reli gions, as a social ideol ogy which served only to hamper human progress. As a vestige of a presocialist era, Islam and reli gious beliefs gener all y were doomed in the construc tion of a progres sive Soviet social or der. The Muslim clergy’s image of Islam, how ever, directly challenge d and subverted this hege monic argu ment. The Muslim commu nit y, the clerics insisted, both retained its Islamic distinc tive ness and activel y contrib uted to the progress of Soviet soci et y. In fact, the cler ics pointed out, an “authen tic” Islam prescribed many of the same social and eco - nomic val ues as Soviet social ism. In contrast to Soviet secu lar pro pa- ganda’s portrayal of Islam as a brake on social devel op ment, the Muslim clerics pointed to the bene fits that Islam brought to soci ety in general and Soviet soci ety specif i call y. These were the clergy’s two main argu ments about the na ture of Islam and the Muslim commu nit y and about their rela tion to Soviet soci et y, and the clergy drew on its own reli gious tradi tions to make such argu ments . The main discur sive instru ment employed in the quest to recenter the Muslim commu nity around an authen tic Islam was ijtihad, or theolog i cal inter pre ta tion of sacred texts. Soviet cleric s sought to legit i mate their reli ance on this practice by citing figures as diverse as Abu Hanifa (767–800 CE* ), one of the early Arab founder s

*A.D. 50 Mark Saroyan of Islamic reli gious science, and Shihabeddin Marjani (1818–1899 CE), a Tatar cleric and philos o pher in whose work ijtihad was an in - tegral part of reli gious thought. In a reflec tion of broadly accepte d cleri cal views on the nature of ijtihad, one Soviet cleric pointed out that succes sive gener a tions of Muslims approached the sacred scrip - tures with equal respect, but each new gener a tion inter preted the es - sence of these texts in a new way and thus discov ered new ideas that had previ ously gone unno ticed . 7 By means of ijtihad, the Muslim clergy effected a double move. On the one hand, cleri cal thinkers empha sized the scriptural founda tion s of the Islamic faith and ideal ized the histor i cal tradi tions of what they consid ered an authen tic Islam. At the same time, their reli ance on ijtihad opened the possi bil ity for inter pre ta tion and rein ter pre ta tion of these texts for the construc tion of new reli gious princi ples to meet con - tempo rary social, reli gious, and other concerns. The Soviet Musli m clergy’s recon struc tion of Islam through ijtihad thus reflected a syn the- sis of both “tradi tional” and “mod ern” ele ments . The clergy’s recon structed image of Islam was legit i mated by means of ijtihad, but the empha sis on the authen tic ity of the scrip - tural ori gins of Islam and the central ity of the histor i cal legacy of Is - lamic thought at the same time implied a deval u ing of exist in g Islam—that is, the range of beliefs and practices that charac ter ize d the lived reli gious expe ri ences of people that identi fied themselve s as Muslims. Indeed one of the main thrusts of cleri cal argu ment s about the charac ter of the Soviet Muslim commu nity was that it had fallen into deeply un-Islamic ways. The clerics condemned what they consid ered to be jahiliyya, which can be under stood as a genera l igno rance of Islam, includ ing a lack of famil iar ity with the fun da - mental princi ples of the faith as expressed in the Qur’an or the tra di - tions of the prophet Muham mad. More specif i call y, the cleric s decried the widespread exis tence of bida, or heret i cal inno va tions in reli gious belief and practice. Such inno va tions included, for ex am - ple, “super sti tious” beliefs, saint worship, pilgrim ages to loca l shrines, and the use of amu lets for healing or other purposes . A lead edi to rial in the maga zine of the Central Asian Musli m Board, illus tra tively enti tled “Along the True Path of the Qur’an,” provided a concise statement of these views: Islamic Clergy and Commu nity in the Soviet Union 51

In defend ing the princi ples ordained by the Holy Qur’an, we [clerics] actively fight against all nega tive occur rences which hap - pen in the every day lives of Muslims and draw them away from all kinds of super sti tions and bidayat which do not corre spond to instruc tions provided by our shariat. By doing so, we strengthen the conscience of our faithful.” 8 Ironically the Muslim clergy’s depic tion of the contem po rar y Muslim commu nity under scored the commu nity’s un-Islamic ways. But it is impor tant to empha size that one of the main tasks of the Mus - lim clergy was not simply defin ing the content of an “authen tic” Isla m based in history and scripture or condemn ing the range of un-Islamic practices observed by contem po rary Muslims. Rather, in its contrast of an ideal ized reli gious authen tic ity and a degen er ate reli gious real it y, the clergy fixed it self as the force that could provide the leader ship to bring the Muslim commu nity back to the “true” Islam . If Muslim leaders made somewhat abstract claims about their leader ship role in bringing Islam to the Muslim commu nity (and thus bringing the commu nity back to Islam), these claims were concretized in the insti tu tional mecha nisms at their disposal. In this way, the reli gious discourse of the Soviet Muslim clergy and the or - gani za tional structures of the reli gious insti tu tions they domi nate d were inti mately linked. The most impor tant of these mecha nisms, all of which oper ated under the super vi sion of the Muslim Reli giou s Boards, included the mosque, the reli gious center where prayers were recited and sermons deliv ered; the imam, or local reli gious spe - cialist who led the mosque-based commu nity and provided a range of reli gious services; the sermon ( khutba in Sunni tra di tion, moiza in Shi’i tradi tion), by which a cleric provided a general but au thor i ta- tive repre sen ta tion of Islam; the fetwa, the formal ized deci sion is - sued by a cleric trained in reli gious science (mentioned above); and the medresa, the reli gious school which in the Soviet context pro vided only training and edu ca tion for aspir ing clerics . The central ity of these reli gious insti tu tions was frequently em - phasized, as was their function as vital instru ments for re-Islamicizing the Muslim commu nit y. A cleri cal statement, for ex - ample, repre sented the mosque as a site where Muslims could gain greater awareness and under stand ing of themselves as Muslims. In this process, clerics empha sized the inter con nected function of 52 Mark Saroyan mosque, sermon, and cleric as a means for bringing Islam back to the commu nity and the commu nity of believ ers back to an “authen tic ” Islam : In our mosques, sermons are recited, fetwas are announced and eluci dated, and the profound humane princi ples of the persona l behav ior of Muslim soci et y, the famil y, and daily life are per sis - tently propa gated. Therefore, the role of mosques is immensel y impor tant in the course of solving our common impor tan t task—implant ing in new gener a tions of Muslims a conscious nes s and profound value of our sacred reli gion. 9 Cleri cal appeals for “strengthen ing” the role of the mosque in the life of the commu nity therefore followed from the under stand ing of the mosque as an instru ment for the recon struc tion of an authen tic Is lam under the “compe tent” guidance of the clergy.

DISTINCTION AND INTEGRATION IN CLERICAL DISCOURSE

In their image of a recon structed, rein vig o rated Islam, postwa r Soviet Muslim clerics sought to restore the author ity of “tradi tion ” among contem po rary Soviet Muslims. But this reinvention of an Is - lamic tradi tion oper ated not only inter nally in the Muslim com mu - nity. M uslim clerics also constructed argu ments that sought to recontextualize the Muslim commu nity in rela tion to polit i cal, so - cial, and economic devel op ments in the Soviet Union as a whole. Postwar cleri cal discourse therefore attempted not only to rewrit e the “text” of Islam, but also to recast the context in which Islam ex - isted. Along with its struggle to mobi lize the Muslim commu nit y around its own reli gious insti tu tions and instill its own sense of the Islamic faith, the Muslim clergy argued that Islam and the Musli m commu nity played a vital role in Soviet soci et y. Thus clerics re - worked the Soviet state’s discur sive consti tu tion of a “new Sovie t man” who lived success fully without reli gion into a formu la tion of a “new Soviet Muslim citi zen. ” Cleri cal argu ments about the nature of Islam’s rela tion to So viet soci ety were made in conscious recog ni tion of prevail ing notions of the inher ent incom pat i bil ity of Islam and Soviet power. As noted, the Islamic Clergy and Commu nity in the Soviet Union 53 mutu ally exclu sive charac ter of Islam (or any reli gion) and So - viet-led social progress was a common theme of Soviet anti-religious propa ganda and aca demic polem ics. In this sense, cleri cal ar gu - ments about the place of Islam in Soviet soci ety were a counterdiscourse, a reply to the power ful challenge of exter nal im - ages of Islam produced in nonre li gious scholar ship and polem ics . The formu la tion of a counterdiscourse, however, did not entai l a total rejec tion of the argu ments to which it responded. Rather, the cleri cal image of Islam subverted the state’s hege monic posi tion by incor po rat ing many features of that posi tion which would seem - ingly negate it. Thus numer ous polit i cal, social, and economic val ues espoused by repre sen ta tives of the Soviet state were appro pri ated by the Muslim clergy as tradi tional ele ments of the Islamic faith. In fact, Soviet clerics sometimes effected a rever sal by assert ing the es sen - tially reli gious under pin nings of Soviet values. As a cleric at an Azerbaijani mosque declared :

I am glad and full of admi ra tion for the genius of the prophet, who foresaw the social princi ples of social ism. I am also glad that many social ist practices are the present-day real iza tion of the dreams of the prophet Muham mad.1 0

The clergy’s appro pri a tion of ele ments of the state’s discours e served in part to repro duce that discourse. In this connec tion, many observ ers simplis ti cally assumed that Muslim clerics were nothin g more than docile function ar ies of Soviet power. But in rein ter pret in g state values as tradi tional compo nents of Islamic thought, thereby under scor ing the vital ity of Islam, the clerics also revised and re - jected the state’s argu ments concern ing the reli gion’s backward nes s and obso les cence. Thus the “loyal” posi tion of Soviet Muslim cleric s was not simply a surren der to their polit i cal context; it was a sub ver - sion and recon struc tion of that context . Cleri cal argu ments posit ing the exis tence of a “Soviet Musli m citi zen” relied on a combi na tion of two distinct strate gies: a strateg y of inte gra tion based on a symbolic repre sen ta tion of Muslims as ac - tive partic i pants in the construc tion of Soviet power and inte gra l members of Soviet soci ety; and a strategy of distinc tion, in which the clerics empha sized the Muslim distinc tive ness of the commu nity of believ ers that they led.11 In this way, cleri cal argu ments posited the 54 Mark Saroyan exis tence of a self-conscious Muslim commu nity, and they viewed the inte gra tion of that commu nity into broader construc tions of So - viet soci ety not just as a nameless collec tion of indi vid u als but as em - phati cally Muslim citi zens . An arche type of the Soviet Muslim citi zen presented by the clergy was Rizaetdin Fahretdinov, a Tatar cleric and reli gious phi los- opher who was a leader of the Soviet Muslim commu nity in the interwar period. His case was deployed to claim that adher ence to the Islamic faith posed no obsta cle to the social partic i pa tion of de - vout Muslims and that Muslim piety and Soviet citi zen ship were in fact mutu ally rein forc ing. In a statement that compares his reli giou s devo tion and secu lar activ i ties, the follow ing was argued : Reli gion in no way hampered Rizaetdin Fahretdinov from ac - tively partic i pat ing in the social and polit i cal life of our countr y. With a feeling of great emotion he used to speak of many things which he dared only dream of before the Great Octo ber Rev o lu- tion, like general edu ca tional facil i ties, the emanci pa tion of our women, the flourish ing of our science, culture, and art in all spheres which have nowa days become a real it y.12 In the context of a domi nant polit i cal discourse that portraye d Muslims as backwards and threaten ing to the mainte nance of Sovie t power, the clergy’s repre sen ta tion of the Soviet Muslim commu nit y aimed to transform Muslims from passive victims or oppo nents of Soviet policy into active agents in the social and polit i cal structure s in which they lived. In empha siz ing a contin ued, even renewed, de - votion to the Islamic faith in tandem with partic i pa tion in Soviet so - ciet y, the Soviet Muslim clergy thus estab lished a claim for bene fit s from that soci ety—as inte grated but distinctly Muslim citi zens. As one account put the case:

For more than 65 years Muslims of our country have been livin g in social ist soci ety and they have real cause to be proud of mak ing their contri bu tion to the progress and prosper ity of their nativ e land while not devi at ing from the prescrip tion of their holy re li- gion of Islam.1 3

In contrast to argu ments that Islam was an obso lete vestige of the past, the clergy thus subverted these notions by claiming that “with - Islamic Clergy and Commu nity in the Soviet Union 55 out reli gion a person cannot be moral, since only fear of God keeps people from doing amoral, sinful deeds.”14 The cleri cal strate gies of inte gra tion and distinc tion, more over, were insep a ra ble from the broader funda men tal ist ideal of re ori ent- ing the commu nity around the ori gins of the faith and recentering the Muslim commu nity around reli gious insti tu tions controlled by the clergy. Thus in a denun ci a tion of igno rant super sti tions and prac - tices, the former mufti of Central Asia argued that the return to the funda men tals of Islam was the founda tion for the posi tive, activ e contri bu tion of the Muslim commu nity to Soviet soci ety :

These super sti tions cannot contrib ute to the progress that char ac - terizes the contem po rary era. It is only the return to the Qur’an and the Sunnah that created indis pens able condi tions for the ac - tive partic i pa tion of Muslims in the building of a new life.15

Unlike some Islamic ideolog i cal tenden cies outside the Sovie t Union, where secu lar and reli gious ideas are combined in con struc- tions of “Islamic Marxism” or “Islamic social ism,” Soviet Musli m clerics maintained the distinc tive ness of each system of ideas.16 They thus argued for a common al ity of inter ests of two sepa rate dis - cursive tradi tions: one Islamic and the other Soviet/Marx ist. In this way, Soviet clerics appealed for a mutu ally advan ta geous co ex is- tence— but not a synthe sis—of Islam and Soviet power.

NOTES

1. For useful surveys and periodizations of Soviet policy toward Islam, see Nugman Ashirov, Evoliutsiia islama v SSSR (Moscow: Politizdat, l973), and T. S. Saidbaev, Islam i obshchestvo, 2d ed. (Moscow: Nauka, 1984). 2. Some observ ers see the widespread persis tence of infor mal reli gious prac - tices as a “movement,” but in fact there is no signif i cant orga ni za tional co - herence to these activ i ties. See Alexandre Bennigsen and S. Ender s Wimbush, Mystics and Commis sars: Sufism in the Soviet Unio n (Berkeley: Uni- versity of Cali for nia Press, 1985). 3. For a survey of Soviet legal codes on reli gious orga ni za tion, see G. J. Mürshüdlü, Dini ayinlär haggïnda sovet ganunverijiliyi (Baku, 1983) 56 Mark Saroyan

4. For accounts of the boards’ inter nal structures, see Ziyauddin Khan ibn Ishan Babakhan, Islam and Muslims in the Land of the Sovi et s (Moscow: Prog- ress, 1980), and Abdulla Vakhabov, Muslims in the USSR (Moscow: Novosti, 1980). 5. There are varia tions in the expres sion of purificationist tenden cies among Soviet Muslim clerics. For exam ple, a discourse of “return” to Islam is much less salient among North Cauca sian and Transcaucasian Muslims. The ac- count presented here attempts to focus only on the most general common at - tributes of contem po rary cleri cal images of Islam. On the distinc tive trends in the Transcaucasus, for exam ple, see R. Aslanova, “Shiälikdä modernizmin kharakteri,” Azärbaïjan dövlät universiteti, Elmi äsärlär, Tarikh, hügug vä fälsäfä seriyasï 4 (l979). 6. Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practic e (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni- versity Press, 1972). 7. Muslims of the Soviet East 4 (1984): 11. 8. Muslims of the Soviet East 1 (1983): 1–2. 9. Muslims of the Soviet East 2 (1985). 10. Quoted in A. Akhmedov, Sotsial’naia doktrina islama (Moscow: Politizdat, l982), p. 27. 11. I should empha size that “Soviet Muslim citi zen” is my own descrip tive de - vice and not that of the Soviet Muslim clergy. 12. Muslims of the Soviet East 1 (1984): 12. 13. Muslims of the Soviet East 2 (1983). 14. From a sermon quoted in Nugman Ashirov, Nravstvennye poucheniia sovremennogo islama (Moscow: Znanie, 1977), pp. 12–13. 15. Muslims of the Soviet East 1 (1977): 8. 16. This view is shared by some Soviet special ists of Islam. See M. A. Abdullaev and M. V. Vagabov, Aktual’nye problemy kritiki i preodoleniia islama (Makhachkala, 1975). THE REINTERPRETATION AND ADAPTATION OF SOVIET ISLAM

A funda men tal problem in Western scholar ship on Islam has been the reifi ca tion of reli gion. Many scholars do not view reli gion as a social mani fes ta tion of the sacred but as a fixed system of belief s and practices. Such reifi ca tion is not a problem confined to the study of Soviet Islam. In the growing scholar ship on Islam in Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East, many studies work from the assump tio n that Islam is a transhistorical phenom e non. As a result, there is a ten - dency to focus on the inter re la tion ship of a static Islam and the ad - vent of moder nit y.1 In effect, Islam is seen as a force inde pend ent of the changed (or changing) social, economic, and polit i cal cir cum- stances of the contem po rary world. Thus socio eco nomic change and polit i cal devel op ment become the central concerns of analy sis, and reli gious inno va tion, even when it is empir i cally recog nized, is the o - reti cally misun der stood and thus under val ued as a subject worthy of scholarly atten tion . Most Western scholars of Soviet Islam work within these para - digmatic assump tions. Alexandre Bennigsen, the dean of schol ar- ship on Soviet Islam, writes of an “inborn sense of Umma ” among Muslims as if it were a genetic rather than a social qual ity.2 This is not a singu lar, poorly expressed phrase; rather, it reflects a commo n approach to Muslims and Muslim soci et y. Implicitly or explic itl y, this perspec tive assumes the immu ta bil ity of social identi ties. In the Soviet context, this type of reifi ca tion rests on the assump tion that af - ter more than a half century of massive socio eco nomic and polit i ca l transfor ma tion, the self-conception of Soviet Muslims has un der- gone little signif i cant change (assum ing to begin with that Muslim s in the Tsarist empire had a sense of common identity in the umma). Even if one chooses to argue, as in fact Soviet scholars do, that sec tors of the “Muslim” popu la tion of the USSR are rela tively less in te grated into Soviet soci et y, one cannot assume that partial or even dif fer en ti- ated inte gra tion has not had some impact on popu lar atti tudes. 3

57 58 Mark Saroyan

This approach to the study of Islam in the Soviet Union has proved to be more of an obsta cle than an insight. The implicit as ser - tion that reli gion is a metaphys i cal system inde pend ent of soci et y and poli tics is a tenu ous one. Reli gion is a symbolic system that is gener ated in social rela tions and can be seen as a symbol i cally or ga - nized or constructed phenom e non. 4 This does not deny, how ever, that reli gious ideas can provide meaning to social action. The form and substance of Islam, therefore, is inter preted and rein ter prete d through social rela tions yet also provides concepts with which to un - derstand these social rela tions. The absence of this dia lec ti cal per - spective and the resul tant reifi ca tion of reli gion have resulted in seri ous ana lyt i cal weaknesses in the study of reli gious change in the USSR. A funda men tal dimen sion of this weakness is evi dent in the scholarly under val u a tion of the role of Muslim elites in this change.

MUSLIM ORGANIZATIONS AND THE SOVIET STATE

The post-Stalin USSR is home to four inde pend ent Muslim re li- gious admin is tra tions: the Muslim Reli gious Board for the Euro pea n USSR and Sibe ria (centered in Ufa, Bashkir ASSR); the Muslim Re li- gious Board for Central Asia and Kazakhstan (Tashkent, Uzbekistan); the Muslim Reli gious Board for the North Cauca su s (until recently in Buinaksk; now in Makhachkala, Dagestan); and the Muslim Reli gious Board for Transcaucasia (Baku, Azerbaijan). These insti tu tions are the locus of Islamic inno va tion in the USSR, and a concep tual expo si tion of their orien ta tions and activ i ties is crucia l for ana lyz ing the place of Islam in contem po rary Soviet soci et y. Each admin is tra tion has a number of special ized depart ments and su per - vises the reli gious and admin is tra tive activ i ties of the mosques and clerics under its juris dic tion. In addi tion, the Muslim Board of Tashkent oper ates two medresas, or Muslim semi nar ies, and pub - lishes a quarterly jour nal, Muslims of the Soviet East. 5 The leaders of these admin is tra tions, the staffs of their vari ous depart ments, and the clergy form the Soviet Muslim elite. Most of the scholarly discus sion of these admin is tra tions is lim - ited to descrip tive accounts of their activ i ties. Ana lyticall y, what is signif i cant for Western scholars about these admin is tra tions is that The Rein ter pre ta tion and Adap ta tion of Soviet Islam 59 like their prerevolutionary prede ces sors, they were created ex og e- nously and insti tuted in the commu ni ties that they now serve. The creation and “impo si tion” of orga ni za tional coher ence for the Is - lamic reli gion by the Soviet regime is an unde ni able occur rence. Be - cause of the heteronomous estab lish ment of these Soviet Musli m admin is tra tions, however, a priori assump tions are too often em - ployed in place of an analy sis of the reli gious boards’ role and their rela tions with the Soviet regime. An exam ple of this approach is the follow ing comment : These admin is tra tive bodies exist in name only, since they have no powers whatso ever to safeguard the inter ests of Islam, i.e., to defend Islam against anti-Islamic attacks in public life.6 The same author also claims that the Muslim Reli gious Boards are notewor thy only in the services they provide for the conduct of So - viet foreign policy and that in this respect the Tashkent ad min is tra- tion is the sole signif i cant acto r.7 While these comments are explici t and perhaps extreme in their form, the domi nant, conven tional wis - dom about the role of the Muslim elite in Soviet Islam is steeped in simi lar notions. 8 The assump tions of this perspec tive are perhaps common sensi- cal: the Soviet regime estab lishes the Muslim admin is tra tions for its own ends, in part as a conces sion to the Muslim popu la tion; these ad - minis tra tions, now empow ered with an auton o mous orga ni za tiona l appa ra tus, bargain with the regime and obtain exten sions of their power and author ity (e.g., the opening of new mosques or the soft en ing of anti re li gious propa ganda) in return for obedi ent domes tic behav io r and espe cially for promo tion of the Soviet system and Soviet foreig n policy among Muslim states of the Third World.9 As insti tu tional struc - tures created and estab lished by Soviet author i ties, the Muslim Re li- gious Boards must revise their orien ta tions and activ i ties (osten si bly at least) to accord with the regime’s val ues and goals in order to justify to the regime their contin ued (or even expanded) oper a tion. This ap - proach is partic u larly evi dent in the claim that the Soviet regime is will - ing to promote the offi cial Muslim elite in oppo si tion to the purport edly more threaten ing nonof fi cial forms of Is lamic as so ci a- tion.10 Never the less, the entente estab lished between the state and its Muslim popu la tion is hardly cordial. Rela tions between the reli giou s boards and the regime, accord ing to the conven tional wisdom, are 60 Mark Saroyan based on cost-benefit calcu la tions between essen tially antag o nis ti c partners and are thus inher ently unsta ble and uncer tain . 11 Such asser tions are not entirely wrong. They are, however, in - complete and overly simplis tic. The oper a tion of Muslim or ga ni za- tions cannot be put in simple terms of accom mo da tion or antag o nism toward the state. These orga ni za tions are neither mere organs of state power nor incip i ent vehi cles of antistate action. The creation of these insti tu tions reflects the regime’s accom mo da tion to socioreligious forces that exist in Soviet soci et y, but this ac com mo da- tion must be under stood in the context of the comple tion of a de ci - sive and funda men tal transfor ma tion of social and polit i cal re la tions in the USSR. The Soviet regime initi ated a recon cil i a tion with the Muslim clergy only after it had success fully under mined their po lit i- cal rele vance.1 2 Moreover, the insti tu tional charac ter of the reli giou s boards shapes the terms by which the reli gious elites artic u late and express their iden tity. ’ The simplis tic view of the Muslim Reli gious Boards as obedi en t instru ments of the Soviet state leads to the assump tion that these ad - minis tra tions are rigidly formalistic in both concep tion and practic e and that they are uncon nected and irrel e vant to the constit u en cie s which they osten si bly serve.13 In fact, Western scholars place too much empha sis on the foreign propa ganda role of the Soviet Musli m elites, while they consider their domes tic activ i ties to be in con se- quential. In rele gat ing the role of the Muslim elites to domes tic in sig - nifi cance, many scholars fail to evalu ate and ana lyze their role in rede fin ing the form and content of Islam in Soviet soci et y.

RELIGIOUS “MODERNIZATION,” MUSLIM ELITES, AND THE SOVIET REGIME

One of the funda men tal features of change in Islam during the Soviet period is the rein ter pre ta tion and adap ta tion of reli giou s thought and practice. Based in the reli gious boards, the Muslim cler i-

*A compar a tive study of the histor i cally inno va tive Muslim Reli gious Boards with preex ist ing reli gious insti tu tions—e.g., the Russian Ortho dox Church or the Arme nian Apos tolic Church—could provide the basis for better elabo ra tio n of this point. The Rein ter pre ta tion and Adap ta tion of Soviet Islam 61 cal elite is the initi a tor of these reli gious inno va tions. The re in ter pre- tation of Islam has been promul gated in Soviet Muslim publi ca tion s and confer ences, in reli gious-educational estab lish ments, and most imme di ately through the country wide network of mosques and or - ganized parishes. In effect, all the insti tu tional channels available to the Muslim elite have been mobi lized to promote not only the prin ci - ple of reli gious rein ter pre ta tion, but also its theolog i cal and prac ti cal appli ca tions. Western studies of this reli gious inno va tion are in vari - ably based on Soviet scholar ship. Therefore, it is useful to review the assump tions of the Soviet under stand ing of this process before a dis - cussion of Western perspec tives . The campaign for the rein ter pre ta tion of Islam in the context of Soviet soci ety has received wide atten tion in Soviet studies of Is - lam.14 In Soviet liter a ture this process is most commonly referred to as Islamic modern iza tion ( modernizatsiia ) or Islamic renewa l (obnovlenie ). A perusal of Soviet liter a ture on Islamic modern iza tio n reveals abundant infor ma tion and—although varia tions and dis tinct differ ences in perspec tive exist—a fairly coher ent argu ment about the charac ter and intent of this modern iza tion. Generall y, the Sovie t argu ment goes like this: based on the mate rial transfor ma tion of so - ciet y, a spiri tual-ideological transfor ma tion has also been achieved. That is, not only has a new socio eco nomic “base” been created, but also a “super struc ture” has been estab lished that gener ally (though not completely) corre sponds to this novel social ist base. Therefore , in the condi tions of a Soviet social ist soci ety the country’s tra di tion- ally Muslim popu la tions have assim i lated mate ri al ist concep tions of history and the complex set of Soviet values founded in this new so - ciety (collec tiv ism, equal ity, democ rac y, and the like). The Musli m elite, in this argu ment, has been obliged to adapt to the condi tions of a new soci ety and a new popu lar conscious ness in order to maintai n its now objec tively baseless but nonethe less resid ual status. A mi nor - ity of scholars also argues that Islamic modern iza tion is intended not only to prevent the further dete ri o ra tion of the social and spiri tua l posi tion of the Muslim elite but aims to “regain lost ground” as well.15 Compar i sons of reli gious modern iza tion in the USSR and in the devel op ing world highlight the speci fic ity of Islamic modern iza tio n in the USSR. In the devel oped and devel op ing capi tal ist countries , reli gious reno va tion is under taken to promote the inter est of the 62 Mark Saroyan domi nant class. In contrast, reli gious modern iza tion in the Sovie t Union serves only to prevent, or at least to slow down, the objec tiv e elimi na tion of Islamic “vestiges” that have remained in social ist so ci - ety.16 The Muslim elite, by way of rein ter pre ta tion, strives to re an i- mate the vesti gial ele ments of Islam to maintain its objec tivel y baseless social status. In the condi tions of mass atheism based on a new social order, Muslim elites must prove their “useful ness” to the popu la tion and must adapt their concep tion of reli gious identity and practices in order not to alienate their already tenu ous support re - maining in the popu la tion at large.17 The general outlines of the Soviet argu ment about Islamic mod - erniza tion are logi cal, but the argu ment does not corre spond to the actual state of affairs. While one could argue with ease that Sovie t scholars fail ade quately to substan ti ate their case about the trans for - mation of popu lar conscious ness in the USSR, there are more sig nif i- cant theo ret i cal problems. The Soviet approach is overly mech a nis tic and one-dimensional in assum ing a direct and unilat eral de ter mi na- tion of social conscious ness by social structure.1 8 The Western approach to Islamic modern iza tion is distinct yet related to its Soviet counter part. Western scholars most frequentl y discuss this issue only in descrip tive terms by eclecti cally ap pro pri- ating infor ma tion from Soviet sources and in the process strippin g any facts from the concep tual framework in which they were orig i- nally presented. In effect, one is provided with a repe ti tious sum - mary of previ ously published factual infor ma tion (albeit in Russia n or other languages of the USSR); sometimes one comes across the in - sertion of parts of argu ments appro pri ated from the same sources. One scholar, for exam ple, after paraphras ing virtu ally a single So viet monographic source, concludes that the whole process of reli giou s modern iza tion is “strange” in that it occurs in a presum ably athe is tic state.19 Yet another Western scholar simul ta neously provides lim - ited evi dence of reli gious change and then denounces it as “in sig nif i- cant.”20 This same author contin ues: “Under the Soviet regim e [Muslim reli gious customs and ritual] have neither been modi fie d nor simpli fied, though some fell into disuse through neglect.”2 1 This view ignores a great deal of contrary infor ma tion in both Soviet and Western liter a ture (see below). More gener all y, however, it reflect s seri ous theo ret i cal inad e qua cies. As noted, the assump tion that Is - lam exists auton o mously from social rela tions almost inev i ta bl y The Rein ter pre ta tion and Adap ta tion of Soviet Islam 63 leads to the descrip tive particularization that domi nates Wester n study of Soviet Islam. By concen trat ing on the details of the re in ter- preta tion of reli gious thought and practices, Western scholars forge t that these details are part of a larger social process of reli giou s change. While differ ent in content, the concep tual under stand ing of the ori gins of Islamic reno va tion implicit in the conven tional Western ar - guments is striking in its structural simi lar ity to conven tional Sovie t inter pre ta tions. Both argu ments approach Muslim reform in a uni di - rectional manner, ascrib ing the deter mi na tion of reli gious re con sti- tution to either the regime (the Western variant) or popu la r conscious ness (the Soviet variant). Both of these perspec tives, more - over, empha size the pragmatic, essen tially oppor tu nis tic charac te r of reli gious inno va tions. Yet it is crucial for an under stand ing of re li- gious change to recog nize that the moti va tions of the Soviet Musli m elites are based not just in polit i cal expe di enc y, but also in their own concep tion of reli gious iden tity.22

A CONCEPTUAL APPROACH TO RELIGIOUS CHANGE

Change in Soviet Islam has been charac ter ized as “reli giou s modern iza tion” in both Soviet and Western liter a ture. Use of the term “modern iza tion” is, howeve r, mislead ing since it assumes that there is some transi tion from “tradi tional” to “modern” forms of re li - gion. I will use the term reli gious recon struc tion since it gives the sense that reli gion is rein ter preted and recast in new (not neces sar il y modern) forms and with new content in response to changed or changing sociopolitical condi tions. Reli gious recon struc tion does not involve the simple replace ment of old forms of reli gious ex pres - sion with “modern” ones; nor does it imply the reaf fir ma tion or rep - lica tion of tradi tional forms of reli gion. The recon struc tion of reli gion is a novel artic u la tion of the forms and substance of re li - gion.23 An impor tant dimen sion of reli gious recon struc tion is the re for - mula tion of the role of reli gious orga ni za tion in social life.24 In So - viet Islam, the practi cal initi a tor of reli gious recon struc tion is the Muslim cleri cal elite. In part, changes in the compo si tion of the So - 64 Mark Saroyan viet Muslim elite account for reli gious inno va tion in Soviet Islam.2 5 However, while the recon struc tion is led by the Muslim elite, the process is founded in the new social and polit i cal condi tions of the contem po rary USSR. In this way, reli gious insti tu tions in the post - war USSR to a certain extent serve as transmit ters of regime values . Located in the Muslim Reli gious Boards, the Muslim clergy ar tic u- lates notions of social progress, collec tiv ism, equality of peoples and the sexes, and so forth. These notions form the founda tion of the So - viet regime’s value system and estab lish guidelines for the direc tio n of social and polit i cal behav ior . This does not mean, how ever, that Soviet Muslim or ga ni za tions are mere mouthpieces for the regime. Soviet Muslim elites have ap - propri ated offi cial Soviet values and expressed them in terms of their own symbolic system—Is lam. This entails not simply Muslim me di- ation of regime values and behav ioral norms. Rather, the Musli m elite has assim i lated itself into the domi nant sociopolitical syste m through the appro pri a tion of the hege monic goals and values of that system; and in express ing those values through its own ideolog i ca l constructs, it reas serts its own social legit i mac y. The appro pri a tio n of regime values and their recast ing in terms of Islamic theol ogy is, in short, a funda men tal compo nent of the recon struc tion of Islam . Islamic recon struc tion, however, does not simply reflect the ex - istence of a hege monic Soviet ideol ogy and polit i cal or der. Nor does it merely consti tute a new Islam in oppo si tion to the Soviet regime . Recon structed Islam also reflects the sociopolitical condi tions in which it occurs. At the same time, it consti tutes a new social identit y by using Islamic theolog i cal concepts to artic u late domi nant, secu la r values in what Bryan S. Turner calls a “curi ous blend of the new and tradi tional.”2 6 This recast ing of Islam synthe sizes a new Musli m identity in which Islam and Soviet social ism are recon ciled and a novel form of Soviet identity is expressed and legit i mated in the re - constructed cate go ries of Islamic doctrine . As a result, the “renewal” of Soviet Islam is not funda men tall y or neces sar ily a centrif u gal force in Soviet soci et y. The reas ser tion of Islamic identity is not auto mat i cally a threat to the regime.2 7 Indee d it is impor tant not to con fuse symbolic form and symbolic function . 28 Symbolic form refers to the specific mode through which meaning s are conveyed (e.g., ritual or cere mony). Symbolic function refers to the specific meaning that is conveyed (e.g., soli dar ity or equality) . The Rein ter pre ta tion and Adap ta tion of Soviet Islam 65

Many scholars of Soviet Islam conflate these two concepts. * They recog nize the mainte nance of the tradi tional sym bolic forms of Isla m and assume that the same func tions are being accom plished. But through the process of reli gious recon struc tion, old symbolic forms of Islam have been rede fined and infused with new meanings. Thus in Soviet soci ety univer sally recog niz able Muslim symbolic forms perform new, differ ent symbolic functions . In effect, the Soviet Muslim elite’s recon struc tion of Islam can be viewed in what Steven Lukes has called a “symbolic strategy” — that is, a ritual complex that serves to defend a group’s power with respect to other groups.29 Applied to the respec tive posi tions of the Soviet polit i cal elite and the Muslim elite, Lukes’ distinc tion be - tween the uses of the “mobi li za tion of bias” for domi nant and sub or - dinate groups is espe cially perti nent. He empha sizes that the symbolic strategy of a subor di nate group can be either fun da men- tally destablilizing or “subor di nate and oppositional but not threat - ening to the social and polit i cal order.”3 0 Treating the Muslim elite’s recon struc tion of Islamic identity as a partic u lar symbolic strateg y can reori ent the study of Islam and reli gious change in the USSR. The issue is no longer the extent to which the Muslim elite or an Islami c “revival” poses a threat to the Soviet regime. Rather, the fun da men- tal question becomes whether Islamic recon struc tion is an in te gra- tive or subver sive process . My thesis is that the Muslim reli gious estab lish ment promote s inte gra tion into the Soviet social order based on recon structed con - cepts of specif i cally Islamic reli gious cate go ries. The artic u la tion of a new Soviet-Muslim symbolic system refor mu lates what the regim e intends to be in te gra tive sec u lar values; never the less, recon structe d Islam at once posits a Muslim subgroup soli dar ity and promotes the inte gra tion of the subgroup into the larger social group—the Sovie t social or der. The Muslim elite strives to estab lish both a new Sovie t and a new Muslim identity—iden ti ties which are defined as mu tu- ally compat i ble and not contra dic tory to the inte gra tion promote d through purely Soviet values. In short, the notion that one can be

*This is the case for observ ers of Soviet Islam in both the West and the USSR. Western scholars tend to reify Islam and believe that tradi tional forms of Mus lim identity embody simi lar contents. Simi larl y, Soviet scholars see, for exam ple, the contin u a tion of Islamic ritual activ ity as “vesti gial” forms of Islam that carry the same content (perform the same function) as they always have. 66 Mark Saroyan both a “good” Muslim and a “good” Soviet citi zen is put forth.31 ‘The Muslim elite’s refor mu la tion of the Islamic symbolic universe , therefore, not only reflects the transformed polit i cal and social con - ditions of the USSR, but it also partakes in that transfor ma tion in its attempts to estab lish a posi tive identity for Soviet Muslims con gru - ent with the Soviet sociopolitical order.3 2 Reli gion is not somethin g that either maintains itself unchanged or is swept away by the forces of polit i cal and social devel op ment. Reli gion contin ues to exist, but its form and substance are recon structed in light of the changin g sociopolitical circum stances in which it oper ates .

ISLAMIC RECONSTRUCTION: RELIGIOUS DOCTRINE AND RITUAL

The Muslim cleri cal elite has intro duced inno va tions in Islami c ethi cal-moral norms and theol og y.33 In Islamic theolog i cal terms, re - construc tion has been promoted through the doctrinal concept of ijtihad. Ijtihad involves direct consul ta tion and inter pre ta tion of the Qur’an and other reli gious scriptures that form the founda tion of the Islamic reli gion. As a Soviet reli gious leader has written, succes siv e gener a tions approach the scriptures of Islam with equal respect, but each new gener a tion inter prets the essence of these scriptures in a new way and finds new ideas that had previ ously gone unno ticed.3 4 One of the major themes among the reform-conscious Sovie t Muslim elites is the recon cil i a tion of Islamic and Soviet identi ties . Thus the elites place empha sis on sociopolitical inte gra tion, not sub - version. Muslim values are recast in Soviet terms, and Soviet value s are recast in Muslim terms. An illus tra tion of the former is how the concept of ji had has been rede fined from struggle for the faith against nonbe liev ers into struggle for social transfor ma tion and equalit y congru ent with Soviet aims.35 Simi larl y, Soviet values are explaine d and legit i mated in reli gious cate go ries. Soviet Muslim leaders note that Allah prepared Marx, Engels, and Lenin for service on earth and that the Octo ber Revo lu tion has put into practice many Qur’anic val - ues, includ ing equality of nations and sexes, freedom of reli gion, se - curity of honor able work, and owner ship of land by those who till it.36 For Soviet Muslim elites, the fact that the leaders of the USSR, as admit ted atheists, actively fulfill Islamic reli gious prescrip tions ap - The Rein ter pre ta tion and Adap ta tion of Soviet Islam 67 parently poses no contra dic tion in their recon structed views of Is lam and the secu lar state. In doctrine and social thought, the Muslim elite’s re con sti tu tion of Islam takes essen tially two forms: histor i cal and scriptural. That is, new defi ni tions of Islam are estab lished through both histor i ca l and scriptural refer ences. Historicall y, Muslim elites refer to a se - lected set of Islamic theolo gians and leaders whose ideas and ac tions are recast—fairly or unfairly—in terms that rein force contem po rar y inter pre ta tions of Islam.3 7 They empha size the works or activ i ties of histor i cal Muslim figures, espe cially the numer ous nine - teenth-century Muslim reform ers of Tsarist Russia, who promote d the ideas of social progress, national and sexual equal ity, and other currently domi nant social and polit i cal values. In this way, the Mus - lim elites construct a histor i cal Islam that is “progres sive” in terms of the contem po rary value system. The Tatar reli gious leader Rizaetdin Fahretdinov (1859–1936), for exam ple, is lauded for his progres siv e ideas and his ability to combine reli gious convic tion and social re - sponsi bil it y. In effect, Fahretdinov is estab lished as a role model for the Soviet Muslim believer-citizen : Reli gion in no way hampered Rizaetdin Fahretdinov from par tic i- pating actively in the social and polit i cal life of our countr y. With a feeling of great emotion he used to speak of quite a large num - ber of things of which he dared only dream before the Great Oc to- ber Revo lu tion, like the general edu ca tional facil i ties, the emanci pa tion of our women, the flourish ing in all spheres of our science, culture and art, which have nowa days become a re al- ity.38 The Muslim elites also refer to semi nal reli gious scriptures in their efforts to recast Islam as “progres sive.” Aside from the ac tiv i- ties and inter pre ta tions of histor i cal theolo gians, the essence of the Islamic reli gious doctrine is portrayed in terms that are congru en t with contem po rary values. Thus in his sermon at Tashkent’s main mosque, the head of the Muslim Reli gious Board for Central Asia and Kazakhstan cites the Qur’an in promot ing the notion of labo r disci pline and produc tiv ity and appar ently condemn ing sec - ond-economic activ ity : 68 Mark Saroyan

Only those persons receive their blessings who endeavor to mas - ter a trade or profes sion . . . since Allah regards a craftsman as akin to himself, while he condemns all loafers, idlers, and good-for-nothing persons. . . . In no reli gious dogma does there exist any justi fi ca tion for idleness or accu mu la tion of wealth by easy and doubtful ways or by either theft or beggar y.39 The recon struc tion of Muslim reli gious thought therefore oper ate s on two levels. The Soviet Muslim elite is engaged in the re con struc- tion of a histor i cal Islam and socio-religious doctrine to produce an Islamic identity that is condu cive to inte gra tion in the domi nant so - cial or der, yet through this inte gra tion in terms of the Islamic re li- gion (and not merely by promot ing Soviet values as Soviet value s but as Muslim value s ), the Muslim elite asserts the author ity and le git- imacy of Islam as well.40 The Islamic ritual complex has also under gone adap ta tion and re - inter pre ta tion in the recon struc tion promoted by the Muslim elites. Re - ligious ritu als continue to play an impor tant role in the life not only of the believ ing Muslim popu la tion, but among the secu lar ized sectors of the popu la tion as well. It is often noted that Islamic funeral rites and cir - cumci sion are virtu ally univer sally observed in tradi tion ally Musli m ar eas and that other reli gious rit u als and festi vals such as the annua l fasting during the month of Ramazan and the birth of Muham ma d (mavliud an-nabi ) continue to be widely observed . Muslim elites have not only physi cally adapted and changed a number of impor tant ritu als by simpli fy ing and shorten ing them, but they have also engaged in the redef i ni tion of the role and pur - pose of ritual. For exam ple, obser vance of the annual fasting durin g Ramazan has in many instances been shortened, and only nomi na l fasting during vari ous points during the period is prescribed.4 1 This and many other changes were osten si bly insti tuted so as not to in ter - fere with the fulfill ment of state-defined economic targets, es pe cially since Ramazan often coin cides with the harvest season. Beyond this type of change, reli gious cere mo nies have been rein ter preted to ac - cord with “modern” social values. The ritual washing of feet befor e prayer is extolled for its hygienic value, and the perfor mance of the prayer ( namaz ) is praised for its contri bu tion to physi cal health.42 Thus while many Islamic ritu als maintained in the USSR appear sim - ilar to ritu als found in pre-Soviet (or even foreign) Muslim soci et y, The Rein ter pre ta tion and Adap ta tion of Soviet Islam 69 the Muslim elites have infused these ritu als with new symboli c meanings. Symbolic forms have remained the same, but their sym - bolic function has changed. The promo tion of reli gious ritual as a compo nent of the iden ti - ties of the vari ous offically recog nized “nation al i ties” in the Sovie t Union is one of the most funda men tal inno va tions in the re con struc- tion of Islamic ritual. The mixing of reli gious and national ele ment s is a signif i cant ele ment in the mainte nance of Islam in the Soviet con - text.43 Muslim reli gious elites actively pursue this theme in the re - defi ni tion of Islam. For exam ple, they assert that the perfor mance of reli gious rites expresses not only reli gious soli dar it y, but national af - fili a tion and ethnic identity as well.44 For the secu lar ized strata of the popu la tion, the connec tion between reli gious ritu als and na - tional identity is espe cially impor tant to maintain the contin ue d popu lar ity of these rites. As a result of the mixing of reli gious and na - tional identi ties, Soviet scholars point out, many nonre li gious peo - ple observe reli gious ritu als.4 5 The asser tion that reli gion is an essen tial compo nent of na tional identity is impor tant with respect to the argu ment that Muslim elites have adapted Islam in the face of changed popu lar atti tudes. The view that Islam is the primary and most compre hen sive expres sio n of the popu la tion’s identity is a common feature of the conven tiona l liter a ture on Soviet Islam.4 6 In contrast, one of the central features of Soviet devel op ment is the physi cal and ideolog i cal construc tion of explic itly distinct and hier ar chi cally orga nized nations and na tion al- ities in the USSR.47 The reli gious estab lish ment’s attempts to pres - ent ritual and even reli gion more broadly in terms of national and not just reli gious identity in effect recog nize the new status of na tion - alit y, in the Soviet Union. Moreover, this new status can be placed in light not only of the regime’s construc tion of nation al it y, but also of the evolu tion of the social conscious ness of the Soviet “Muslim ” popu la tion. The Muslim reli gious elite’s efforts to “nation al ize” Is - lamic ritual, therefore, not only reflect the new Soviet social and po - liti cal or der, but also respond to changes in popu lar world views. 70 Mark Saroyan

THE SOVIET MUSLIM ELITE: AUTHORITY AND LEGITIMATION

The Muslim elite’s promo tion of a recon structed Islam is neither a conflict-free nor a homo ge neous process. An essen tial ele ment in the elite’s rearticu la tion of Islam is the redef i ni tion of the role of the Mus lim leader ship in social and reli gious life. Historicall y, Islam was a syste m of commu nally defined tradi tions and beliefs; one of its funda men ta l charac ter is tics was the absence of a hier ar chi cally orga nized ad min is- tration or “church.” The domain of the Soviet Muslim elite, how ever, is in fact a hier ar chi cal admin is tra tive appa ra tus . The Muslim elite in fact asserts its legit i macy and author it y through Islam by defin ing Islam, yet it must also overcome ele ment s that provide compet ing under stand ings of reli gious ideol ogy and practice. Thus the Muslim elite attempts to estab lish its own le git i- macy and author ity through the recon struc tion of Islam. In the Mus - lim elite’s terms, reli gious recon struc tion is the rees tab lish ment of a true, puri fied Islam in the best jadid tradi tion.4 8 The elite defends an Islam that it consid ers authen tic; nonethe less, its behav ior also re - flects a keen awareness of polit i cal circum stances. The less contro l the elite has over the defi ni tion of “Islam,” the less social author it y and legitmacy it will be able to obtain or maintain among the Sovie t author i ties as well as the Muslim commu nit y. The Muslim elite strives to estab lish its socio-religious author it y through its own “symbolic strategy” and insti tu tional control over rit - ual activ it y. The basic instru ment through which it can ex press its au - thority is the complex of Muslim insti tu tions: the Muslim press, Muslim edu ca tional estab lish ments, and the network of mosques and reli gious function ar ies under its juris dic tion. Through these in sti tu- tions, the elite strives to promote its own defin i tive forms of Islami c identit y. Tradi tionall y, anyone famil iar with ritual discourse could le - giti mately offi ci ate during reli gious activ i ties. The Muslim elite, by contrast, is attempt ing to displace tradi tional loci of reli gious ex pres- sion and place reli gion clearly within the realm of the mosque and the offi cial reli gious bureau cracy—that is, under the admin is tra tive and ideolog i cal control of the Muslim Reli gious Boards. *

*Here again I should empha size the impor tance of consid er ing both mate ria l and ideal inter ests. The Muslim elites promote their own defi ni tions of doctrin e and ritual and the signif i cance of the mosque and clergy not just out of power consid er ations or because only offi cial clerics and regis tered mosques are le gally sanctioned. The Muslim leader ship conceives of the exten sion of recon structe d Islam as a struggle against reli gious igno rance ( jahiliyya ). The Rein ter pre ta tion and Adap ta tion of Soviet Islam 71

Admin is tra tive and reli gious pronounce ments ( fetwa ), ser - mons, and other statements repro duced in the Soviet liter a ture on Is - lam or in the journal of the Tashkent Muslim Reli gious Board, Muslims of the Soviet East, attest to the direc tion of the Muslim ad min- istra tive elite’s efforts to promote its own author ity and under min e any alter na tive author it y. The estab lish ment of the Muslim elite’s au - thority proceeds (as noted) through its promo tion of a true, au then tic Islam purged of histor i cal impu ri ties. In this way, the late mufti of Tashkent has been praised for his semi nal efforts and achievement s in “uniting all Muslims [and] eradi cat ing all [things] alien to Islam in [his] struggle against heres y, preju dices and super sti tions.”4 9 Fun - damen tal to the recon struc tion of Islam, therefore, is not only the identi fi ca tion of what Is lam is, but also what it is not. The Muslim ad - minis tra tion thus not only opposes vari ous mani fes ta tions of “non-Islamic behav io r,”50 but it also calls for strict adher ence to its instruc tions on the perfor mance of reli gious ritual and the ar tic u la- tion of reli gious precepts.5 1 The Muslim elite through the Muslim Reli gious Boards’ multi pl e insti tu tional channels seeks not just to define Islam, but also to define it - self as the sole legit i mate inter preter of the faith. In defin ing its ad min is- trative network as the sole locus of reli gious author it y, the Muslim elite attempts to consol i date its author it y. The impor tance given to the in sti- tutional structures of Islam is espe cially evi dent. The reli gious boards empha size and promote the mosque as the center of reli gious life, and some denounce the perfor mance of reli gious services in the home or pilgrim ages to tradi tional holy sites.52 Connected with this, Musli m elites speak of the “mission and rightful place” of the cleric in soci et y and his tasks in “rooting out” vari ous kinds of here sies and su per sti- tions that are not consid ered part of Islam but are nonethe less wide - spread among the popu la tion.5 3 The recon struc tion of Islam, then, is not just a matter of theo log - ical debate among isolated Muslim elites. It is a strategy to recon cil e Islam with changed sociopolitical circum stances. The Soviet Musli m elite, in an essen tial part of this strateg y, seeks to estab lish its own socio-religious author it y. Rein ter pre ta tions of Muslim identity are expressed through an orga ni za tional appa ra tus whose role itself has been rede fined . 72 Mark Saroyan

STRATEGIES OF RECONSTRUCTION: HOMOGENIZATION VS. REGIONALIZATION

While I have thus far concen trated on the general charac ter of re li- gious recon struc tion, this does not mean that it is a unitary proces s throughout the USSR. It is impor tant to distin guish between the forms of Islamic bureau cratic admin is tra tion and the partic u lar social role these admin is tra tions play. The insti tu tional structures of the Musli m Reli gious Boards are fairly standard ized throughout the countr y. From all available accounts, the model of the regional admin is tra tion with its numer ous depart ments and the local mosque with exec u tive and other commit tees appears to be univer sal.5 4 Other purely admin is tra tiv e features differ because of specific regional or geographic cir cum- stances. Thus since the Muslim commu nity in Azerbaijan is pre dom i- nantly Shi’ite, the Transcaucasian Muslim Reli gious Board combine s two posi tions of reli gious leader ship—a Shi’ite sheikh ul-Islam and a Sunni mufti. Also, the Tashkent admin is tra tion has “branch” office s headed by a reli gious function ary ( qazi ) in each of the Central Asian re - publics since this admin is tra tion’s juris dic tion extends over five siz - able terri to rial units.55 Notwith stand ing these fairly standard ized, consis tent in sti tu- tional features, the admin is tra tions oper ate under vastly differ en t circum stances in differ ent regions of the USSR. These include each region’s contem po rary and histor i cal level of socio eco nomic de vel - opment, cultural leg acy, the partic u lar local forms of reli gious ex - pression, and the nature and charac ter is tics of the regiona l admin is tra tion’s constit u enc y. Contrast, for exam ple, the con ser va- tive semi nar ian tradi tion of the Central Asian admin is tra tion to the modern ist heri tage of the Ufa admin is tra tion; compare the fairly ur - banized, nation ally homo ge neous constit u ency of the Baku re li gious estab lish ment with the rural, multi na tional, and strongly Sufi-oriented popu la tions under the North Cauca sian juris dic tion . Inter est ingl y, the Muslim elites themselves real ize the sig nif i- cance of regional varia tions and the poten tial of these differ ences for reli gious life: [The reli gious boards] conduct useful work in dissem i nat in g among their flocks the teachings of the Qur’an and the sunnah in The Rein ter pre ta tion and Adap ta tion of Soviet Islam 73

confor mity with the dogmas of the shariat which have their own spiri tual weight in respec tive places. 56 Moreover, the Muslim elites real ize that the rework ing of reli giou s ritual, while facil i tat ing accep tance in one area, may compli cate mat - ters in other areas due to specific regional differ ences. “The fun da- mentals of Islam,” they note, “are not always as simple as they appear to be.”57 Soviet scholars of Islam remark on these varia tion s as well. Ashirov points out that quite simply in a large country like the USSR, differ ences in the inter pre ta tion of the Qur’an are bound to exist and that, in addi tion, the process of Islamic modern iza tion it - self is an uneven devel op ment depend ent on local socio eco nomi c and histor i cal circum stances.5 8 Simi larl y, R. Aslanova describe s how the modern iza tion of Shi’ite Islam proceeds signif i cantly more slowly than Sunni Islam.5 9 The obser va tion that the mixing of na - tional and reli gious identi ties and the “liber a tion” of national iden - tity from reli gious influ ences are uneven processes highlights the poten tial for varia tion in the forms and substance of reli giou s change in differ ent parts of the USSR.60 Even with the limited infor ma tion on reli gious devel op men t under the four Muslim Reli gious Boards, many differ ences are ev i- dent in reli gious orien ta tions and practices, espe cially with respec t to the status of women in reli gious life.61 It is ana lyt i cally useful to identify two distinct trends in the devel op ment of Islamic re con- struction led by the regional Muslim elites: homog e ni za tion and regionalization. While these trends are in practice not neces sar il y mutu ally exclu sive, there is a funda men tal tension between them. Each of these trends can be ana lyzed in the context of each regiona l Muslim Reli gious Board’s efforts to estab lish and consol i date its own socio-religious author ity within its respec tive juris dic tion . The process of homog e ni za tion began with the impo si tion of standard ized insti tu tional structures on the vari ous Islamic tra di - tions in the USSR.62 Indeed while the movement toward uniform in - terpre ta tion of reli gious ritual and ideol ogy is condi tioned by the cultural envi ron ments of partic u lar Muslim elites, the Muslim Re li - gious Board for Central Asia and Kazakhstan, essen tially in the hands of the Uzbek Muslim elite, is never the less the driving force for the homog e ni za tion of Islam in the USSR.63 74 Mark Saroyan

In its promo tion of a unitary defi ni tion of Islam, the Uzbe k Muslim elite has at its disposal a number of insti tu tional mech a - nisms through which it can assert its power and author it y. Althoug h they overlap, one can distin guish three channels: the edu ca tional es - tablish ments, the reli gious instruc tions (fetwa), and the press. The most impor tant and evi dent is Uzbek control of the only two Musli m edu ca tional facil i ties in the country: the medresas of Bukhara and Tashkent. Aside from the restricted alter na tive of theolog i cal ed u ca- tion abroad, the two Uzbek semi nar ies are the only training grounds for aspir ing clerics, who come from throughout the country to at tend these insti tu tions. * The curric u lum of these insti tu tions is strictly controlled and is itself an impor tant means through which the Uz bek elite promotes its own under stand ing of ijtihad. This is achieved through the study of theolog i cal texts that conform (or are in ter- preted to conform) to a partic u lar defi ni tion of Islam in its spiri tua l and practi cal forms. Two other items stand out. One is that along with instruc tion in English, Russian, and Arabic, Uzbek language and liter a ture are sub - jects of study at the medresas. From descrip tions of life at the sem i- naries (and for that mat ter, interadministration affairs), it is not clear which is the language (or languages) of instruc tion or com mu ni ca- tion. It appears, howeve r, that just as Russian has a “special” role as the language of inter-nationality commu ni ca tion and “friendship ” among Soviet peoples, Uzbek—the “language of science and cul - ture”64 —may play a simi lar role in the USSR’s Muslim ad min is tra- tions. More signif i cant than language is the content of the edu ca tio n at these semi nar ies. In this respect, the inclu sion of the fetwa pro mul - gated by the Tashkent admin is tra tion into the curric u lum is im por- tant. Aspiring reli gious function ar ies from throughout the USSR are instructed in the author i ta tive reli gious prescrip tions of the Centra l Asian reli gious board. These pronounce ments on the defi ni tion of correct reli gious life, Islamic ritual, and the role and status of Islam in contem po rary soci ety are meant to be assim i lated by the people who will direct reli gious insti tu tions in their respec tive regions.6 5

*After comple tion of studies at the Uzbek medresas, a select number of Sovie t clerics are sent for supple men tal reli gious edu ca tion outside the USSR to the univesrities of al-Azhar (Egypt), Qarawyin (Morocco), al-baydha (Libya), and Damas cus (Syria). It is inter est ing to note that at least al-Azha and Qarawyin promote the theolog i cal impor tance of ijtihad. The Rein ter pre ta tion and Adap ta tion of Soviet Islam 75

The role of the Tashkent reli gious board’s fetwa outside of the medresas is a sepa rate channel of insti tu tional author it y. Soviet Mus - lim leaders stress the impor tance of the fetwa in estab lish ing of fi - cially sanctioned reli gious author ity and in imple ment ing elite instruc tions on reli gious practices and beliefs.6 6 Yet it is not clear what the rela tion of the Tashkent mufti’s fetwa is to those of other ad - minis tra tions. It is instruc tive to note the Tashkent admin is tra tion’ s assis tance in the reli gious life of the North Cauca sus and par tic u larly the use of the Tashkent fetwa in strengthen ing the posi tion of the North Cauca sian reli gious board.67 Related to the use of the fetwa is the conven ing of theolog i ca l and other confer ences in Tashkent, for both the Central Asian ad min- istra tion specif i cally (at which in any case repre sen ta tives from other admin is tra tions often attend) and the broader audi ence of all Sovie t Muslim elites. Aslanova notes that these confer ences, while not al - ways success ful in estab lish ing the Tashkent admin is tra tion’s de fin i- tive author it y, nonethe less are intended to unify and modern iz e Soviet Islam along specific lines.68 Apart from these confer ences , foreign reli gious dele ga tions invari ably spend most of their time in Uzbekistan with Uzbek reli gious leaders, and Soviet reli gious del e- gations that travel abroad are composed almost always of Uzbe k elites.69 Finally, the Uzbek Muslim elite has a virtual monop oly on the publi ca tion of reli gious mate ri als in the countr y. This does not refe r solely to the publi ca tion of the Tashkent admin is tra tion’s quarterl y journal (which in any case is of dubi ous acces si bil ity). The Tashkent Muslim Reli gious Board publishes editions of the Qur’an and also the works of author i ta tive Muslim theolo gians (includ ing of course the writings and fetwa of the Tashkent mufti). The signif i cance of these publi ca tions is not slighted by the Central Asian ad min is tra- tion. One of its repre sen ta tives noted the follow ing on the pub li ca- tion of the works of an (approved) Islamic theolo gian : The edition of Sahih of al-Bukhari marks the final victory of Isla m over super sti tion and obscu ran tism. . . . This book will satisfy all the spiri tual needs of Muslims. We are now well armed to defen d ourselves against the tempta tions of false theolo gians and false prophets. This edition is a divine gift which will help our ad vance along the right path.70 76 Mark Saroyan

Thus the Uzbek elites champion such publi ca tions as impor tan t steps in the recon struc tion of a true Islam and in the struggle against noncon form ist heret i cal ideas and practices. Signif i cantl y, it is the Uzbek elite that decides which inter pret ers of the faith are to be pub - lished, as well as how these works are to be under stood . In contrast to the homog e niz ing trend, one can identify a move toward local differ en ti a tion of Islamic identity in what I have re - ferred to as regionalization. The conflict between these two trends can be illus trated by a quota tion attrib uted to the mufti of the North Cauca sian Muslim Reli gious Board: I think that [Tashkent mufti] Zia ud-din Babakhanov’s fetwa do not corre spond to Islam. . . . Close ties between the two muftiats were only estab lished [at the Tashkent Muslim Congress in 1970].71 The regionalization of Islam involves an attempt by regional re li- gious elites to formu late an effec tive strategy in response to the loca l cultural tradi tions of their respec tive regions. Considering the mark - edly dif fer ent circum stances in which the regional Muslim elites op er- ate, the rework ing of locally oriented strate gies neces sar ily implies a differ en ti a tion of Islamic identity and practice. As a trend in Islamic re - construc tion, regionalization can be demon strated through a com par i- son of the North Cauca sian and Transcaucasian reli gious boards. The North Cauca sus is highly heter o ge neous in its ethnic com - posi tion and linguis tic vari et y.* Historically the primary expres sio n of reli gi os ity in the region is Sufism. The “mosque tendenc y,” char ac - terized by its semi nar ian tradi tion and ortho dox clergy, is rela tivel y weak. Origi nating from the Naqshbandiyya and Qadiriyya Sufi lin - eages, the widespread network of Sufi orders links the North Cau ca- sus’s dispa rate ethnic, linguis tic, clan, and village commu ni ties . Sufism is espe cially impor tant in the region since most mosques in the area were destroyed during the depor ta tion of Chechens and Ingushes in World War II.72 In these circum stances, the North Cau -

*The juris dic tion of the North Cauca sian Muslim Reli gious Board includes the Chechen-Ingush Auton o mous Soviet Social ist Republic (ASSR), the Dagestan ASSR, the Karbadin-Balkar ASSR, the North Ossetian ASSR, the Adygei Au ton- omous Region (AR), and the Karachai-Cherkess AR. In the USSR, these ad min is- trative divi sions are ethni cally based terri to rial units. Dagestan alone has over thirty nation al i ties and seven major liter ary languages. The Rein ter pre ta tion and Adap ta tion of Soviet Islam 77 casian reli gious board most clearly fits the descrip tion of an offi cia l Muslim elite isolated from the masses. The Makhachkala board’s ac - commo da tion to the strong Sufi orders would entail the con tam i na- tion of its ideolog i cal and orga ni za tional integ rity. For the Ma- khachkala elite to promote its own author ity in the region, it must distin guish itself from the too via ble alter na tive author ity to its own defi ni tion of Islam—the Sufi movements.7 3 The North Cauca sian reli gious board’s defi ni tion of Islami c identity and practice is thus ortho dox and exclusionary. The practi ca l result of this identi fi ca tion with a pristine Islam is mini mal or even no accom mo da tion to local tradi tions. The North Cauca sian board em - phasizes mosque worship and the reli gious author ity and primacy of the offi cial cleric. Pilgrim ages to local shrines (the mazar, or saint’s tomb) are discour aged, and the believ ing popu la tion is encour aged to partic i pate in reli gious ritu als performed by offi cial clerics in the state-registered mosques.74 The board is cautious not to overtly at - tack the popu lar Sufi orders, yet a number of its poli cies reflect its anti-Sufi orien ta tion. Its discour ag ing of pilgrim ages to the mazar—tradi tional meeting places of Sufis—is a case in point. The North Cauca sian clergy has issued a fetwa prohib it ing women from leading reli gious asso ci a tions. This can be under stood as a measur e aimed against the numer ous Sufi orders that are led by women and whose member ship is entirely female.7 5 In response to the cultural partic u lar i ties of its juris dic tion, the North Cauca sian elite has formu lated a strategy which is congru en t with the conser va tive, ortho dox inter pre ta tion of Islam promoted by the Central Asian Muslim clergy. Numer ous North Cauca sian cler ics are trained in the ortho dox semi nar ies of Central Asia, and the Tashkent-based reli gious board provides logis ti cal and moral sup - port to the Makhachkala admin is tra tion.7 6 In short, the North Cau - casian admin is tra tion has adopted the dogmatic variant of Islami c identity artic u lated by the Tashkent Muslim estab lish ment . In contrast to the North Cauca sian admin is tra tion, the Transcaucasian Muslim elite oper ates under vastly differ ent con di- tions. Aside from its juris dic tion over Muslims in Arme nia and Geor - gia (where in any case most Muslims are ethnic Azerbaijanis), the Baku reli gious board is staffed by Azerbaijanis and serves an Azerbaijani commu nit y. The Baku admin is tra tion can thus be char - acter ized as an Azerbaijani national insti tu tion. In Azerbaijan the 78 Mark Saroyan overlap ping of reli gious and national customs and identi ties is more common and likely since “Muslim” is coter mi nous with “Azerbaijani.”* The Baku admin is tra tion is also heir to a reli giou s admin is tra tion estab lished during the Tsarist period and thus may have some histor i cal legit i macy for the popu la tion . 77 Proba bly more impor tant, however, is that Azerbaijan’s Muslim commu nity is pre - domi nantly Shi’ite. In contrast to Sunni Islam, formal reli gious hi er - archy is not foreign to the histor i cal devel op ment of Shi’ite Islam . Thus the oper a tion of offi cial insti tu tions regu lat ing reli gious life can be seen as part of Azerbaijan’s Shi’ite heri tage.7 8 The Muslim Reli gious Board in Baku thus oper ates in a cul tur - ally much more intel li gi ble envi ron ment than the board of the North Cauca sus. Since in this sense it enjoys a greater degree of legit i mac y in popu lar eyes, it can more easily accom mo date partic u lar popu la r tradi tions by appro pri at ing them as its own legit i mate reli gious tra - ditions. For exam ple, while visi ta tions to saints’ tombs or other holy sites have been criti cized as heret i cal by the Tashkent and North Cauca sian estab lish ments, the Baku Muslim elite has encour age d such visi ta tions by orga niz ing pilgrim ages under its auspices to holy sites in Azerbaijan.79 In general, the inten sity of Islamic re con struc- tion is much less pronounced in the Azerbaijani admin is tra tion.8 0 The Baku elite’s appro pri a tion of popu lar Azerbaijani tradi tion s serves its quest to consol i date its socio-religious author ity and le git i- macy, whereas the Makhachkala admin is tra tion must oppose and distin guish itself from widespread popu lar customs in order to as - sert its author it y. In general, then, regional differ ences in the extent of ho mog e ni- zation reflect differ ences in the strategy adopted for consol i dat in g the regional Muslim elite’s author ity through the reli gious boards. Taking into account the histor i cal and sociocultural varia tions and regional partic u lar i ties of Islam in the USSR, the boards have to adopt differ ent strate gies of reli gious recon struc tion to both main - tain their orga ni za tional and ideolog i cal integ rity and defend and extend their socioreligious author it y. While the strate gies of Islami c recon struc tion take differ ent forms in response to differ ent cir cum- stances, this process is moder ated by the centrip e tal, homog e niz in g

*In contrast, a “Muslim” in the North Cauca sus can be a Chechen, Ingush, Avar, etc. The Rein ter pre ta tion and Adap ta tion of Soviet Islam 79 tendency promoted by the Uzbek Muslim elite in the Central Asian Muslim Reli gious Board.

CONCLUSION

Conven tional Western studies of Islam in the USSR con sis tently maintain the funda men tal incom pat i bil ity of Islam and com mu nism. They assert that Islam and Soviet social ism are mutu ally exclu siv e phenom ena—if not practi call y, at least ideolog i call y.81 Accord ingl y, observ ers conclude that either Soviet Islam has become isolated from soci ety through its coop er a tion with the regime, or that Islam by its mere exis tence poses a threat to the Soviet state. Inter est ingl y, con - ventional Soviet and Western studies of Islam tend toward a simi la r argu ment that Soviet Islam repre sents past tradi tion and a cus tom - ary way of life; its contin ued exis tence in the USSR is explained ei - ther as an “objec tively baseless” collec tion of feudal-type remnant s or the proud persis tence of an entire soci ety and culture despite So - viet efforts to destroy it. Here I have exam ined the problem of Islam in the USSR in an - other way. Rather than assume that Islam is simply a vesti gial phe - nome non, I have argued that Islam is actively repro duced in Sovie t soci ety and insti tu tion ally maintained through the Muslim Re li - gious Boards. Islam is not simply an unchanged tradi tion; rather, through the inter ven tion of the Muslim cleri cal elites, it repre sents a novel social identity—a recon structed Islam . The recon struc tion of Islam not only reflects transfor ma tions in the mate rial and ideolog i cal condi tions of soci ety and in popu la r self-identification, but it also consti tutes a novel under stand ing of soci ety and social conscious ness. This refor mu la tion of reli giou s identity is not a pecu liarly Soviet devel op ment, but repre sents a common response to the confron ta tion of Muslim soci ety with Eu ro - pean moder nit y. Although reli gious change in Islam is a univer sa l process, in the USSR the specific forms of Islamic recon struc tion re - flect the condi tions of Soviet soci ety and partic u lar cultural and his - tori cal legacy of the country’s diverse Islamic heri tage. Sovie t Muslim elites posit new defi ni tions not only of Islam, but also of So - 80 Mark Saroyan viet social ism, in which the two are appar ently recon ciled. Through reli gious recon struc tion, the Soviet Muslim clergy seek to inte grat e themselves and their commu ni ties into the hege monic Soviet orde r while simul ta neously assert ing and reas sert ing their own socio-religious legit i macy . This process, how ever, is not conflict-free. The Muslim elites face not only obsta cles from the regime, which is aware of the role reli giou s inno va tion plays in the revi tal iza tion of Islam, but also from the pop u- lation, where the Muslim elites must overcome popu lar alter na tives to their recon structed forms of reli gious identit y. Finally, reli gious re con- struction is not a unitary process rather it assumes dif fer ent forms in re - sponse to diver gent cultural envi ron ments of the several tradi tion all y Muslim regions in the USSR. In short, offi cial Islam in the Soviet Unio n is not a stagnant, isolated bureau cracy but a dynamic social force re - sponsive to regional varia tion and local circum stances . I have empha sized the inte gra tive quali ties of Islamic re con - struction while only briefly noting the points of tension and conflict . Simi larl y, I have concen trated on elite moti va tions and behav io r more in terms of their ideal inter ests than in their mate rial, prag - matic concerns. This approach is perhaps partially in response to the contrar y, domi nant trend in the Western study of Soviet Islam. Yet I should qualify my argu ment fur ther. To date, the reli gious boards have fairly effec tively demar cated a path to inte grate their con stit u- encies on two levels—the Muslim and the Soviet. Yet it remains to be seen to what extent the Muslim elite’s recon structed Islam will suc - cessfully estab lish an inte gra tive and comple men tary identity or be - come an alter na tive, subver sive source of iden tity. As I have argued , reli gious recon struc tion is not something that “begins” with tra di - tional reli gion and “ends” with the estab lish ment of modern re li - gion. Islamic recon struc tion is an ongo ing response to socia l change—hence its devel op ment is contin gent on both sociopolitical condi tions and effec tive cleri cal strate gies. Like the New Soviet Man, the New Soviet Muslim is still being built. The Rein ter pre ta tion and Adap ta tion of Soviet Islam 81

NOTES

1. Some of the recent liter a ture includes John L. Esposito, ed., Islam and De vel- opment: Reli gion and Sociopolitical Change (Syra cuse: Syra cuse Univer sit y Press, 1980); Daniel Pipes, In the Path of God: Islam and Polit i cal Power (New York: Basic Books, 1983); James P. Piscatori, ed., Islam in the Polit i cal Proces s (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer sity Press, 1983). (The arti cle by Fouad Ajami, in all fairness, does not fit well into the Piscatori volume’s overal l perspec tive. ) 2. AIexandre Bennigsen, “Modern iza tion and Conser va tism in Soviet Islam, ” in Reli gion and Modern iza tion in the Soviet Unio n , ed. Dennis J. Dunn (Boul - der: Westview Press, 1977), p. 258. In his assump tion of a transhistorical “Moslem unity,” Bennigsen also refers to the ”Mos lem mille t “ of Tsarist Rus- sia, thus drawing a false analogy between a specific Otto man insti tu tion, the millet system (along with all its sociohistorical impli ca tions), and the socia l structure of the Muslim regions under Tsarist Russian domin ion (Alexandre Bennigsen and Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay, Les Musulmans oubliés: L’Islam en U.R.S.S. aujourd’hui [Paris: Maspero, 1981], pp. 29, 35, as well as in other works by the same authors) . 3. For a clear exam ple of this, see M. V. Vagabov, Islam i voprosy ateisticheskogo vospitaniia [Islam and problems of atheist edu ca tion], 2d ed. (Moscow : Vysshaia Shkola, 1982), pp. 109–18. 4. For an expo si tion of this argu ment, see Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construc tion of Real it y (Garden City, N.Y.: Ancho r Books, 1967). Mary Douglas and Peter Berger, who often disagree on other issues, also view reli gion as a cultural system that is socially constructed . For an overview of their contri bu tions to the soci ol ogy of reli gion, see the rele vant chapters of Cultural Analy si s (London: RKP, 1984). 5. For a concise overview of the admin is tra tions’ oper a tions, see Alexandre Bennigsen and Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay, “’Offi cial’ Islam in the So viet Un ion,” Reli gion in Commu nist Lands 7, 3 (Autumn 1979). 6. Timur Kocaoglu, “Islam in the Soviet Union: Atheis tic Propa ganda and ‘Un - offi cial’ Reli gious Ac tiv ities,” Journal Insti tute of Muslim Minor ity Affair s 5, 1 (Janu ary 1984): 147. 7. Ibid. 8. See in partic u lar: Alexandre Bennigsen and Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay, “Muslim Reli gious Conser va tism and Dissent in the USSR,” Reli gion in Com - munist Lands 6, 3 (Autumn 1978): 154; Alexandre Bennigsen, “Soviet Mus- lims and the World of Is lam,” Problems of Com mu nism, March–April 1980: 42–43; Bennigsen, “Modern iza tion and Conser va tism” p. 253; James Critchlow, “Islam and Nation al ism in Soviet Central Asia,” in Reli gion and Nation al ism in Soviet and East Euro pean Poli tic s , ed. Pedro Ramet (Durham , N.C.: Duke Univer sity Press Policy Studies, 1984); and David Nissman, 82 Mark Saroyan

“Iran and Soviet Islam: The Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan SSRs,” Centra l Asian Surve y 2, 4 (Decem ber 1983): 58. 9. This view is expressed quite bluntly in Bennigsen, “Soviet Muslims,” p. 46. 10. Clandes tine Sufi orders are among such asso ci a tions whose activ i ties are not offi cially condoned and evalu ated as more threaten ing (Bennigsen and Lemercier-Quelquejay, “’Offi cial’ Islam,” pp. 153, 157). 11. Marie Broxup, “Recent Devel op ments in Soviet Is lam,” Reli gion in Com mu- nist Lands 11, 1 (Spring 1983). 12. The signif i cance of such transfor ma tion and its divest ing of tradi tional so - cial insti tu tions of their polit i cal impli ca tions is under scored by Ken Jowitt in his concep tion of the role of family and village in collec tiv ized Lenin is t systems. See The Lenin ist Response to National De pend ency (Berkeley: In sti tute of Inter na tional Studies 1978), pp. 63–73. As noted be low, Soviet authors ex - plain the devel op ment of pro-state orien ta tions among the Muslim clergy in terms of the success ful construc tion of social ism and the destruc tion of the insti tu tional and social basis of anti-Soviet and antistate activ ity (A. Akhmedov, Sotsial’naia doktrina islama [Moscow: Politizdat, 1982], p. 120). 13. See refer ences in note 8, espe cially Nissman. 14. All major Soviet studies of Islam in the USSR discuss reli gious mod ern iza- tion. For some of the best exam ples, see Nugman Ashirov, Evoliutsiia islama v SSSR [The evolu tion of Islam in the USSR] (Moscow: Politizdat, 1973); T. S. Saidbaev, Islam i obshchestvo [Islam and soci ety], 2d ed. (Moscow: Nauka, 1984); and Islam v SSSR [Islam in the USSR] (Moscow: Mysl’, 1983), esp. ch. 8. 15. Vagabov, p. 122. 16. G. Khälilov, “Azärbaïjanda shäriät galyglarynyn müasir väziïïätinä dair” [On the contem po rary situ a tion of shariat vestiges in Azerbaijan], Azärbaïjan dövlät universiteti, Elmi äsärlär, Tarikh, hügug vä fälsäfä seriïasy 3 (1971): 83. 17. This account was based primar ily on Islam v SSSR, pp. 105–6; Vagabov, pp. 103–26; Ashirov, Evoliutsiia, chs. 1 and 4; and Khälilov. 18. This approach is espe cially appar ent in Vagabov’s discus sion of the reason s for the mainte nance of reli gious vestiges. Accord ing to him, resid ual Isla m is directly explain able in its scope and depth with refer ence to varia tions in the mate rial condi tions of the tradi tion ally Muslim regions of the USSR (see pp. 109–18). An excep tion to the crudely mate ri al ist theory of Soviet Islam is Saidbaev. 19. Hélène Carrère-d’Encausse, “Islam in the Soviet Union: Attempts at Mod- ern iza tion,” Reli gion in Commu nist Lands 2, 4–5 (July–Octo ber 1974): 19. 20. Bennigsen, “Modern iza tion and Conser va tism,” p. 251. 21. Ibid., p. 259. The Rein ter pre ta tion and Adap ta tion of Soviet Islam 83

22. Islamic recon struc tion thus reflects not simply the ma te rial but also the ideal inter ests of the Soviet Muslim elite. See Ken Jowitt’s elabo ra tion of Weber’s distinc tion between ideal and mate rial inter ests in “Scien tific Social ist Re - gimes in Africa: Polit i cal Differ en ti a tion, Avoidance and Unaware ness,” in Social ism in Sub-Saharan Africa: A New Assess ment , ed. Carl G. Rosberg and Thomas M. Callaghy (Berkeley: Insti tute of Inter na tional Studies, 1979), pp. 148–49. 23. In this sense, I agree with Michael Taussig that novel reli gious concepts are not simply vestiges of tradi tional super sti tions. He overstates his case, how - ever, by quali fy ing these recon struc tions as “precise formu la tions” and “system atic critiques” of the social order. Moreover, he tries too hard to em- phasize that these reli gious inno va tions repre sent artic u late rejec tions of the incip i ent capi tal ist mode of produc tion, whereas clearly in the case of Sovie t Islam, the under ly ing motive of recon struc tion is accom mo da tion, not op - posi tion. See his “The Gene sis of Capi tal ism amongst a South Ameri ca n Peasantry: Devil’s Labor and the Baptism of Money,” Compar a tive Studies in Soci ety and Histor y 19 (April 1977), espe cially the conclu sion . 24. Madzhidov, “Modernistskie tendentsii v islame v usloviiakh sotsializma” [Modern ist tenden cies in Islam in the condi tions of so cial ism], Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 31 (1983): 223–24. 25. Ibid., p. 225. 26. Bryan S. Turner, Weber and Islam: A Criti cal Study (London: RKP, 1974), p. 148. My use of the consti tu tion/re flec tion dia lec tic follows from the dis cus- sion of culture and cultural produc tion in Raymond Wil liams, Marxism and Lit er a ture (Oxford: Oxford Univer sity Press, 1977), pp. 11–20ff. 27. Many Western observ ers view Islam as centrif u gal precisely because they define Islamic and Soviet identi ties to be incon gru ous and view these iden ti- ties in reified terms. It thus follows that a reas ser tion of Islam is logi call y anti-Soviet in nature. For a concise expo si tion of this perspec tive, see Alexandre Bennigsen and Marie Broxup, The Islamic Threat to the Soviet State (London: Croom Helm, 1982). 28. This distinc tion is put forth by Abner Cohen in Two-Dimensional Man (Berke- ley: Univer sity of Cali for nia Press, 1974), pp. 3–4, 26–30. 29. Steven Lukes, “Polit i cal Ritual and Social In te gra tion,” Soci ol og y 9, 2: 302. 30. Ibid., p. 305. 31. For exam ples of the Muslim elite’s posi tions along this line, see Islam v SSSR, pp. 108–14; and Ashirov, Evoliutsiia, esp. ch. 2. 32. Simi larly, Turner (pp. 137–50) points out that Islamic reform estab lishes a re- ligious identity that is congru ent with sociopolitical change in modern so ci- eties . 33. For an overview in English, see Carrère-d’Encausse. 34. Muslims of the Soviet East 4 (1984): 11. The Soviet Muslim elite’s reas ser tion of the reli gious author ity of these semi nal writings is a feature common to the 84 Mark Saroyan

scripturalist or reform ist movement in other Muslim soci et ies. The recours e to reli gious scriptures and Islamic law, moreover, reflects Islam’s ratio na l quality and compat i bil ity with the modern age. See Clifford Geertz, Isla m Observed: Reli gious Devel op ment in Morocco and In do ne sia (Chicago and Lon- don: Univer sity of Chicago Press, 1968), pp. 65ff., and Turner, pp. 146–47. 35. Ashirov, Evoliutsiia, pp. 11–17. For an analy sis of the variant uses of jihad in differ ent sociopolitical contexts, see Hannah R. Rahman, “The Concept of Ji- had in Egypt: A Study of Majallat al-Azhar (1936–1982),” in Islam, Na tion al ism and Radi cal ism in Egypt and the Sudan , ed. G. R. Warburg and U. M. Kupferschmidt (New York: Praeger, 1983). 36. Ashirov, Evoliutsiia , pp. 39–42. 37. In order to justify the doctrine of ijtihad, or rather to estab lish it as a fun da- mental direc tion in Islam, the Muslim elites cite histor i cal Muslim leader s such as Abu Hanifa (767–800) and Shihabeddin Marjani (1818–99) to por tray the legit i macy of this doctrine. For exam ples, see Ashirov, Evoliulsiia , as well as rele vant arti cles from the jour nal Muslims of the Soviet East . 38. Muslims of the Soviet East 1 (1984): 12. (Here and below, I have edited the prose in all selec tions from the English-language edition of this journal. ) 39. Ibid. 4 (1983): 3. 40. Muslims can thus partic i pate in revo lu tion ary transfor ma tions and main - tain their Muslim identit y. This perspec tive perme ates pronounce ments of offi cial Soviet clerics: “During the past 60 years, the previ ously backwar d peoples of the Soviet East have indeed attained historic success in economi c and cultural construc tion and have shown the entire world that Muslims , too, can attain the heights of progres s ” ( Muslims of the Soviet East 4 [1977]: 1, as quoted in Akhmedov, pp. 124–25; empha sis added). 41. Khälilov, pp. 85–86. 42. These and other exam ples abound in Ashirov, Evoliutsiia, ch.5. 43. This issue is discussed exten sively in Nugman Ashirov, Islam i natsii [Isla m and nations] (Moscow: Politizdat, 1975). For a shorter but valuable state- ment, see A. M. Shükürov and S. Ä. Mähärrämov, “Dini vä milli aïry-sechkilik galyglarynyn älagäsinä dair” [On the connec tion of the ves- tiges of reli gious and national prej u dice], Azärbaïjan SSR Elmlär Akademiïasy, Khäbärlär, Tarikh, hügug vä fälsäfä seriïasy 2 (1980). 44. Islam v SSSR, pp. 30, 39; Shükürov and Mähärrämov, pp. 125–26ff. 45. Ibid., p. 126. 46. For exam ple, with refer ence to the Uigurs, one author posits a contra dic tio n between reli gious and national identity and notes a “more power ful at tach- ment to a supra-national grouping, that of the commu nity of Muslims” (Jon Soper, “Unof fi cial Islam: A Muslim Minor ity in the USSR,” Reli gion in Com - munist Lands 7, 4 [Winter 1979]: 229). The uncrit i cal and ahistorical as sump- tion of a fixed, all-encompassing Islamic identity is common not only in the The Rein ter pre ta tion and Adap ta tion of Soviet Islam 85

conven tional liter a ture on Islam in the USSR, but also in studies of Sovie t nation al ity policy . 47. In some respects, this accords with Gregory Massel’s notion of “tacti cal na- tion-states” in Soviet devel op men tal strateg y. See The Surro gate Prole tar iat : Moslem Women and Revo lu tion ary Strategies in Soviet Central Asia, 1919–1929 (Princeton: Princeton Univer sity Press, 1974). For a shorter expo si tion of this perspec tive, see his “Modern iza tion and National Policy in Soviet Cen - tral Asia: Problems and Prospects,” in The Dynam ics of Soviet Poli tics , ed. Paul Cocks (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univer sity Press, 1976). 48. Jadid refers to the Islamic reform movement in nineteenth- and early twen ti- eth-century Tsarist Russia that origi nated in Muslim efforts for edu ca tiona l reform (hence usul-i jadid, or “new method” schools). For useful short bi og- raphies of the major reform ers, see Alexandre Bennigsen and S. Ender s Wimbush, Muslim National Commu nism in the Soviet Un ion (Chicago: Uni ver- sity of Chicago Press, 1979), pp. 191–211. Most studies of this movement are inad e quate, but among the better exam ples are Hélène Carrère-d’Encausse, Réforme et révolution chez les Musulmans de I’Empire russe, Bukhara 1867–1924 (Paris: A. Colin, 1966), Cahiers de la Fondation Nationale des Science s Politiques, No. 141; and Serge A. Zenkovsky, Pan-Turkism and Islam in Russi a (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univer sity Press, 1960). Puri fi ca tion of his tor i- cally “corrupted” reli gion and the reas ser tion of an “authen tic” Islam in op - posi tion to popu lar expres sions of reli gion are common ele ments in move - ments for Islamic recon struc tion throughout the Muslim world. In part, it is this “corrup tion” of Islam that serves as ratio nale for the recon struc tion (in reli gious language, puri fi ca tion) of reli gion. See Geertz, pp. 56–89; Fazlur Rahman, Islam , 2d ed. (Chicago: Univer sity of Chicago Press, 1979), pp. 193–234; and Turner, pp. 144–50. 49. Muslims of the Soviet East 1 (1984): 17. 50. Ibid. 1 (1983): 1–2. 51. Ibid. 3 (1983): 7–8. 52. Ibid. 3 (1983): 7–8, and 4 (1983): 8. 53. Ibid. 3 (1982): 17. 54. See, for exam ple, A. Vakhabov, Muslims in the USSR (Moscow: Novosti, 1980), pp. 23–33. 55. Vakhabov, pp. 25–26. In this respect, it is not clear if the Transcaucasian ad- minis tra tion simi larly has repre sen ta tive offices for the Muslim minor i tie s of Georgia and Arme nia under its juris dic tion . 56. Muslims of the Soviet East 2 (1982): 7; empha sis added. 57. Ibid. 2 (1983): 10. 58. Ashirov, Evoliutsiia , intro duc tion . 86 Mark Saroyan

59. R. Aslanova, “Shiälikdä modernizmin kharakteri” [The charac ter of mod- ernism in Shi’ism], Azärbaïjan dövlät universiteti, Elmi äsärlär, Tarikh, hügug vä fälsäfä seriïasy 4 (1979): 41. 60. Islam v SSSR, p. 49. 61. For many instances of these differ ences, see Saidbaev. 62. The role of offi cial, “ortho dox” reli gious insti tu tions in the homog e ni za tio n of Islamic worship is a theme of M. Demidov’s study of Islam in nineteenth - and twenti eth-century Turkmenistan, Sufizm v Turkmenii: Evoliutsiia i perezhitki [Sufism in Turkmenistan: Evolu tion and vestiges] (Ashkhabad: Ylym, 1978). 63. Others have also noted the “hege monic” or “impe ri al ist” posi tion of the Uz - beks (Bennigsen and Broxup, pp. 139–40). 64. Appar ently the Uzbek language is so described in the journal of the Tashkent admin is tra tion. The refer ence comes from Vagabov, p. 126, and Madzhidov, p. 236. 65. This is not a simple achievement. Many Soviet authors point out regiona l varia tions in reli gious expres sion and note the conflicts that arise from these varia tions. For exam ple, the Lenin grad mosque’s newly appointed re li gious leader, who was edu cated in Central Asia, was removed from his posi tio n by his flock after he prohib ited the sale of tickets to a music concert and ex - horted his parish io ners not to watch televi sion. Also, while the birth of Mu - hammad is widely cele brated in private homes by clerics in Tatarstan, the Central Asian reli gious board has restricted the obser vance of this ritual to mosques (Ashirov, Evoliutsiia , pp. 10–22). 66. Muslims of the Soviet East 4 (1984) 7–8. 67. Ibid. 2 (1983): 6. 68. Aslanova, “Shiälikdä modernizmin kharakteri,” p. 42. 69. Bennigsen and Broxup, pp. 104–7. 70. As cited in Bennigsen and Lemercier-Quelquejay, “‘Offi cial’ Islam,” p. 155. 71. Ibid. , p. 150. 72. For discus sion of North Cauca sus Islam, see A. Avksent’ev, Islam na severnom Kavkaze [Islam in the North Cauca sus], 2d ed. (Stavropol’, 1984); Kharakter religioznosti i problemy ateisticheskogo vospitaniia [The charac ter of reli gi os ity and problems of atheis tic edu ca tion] (Groznyi, 1979); M. Z. Magomedov, “Iz istorii resheniia natsional’nogo i religioznogo voprosov na severnom Kavkaze” [From the history of the revo lu tion of the national and reli gious questions in the North Cau ca sus], Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma 14 (1973). On this last point, see espe cially Bennigsen and Lemercier-Quelquejay, “Islam parallèlle en Union Soviétique,” Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique 21, 1 (Janu ary–March 1980): 53–55; Marie Broxup, “Islam and Atheism in the North Cau ca sus,” Reli gion in Commu nist Lands 9, 1–2 (Spring 1981): 40–41. The Rein ter pre ta tion and Adap ta tion of Soviet Islam 87

73. Avksent’ev stresses that the reconstructionist (modern ist) tendency in the North Cauca sus is evi dent solely in the offi cial clergy of the reli gious board and that this tendency is weakly reflected in the practic ing reli gious com - muni ties. In this region, he stresses, “tradi tion prevails over modern ism ” (pp. 251–52). 74. This was under lined in a recent meeting with parish io ners in Buinaksk: “Proper accom plish ment of namazes in a mosque is valued by Allah much more than namazes performed in homes” ( Muslims of the Soviet East 4 [1983]: 8). 75. Saidbaev, p. 240. 76. Under the rubric “Theolo gians Exchange Expe ri ence,” a recent arti cle in Muslims of the Soviet East (4 [1983]) provides numer ous exam ples of such as - sistance . 77. A reli gious admin is tra tion was first estab lished in Baku in 1872 and op er- ated until Febru ary 1917 (G. Mustafaïev, “Charizm vä Islam [Azärbaïjan, XX äsrin ävvälläri]” [Tsarism and Islam in early twenti eth-century Azerbaijan], Azärbaïjan dövlät universiteti, Elmi äsärlär, Tarikh, hügug vä fälsäfä seriïasy 4 (1973): 18–19. 78. The creation of offi cial reli gious insti tu tions under the Safavid dynasty can be under stood as a charac ter-defining event for the later devel op ment of Shi’ite Islam, espe cially for Azerbaijani Islam. Under the Savafids, the of fi- cial clergy was in close alli ance but subor di nate to the state. This clergy-state coali tion began to disin te grate under the Qajar dynasty, but norther n Azerbaijan (today’s Soviet Azerbaijan) was already annexed to the Russia n empire in the early stages of Qajar rule. See Hamid Algar, Reli gion and the State in Iran, 1785–1906 (Berkeley: Univer sity of Cali for nia Press, 1969), pp. 5–40. For a review of the insti tu tional devel op ment of Shi’ite Islam with par - ticu lar refer ence to Azerbaijan, see R. Aslanova, “Shiälikdä räsmi vä geïri-räsmi ruhaniliïin fäaliïätinin kharakteri” [The charac ter and activ ity of the offi cial and nonof fi cial clergy in Shi’ism], in Islam tarikhdä vä müasir dövrdä (Elmi äsärlärin tematik mäjmuäsi) (Baku: Azärbaïjan Dövlät Universitetinin Näshri, 1981). 79. Aslanova, “Shiälikdä modernizmin kharakteri,” p. 44. In fact, Aslanova (“Shiälikdä räsmi vä geïri-räsmi,” p. 54) includes an offi cial “holy site” along with Azerbaijan’s offi cially regis tered ten Shi’ite, two Sunni, and five mixed mosques. 80. The point is confirmed in Aslanova, “Shiälikdä modernizmin kharakteri.” Precise infor ma tion on the training of the Azerbaijani clergy is not avail able, but the fact that the sheikh ul-Islam of the Transcaucasian reli gious board was edu cated in Mashad suggests a more local ized, non-Central Asian ori- enta tion toward Islamic recon struc tion . 81. Hélène Carrère-d’Encausse, Decline of an Empire: The Soviet Social ist Re pub- lics in Re volt (New York: Newsweek Books, 1979), pp. 263–64. THE RESTRUCTURING OF SOVIET ISLAM IN THE GORBACHEV ERA: INTERETHNIC FRAGMENTATION AND THEMATIC CONTINUITY

A central tenet of Western study of the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s was that the country’s Muslim popu la tion posed a seri ou s threat to social and polit i cal stabil it y.1 The argu ments presente d were at once complex and simple. Histor i cal ani mos i ties betwee n Russian colo niz ers and the Muslim colo nized were solid i fied, in this mainstream perspec tive, by an inev i ta ble conflict between Russia n commu nism and reli gion. Along more contem po rary lines, the So - viet Union was clearly facing an immi nent economic and polit i ca l crisis, and a perceived demo graphic boom among Soviet Muslim s appeared to portend increas ing demands in condi tions of increas in g scarcit y. With the rise of Muslim funda men tal ism in some countries , the Soviet inva sion of Afghan i stan, and the Islamic revo lu tion in Iran, Western fear of Islam and Muslims in general served to ex ac er- bate predic tions of an Islamic-based insta bil ity in the Soviet Union . It has become banal—al beit not inac cu rate—to note that the So - viet Union is in crisis. The state is rapidly disin te grat ing and the country is wracked by deep economic crisis, the after math of a failed coup, repub lics that have effec tively estab lished their in de pend ence, and the persis tence of several interethnic civil wars. Given all this, it may be fair to ask: Where is the Islamic threat to the Soviet state so commonly talked about in recent years? One of the assump tions of mainstream Western study of Sovie t Islam was a natu ral divi sion between Islam and the Soviet state. This view, combined with presump tions about the natu ral unity of all Muslims, led to the argu ment that Soviet author i ties would strive to inhibit the presumed unity of Islam. This polic y, the argu ment went, was made most mani fest in the estab lish ment of the Muslim Re li - gious Boards ( dukhovnoe upravlenie ). Given the collapse of the Sovie t state, the assump tions of this argu ment would have led us to expec t

88 Re struc turing of So viet Is lam in the Gorbachev Era 89 a weaken ing of Soviet poli cies of divide and rule and the immi nen t rever sion of Islam to its “natu ral” state of reli gious soli dar ity and unity. In fact, there was virtu ally no impulse toward unity among Muslims in the Soviet Union. Rather, the tendency was toward in - creasing fragmen ta tion along ethnic, sectar ian, and insti tu tiona l lines. The discrep an cies between the conven tional perspec tive and my view revolve around two basic problems, the first theo ret i cal and the second method olog i cal. Let me begin with the theo ret i cal . Depending on taste and incli na tion, observ ers of poli tics, from the social scien tist to the journal ist, regu larly focus on a wide range of subjects such as insti tu tions, social forces, histor y, and per son al i- ties. In the study of Islam, however (and espe cially Islam in the So - viet Union), polit i cal analy sis frequently moves into the realm of the metaphys i cal. Islam is consid ered monolithic and unchang ing and discon nected from social forces, histor y, insti tu tions, and per son al i- ties; it is thus transformed into a concretized thing—a thinking and acting subject. Only in this perspec tive can “Islam” be seen as a non - human kind of power ful force, a threat to stabil ity that must either be tamed (the moder ate view) or elimi nated (the extreme view) lest it overwhelm every thing that is non-Islam. I have conducted research among Muslims throughout the So - viet Union—from Tbilisi to Irkutsk, from Baku to Bukhara. I have spoken with many people and seen many things, but I have yet to find Islam. I have never inter viewed Islam. That is because Isla m does not exist. Muslims, howeve r, do exist. Like other humans, Mus - lims live in specifiable socio eco nomic, polit i cal, histor i cal, and cul - tural contexts. And they have inter ests and atti tudes based in part on these contexts and their under stand ing of Islam. In their “natu ral ” state, then, Muslims are as diverse as the contexts in which they live and the Islams that they imagine . My oppo si tion to an analy sis that assumes a fixed and mono - lithic Islam implies a certain kind of method olog i cal approach. This paper is not about some abstrac tion we call Islam. Rather, it is about changes within Soviet Muslim reli gious insti tu tions—par tic u larl y the Muslim Reli gious Boards and the networks of reli gious or ga ni za- tions that oper ate under their auspices. Islam has no inter ests, but Muslim clerics do. Islam has no opinions, but the edi tors of Islami c maga zines do. By focus ing on the activ ity of these real people work - ing in real insti tu tions, I hope to highlight both the transfor ma tion s 90 Mark Saroyan taking place among Soviet Muslims and my critique of what may be described as a metaphys ics of Islam . One of the most striking conse quences of the restruc tur in g (perestroika) of the Soviet Union is the inter nally gener ated re struc - turing of the country’s Islamic insti tu tions. This admin is tra tive re - structur ing has proceeded largely accord ing to ethnic and sectar ia n differ ences within the Muslim commu nit y. My focus on the Musli m Reli gious Boards and their affil i ated orga ni za tions is justi fi able on a number of grounds. Since World War II they have had an in sti tu- tional monop oly on Islamic thought and practice. Moreove r, even though in the Gorbachev era they were increas ingly confront in g challenges from newly orga nized, inde pend ent Muslim movement s and orga ni za tions, they remained power ful actors in the Musli m commu nit y. Indeed their finan cial and human resources, not to men - tion their orga ni za tional strength and coher ence, remained un ri- valed. The CPSU’s time may have passed, but the Muslim Reli giou s Boards were vital partic i pants in the poli tics of Islam throughou t Gorbachev’s tenure . Change in rela tions between Islam and the state began, ironi call y, with the 1988 cele bra tions of 1,000 years of Christian ity in Russia . Thereaf ter a general relax ation of insti tu tional and polit i cal restric tion s on reli gious activ ity became evi dent, and Soviet tradi tions of an ti re li- gious polem ics gave way to more posi tive evalu a tions of the role of re li- gion in Soviet soci et y. In effect, journal ists and poli ti cians increas ingl y adopted tradi tional cleri cal argu ments about the bene fi cial role of re li- gion in soci et y, thus transform ing the clergy’s sometime oppositional discourse into a tenet of main stream polit i cal thought. Both insti tu tion ally and ideolog i call y, such changes in pre dom - inant atti tudes toward reli gion had a profound impact on the scope and nature of Muslim reli gious life throughout the countr y. The gen - eral trend toward liber al iza tion had both quanti ta tive and qual i ta - tive conse quences for Soviet Islam. Many of the changes repre sente d an expan sion—some times dramatic—of insti tu tions and practice s that charac ter ized reli gious life during the period of zastoi (stag na- tion) under Brezhne v. In other cases, the activ ity of the Muslim Re li - gious Boards under went an impor tant restruc tur ing with profoun d impli ca tions for the future of the Muslim commu nit y. Among the quanti ta tive changes, perhaps the most visi ble was the campaign, initi ated after 1988, to open new mosques throughou t Re struc turing of So viet Is lam in the Gorbachev Era 91 the country. Vari ous bureau cratic and polit i cal obsta cles that had tradi tion ally impeded the oper a tion of mosques—and indeed fre - quently had led to their ille gal closure—were cleared away, al low ing for a rapid increase in the building of new houses of worship and the resto ra tion to reli gious commu ni ties of older mosques.2 The sudden expan sion in the number of mosques created a per - sonnel crisis in the Muslim commu nit y. More mosques meant a greater need for reli gious offi cials, espe cially parish imams. To meet these needs, two paths were followed by the leader ship of the Mus - lim Boards. In numer ous cases, unreg is tered clerics who performe d reli gious services on an infor mal (and nonle gal) basis were certi fie d by the boards and incor po rated into the offi cial structure of the or ga - nized Muslim commu nit y. For the long-term needs of the com mu- nity, howeve r, new centers for reli gious edu ca tion were set up throughout the countr y. In the postwar Soviet Union, only two re li - gious schools oper ated for the training of clerics: the Mir-Arab medresa in Bukhara (a middle school in Soviet edu ca tional terms) and the al-Bukhari Islamic Insti tute in Tashkent (an estab lish ment with the status of higher edu ca tion). Under Gorbachev, Islamic middl e and higher schools were opened in Ufa (Bashkiria), Baku (Azerbaijan), and Makhachkala (the capi tal of Dagestan). In Centra l Asia, schools were opened in Alma-Ata (Kazakhstan), Dushanbe (Tajikistan), and Tashauz (Turkmenistan). The edu ca tional progra m of these estab lish ments varied from two to five years, and like their older counter parts, they were not designed to provide reli gious ed u- cation for the general popu la tion. Rather, they provided solely for the edu ca tion and training of young men who planned to enter re li - gious service as mosque-based offi cials or admin is tra tors in one of the Muslim Reli gious Boards. During the period of stagna tion, the Muslim Reli gious Boards had a limited but regu lar program of publi ca tions. These include d the printing of annual Muslim calen dars and vari ous reli giou s books, includ ing editions of the Qur’an and author i ta tive col lec tions of prophetic tradi tions. The Central Asian Muslim Board also pub - lished a quarterly jour nal, Muslims of the Soviet East, which was cir cu- lated only among clerics and readers abroad. In the Gorbachev era these publish ing activ i ties were ex - panded. In addi tion to more book titles with higher press runs, the Muslim Board for Central Asia, for exam ple, initi ated publi ca tion of 92 Mark Saroyan

Muslims of the Soviet East in Uzbek in both the Arabic and the more widely acces si ble modi fied Cyril lic script. Once diffi cult to obtain , the journal’s press run grew to 50,000 and was distrib uted via the of - ficial state press distrib u tor in towns and cities throughou t Uzbekistan and other parts of Central Asia. Even more signif i cant was the creation of a mass-circulation Muslim press. In 1990 Islam Nuri (Light of Islam), a biweekly news - paper edited by the Central Asian Muslim Board, became the first Muslim newspa per to be published in the Soviet Union since the 1920s. In 1991 another biweekly newspa pe r, Isla m , joined the ranks of the Soviet Muslim press as the organ of the Muslim Reli giou s Board for Transcaucasia. Apart from an exten sion of the tradi tional activ i ties of the Mus - lim Reli gious Boards, a number of inno va tions had signif i cant im pli - cations not just for the boards’ activ i ties, but also for the Musli m commu nity as a whole. Among the most far-reaching was the re es- tablish ment of waqf, or reli gious endow ments, which had been na - tional ized by the Soviet govern ment in the 1920s. Reli giou s endow ments were set up both under the direct super vi sion of the Muslim Boards and in asso ci a tion with mosques that oper ated un der board super vi sion . In Central Asia and parts of Azerbaijan, the waqf typi cally con - sisted of plots of land used for farming and livestock herding. The Transcaucasian and Central Asian Muslim Boards came to control at least one hundred hectares of land each. In Uzbekistan it became reg - ular practice in the Gorbachev era to allo cate two or three hectares of land in connec tion with the assign ment of land for the construc tio n of new mosques. The agri cul tural and livestock-breeding un der tak- ings of the major ity of waqf were supple mented by other, less es sen - tial but poten tially profit able activ i ties. For exam ple, in 1991 the Transcaucasian Muslim Board opened a well-stocked carpet and folkcrafts shop in the heart of Baku’s old city. The rees tab lish ment of the reli gious endow ments was of im - mense signif i cance in that it provided the clergy—for the first time in decades—with an inde pend ent source of financ ing. As a con se - quence of their expan sion and strengthen ing, clerically led reli giou s insti tu tions were even better posi tioned to mobi lize the commu nit y around their notions of Islam. At the same time, the estab lish ment of waqf lessened the clergy’s finan cial depend ence on the volun tar y Re struc turing of So viet Is lam in the Gorbachev Era 93 contri bu tions of the faithful to fund the range of reli gious activ i ties it super vised . The most impor tant of the insti tu tional changes in Muslim re li - gious orga ni za tions were revealed in two trends: first, frag men ta tion along ethnic and sectar ian lines within the Muslim commu nit y, and second—and more surpris ing—an essen tial conti nu ity in the clergy’s image of Islam in Soviet soci et y. Within the postwar Soviet Muslim commu nity befor e Gorbachev, which had been condi tioned by both exter nally impose d polit i cal restric tions and an inter nally gener ated cleri cal vision of a pristine Islam, one of the most salient tenden cies was a trend towar d unifi ca tion. As a result of the concen tra tion of reli gious training in only two estab lish ments and the regu la tion of all reli gious life by the Muslim Boards, the cultur ally and reli giously diverse Soviet Mus lim commu nity before 1985 had been growing increas ingly stan dard- ized. The tendency during perestroika, in contrast, was toward lo cal- ization and fragmen ta tion. Greater local auton omy of reli gion led to an increas ingly fragmented commu nity where sepa ra tion and con - flict ran increas ingly along both ethnic and sectar ian lines. Unlike most Soviet insti tu tions, the juris dic tion of the Musli m Boards had tradi tion ally extended across repub lic borders. For ex - ample, the most popu lous juris dic tion was that of Central Asia, which included Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kirgizia, and Kazakhstan. In the Gorbachev era, howeve r, the geographic range of the Muslim Boards was increas ingly defined by the borders of the Union repub lics. In Janu ary 1990 an assem bly of Muslim clerics and others in Alm-Ata declared the forma tion of a Muslim Reli giou s Board for Kazakhstan.3 Ratbek Nisanbayev, who at the time was serving as the Central Asian board’s appointed repre sen ta tive in Kazakhstan, was elected to the posi tion of mufti and chair of the new board. At the time of the split, the new Kazakh mufti did not attempt to hide the ethnic dimen sion of the forma tion of a Muslim Board for Kazakhstan. He empha sized the need for greater local auton omy in admin is tra tive and reli gious affairs and spoke of the impor tance of more effec tive reli gious training for Kazakh clerics—in Kazakhstan itself and, of course, in the Kazakh language . The extent of conflict over the forma tion of the Kazakh board remains unclea r. In my inter views with Uzbek offi cials who run the 94 Mark Saroyan

Central Asian board (based in Tashkent), it was simply pointed out that the Central Asian board had not recog nized the new board and mufti, and they empha sized that the central govern ment had not rec - ognized the board either. Moreover, they pointed out that in the Uz - bek-populated southern parts of Kazakhstan, local mosques remained loyal to Tashkent and refused to recog nize the author ity of the new board in Alma-Ata. Changes in the North Cauca sus were even more striking and confus ing. Tradi tionally a single Muslim Board oper ated out of Makhachkala in Dagestan to serve the pano ply of auton o mous re - publics and even more numer ous ethnic groups (Dagestan alone has half a dozen major nation al i ties). Recentl y, howeve r, the very ex is - tence of the Muslim Board for the North Cauca sus had been called into question. 4 A confer ence of reli gious leaders from the region de - clared the disso lu tion of the North Cauca sian board. In its place they proposed the forma tion of “reli gious centers” for each of the ethni c auton o mous regions in the area. The North Cauca sian expe ri ence, though distinct due to the ap - parent disso lu tion of the Muslim Board, exhib ited some paral lel s with the Central Asia/Kazakhstan case. First, the changes reflecte d an author ity crisis in reli gious leader ship. While one part of the clergy asserted itself, another fraction acted to annul or simply ig - nore the deci sions of fellow clerics. As in the case of Tashkent’s at ti - tude toward Kazakhstan, reli gious author i ties in the “center”—i n this case, Makhachkala—ada mantly refused to recog nize the de ci- sion to dissolve the North Cauca sian board. Of course conflicts such as these seem typi cal and are to be expected. What is more sug ges - tive is a second paral lel. As with Kazakhstan, the forma tion of new reli gious centers in the North Cauca sus was based on the exis tenc e of national-territorial states set up by the Bolsheviks in the 1920s. As a result, the acts of defi ance served to affirm the terri to rial statu s quo. The process of restruc tur ing the Muslim Boards, while ap peal- ing to ethnic distinc tions among Soviet Muslims, was in fact based on ethnic differ ences that had been enshrined in part in the most funda men tal polit i cal insti tu tions of Soviet rule—the national state. In calling for the forma tion of new reli gious admin is tra tions, the North Cauca sian “reform ers” declared the creation of reli gious bod - ies not simply for each nation al it y, but for each auton o mous na - tional state. Re struc turing of So viet Is lam in the Gorbachev Era 95

In this regard, the ethnicization of Islam in the Soviet Unio n should not be viewed wholly as the return of some tradi tional , pre-existing ethnic it y. Rather, while ethnic preju dices and histor i ca l ethnic conflicts defi nitely played a role in the changes, the “eth nic - ity” to which Muslims appealed was in many respects a moder n sense of identity forged during decades of Soviet rule. In this context of emergent ethni cally infused juris dic tiona l conflicts, the profile of Soviet mosques was also under go ing a trans - forma tion. Tradi tionall y, Soviet mosques served the general Musli m popu la tion. A conse quence of the limited number of mosques in the past had been the mixing of differ ent nation al i ties and sectar ian ori - enta tions within the same reli gious commu nit y. In Dagestan, for ex - ample, a town’s only oper at ing mosque would gener ally serve the Muslim popu la tion of vari ous nation al i ties. In such circum stances , sermons during Friday commu nal prayers would frequently be de - livered in two or more languages. Likewise, in predom i nantly Sunni Central Asia Shi’i believ ers would partic i pate in reli gious service s designed for the area’s Sunni popu la tion . The prolif er a tion of mosques in the 1970s and 1980s, partic u larl y after 1988, allowed for greater differ en ti a tion along both ethnic and sec- tarian lines. With the expan sion of mosques, every one appeared to be obtain ing his “own” mosque. In Sunni Uzbekistan, for exam ple, Shi’i Muslims were allowed to worship in a newly opened mosque in Bu-khara. Likewise, in the North Cauca sus, both new and long-established mosques were increas ingly affil i ated with one or an- other ethnic group. In Azerbaijan, new mosques were orga nized ex- plicitly to meet the needs of non-Azerbaijani groups in the repub lic’ s northern rural districts, such as the Ingilois (Georgian Muslims) and Avars. Although this process in part had its own inter nal dynam ics , nonre li gious conflicts among vari ous Muslim nation al i ties deep - ened it. Massa cres among Uzbeks and Kirgiz in Kirgizia’s Osh re gion or the ongo ing conflicts between Chechens and Ingush in the North Cauca sus were just two exam ples that found their reflec tion in the ethnic pattern of orga ni za tion and practice in Soviet mosques. Just as far-reaching in its impli ca tions for the Soviet Muslim com- munity was the emergence of new facil i ties for the training of clergy un- der the differ ent Muslim Boards. As noted, be fore the period of restruc tur ing, Soviet Muslim clerics were trained at one of only two es- 96 Mark Saroyan tablish ments in Uzbekistan, one in Bukhara and one in Tashkent. Since the end of the 1980s new medresas were set up not only in central Asia, but elsewhere as well (Makhachkala, Ufa, Kazan, and Baku). The inaugauration of these new edu ca tional estab lish ments re- flected not just a need for more trained clergy to serve in local mosques, but also followed from the inter ests of local Muslim Reli gious Boards to instruct their fu ture clerics in local forms of Islam. In the Transcaucasus, where the major ity of Muslims are Shi’i, the new medresa in Baku was the first postrevo lution ary edu ca tional estab lish ment solely devoted to instruc tion in the funda men tals of Shi’i Islam. Shi’i Islam was in cor po- rated into the curric u lum of the Uzbek medresas only in 1970, and it is not clear to what extent the formal teaching of Shi’i tradi tions was con- ducted there. In speaking of plans for the new medresa, sheikh-ul-Islam Pashazadä complained that Azerbaijanis had to go to Tashkent and Bukhara to receive reli gious training, but clearly the is sue of reli gious orien ta tion played a role in the deci sion to estab lish a foru m for local edu ca tion. Of the members of the three non-Central Asian Muslim Boards, only mufti Talgat Tajuddin of the Eu ro pean board (mainly Tatar and Bashkir) indi cated any inter est in maintain ing re la- tions with edu ca tional estab lish ments in Uzbekistan. The estab lish ment of new medresas not only allowed for the de - velop ment of differ en ti a tion based on denom i na tional distinc tions , but also further divided Soviet Muslims by nation al it y. In Centra l Asia, for exam ple, the inau gu ra tion of new training centers for the clergy in the vari ous repub lics meant that Turkmen Muslims stud ied in Turkmen medresas and Tajiks studied in Tajik medresas. Moreoever, the Tajik medresa, along with reli gious subjects, also provided instruc tion in Tajik history and culture, which clearly im - plied a novel nation al iz ing of the curric u lum. Thus without the bonds of a common insti tu tional expe ri ence and edu ca tional pro - cess, Muslim clerics increas ingly had contact only with members of their own nation al ity and preached a more local ized form of Islam . Accom panying this fragmen ta tion within the Soviet Islami c commu nity were growing contacts between Soviet and non-Soviet Muslims. The Muslim Reli gious Boards had tradi tion ally culti vate d ties with foreign Muslims, and the volume of these contacts in - creased signif i cantly in the Gorbachev era. Soviet Muslim leaders , espe cially those from Central Asia, regu larly partic i pated in the ac - tivi ties of inter na tional Muslim orga ni za tions. In addi tion, each year Re struc turing of So viet Is lam in the Gorbachev Era 97 the Central Asian board sent students for supple men tal training to the major theolog i cal schools of the Middle East, includ ing (among others) Karaouyin in Morocco and al-Alzhar in Egypt. Other fea - tures of the expanded rela tions were novel, however, such as the in - fusion of finan cial resources from abroad and other dona tions in kind (espe cially Qur’ans and other reli gious publi ca tions) . In part, the expan sion of Soviet/non-Soviet ties affirmed Mus - lim soli dar ity across polit i cal boundaries. Howeve r, it also reflecte d and consol i dated the process of inter nal fragmen ta tion of Islam in the Soviet Union . In the past, the Central Asian Muslim Board had been the most active partic i pant in the devel op ment of foreign ties for a number of reasons. Historically Central Asia was viewed by the rest of the Is - lamic world as more signif i cant, and in the Soviet period Centra l Asia had the largest concen tra tion of Muslims in the Soviet Union. In any case, it is fair to say that the other Muslim Boards gener all y played second fiddle to the Central Asian, espe cially Uzbek, re li - gious leader ship . With the advent of perestroika, howeve r, possi bil i ties for foreig n contacts multi plied, and Muslim leader ships took advan tage of these new oppor tu ni ties to initi ate or expand their rela tions with Musli m countries and foreign Muslim reli gious orga ni za tions. Reflecting the availabil ity of more choices, a pattern of Soviet/non-Soviet rela tion s emerged based on a varying combi na tion of geog ra ph y, sectar ian and ethnic distinc tions, and the direc tion of local (repub li can) foreign pol- icy initia tives . Azerbaijan is a conve nient exam ple. Under the leader ship of the chair of the Baku-based Muslim Board (himself a success ful hold - over from the period of stagna tion), the predom i nantly Azerbaijani board culti vated reli gious ties with its two neighbors, Turkey and Iran. While ties with Muslims in other countries were not rejected , the main empha sis of the Azerbaijani board was on these two states. This involved the conven tional exchanges of dele ga tions and stu - dents, but also the impor ta tion of publi ca tions and reli gious ex per - tise. Aspiring Azerbaijani clerics were sent to Qom and Tabriz in Iran for reli gious edu ca tion. At the same time, the Irani ans helped in the practi cal orga ni za tion of the new Baku medresa. It should be noted that the devel op ment of ties with Tur key and Iran was conso nant with secu lar Azerbaijani foreign policy that fo - 98 Mark Saroyan cused on increased economic and polit i cal ties with these countries . Apart from geographic conti gu ity and poli tics, reli gious and ethni c affin i ties also played a role in the direc tion of Azerbaijani inter ests . The Turks speak a language distinct from but related to Azerbaijani, and cultural ties between Azerbaijan and Turkey run deep. In the case of rela tions with Iran, sectar ian affin i ties appeared to take pre - cedence over ethnic distinc tions. While Azerbaijani intel lec tu al s commonly criti cized the anti-Azerbaijani poli cies advo cated by Per - sian chauvin ists in Iran, for many Azerbaijani reli gious leaders the Shi’i reli gious estab lish ment provided an impor tant resource that could not be ignored. In another identi fi able trend, Shi’i Azerbaijan was the only Soviet Muslim area in the perestroika period that em - phasized rela tions with Iran. Central Asia’s reli gious leader shi p showed little inter est in Iran. Even the predom i nantly Sunni Tajiks, who speak a language related to Persian, were more involved in purely secu lar cultural exchanges with Iran. As noted, the Central Asians also engaged in rela tions with for - eign Muslim states, among which the main contact seemed to be Saudi Arabia. Indeed unlike the Shi’i Azerbaijanis, who were rel a- tively ignored by the Saudis, the Central Asians have benefited from Saudi largesse. The Saudis funneled large amounts of capi tal into Central Asia, espe cially Uzbekistan, for the resto ra tion of impor tan t mosques and the devel op ment of facil i ties at the Tashkent-based Muslim Board. One newly built mosque was even named after the Saudi king, Fahd, in recog ni tion of his finan cial patron age. In ad di - tion, the Saudis made a one-time dona tion of one million copies of the Qur’an, and through the Islamic World League they purchased a state-of-the-art German printing press to facil i tate the Tashkent board’s publish ing program. The Saudis also donated a million dis - posable syringes for distri bu tion by the Muslim Board. Indeed Soviet Muslims—whether Shi’is in the Cauca sus or Sunnis in Central Asia—proved quite capa ble of capi tal iz ing on the legacy of reli gious restric tions imposed on them to gain the sym pa - thy of foreign Muslims. In the case of finan cially well-off Musli m states, this meant an unprec e dented level of foreign invest ment in Soviet Muslim reli gious insti tu tions. (The only prece dent in the re li - gious realm is proba bly large dona tions made by foreign Arme ni an s to bene fit the Arme nian Apos tolic Church.) Re struc turing of So viet Is lam in the Gorbachev Era 99

Never the less, the influ ence of foreign Muslim powers like Iran and Saudi Arabia on Soviet Muslims was mini mal. The Soviet Mus - lim leaders had a rich reli gious tradi tion to build on, and havin g fought to maintain their identity with the Soviet Commu nist Party, they were not about to import Islam from foreign sources. Moreove r, like the growing diver sity of the Muslim orga ni za tions and lead er - ships described above, the civil leader ships in Muslim repub lic s were also increas ingly diverse in regard to their atti tudes and pol i - cies toward domes tic Islam. In Azerbaijan, for exam ple, both the govern ment (“reformed” Commu nist nation al ists) and the op po si- tion (non-Communist nation al ists) were unified in their anticlerical if not anti re li gious atti tudes. As a result, reli gion has had little role in the process of state-building. In Uzbekistan, in contrast, the repub li c govern ment (also “reformed” Commu nist nation al ists) promote d the incor po ra tion of Islamic reli gious law into the rewrit ing of the re - public’s consti tu tion. In the Uzbek law on land there were clauses on the oper a tion of waqf that would be unheard of in neighbor in g Turkmenistan. In Tajikistan several major Islamic holy days were de - clared public holi days, but in Kirgizia the parlia ment voted to re - place the Western calen dar not with the Islamic calen dar but with a pre-Islamic ani mal calen dar (related to the Chinese calendric sys - tem). Despite the general “nation al iza tion” of the Soviet Islamic com - munit y, what was most surpris ing was the essen tial conti nu ity with the tradi tions of pre-perestroika Islamic argu ment. Indeed the im age of Islam and the Muslim commu nity produced by the clergy was largely a reprise of postwar themes. The Muslim commu nit y, cleric s still argued, had fallen into un-Islamic ways and needed cleri ca l leader ship in order to return to the funda men tals of the faith. Not only were there now new oppportunities for reli gious and secu la r devel op ment, but also Muslims would in fact be active partic i pant s in the construc tion of a renewed social and polit i cal orde r.5 Armed with the language of glasnost, clerics contin ued to pro - mote their notions of distinc tion and inte gra tion with regard to the Muslim commu nit y. If in the past they had praised Soviet power for the real iza tion of Islamic ideals, they now praised the inno va tions of glasnost and perestroika for allow ing a resti tu tion of reli gious rights and self-esteem to the pious popu la tion. 6 Glasnost, they pointed out, should assure freedom of reli gious convic tion for all Soviet citi zens . 100 Mark Saroyan

As the qazi of Turkmenistan stated, “Perestroika has put an end to the view that believ ers are narrow-minded, even backwards, and that they are the carri ers of a differ ent ideol ogy alien to the offi ciall y accepted dogmas.” 7 While the essen tial content of Muslim reli gious discourse re - mained largely unchanged in the period of reform, there were changes in the tone and form of cleri cal argu ments. For exam ple , Muslim clerics exhib ited a greater willing ness to place blame for the Muslim commu nity’s reli gious igno rance on the polit i cal re stric tions imposed during the past seven decades of Soviet power.8 At the same time, clerics appro pri ated the language of perestroika and glas - nost to criti cize themselves—for failures ranging from a lack of re li - gious vigi lance to corrup tion within the ranks of the clergy.9 The rapidly changing polit i cal envi ron ment not only afforde d the tradi tional centers of Muslim reli gious life new oppor tu ni ties , but also created condi tions for new forms of Muslim reli gious as so ci- ation. In the past, the Muslim Reli gious Boards could rely in part on the coer cive power of the Soviet state to prevent the emergence of in - depend ent Muslim reli gious centers. In the perestroika era, howeve r, liber al iza tion allowed for the emergence of several new Muslim re li - gious movements. Thus as the Muslim Reli gious Boards confronte d a new set of reli gious and polit i cal challenges, they also increas ingl y faced a challenge from below—from Muslim reli gious movement s that oper ated inde pend ently from the boards. In contrast to the Muslim Boards, howeve r, whose well-developed insti tu tional reach extended across entire repub lic s and regions, new Muslim reli gious movements emerged in rel a- tively few places and were gener ally highly local ized. The larges t and most active of these movements emerged in the North Cauca su s and parts of Central Asia. The most impor tant included the Islami c Demo cratic Party in Dagestan, the Turkestan Islamic Party centere d in Uzbekistan’s Fergana Val ley, and the Islamic Renais sance Party in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.10 The Turkestan Islamic Party is typi cal of these inde pend ent op - posi tion movements. 11 Mistak enly identi fied in the West as a Wahhabi movement, Muslims in the Fergana town of Namangan be - gan their movement with the takeover of a mosque that had been used as a storage facil ity for wine.12 After making reno va tions to the building, the Namangan Muslims chose an imam and mosque coun - Re struc turing of So viet Is lam in the Gorbachev Era 101 cil and opened the mosque for regu lar worship. In this way, the mosque became the first in the postwar Soviet Union to oper ate out - side the juris dic tion of a Muslim Reli gious Board. In the ensu in g months, local activ ists began the construc tion of a medresa along - side the mosque. Unlike the schools affil i ated with Muslim Boards, the Namangan medresa was intended to provide reli gious ed u ca tion for young people in general and not just training for clerics . What was most signif i cant about the Fergana Valley movemen t and other inde pend ent reli gious movements that emerged in the late perestroika era was the nature of their oppositional challenge. The chief oppo nent of these new Muslim movements was not primar il y the Soviet state but the Muslim Reli gious Boards that domi nated the reli gious life of the Muslim commu nit y. A partic u lar target was the leader ship of the Muslim Boards, which was condemned as self-serving and corrupt. Inter est ingl y, one of the oppo si tion’s main critiques of the Muslim Boards was not that they had been agents of state power but that they were para sitic orga ni za tions that exploite d the good will of the Muslim commu nit y. In this view, finan cial cor - ruption in the Muslim Boards had impeded the role of the clergy as reli gious leaders of the Muslim commu nit y. Thus it fell to the new Muslim movements to take over commu nity leader ship where the Muslim Boards had failed. That the Muslim oppo si tion’s challenge to the Muslim Boards concerned mainly the offi cial clergy’s insti tu tional author ity was highlighted by the fact that in many respects the oppo si tion shared the stated reli gious values and ideals espoused by the boards. Like the board clergy, many activ ists in the inde pend ent movement con - demned the commu nity’s fall into degen er ate ways and criti cize d saint worship, local pilgrim ages, and the use of amu lets. Likewise , they advo cated a recentering of Islam around the Qur’an and pro - phetic tradi tions, and they wanted their own reli gious leader ship to effect such a reori en ta tion within the Muslim commu nit y. Along with the devel op ment of tensions along sectar ian and ethnic lines, then, a struggle emerged for reli gious and polit i cal au - thorit y. In this contest, the advan tages of the Muslim Boards were enormous. With several decades of insti tu tional devel op ment be - hind them, they had huge orga ni za tional, human, and finan cial re - sources at their disposal. The new Muslim movements, while increas ingly popu lar within the commu nit y, nonethe less had sig nif i- 102 Mark Saroyan cantly fewer devel oped resources and remained rela tively local ize d in the scope of their activ i ties. Moreover, the board-affiliated clergy’s campaign to reform itself severely under cut the power of oppositional critiques concern ing the boards’ reputed inter nal cor - ruption and faulty reli gious leader ship . The emergence of a criti cal bent in the Soviet Muslim clergy, whether directed inter nally at devel op ments within the Musli m commu nity or exter nally against the injus tices practiced against Is - lam during the period of Soviet rule, must be under stood in context . In Gorbachev’s Soviet Union some polit i cal activ ists publicl y equated commu nism with fascism, current and former leaders of the Commu nist Party regu larly condemned party poli cies in the harsh - est terms, and depic tions of the Soviet Union as an empire held to - gether by vio lence and coer cion became part of mainstrea m journal is tic practice. In this sense, the Muslim clergy appeared not as a radi cal but as a deeply conser va tive social force. The clergy did en - gage in sometimes harsh criti cisms of past Soviet poli cies and prac - tices with regard to reli gion and reli gious insti tu tions, but Musli m reli gious leaders did not reject the Soviet Union or the Soviet po lit i - cal system wholesale. Given the polit i cal context briefly describe d above, the tenor of cleri cal criti cisms contin ued to reflect the Musli m clergy’s posi tion as an unusu ally loyal oppo si tion .

NOTES

1. Alexandre Bennigsen and Ma rie Broxup, The Is lamic Threat to the So viet State (New York: St. Mar tin’s Press, 1983). 2. It should be noted that nearly ninety mosques were re ported to have been opened in the pe riod of stag na tion be tween 1977 and 1987 (“Novoe myshlenie i svoboda sovesti,” Literaturnaia gazeta, 18 May 1988, p. 10). 3. For an ac count of the Kazakh mufti, see Paul Goble, “The New Mufti of Alma-Ata,” Re port on the USSR, 22 June 1990. 4. Kommunist (Baku), 10 March 1990. 5. Mus lims of the So viet East 1 (1989): 2. Re struc turing of So viet Is lam in the Gorbachev Era 103

6. For a main stream cler i cal per spec tive, see Abdulgani Abdulla, “Musul’mane v usloviiakh glasnosti, perestroiki i novogo myshleniia,” in Na puti k svobode sovesti (Mos cow: Prog ress, 1989). 7. Mus lims of the So viet East 2–3 (1989): 10. 8. See, for ex am ple, the Cen tral Asian mufti’s crit i cal com ments as de scribed in Paul Goble, “The Mufti on Tele vi sion,” Re port on the USSR, 4 May 1990. 9. Self-criticism was a com mon theme at the fourth con gress of the Cen tral Asian Mus lim Re li gious Board held in 1989 ( Mus lims of the So viet East 2–3 [1989]). 10. For a use ful sur vey of the Is lamic Re nais sance Party, see Bess Brown, “The Is lamic Re nais sance Party in Cen tral Asia,” Re port on the USSR, 10 May 1991. 11. This ac count of the po si tions of what I am call ing a Mus lim op po si tion is based in part on the So viet press, in ad di tion to in ter views con ducted in Cen tral Asia in 1990 and the Cau ca sus in 1991. 12. For a view of the Namangan move ment as Wahhabi, see James Critchlow, “Is lam in the Fergana Val ley: The Wahhabi ‘Threat,’” Re port on the USSR, 8 De cem ber 1989. AMBIVALENCE, AUTHORITY, AND THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR ISLAM 1

“Whenever one sees a dome, one thinks ”it ’s t he shrine of an imam .” —Azerbaijani folk saying2

Conven tional studies of Islam in the former Soviet Union ofte n assumed a sharp distinc tion between “offi cial” and “popu lar” Is lam. The Islam of the mosque and the USSR ’s offi cially sanctioned cler i cal insti tu tions was portrayed as an instru ment of state polic y, while the popu lar Islam of the shrine, as well as of the Sufi orders, was treated as a haven for an antistate, anti-Soviet oppo si tion. In some cases, the argu ment went so far as to portray popu lar reli gious practices as the founda tion of an oppositional counter cul ture. 3 In fact, actual prac - tices in shrine and mosque were far more ambiv a lent. Under stood in terms of the forms of insti tu tions and practices, the offi cial/pop u la r dichot omy did capture some signif i cant differ ences. But under stoo d in terms of functio n and meanin g for those who engaged in them, re li- gious practices regu larly vio lated these cate gor i cal bound aries. The tendency to divide Soviet Islam into offi cial and popu la r was tied to an inter pre ta tion of Soviet Islam through the famil iar lens of tradi tion/mo der nit y. An authen tic, reli gious, preindustrial feu dal soci ety (popu lar) was opposed to an arti fi cial, secu lar, modern, in - dustri al ized state (offi cial). Observers then “discov ered” what ap - peared to be tradi tional forms (e.g., the shrine) and concluded that simi larly tradi tional functions and meanings neces sar ily follo w. And popu lar practices, many of which predated Soviet rule, were in - terpreted as indi ca tors of a tradi tional mental ity that was inher entl y antimodern, conser va tive, and a poten tial challenge to the author it y of the Soviet state. Evi dence of form is there fore taken, mistak enl y, as evi dence of function. The presumed disjunc ture between scripturalist rep re sen ta- tions of Islam medi ated by a stratum of reli gious intel lec tu als, the ulama , and the nonscripturalist, nonclerical forms of socio-religious

104 Ambiv a lence, Author ity, and the Problem of Popu lar Islam 105 practice produced within the Muslim commu nity at large suggested a clear divi sion between offi cial/pop u lar, ortho dox/het ero dox kinds of Is lam. Despite increas ing criti cism, the sepa ra tion of Islam into the or - thodox faith orga nized around the ulama and mosque and the pop u- lar or folk reli gion of the saints and shrines has remained quite dura ble in the liter a ture. Even as some have tried to rectify an imbalanced focus on the offi cial by empha siz ing popu lar di men - sions of reli gion, they tended to repro duce the mislead ing di chot - omy.4 Growing atten tion to pop u lar, hetero dox, folk practice s implic itly accepted the mutual exclu siv ity of offi cial and popu la r cate go ries . Other attempts to rethink cate go ri za tion schema were also problem atic. Numer ous authors, for exam ple, offered the notion of “norma tive” Islam to replace the less precise term “ortho dox.” How - ever, “norma tive Islam” was again used to refer to the clerically pro - duced prescrip tive repre sen ta tion of Islam. 5 Indeed, some scholar s went so far as to argue that the Muslim clergy produced not re li gious ortho doxy or a system of correct beliefs, but an “orthopraxy,” a set of prescrip tions for correct reli gious practice. 6 In actual practice, how ever, the mosque often functioned as a shrine, while the offi cially sanctioned clergy often appro pri ate d shrine pilgrim ages for their own ends. Thus the meaning of Isla m was itself transformed by the inter play of the offi cial and the pop u - lar. The blurring of “offi cial” and “popu lar” in practice challenge s not only tradi tional under stand ings of Soviet Islam, but also the “orientalist” approach to Islamic studies more gener all y. The orientalist tradi tion held that Islam was largely defined by its found - ing sacred texts, which reified the reli gion into an unchang ing , ahistorical “essence.” Revi sion ists, in contrast, tend to stress the ways in which these histor i cal and textual tradi tions have been transformed through reli gious practice. Islam, then, is not just a dis - course rooted in the Qur ’an and the sunna (the corpus of propheti c tradi tions), but is also consti tuted by the lived expe ri ences and re li - gious practices of those who identify themselves as Muslim. Instea d of an analy sis of the descrip tive accounts of the discur sive pro duc - tion of an “Islam,” it is therefore neces sary to explore the ways in 106 Mark Saroyan which “Islam” was received and repro duced in social and reli giou s practice. 7

FORMAL ASPECTS OF SHRINE PRACTICE

Most shrines in Azerbaijan are known as pir . This word, of Per - sian ori gin, can mean both “saint” or an old, hence implic itly wise, person. In the latter case, an appro pri ate English equiva lent is “el - der.” This usage refers to the fact that many shrines are reputed to be the gravesites of respected elders or other reli gious figures. In con - tempo rary Azerbaijan, no verbal distinc tion is made between the pir as a living or dead person and the pir as a sacred place, whether a crypt or another kind of holy site. Indeed pir in Azerbaijani can refe r not just to gravesites, but also to shrines that are distinc tive natu ra l features, such as hills or rocky forma tions, water falls, natu ra l springs, and trees. Sometimes, such natu ral shrines are referred to as ojakh (liter all y, “hearth”), but the more common use of the term pir for these sites suggests that the term has obtained a more commo n meaning of “spirit” as well as “saint.” The use of the term “shrine” in this paper —a sacred, vener ated site—is therefore a conve nient, al - beit impre cise, transla tion of the Azerbaijani pir. Several formal as - pects of shrine practice stand out as partic u larly distinct from mosque practice. These formal distinc tions follow the dichot omy of mosque and shrine with oppositions of closed/open, urban/ru ral , male/female, and public/pri vate . Äli ayaghï (Äli ’s Foot), located in Buzovna, a suburb of Baku on the Apsheron Penin sula, is a typi cal shrine. One defin ing feature that contrasts it with mosques is the rela tively free access of the in di vid- ual pilgrim to the shrine. A small, square, two-roomed structure with a dome, Äli ayaghï is located on a rocky cliff overlook ing the beach along the Caspian Sea. Its main attrac tion is an inden ta tion in the rock, reputed to be the footprint of Ali. Others claim that the foot - print is of Ali ’s horse. Pilgrims to the shrine gener ally take little in - terest in its precise gene al ogy since for them what is signif i cant is that the shrine is “a place of the imams ” (in Azerbaijani, imamlarïn yeri ). Each of the rooms has an entrance, but no door. Unlik e Buzovna ’s mosque, which is always closed and locked at night and Ambiv a lence, Author ity, and the Problem of Popu lar Islam 107 often during the weekdays as well, the shrine at Äli ayaghï is ac ces si- ble at any time. At the mosque, access is essen tially at the discre tio n of the clergy, but the shrine is available at the discre tion of the pil - grim.8 Another formal differ ence is that while typi cally mosques are consid ered to be urban, shrines are consid ered rural. Among the hundreds of shrines that have been described by the special ized lit - era ture in Azerbaijan, rela tively few are located within urban ized ar - eas. Many are located just outside towns, but even more can be found in villages or in remote loca tions. Shrines may be located on the crest of a hill, promon tory, or other natu ral feature, and they are ofte n found in ceme ter ies. In some cases, a ceme tery has devel ope d around one or more impor tant shrines. An Azerbaijani special ist of shrine vener a tion has claimed, proba bly without much ex ag ger a- tion, that in a number of the repub li c ’s regions it is diffi cult to find a village without a shrine of some sort.9 In contrast to the mosque, where reli gious rites are both ori - ented toward and domi nated by males, shrines serve as havens for female Muslims. All surveys of shrine pilgrim age in Azerbaijan agree that women consti tute the vast major ity of pilgrims to shrines, and my own fieldwork in the shrines of the Apsheron Penin sula con - firms these obser va tions.1 0 In neighbor ing Dagestan, as well as the countr y ’s other Muslim regions, pilgrims are also more likely to be women than men.11 Unlike the mosques, in which women remai n segre gated from men, there is usually not a sepa rate women ’s space at shrines, and women pray unfet tered in any part of the shrine. As a sphere of reli gious practice, shrines may be consid ered a pre dom i- nantly female realm, but the spatial orga ni za tion within a given shrine is not gen der-specific. Women are not only more active in visit ing shrines, but they also frequently serve in posi tions of reli gious author ity as the pir sahibi , or shrine guardian. For exam ple, the pir sahibi at the Äli ayaghï shrine in Buzovna is a woman. Shrines are acces si ble to both men and women, but at times women appear to have greater pres - tige, espe cially those with female guardians. On numer ous oc ca sions when entire fami lies come to perform a ritual sacri fice of ani mals at the shrine of Äli ayaghï, the men and boys remain outside the shrine to slaughter a lamb or chicken while only the women enter the shrine itself to pray and make devo tional of fer ings. 108 Mark Saroyan

In addi tion to being typi cally open, rural, and fe - male-dominated, shrines tend to be private, whereas the mosque is consid ered public. The degree to which a shrine is private varies con - sider abl y, depend ing on the size of the commu nity it serves. Some shrines may be classi fied as regional shrines since they attract pil - grims from nearby towns or districts. Most shrines, however, are highly local ized and serve only the popu la tion of a single village. In some cases, the “modern,” Soviet-organized state and collec tiv e farms have their own shrines. The most specific shrines are those pa - tronized only by certain fami lies. In Rustov, a village in the Guba dis - trict, a cluster of four shrines serves only a few local fami lies . The large numbers of village-specific shrines, along with the ex - istence of an unknown number of family shrines, reflects the in di vid- ual ized charac ter of pilgrim ages and devo tional acts at the shrines. Shrine practice is, in effect, a private matter. There are no formal ize d ritu als, nor are there fixed times for visi ta tion at the shrines. In prin - ciple, Shi ’i Muslims consider Thursdays to be the “best” day to make a pilgrim age, but my fieldwork suggests that Sundays, a day most people have off work, is the most popu lar day of the week to visit a shrine. What for some scholars appears to be an inher ent con tra dic- tion between the modern work schedule and the require ments of a tradi tion-based Islam is in fact super seded in the flexi bil ity of socia l practice .

THE RELIGIOUS USES OF SHRINES

With the nota ble excep tion of the clerically super vised col lec- tive pilgrim age to Qöy Imam, shrine pilgrim age in contem po rar y Azerbaijan is a highly indi vid u al ized, private activ it y. Unlike the re - ligious practices that are orga nized and regu lated under cleri ca l guidance, which are marked by their collec tive, public form, shrine pilgrim ages are regu larly performed privately by in di vid u- als—alone or in small groups of friends or rela tives—with very spe - cific inten tions. An ethnographic account of shrine pilgrim ages and an analy sis of the socio-religious functions they fulfill for the pil - grims can help to elabo rate this point. Ambiv a lence, Author ity, and the Problem of Popu lar Islam 109

One of the central reli gious functions of the shrine is the pro vi- sion of inter ces sion between the deity and the indi vid ual. In ter ces- sion is consid ered one of the essen tial features of unor tho dox or popu lar Islam. In ortho dox Islam, a Muslim presum ably has a direct , unme di ated rela tion with God since all Muslims have equal stand - ing before the deity as revealed in the Qur ’an. In Islam as it is prac - ticed in Azerbaijan, however, a pir, whether a living person or a spirit embod ied in a shrine, possesses a higher socio-religious sta tus. A distinc tion can be made between general or univer sal and special ized shrines. Univer sal shrines perform an “all-purpose” function, while special ized shrines provide for specific needs, such as the curing of illnesses. Shrines that attract large numbers of pil - grims are typi cally consid ered to be univer sal. This reflects the fact that the classi fi ca tion of the shrines is based in part not simply on the pecu liar i ties of the shrine itself, but also on the range of reli giou s functions that it serves for pilgrims. Shrines that have a larger fol - lowing and conse quently attract pilgrims with more diverse needs tend to be consid ered univer sal. Differ ent lists of Azerbaijan ’s uni - versal shrines have been suggested by vari ous observ ers, but these sources gener ally agree on the overall number of the largest shrines, ranging from approx i mately ten to twenty.12 The “special ized” shrines are much more numer ous. Their tota l number is usually esti mated to be from two to four hundred, though the actual figure is quite possi bly much higher. Indi vid uall y, how - ever, they are frequented by fewer pilgrims due to their more limite d function. The Aghdash shrine in the village of Novkhanï on the Apsheron Penin sula has a repu ta tion for restor ing the fertil ity of bar - ren women. And the Närärjan shrine in the village of the same name located in the Khachmaz district is believed to provide cures for rheuma tism, fevers, and tooth aches. The special ized and univer sal functions of the shrines are not mutu ally exclu sive. One of the charac ter is tics of the shrines is the many layers of meaning invested in them by the pilgrims who seek inter ces sion.1 3 Among many women, for exam ple, the shrine of Pir Seyid in Nardaran has the repu ta tion of a “children s shrine” ( ushag piri ) where women take their children to be healed of vari ous health problems. At the same time, Pir Seyid has also been classi fied as a univer sal shrine since it is argu ably the most popu lar shrine of the 110 Mark Saroyan greater Baku region and attracts large numbers of people with quite diverse inter ests.1 4 The distinc tion between univer sal and special ized shrines is notewor th y, but it should not obscure the fact that from the per spec- tive of Azerbaijani Muslims, all shrine pilgrim age is in fact spe cial- ized activ it y. The visi ta tion to a local shrine is usually accom plishe d with a specific inten tion or request. In Azerbaijani, this inten tion is referred to as niyyät. Whether or not the shrines can be distin guishe d as all-purpose or special-purpose types, pilgrims gener ally have a specific purpose, a niyyät, for making the pilgrim age.1 5 Many Azerbaijani Muslims explain that one never visits a shrine withou t niyyät, or a specific request, in mind.16 Several exam ples of Soviet survey researc h carried out at shrines in the North Cauca sus confirm the notion that pilgrims al - ways have a defi nite purpose for a local pilgrim age. Although the way in which these surveys were admin is tered may be doubted and the results are not reported in a very clear manner, they are none the- less useful as indi ca tions of the meanings attrib uted to shrine prac - tice. In a month-long survey at Shalbuz Dagh, a shrine along the Azerbaijani-Dagestani borde r, Kaflan Khanbayev encoun tered 170 pilgrims. When he asked about their reasons for visit ing the shrine, he obtained the follow ing responses :

Reaso n Women Men To tal

Illnes s 72 24 96

Steril it y 37 -.- 37

Family problem s 20 4 24

Other specific request s 6 7 13 *

Another socio log i cal study of 351 pilgrims in Chechen- Ingushetia provides a simi lar sense that pilgrims partake in de vo- tional activ i ties at the shrines with specific inten tions in mind. The content of the first and last cate go ries used in the surve y, “To fulfill a

*The survey was conducted between 18 July and 12 August 1985. Of the 170 pilgrims, 135 were women and 35 were men (Khanbaev, p. 132). Ambiv a lence, Author ity, and the Problem of Popu lar Islam 111 prior vow” and “Other reasons,” are not entirely clear, but the break - down of remain ing reasons is nonethe less indic a tive of trends in shrine worship. In answer to the question, “Why did you come to the shrine?,” the research ers obtained the follow ing responses :

1. To fulfill a previ ously made vow 23 .4% 2. For emotional comfor t 11 .7 3. Cure for diseas e 6.5 4. Prayer for health of childre n 10 .0 5. Prayer for welfare of famil y 10 .0 6. Accord ing to tradi tion, for hol i day 4.8 7. Other reason s 33 .6*

As partially reflected in these data, the inter ces sion of a shrine is sought espe cially during peri ods of heightened personal anxi et y, such as illness or family prob lems. Ziyarät (pilgrim age—see below ) is also performed as part of a rite of passage, which, due to its tran si - tional nature, is marked by fears of an unsuc cess ful outcome. Such transi tions may include the more socially recog nized rites of pas sage observed at birth, circum ci sion (coming of age), marriage, and death. Or they may be of a more indi vid ual nature, such as a house - warming or sending a son off to mili tary service . Pilgrims visit shrines with niyyät, but what does one do to ob - tain the spiri tual assis tance of the shrine? This is the essence of shrine practice. The answer is that pilgrims bring not only their niyyät, but also näzir. The näzir is commonly a gift to the shrine, or perhaps more precisely an offer ing to the saint or sacred spirit that inhab its the shrine. The näzir estab lishes a rela tion of reci proc ity between the pil - grim and the shrine: in return for the näzir the saint of the shrine re - turns the gift of spiri tual assis tance to the pilgrim. In the event of vows previ ously made, the pilgri m ’s gift returns the favor alread y granted.17 Näzir take many differ ent forms and vary depend ing on the specific features of the shrine. For exam ple, the shrine of Pir Seyid in

*S. A. Sangariev, “Nekotorye voprosy ateisticheskogo i internatsional ’nogo vospitaniia,” Sotsiologiia, ateizm, religiia, v. 2, pt. 1 (Groznyi: Checheno-Ingushskoe Knizhnoe Izdatel ’stvo, 1976), p. 6. 112 Mark Saroyan

Nardaran is composed of two crypts adjoin ing a vault that is sit u ated partially under ground. The crypts are sepa rated from the vault by a metal grate, and pilgrims toss their näzir of paper money, coins, or other objects into the crypt (the bars prevent others from taking the cash offer ings). Apart from cash, the most common näzir, which are often simply left at the shrine by pilgrims, include silk and other cloth (espe cially scarves), sugar cubes (known as gänt ), tea, and other foodstuffs such as hal vah. The cate gory of näzir includes not only the offer ing of a phys i- cal gift, but also the perfor mance of a devo tional act. The most wide - spread of such acts is the tying of ribbons or strips of cloth at or near the shrine. At the entrance to the Pir Seyid shrine in Nardaran, a cy - clone fence is regu larly covered with multi col ored strips of cloth. Pil - grims likewise make use of virtu ally all the available spaces on some nearby tombs to tie their devo tional cloth strips. The lighting of can - dles is also a widespread devo tional act at shrines, and the many blackened spots from candles affixed to inte rior walls, entrances , and other parts of a shrine are a common reminder of this prac tice. On more impor tant occa sions, such as a reli gious holi da y, the circum ci sion of a son, or the building of a new home, pilgrims bring chickens or sheep to slaughter at the shrine, and they then take them home to prepare. Given the family orien ta tion of this kind of prac - tice, entire fami lies make an outing to the shrine to partic i pate in the ritual. At shrines where ritual sacri fice has become espe cially pop u - lar, elabo rate facil i ties are sometimes set up to make the slaughter of ani mals more conve nient . Candle lighting or ribbon tying are performed at virtu ally all shrines in Azerbaijan, but at certain shrines one can find numer ou s instances of shrine-specific devo tional acts. At some shrines, known as “rock shrines” ( dash piri ) in the special ist liter a ture, pilgrims bring rocks which they pile up at the shrine. At others, such as Baba Dagh in the Guba district, pilgrims take rocks away from the shrine to use as talis mans at home.18 Apart from the water shrines at natu ra l springs, creeks, or water falls, some shrines (for exam ple, Äli ayaghï in Buzovna) have wells from which pilgrims drink to re ceive shäfa , or healing, as a part of other devo tions. There are, in effect, as many kinds of näzir as there are pilgrims and shrines. Due to the almost inher ently special ized and indi vid u al ize d charac ter of believ er s ’ requests, which usually provide the purpos e Ambiv a lence, Author ity, and the Problem of Popu lar Islam 113 of the visit to the shrine and näzir, the function of the practice has a central signif i cance in consti tut ing the forms of Azerbaijani Islam . Empha sizing the central ity of function over form shows that dis tinc- tions between “offi cial” and “popu lar” erode at the level of meanin g and the signif i cance of practice . In the next section, I will look at the mosque as often used qua shrine and how the clergy appro pri ates lucra tive shrine pil grim ages. Noting the simi lar i ties on the level of function between shrine and mosque qua shrine shows that the charac ter iza tion of offi cial Isla m as an instru ment of the state and popu lar Islam as an expres sion of oppo si tion in soci ety is problem atic and mislead ing. I make the case that cleri cal author it y, as well as reli gious practice, is ambig u ous. In contrast to conven tional views that assume the clergy is absent from the shrines, the Azerbaijani clergy appro pri ates shrine practice into its own image of legit i mate Islamic practice. In the case of the mosques, through an analy sis of ritual, reli gious practices si mul ta- neously affirm and subvert the author ity of the clergy, dem on strat- ing how the exten sion of the formal cate go ries of offi cial and pop u lar do not neces sar ily allow us to infer functional differ ences from for - mal. Contrary to the assump tion that the rela tive absence of cleri ca l leader ship at the shrines is evi dence of popu lar practice as a have n for nascent antistate/anti-Soviet oppo si tion, offi cial cleri cal au thor- ity is rein forced through the appro pri a tion and legit i ma tion of cer - tain shrine practices. This appro pri a tion shows that in many ways offi cial practices clearly vio late the observer-imposed concep tua l boundaries between offi cial and popu lar. This concep tual borde r war is by no means one-sided, howeve r. The offi cial is pene trated by the popu lar during the ambiv a lent moments when ordi nary Mus - lims appro pri ate the mosque and rein vest it with the functions of the shrine for their niyyät and näzir ritu als .

THE “OFFICIAL” APPROPRIATION OF “POPULAR” PRACTICE

The Muslim Boards for Central Asia and the North Cauca su s have repeat edly expressed their oppo si tion to shrine practices. The Boards ’ antishrine posi tion has been made repeat edl y, begin ning in 114 Mark Saroyan the 1950s and contin u ing into the 1980s, in the form of fetwas , or re li- gious edicts, as well as other more infor mal condem na tions of su per - stitions and shrine-related practices.19 The cleri cal estab lish ment of Transcaucasia, however, has issued no such condem na tions of saint worship and shrine pilgrim age. Rather, in estab lish ing its rela tion to the vener a tion of shrines, the Transcaucasian cleri cal estab lish men t not only rejects condem na tion of shrine worship, but it also activel y embraces such worship. The “ortho dox” clergy of Transcaucasia thus pursues a strategy of appro pri at ing the popu lar vener a tion of shrines and insti tu tion al iz ing it into its own concep tion of legit i mat e Islam in order to legit i mate its author ity in the Muslim commu nity . In contrast to commonly held Sunni tradi tions, partic u larly re - formist tenden cies within Sunnism that have rejected the vener a tio n of shrines as heret i cal and non-Islamic super sti tion, the Shi ’i clergy has devel oped a histor i cal tradi tion of shrine worship. The Azerbaijani clergy, strongly influ enced by the reli gious conven tion s of the Shi ’i hier ar chy of Iran, is a partic i pant in this larger Shi ’i tra di- tion. Shi ’i tradi tion accepts the signif i cance of the hajj , or pilgrim ag e to the holy Islamic cities of Mecca and Medina. In addi tion, Shi ’i cler - ics have rendered the tombs of the Shi ’i imams as impor tant sites of reli gious worship and pilgrim age. Distinct from the hajj, this type of pilgrim age is known as ziyarät in Iranian and Azerbaijani usage.2 0 The Shi ’i vener a tion of the imams ’ shrines has been traced back as early as the tenth to twelfth centu ries. After the procla ma tion of Shi ’ism as the offi cial reli gion of the Safavi dynasty in Iran, the sig - nifi cance of pilgrim age to the shrines was revived and rein forced as a means to buttress the social and polit i cal posi tion of the Shi ’i state. During Safavi rule, numer ous shrines were rebuilt and enlarged, in - cluding the tomb of Imam Hussein at Kerbala (Iraq) and tombs of other imams and their rela tives located at Najaf (Iraq) and Mashhad and Qom (Iran). As in the case of Mecca, by which the pilgrim ob - tains the honor ific ti tle hajji , pilgrims to the shrines at Kerbala and Mashhad often receive equiva lent honor ific titles of karbelayi and mashhadi . Promoted under Safavi auspices, pilgrim ages to the shrines became insti tu tion al ized. More gener ally at this time, vis i ta- tion to any reputed grave of an imam, known collo qui ally as an imamzadä (liter all y, a descen dent of the imam), was encour aged by the Shi ’i cleri cal author i ties.21 The shrines of Qöy Imam near Kirovabad, Imamzadä in the district of Bärdä, and Bibi Heybat just Ambiv a lence, Author ity, and the Problem of Popu lar Islam 115 south of Baku are among the most promi nent sites in the Azerbaijani repub lic consid ered to be imamzadä. The Transcaucasian Muslim Reli gious Board ’s posi tion to ward shrine vener a tion is expressed not only in the partic u lar ity of its re li- gious discourse, but also in the forms of reli gious practice that it au tho- rizes and orga nizes at a practi cal level. The reputed mauso leum of a medi eval Shi ’i reli gious figure, located several miles outside the city of Kirovabad in the west ern part of Azerbaijan, is one exam ple of this practi cal incor po ra tion of shrine vener a tion.22 Known popu larly as Qöy Imam, or “Blue Imam,” a refer ence to the shrine ’s blue dome, it was recog nized as a legit i mate site of reli gious pilgrim age by the sheikh-ul-Islam of Transcaucasia, Akhundzadä, in the pre-Soviet pe riod. After the rees tab lish ment of the Transcaucasian Muslim Reli giou s Board during World War II, the site was granted legal status as a shrine under the Board ’s super vi sion. As such, it was the only Muslim re li- gious site in the Soviet Union that was regis tered solely as a shrine and recog nized by a Muslim Reli gious Board. Each year, the Baku Musli m Board sponsored a pilgrim age to the shrine, thereby transform ing what is commonly consid ered popu lar practice into a compo nent of offi cial , clerically legit i mated reli gious prac tice. Another exam ple of the clergy ’s appro pri a tion of shrine wor - ship is Pir Seyid, a nineteenth-century mauso leum located in the town ceme tery of Nardaran, a suburb of Baku on the Apsheron Pen - insula. One of the more popu lar shrines of Azerbaijan, the shrine was legal ized as a mosque in the 1950s through the efforts of the leader of the Transcaucasian Muslim Board, sheikh-ul-Islam Suleymanzad. In the case of Pir Seyid, then, Azerbaijani clerics af fil i- ated with the Muslim Board have incor po rated the shrine into their own insti tu tion al ized network of reli gious insti tu tions. In this way, Pir Seyid functions as both an offi cial mosque and a site of popu la r reli gious pilgrim age . The extent of offer ings made at shrines such as Qöy Imam, ad min- istered under the author ity of the Muslim Reli gious Board in Baku, is evi dence of an addi tional major function that appro pri a tion of the shrine performs for the clergy. For the years 1975, 1977, and 1979, the an - nual income reported by the cleri cal offi cials super vis ing the shrine amounted to 22,615, 20,516, and 19,756 rubles respec tivel y. Enormou s amounts of cloth, often tied to aläm (deco rated poles) dur ing Muharram ritu als, are also collected at the shrine. In addi tion to more 116 Mark Saroyan than 1,500 scarves and handker chiefs collected each year, mis cel la- neous lengths of cloth amounted to 1,416, 949, and 1,230 meters dur ing each of the three years noted.23 Thus, the finan cial function for which the pilgrim age is sancti fied helps account for the transfor ma tion of forms of offi cial worship. As well as appro pri at ing the aspects of shrine practice in order to extend the author ity of the offi cial clergy, the Baku Board receives substan tial income from the Kirovabad shrine. As one of the most famous shrines in Azerbaijan, Qöy Imam may be able to gen er- ate unusu ally large offer ings, espe cially since the Azerbaijani clergy or - ganizes annual pilgrim ages to the shrine and as an imamzadä it is an impor tant site for the rites of mourning during Muharram. Qöy Imam thereby serves as a site for the repro duc tion and exten sion of cleri ca l author ity into the realm of the popu lar . These sorts of appro pri a tion are evi dence of the ambiv a lence of practice which problematizes the offi cial/pop u lar dichot om y, par - ticu larly on the level of function. The same holds true when ordi nar y believ ers appro pri ate the mosque of the offi cial realm and invest it with an ambiv a lent status by using it as a shrine.

MOSQUE QUA SHRINE: THE PENETRATION OF THE “OFFICIAL” BY THE “PO PULAR”

Mosques are frequently consid ered to be sites where only offi cia l reli gious rites under cleri cal super vi sion are permit ted. In practice , how ever, mosques frequently serve as havens for vari ous kinds of un - offi cial reli gious activ it y. Mosques commonly attract people who are involved in the buying and selling of imported Qur ’ans, privately re - produced reli gious texts, and reli gious para pher na lia neither pro - duced nor directly sanctioned by the Muslim Reli gious Boards. As of 1987, seven teen mosques were regis tered with the gov - ernment in Azerbaijan and oper ated under the juris dic tion of the Muslim Reli gious Board for Transcaucasia. * Many of Azerbaijan ’s

*This figure does not include the mosques under the admin is tra tion’s ju ris dic- tion which are located outside the Azerbaijani repub lic. These are three mosques in Georgia (Tbilisi, Sukhumi, and Batumi) and Arme nia’s one mosque in Yerevan. A list of Azerbaijan’s regis tered mosques was confirmed during an in- terview with the head of the State Commit tee for Reli gious Affairs under the Azerbqaijan SSR’s Council of Minis ters . Ambiv a lence, Author ity, and the Problem of Popu lar Islam 117 largest cities have at least one working mosque. Baku has two (Äzhdärbay and Täzäpir), and Sumgayït (Jorat), Kirovabad, and Nakhchïvan each have one. Perhaps more signif i cant is the fact that most of Azerbaijan ’s mosques are located in or within close prox im- ity of urban cen ters. Cleri cal aspi ra tions to author ity made in princi ple are ac com - plished in practice through the rites of the mosque. Rituals are an im - portant vehi cle for the legit i ma tion of author ity rela tions between a leader ship and its constit u enc y. At the same time, ritu als provide an oppor tu nity for subal tern groups to express vari ous forms of re sis - tance.24 In the case of the Soviet Muslim commu nit y, both consen t and resis tance are expressed in the ritual conduct of the mosques. The ambiv a lence is evi dent in the way that the offi cial is, in part, transformed by the pene tra tion of the popu lar. That is, what counts as “Islam” changes as a transfu sion of popu lar practices is injecte d into the corpus of offi cial Islam. This is partic u larly so in the case of the indi vid u ally specific niyyät and näzir that can transform the mosque into a site of shrine practice . Whether the mosque functions in its usual capac ity or as an ersat z shrine depends on the perspec tive and inten tion of the believ ers. For exam ple, mosques are designed for the perfor mance of quintu ple daily prayers (in Arabic, salat ; in Azerbaijani us age, namaz ) and the con gre ga- tional Fri day prayers (in Azerbaijani, jümä namazï ), and it is for these rites that the mosques are most system at i cally used. As one of the five pillars of the Muslim faith, it is through these theolog i cally prescribe d practices ( ibadat ) that the believer achieves spiri tual commu nion with God. Despite the clergy ’s posi tion recom mend ing perfor mance of the namaz, daily prayers are not held on a regu lar basis in many of Azerbaijan ’s mosques. In theor y, few cler ics would deny the sig nif i- cance of the quintu ple daily prayer, but in practice they rarely de - nounce people for failure to perform these prayers. More over, many mosques remain closed during the weekdays, thus preclud ing any reg - ular obser vance of the daily prayers by local com mu ni ties. The offi cial/pop u lar dichot omy in Islam implies that the of fi - cial cleric performs only those general, theolog i cally condoned rites asso ci ated with formalistic mosque practice. For the more im me di- ate satis fac tion of social, medi cal, and other needs, the Muslim must turn to what Ernst Gellner has described as the alter na tive or sub sti - tute reli gion of the saints and shrines. But the ritual role played by 118 Mark Saroyan the Shi ’i cleric during the obser vance of the Friday prayers in Azerbaijan displays the cleri cal capac ity to perform both the gen eral, theolog i cal functions asso ci ated with the clergy and the specific , practi cal functions asso ci ated with the shrines. At Shi ’i prayers in Azerbaijan, the deliv ery of the sermo n (moizä ) is gener ally followed by salavat (liter all y, prayer). During the salavat, worship ers at the mosque request blessings from the pre sid- ing imam. The function of the postsermon salavat in many respect s paral lels the private practice of pilgrim age performed at the shrine. The worshiper offers the imam a gift (in this case, the näzir is usuall y cash), and the imam recip ro cates by his offer ing of a blessing tai lored to the devo te e ’s request. As the imam concludes his sermon, men walk up to the min bar, hand the imam some money—a three- or five-ruble note, for instance—and quietly request a special prayer or blessing. It is only men who partake in the salavat since women re - main seques tered behind the mosque parti tions. Typically, one asks a blessing for an ill rela tive or friend. The imam then responds with a formu laic prayer rele vant to the request, such as “In the name of god, the benef i cent, the merci ful, let us pray for Ähmäd that he regain his good health.” Through this practice, the supe rior reli gious author ity of the cleric is publicly recog nized and repro duced in the act of seeking his inter ces sion with God. Through his indi vid u al ized deliv ery of a salavat in return for näzir, the mosque imam in effect plays the same inter me di ary role for the worshiper that the shrines play. What dif - fers, however, is that the salavat of an imam is performed in a publi c manner in the mosque and insti tu tion al ized within this setting as a compo nent of the clerically super vised prayer. The distinc tion be - tween the socio-religious function of the offi cial cleric and the saint of a shrine, canon ized into the oppositions of offi cial/pop u lar, or tho- dox/hetero dox, univer sal/par tic u lar, public/pri vate, and un me di- ated/medi ated, becomes blurred in the ritu al ized conduct of both cleric and common believer . The obser vance that mosque rites are rigid and formalistic fol - lows from a confu sion of the specific rites of the routine mosque prayers with the more general cate gory of mosque practices. Apart from the formal conduct of prayers already described, mosques also serve as an impor tant realm for a vari ety of reli gious practices, in - cluding private prayer (theolog i cally distin guished as du ’a, in con - Ambiv a lence, Author ity, and the Problem of Popu lar Islam 119 trast to the obliga tory quintu ple prayers, salat or namaz). These private prayers, performed infor mally at the mosque, reflect many of the same forms and functions as the rites observed at the shrines. In this regard, there is consid er able overlap in both the forms and meanings of “sepa rate” mosque and shrine prac tice. Most commonl y, the practi tio ners of these infor mal rites are women. During the Friday prayers or at other times when the mosques are open to the public, women enter the mosque to tie silk scarves or other strips of cloth around an aläm (see below), which despite its wide - spread asso ci a tion with the rites of Muharram is usually kept year round in a conve niently acces si ble loca tion (for women) in the mosque.* Oth ers purchase candles from the mosque custo dian and light them in special niches set aside for candle lighting, usually lo cated in an ante room or auxil iary entrance to the mosque. Other kinds of näzir are also practiced, espe cially during pe ri- ods of special reli gious signif i cance. Some practices require as sis - tance or guidance, which in the mosque is provided not by a pir sahibi but by an available cleric. During Muharram com mem o ra- tions, for exam ple, women and sometimes men approach a mosque offi cial with an offer ing (gener ally cash) for the right to walk unde r the minbar at the front of the mosque. Passing under the min bar, like other devo tions performed at mosques and shrines, is consid ered a means to obtain a blessing. In this case, the minbar, a symbol of the clergy ’s higher reli gious status and author ity to deliver a sermon , serves as a spiri tual inter me di ary between god and the dev o tee. Even mosques that are not legally oper at ing under cleri cal su - pervi sion can serve as sites for the perfor mance of infor mal reli giou s practices. Again, buildings that would formally be consid ere d mosques in fact function as shrines. Apart from its regis tere d mosque-shrine, the small town of Nardaran in Baku ’s suburbs has as many as six or seven “closed” mosques, includ ing the large Frida y mosque. There is no regu lar super vi sion of these mosques by the clerics or with the Muslim Reli gious Board, and no regu lar reli giou s rites are held there. The mosques likewise lack local resi dents who would act as “shrine” guardians. But all the town ’s mosques are left

*The tying of strips of cloth to trees and other objects is a common reli giou s practice in many parts of Asia, from Christian Arme nia to the Hindu-Muslim In- dian subcon ti nent to southern Sibe ria, where shaman ism and Tibetan Bud dhism predom i nate . 120 Mark Saroyan unlocked, and some of the smaller buildings, now in disre pair, even lack doors. As a result, they provide a conve nient site for regu lar vis - ita tion by local Muslims. In Nardaran ’s mosques, for exam ple, there is ample physi cal evi dence of pilgrim ages to the mosques, where pil - grims light candles at the mih rab and minbar, tie ribbons to the doors and windows, or perform other kinds of näzir to accom pany their prayers and requests. In the minds of the believ ers and in the prac - tices they observe, there is thus little to distin guish the socio-religious use of the mosques from the shrines. Sunni Muslims sometimes use the mosque for zikr (liter all y, memory), though the rite is also performed in the home. In many Muslim soci et ies, the zikr is asso ci ated with mysti cal rites of Sufi or - ders.25 In the Sunni-populated areas of northern Azerbaijan, zikrs have often lost their Sufi conno ta tions and consist mainly of the col - lective chanting of a series of reli gious formu las. The phrases of the zikr are often quite repet i tive, which for its practi tio ners is pre sumed to facil i tate mysti cal oneness with the deit y. Since many of Azerbaijan ’s Sunni Muslims are not ethnic Azerbaijanis but belon g to a number of distinct ethnic groups, zikrs are sometimes recited in combi na tions of Arabic, Azerbaijani, and other North Cauca sian lan - guages such as Lezgiu or Avar. Compo nents of the zikr may also be quite simple, such as the repeated reci ta tion of short invo ca tions or one of the names of God, “Al lah.” Much like the mosque prayers, the zikrs can perform the col lec- tive function of solid i fy ing a general attach ment to the Muslim com - munity and God. But in their Transcaucasian form, zikrs are also typi cally performed as a kind of collec tive näzir. Groups of rela tive s and friends gather for a wide array of specific, private purposes , from the blessing of a new house to prayer for a son who is leavin g for mili tary ser vice. A zikr is also chanted as a kind of requiem service to com mem o- rate a death in the family or of any person whom the Muslim re - spected in life and desires to honor at death. One infor mant in Azerbaijan, a Sunni Dargin woman origi nally from a village in Dagestan, related to me a story about her mother, who engaged a lo - cal cleric to conduct a zikr upon the death of Viacheslav Molotov, the Soviet minis ter of foreign affairs under Stalin. This story provides an indi ca tion of the vari ety of uses to which reli gious practices such as the zikr are put. More over, the fact that an infor mal reli gious rite can Ambiv a lence, Author ity, and the Problem of Popu lar Islam 121 be used to commem o rate the death of a Soviet polit i cal leader destabilizes a common assump tion that popu lar Islam is inher ently a challenge to the author ity of the state. Täzä-pir is an excel lent exam ple of the mosque as shrine. While it functions mainly as a mosque, during the day and evening of tasu ’a and ashura, Täzä-pir is in fact transformed into a major shrine for thousands of Muslims.* In a festi val-like atmo sphere, the mosque and its courtyard fill with pilgrims, preachers, beggars, and simpl e observ ers. Throughout the mosque compound, Muslim Board of fi- cials set up sites for devo tions simi lar to those observed at the shrines. Most promi nent among these sites are the dozens of de vo- tion stands where aläm are dis played. The aläm consists of a pole topped by an open hand, which is vari ously inter preted as repre sent ing the hand of Ali or the five members of the holy family of the prophet (Muham mad, Ali, Mu - hamma d ’s daughter and Ali ’s wife Fatima, and their two sons, Huseyn and Hasan). The aläm are attached to blue-painted metal boxes for the collec tion of cash dona tions. The boxes are clearly marked with the stenciled let ters näzir chutes (offer ing box). Unde r the super vi sion of mosque offi cials or volun teers, pilgrims place their dona tion into the metal box and tie silk scarves or other large strips of cloth to the aläm. As at the shrine, the tying of cloth to the aläm symbol izes the pilgri m ’s offer ing to God. One mosque vol un- teer described the cloth-covered aläm as “the flag of Islam” ( Islamïn bayraghï ), thus identi fy ing a specific Shi ’i practice with the more gen - eral attach ment to Islam . Thus the pene tra tion of one concep tual realm by the other oc - curs in a bidirectional manner. The offi cial appro pri ates the pop u lar, and the popu lar invests ele ments of the offi cial with new meaning . No clear-cut impli ca tions of stabil ity or insta bil ity can be inferred . Cleri cal and pilgrim usage of shrine and mosque challenge the ex - tension of the dichot omy beyond the level of form and into the level of function. Thus one cannot simply conclude that the popu lar is purely a haven of resis tance, while the offi cial is purely a source of repres sion. The question that emerges from the challenge to move beyond the dichot omy of offi cial/pop u lar regards the polit i cal and

*In an inter view, a source with the Azerbaijani govern ment esti mated the number of visi tors to Täzä-pir alone in 1987 at 10,000. 122 Mark Saroyan ana lyt i cal impli ca tions of identi fy ing human insti tu tional ar range - ments and practices as ambiv a lent .

RECONSIDERING THE IMPLICATIONS OF AMBIVALENCE

There is a need to recon sider overgeneralized and dichoto - mized classi fi ca tions of reli gious practice. Espe cially with regard to the local consti tu tion of cleri cal author it y, the Azerbaijani clergy ’s exten sion of its insti tu tional author ity over the shrines and the ritua l transfor ma tion of offi cial mosques into shrines call into question the concep tual utility of distin guish ing axi om at i cally between cleri ca l and nonclerical spheres of reli gious practice . By focus ing on the distinct nature of the forms of offi cial and popu lar reli gious activ i ties, in contrast to the functions and mean - ings that they assume for Muslim practi tio ners, I have attempted to show the ways in which the pene tra tion of popu lar reli gious prac tice within the mosque serves to both confirm and subvert cleri cal he ge- mony in the Muslim commu nit y. In this sense, the ritu al ized re sis - tance to cleri cal author ity expressed in the Muharram chanting at Täzä-pir simul ta neously challenges and repro duces the leading re li- gious role of the clergy. The moments in which the forms of seemingly distinct and sep - arate insti tu tions and practices are appro pri ated and rein vested with new functional signif i cance are moments of ambiv a lence in which the very identity of human arrange ments is subject to trans for ma- tion. What is most signif i cant, both ana lyt i cally and polit i call y, is that this transfor ma tion cannot be charac ter ized as a simple choice between the stabil ity or insta bil ity of the status quo. Rather, these contestations of meaning and function, which engage both the of fi- cially autho rized cleric and the ordi nary Islamic pilgrim, are the very dynamic by which Soviet Islam itself was contin u ously formu late d and refor mu lated, consti tuted and recon sti tuted, created and trans - formed. Ambiv a lence, Author ity, and the Problem of Popu lar Islam 123

NOTES

1. This paper was being written by the author with help from Maranatha Ivanova, a Ph.D. candi date in polit i cal science at UC Berkeley at the time of the autho r ’s death. It was completed by Ms. Ivanova. 2. “Poslovtsy shirvanskikh tatar,” in Sbornik materialov dlia opisaniia mestnostei i plemen kavkaza, v. 24 (Tiflis, 1898), p. 3. 3. Christian Coulon, Les Musulmans et le pouvoir en Afrique noire (Paris: Karthala, 1983); Fazlur Rahman likewise describes Sufism as an expres sio n of protest against cleri cal reli gion ( Islam , 2d ed. [Chicago: Univer sity of Chi - cago Press, 1979], pp. 150–51.) 4. See, for exam ple, the concise critique proposed by Dale F. Eickelman, “Changing Inter pre ta tions of Islamic Movements,” in Islam and the Polit i ca l Economy of Meaning: Compar a tive Studies of Muslim Dis course, ed. William R. Roff (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univer sity of Cali for nia Press, 1987), p. 18, and more thoroughly in Dale F. Eickelman, Moroc can Islam: Tradi tion and So - ciety in a Pilgrim age Cente r (Austin: Univer sity of Texas Press, 1976). 5. Jacques Waardenberg, “Offi cial and Popu lar Is lam,” Social Compas s 25, 3/4 (1978). The term is also employed by Ira Lapidus in his History of Islamic So ci- eties (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer sity Press, 1988). 6. John L. Esposito, Islam: The Straight Path (New York: Oxford Univer sit y Press, 1988). 7. This method is advo cated, for exam ple, in Coulon, pp. 7–9. 8. This physi cal descrip tion of shrines in Azerbaijan shares many compa ra bl e features to those in Morocco described by Clifford Geertz, Islam Observe d (New Haven: Yale Univer sity Press, 1968), pp. 49–50. 9. The author, M. A. Balayev, names the follow ing districts: Astara, Lerik, Massallï, Länkäran, Shamakhï, Guba, and Nakhchïvan ASSR; “Azärbayjanda ‘mügäddäslärä ’ pärästish galïglarï”; Ph.D. disser ta tion , Azerbaijan SSR Academy of Sciences, Insti tute of Philos o ph y, Baku, 1969. 10. See, for exam ple, Z. Zülalova, “Gadïnlar arasïnda dindarlïghïn täzahürläri vä elmi ateist tärbiyäsi mäsäläläri”; Ph.D. disser ta tion, Azerbaijan SSR Academy of Sciences, Insti tute of Philos o ph y, Baku, 1974, pp. 53–57. 11. Kaflan Khanbaev, “Kritika islamskoi kontseptsii svobody voli”; Ph.D. dis- serta tion, Dagestan State Univer sity, Makhachkala, 1986, p. 132. Accord in g to a Tajik scholar, in Tajikistan 70 percent of pilgrims are women (R. M. Madzhidov , Osobennosti formirovaniia ateisticheskogo mirovozreniia zhenshchin (na materialakh Tadzhikskoi SSR ) (Dushanbe, 1977), p. 43. 12. For a useful study of the shrines, see Abdulla Ähädov , “Mügäddäslärä” pärästishin mahiyyäti vä müasir galïglarï haggïnda (Baku: Azärbaïjan SSR “Bilik” Jämiyyäti, 1986), and Balayev. 13. I. I. Meshchaninov, Piry Azerbaidzhana (Lenin grad, 1931). 14. Balayev. 124 Mark Saroyan

15. Compare this to the more general concept of niyyät, consid ered as a man da- tory psychic prepa ra tion before perfor mance of the mosque prayer. In some schools of Shi ’i theol ogy, niyyät, or purity of inten tion, is consid ered a fun - damen tal precon di tion to the pious perfor mance of any ritual (Moojan Momen, An Intro duc tion to Shi ’i Is lam [New Haven: Yale Univer sity Press, 1985], p. 178). 16. From inter views conducted among pilgrims on the Apsheron Penin sul a during fall 1987. 17. In his pio neer ing work on gift exchange, Marcel Mauss consid ers rec i proc ity to be one of the funda men tal features of the gift ( The Gift: The Form and Rea- son for Exchange in Archaic Soci etie s [New York: Norton, 1990]). 18. On the range of rock-oriented reli gious practices, see H. A. Guliev and A. S. Bäkhtiyarov, Azärbayjanda gädim dini ayinlär vä onlarïn maïshätdä galïglarï (Baku, 1968). 19. On the early fetwas, see T. Izimbetov, Islam i sovremennost ’ (Nukus, 1963), p. 98. One of the more recent fetwas, enti tled “On ethics in vis it ing mazars (holy places),” was drafted in 1983 ( MSE 2 [1983]: 17). 20. The ziyara , or shrine pilgrim age, is a common feature of Islamic practic e most usually asso ci ated with the vener a tion of Sufis. See, for exam ple , Esposito, p. 110. 21. Momen, pp. 181–82. 22. The mauso leum is reputed to be the grave of the third son of Abujäfär Mähämmäd ibn Zeïnalabdin, the fifteenth imam recog nized in Shi ’i tra di- tion. For a discus sion of the shrine ’s history (and pseudo-history), see Ähädov. 23. The provider of these details, formerly head of the state commit tee for re li- gious affairs under the Azerbaijani SSR Council of Minis ters, also notes that during 1968–71, the shrine at Qöy Imam collected over 30,000 rubles a year in cash alone (Ähädov, p. 25). 24. Stephen Lukes, “Polit i cal Ritual and Social In te gra tion,” So ci ol ogy 9, 2 (May 1975). 25. For a Soviet study of the zikr and its connec tion to Sufism in Dagestan, see Mustafinov, Zikrizm i ee sotsial ’naia sushchnost ’. For a Western descrip tion of the zikr based on simi lar Soviet sources, see Alexandre Bennigsen and S. E. Wimbush, Mystics and Commis sars: Sufism in the Soviet Unio n (Berkeley: Uni- versity of Cali for nia Press, 1985), pp. 77–83. MAJORITY-MINORITY RELATIONS IN THE SOVIET REPUBLICS

As a child, I was fasci nated by my world globe. The shapes and colors of the differ ent countries repre sented an unfath om able realm of faraway places and cultures. Follow ing the longi tudes on the re - volving sphere with my finge r, it was impos si ble not to wonde r about the unusu ally large and invari ably pink patch on one side of the globe. This patch, of course, was the Union of Soviet Social ist Re - publics, a place that we more commonly referred to with the less cumber some name—Russia . To a great extent, the geographic repre sen ta tion of the Sovie t Union as a single, pink-colored country reflected our tradi tional un - derstand ing of the Soviet polit i cal system. In this view, the Sovie t Union was a unitar y, monolithic, and homo ge neous state where con - formity was forcibly ensured by an omnip o tent Commu nist Party. And, given common assump tions about the nature of this state, the name Russia appeared an ade quate descrip tion . Clearly, contem po rary events in the Soviet Union have ren - dered the facile (and incor rect) appel la tion “Russia” obso lete as a de - scriptive device for the vast and varie gated country we more properly call the Soviet Union. Now, it seems, the rise of polit i ca l movements among the non-Russian popu la tions of the Soviet Un - ion—popu la tions that consti tute one half of the total Soviet pop u la- tion—require us, if not yet to redraw the map en tirely, at least to give it more than one color. But the rise of power ful and very deter mined polit i cal move - ments among the non-Russian popu la tions of the Soviet Union has led us into another quandary of oversim pli fi ca tion. In place of Rus - sia, we now often see a brightly colored and ever-moving ka lei do- scope of differ ent nations and ethnic groups voicing compet in g claims for greater ethnic rights in a reform ing Soviet pol ity. As a re - sult, we tend to conflate all sorts of national activ ism into a singl e type, assum ing that every national movement must neces sar ily be

125 126 Mark Saroyan defined around oppo si tion to Russian hege mony and the main te - nance of Soviet power. In effect, we have moved from the over sim- plifi ca tion of thinking about the Soviet Union as Russia to the equally simplis tic image of the Soviet Union as a plethora of na tion - ali ties clamor ing for liber a tion from the yoke of Soviet Russian rule. In this light, my comments are directed at exam in ing the va ri ety of ethnic polit i cal movements in today’s Soviet Union. In partic u lar, I want to focus on what I consider a funda men tal conflict between the polit i cal movements of national major i ties in the repub lics and the ethnic activ ism of minor ity commu ni ties that oper ate within or across current repub lic borders. Given the widespread assump tio n that the only differ ence among Soviet nationalisms is the name of the given ethnic group acting nation al is ti call y, the need for a more nuanced under stand ing of the ori gins and polit i cal trajec to ries of na - tional activ ism is espe cially acute. In both the academy and the jour - nalis tic commu nit y, talk of “the repub lics” has becom e common place. But too frequently cate go ries such as “nation al i ties ” and “nation al ism” are mixed in with this talk, as if each repub li c were compre hen si ble in terms of its titu lar nation al ity and that all nationalisms could be treated as undif fer en ti ated, amorphou s masses in the fourteen non-Russian repub lics of the Soviet Union . Western analy sis of contem po rary Soviet poli tics has tended to under stand the Soviet Union’s nation al ity problem as consist in g chiefly of Moscow’s rela tions with the national repub lics. This trend frequently followed from a defi ni tion of the nation al ity question that predom i nated (and predom i nates) in Moscow policy circles. Given the funda men tal assump tions of Moscow’s policy on questions of nation al it y, one of the central govern ment’s solu tions to the rise of nation al ism in the country was reflected in the slogan: “a strong cen - ter and strong repub lics.” Moscow policy-makers, howeve r, soon re - alized their poor choice of language, and not long after its initia l announce ment they quickly moved to transform the slogan (if not the policy) to the polit i cally more accept able formu la tion “a strong union and strong repub lics.” Reflected in both slogans was Mos - cow’s hope that it would be able to maintain the power of the centra l govern ment while devolv ing greater power and author ity to the re - publics . Unfor tu nately for both Western analy sis of Soviet poli tics and Moscow-based policy-making, there is more to nation al ity poli tics in Major ity-Minority Rela tions in the Soviet Repub lics 127 the Soviet Union than just Moscow and its problem atic rela tion s with the repub lics. While it is true that this is an impor tant aspect of contem po rary polit i cal conflicts in the country, what it leaves out is that national movements are based not only on the repub lics as dis - tinct units of polit i cal action, but also frequently oper ate at the subrepublic level—both within and across the union repub lics. In this regard, Moscow’s attempts to solve the country’s nation al it y problem by rede fin ing rela tions between the center and the re pub - lics bypasses some of the funda men tal nation al ity-based conflicts in the country. As Western observ ers of Soviet poli tics, there is prob a - bly little we can do to remedy the fact that local nationalisms have al - ready transcended Moscow’s attempts to neutral ize them. But we are in a posi tion to gain a better under stand ing of contem po rary So - viet poli tics by revis ing the way we look at the poli tics of na tion al ism in the USSR. One of the basic sources of nation al ity-based polit i cal conflict in the So viet Union today is that the demo graphic ethnic map and the po - liti cal ethnic map do not match. Conflicts that are based on this lack of corre spon dence derive from the na ture of the Soviet polit i cal system it - self, in which the orga ni za tion of state admin is tra tion is closely linked with both terri tory and nation al it y. In effect, Soviet state forma tion fos - tered the devel op ment of sepa rate forms of ethnic state admin is tra tio n to provide polit i cal repre sen ta tion for a range of distinct national com - muni ties. Referred to as national-statehood in Soviet polit i cal dis - course, Soviet poli cies sponsored the devel op ment of a hier ar chy of state admin is tra tive divi sions that were defined in ethnic terms. The collec tion of union repub lics, auton o mous repub lics, auton o mous re - gions, and auton o mous districts that composed the Soviet Union were not simply units of polit i cal admin is tra tion but were distinc t ethnoterritorial state forma tions . The Soviet insti tu tion of terri tori ally based national-statehoo d was further consol i dated by promul ga tion of the policy of korenizatsiia, or nativization, a program of affir ma tive action in state, party, and economic admin is tra tion. Viewed as an anti dote to Rus - sian polit i cal hege mony under Tsarism, nativization fostered the de - velop ment of local national elites to run the affairs of the newly forming national admin is tra tions. But while the policy of nativization, imple mented in the insti tu tional context of the na tional state, afforded a privi leged status to the so-called titu lar nation al it y 128 Mark Saroyan of each ethnoterritorial admin is tra tion, the policy at the same time disen fran chised the nontitular popu la tions of the given terri tory . Thus, in an attempt to solve the problem of Russian/non-Russian re - lations in the periph ery, Soviet poli cies fostered new forms of ethni c discrim i na tion in rela tions between the vari ous non-Russian na - tional commu ni ties resi dent in the repub lics . Given this form of state admin is tra tion, it is not surpris ing that nation al ity conflicts oper ate not only between the national repub lic s and the central polit i cal leader ship, but also within the multi-ethnic soci et ies of each national repub lic. When speaking of national move - ments in the Soviet Union, therefore, we must be careful to dis tin - guish those national movements that are based on a partic u la r national repub lic and those movements that cross eth - nic-administrative borders. Thus, our increased atten tion to the na - tional movements of Uzbeks, Latvi ans, and Georgians in their own repub lics must be comple mented by a real iza tion that there is also the distinct question of Tajiks in Uzbekistan, Arme ni ans in Azerbaijan, and Ukraini ans in the Pacific coast region. Of course, we also should not leave out the equally impor tant problem in nationa l rela tions of the Russian popu la tions resi dent in the non-Russian re - publics from the Baltics to Central Asia. The vari ety of subrepublican national movements and their po - liti cal trajec to ries frequently oper ate in compe ti tion with and in op - posi tion to national movements based on the national repub lic itself . Moreover, the differ ences between repub lic-based and subrepublic national movements are exac er bated by current Moscow poli cie s that seek to devolve more power and auton omy to the national re - publics. Thus, while the center is osten si bly attempt ing to provid e greater sover eignty to the national repub lics the local concep tion of sover eignty in those repub lics, often differs markedly from Mos - cow’s. While Moscow may view the repub lic as a form of govern men t that guaran tees rights to all the citi zens resi dent within it, the loca l under stand ing of sover eignty frequently revolves not around the re - public itself but rather the titu lar nation of the given national for ma - tion. The differ ence lies in the distinc tion between the notion of the repub lic as repre sen ta tive of the total ity of its resi dent citi zens and the more limited notion of the repub lic as a polit i cal form to rep re - sent only the members of a partic u lar nation. In the law on sov er - Major ity-Minority Rela tions in the Soviet Repub lics 129 eignty passed in Azerbaijan in Octo ber 1989, for exam ple, refer enc e is made to the Soviet Union not as a feder a tion of union repub lics but as a feder a tion of nations. In this way, the Azerbaijanis consider their repub lic and their nation to be inter change able, effec tively ex clud - ing resi dent non-Azerbaijanis from polit i cal repre sen ta tion . The repub lic has, in effect, ceased to exist as a termi nal polit i ca l commu nity and no longer possesses intrin sic polit i cal value. In - stead, the repub lic exists solely as an instru ment by which the given nation that domi nates it seeks to extract polit i cal, economic, and so - cial bene fits from the system. It is impor tant to empha size, more over, that the transfer ral of polit i cal loyalty from the repub lic to the natio n is not an inno va tion of the Gorbachev period. Rather, this mode of ethnopolitical identi fi ca tion has deep roots in post-Stalin de vel op- ments, partic u larly in the realm of culture. 1 The marked tendency to identify polit i cally with one’s nationa l commu nity is compli cated in the Cauca sus in partic u lar—but, to an increas ing degree, in the rest of the Soviet Union as well—by the de - velop ment of national movements that oper ate within or across re - publi can borders. Thus, at the same time repub lic admin is tra tion s are being reclaimed in the name of the repub lic’s titu lar nation al it y, nontitular nation al i ties living in the repub lics are also increas in g their claims on the repub lic for rights and protec tion. Failing that, such subrepublic national movements are seeking solu tions from outright sepa ra tion from the repub lic (the Arme ni ans of the Nagorno-Karabakh Auton o mous Region [NKAO] or the Abkhaz in Georgia) to the orga ni za tion of ethnic-political auton omy within the repub lic (the Germans of Kazakhstan and the RSFSR or the Poles of Lithu a nia) . Among conflicts that have opposed nation al i ties of the same re - public against each other, the earli est and most persis tent has been the Arme nian movement centered around the NKAO in Azerbaijan. Both Western and Soviet media have portrayed the struggle for con - trol of the NKAO as a conflict between two repub lics—Ar me nia and Azerbaijan. While it is true that the conflict has evolved into a dis - pute of interrepublic dimen sions, the movement was origi nated and has been contin ued by the Karabakh Arme ni ans themselves in re la - tion to the Azerbaijani polit i cal leader ship in Baku. That is, the most funda men tal compo nent of this conflict is the struggle of the Ar me - nians of the NKAO from within the Azerbaijani repub li c to sepa rat e 130 Mark Saroyan their province from Azerbaijan and form a union with the neigh bor- ing Arme nian repub lic. In its ori gins and decades-long de vel op- ment, the Karabakh movement claimed civic, economic, and cul tural rights for the Arme ni ans living in Azerbaijan, and only follow ing the failure to secure these rights within the context of the Azerbaijani re - public was union with Arme nia consid ered to be indis pens able . Thus, Karabakh Arme ni ans empha size that theirs is a movement for national self-determination and not a case of “foreign” inter ven tio n of the Arme nian repub lic in Azerbaijani affairs. Thought of in this light, the deadlock in the “Arme nian-Azerbaijani” dispute is not so much between Arme nia and Azerbaijan as it is between the NKAO Arme ni ans and the ethnic Azerbaijani polit i cal leader ship of the Azerbaijani repub lic . Subrepublic and transrepublic national movements have emerged as impor tant polit i cal players not only in their own right, but they have also in some cases contrib uted to the forma tion of re - lated (and more frequentl y, opposed) national movements. Thus, the intense polit i cal conflict over the NKAO and its rever ber a tions in Moscow raised the issue of the rights of national minor i ties (of so-called nontitular nation al i ties) to an all-Union level. The rise of perestroik a -inspired inde pend ent polit i cal activ ism among Azerbaijanis, for exam ple, is insep a ra ble from the Karabakh Ar me- nian movement. Not only did the local Arme nian movement cat a- lyze the early forma tion of an Azerbaijani national movement, but the Karabakh question has contin ued to plague Azerbaijani poli tic s as a pivotal issue. 2 Like in Azerbaijan, the emergence of national activ ism among minor ity popu la tions in Georgia has played an impor tant role in cat - alyz ing the forma tion of the majoritarian national movement. Thus, in its early stages the Georgian national movement emerged as a re - sponse to the polit i cal struggle of the repub lic’s Abkhaz minor ity for polit i cal sepa ra tion from Georgia. Since that time, not only the Abkhaz movement but also the rise of polit i cal activ ism among the substan tial minor ity popu la tions of Ossets, Arme ni ans, and Azerbaijanis has served to remind us of Georgia’s status as “tiny em - pire” and has informed the current polit i cal process in the repub lic . In Arme nia proper, the Karabakh movement cata lyzed from beyon d the repub lic’s borders the forma tion of oppositional polit i cal move - ments. Toda y, those same Arme nian polit i cal activ ists that acted in Major ity-Minority Rela tions in the Soviet Repub lics 131 soli dar ity with the NKAO have risen to power in the repub lic’s par - liament and govern ment . All these national movements have their specific ori gins and trajec to ries, but one factor that unites them is the quest for nationa l sover eignt y. Given condi tions in which the insti tu tions of polit i ca l rule are defined in ethnic terms, howeve r, it appears inev i ta ble that conflicts will arise between majoritarian movements that seek the renationalization of their respec tive repub lics and minor ity move - ments that have emerged at the same time with more vocal claims for their own national rights. In this light, the Soviet Union’s new nationalisms do not simply reflect primor dial ethnic senti ments that have been “unleashed” by Gorbachev, but they follow from the na - ture of Soviet ethnic polit i cal insti tu tions, which themselves have fostered a whole series of structural polit i cal contra dic tions betwee n ethnic commu ni ties . The polit i cal effect of claiming one’s rights while deny ing those of others is readily appar ent in Transcaucasia. For exam ple, the Ar - meni ans of the NKAO have argued for more economic, polit i cal, and cultural auton omy from Azerbaijan. In seeking to imple ment their own version of the Gorbachevian programs of self-financing and self-management, the Karabakh Arme ni ans propose: “We are goin g to sell our products to our Arme nian co-nationals in Arme nia; we do not have to sell anything to Baku.” Azerbaijani polit i cal leaders in Baku reject the Arme nian claims and argue that as an inalien abl e part of the Azerbaijani repub lic the NKAO must submit to the re pub- lic’s author ity and coor di nate its economy with the rest of Azerbaijan. At the same time, the Azerbaijanis draw from a like con - ception of rights to argue for greater polit i cal and economic au ton - omy of Azerbaijan in the all-Union context. Like the NKAO Arme ni ans, the Azerbaijanis demand the auton o mous right to mar - ket the resources and products of their repub lic to whomever they wish.3 Likewise, NKAO Arme ni ans have condemned Azerbaijani vi o la- tions of their national rights and called for the inter ven tion of centra l author i ties to secure their physi cal and cultural survival in Azerbaijan. But the major ity Azerbaijanis consider any such inter ven tion a vi o la- tion of their own national sover eignt y. The contra dic tions between the two posi tions appear virtu ally irrec on cil able. Impor tantl y, the ques tion of minor ity and major ity popu la tions transcends that of the fu ture de - 132 Mark Saroyan velop ment of Soviet poli tics, because irre spec tive of whether there ex - ists an inde pend ent Azerbaijan (or Georgia, for that matter) or an Azerbaijan within the Soviet Union, a simi lar set of nation al ity conflict s will continue to plague the region . Anyone who has traveled to the Cauca sus knows that the peo - ple are extremely hospi ta ble. In the past two years, however, tra di - tional Cauca sian hospi tal ity has under gone a specifi c transfor ma tion that I would refer to as the ideol ogy of hospi tal it y. In the context of this ideol og y, Azerbaijanis point out that they have been hospi ta ble to the Arme ni ans. Since the incep tion of the Karabakh movement, a whole series of polem i cal and histor i cal ar - guments have been deployed by the Azerbaijanis to prove that the Karabakh Arme ni ans are rela tively recent immi grants to the region . The point is to prove to the Arme ni ans that they are guests in the NKAO and the rest of Azerbaijan and that they should be grateful to the Azerbaijanis for their hospi tal it y. And of course nobody ap pre ci- ates guests that complain. In Azerbaijan, hospi tal ity has reared its head in the most perverse of times. Thus, during the large-scale movement of Russians and Russian-speakers out of Azerbaijan in the wake of the final round of anti-Armenian pogroms in Janu ar y 1990, the Azerbaijani press was liter ally filled with pronounce ment s lauding Azerbaijani hospi tal ity in an effort to reduce the contin ue d exit of Russians and other non-Azerbaijanis from the repub lic . Simi larl y, the ideol ogy of hospi tal ity informs current Georgia n discourse on ethnic rela tions. In discuss ing the Abkhaz question , Georgians argue that the Abkhaz are not indig e nous to the Abkhaz auton o mous repub lic and only in the past few centu ries immi grate d to Georgia. Georgians, whose repu ta tion for hospi tal ity proba bl y surpasses that of the rest of the Cauca sus, are quick to assume their hospi ta ble role but insist that their Abkhaz guests must act ac cord - ingly—as docile, dena tion al ized guests. In polit i cal terms, then, the ideol ogy of hospi tal ity serves to disen fran chise minor ity pop u la- tions of any sense of right. Rather minor ity national commu ni ties are guests whose privi leges (and not rights) are granted at the pleasur e of the domi nant, but always hospi ta ble, nation al it y. In this context , polit i cal, cultural, economic, and other bene fits accorded to mi nor ity popu la tions are not viewed as the inalien able rights of citi zen ship ; rather, they are revo ca ble privi leges which are enjoyed at the whim of another nation . Major ity-Minority Rela tions in the Soviet Repub lics 133

It is inter est ing to note that this ideol ogy of hospi tal ity is in a certain sense not a recent inno va tion, since although its terms are new, it nonethe less repro duces the conven tional Soviet concep tio n of the rela tion of ethnic ity to polit i cal admin is tra tion. Based on the forma tion of national-statehood, Soviet ethnographic and polit i ca l classi fi ca tions draw a sharp distinc tion between “native” ( korennoi ) and “non-native” ( nekorennoi ) popu la tions of a given ethnoterritorial unit. In this scheme, Arme ni ans who have lived for several gen er a- tions in the city of Baku are consid ered to be “non-natives” in Azerbaijan, whereas Azerbaijanis who were born and raised in Iran and who in the past decade came to Baku as refu gees from the Khomeini revo lu tion are consid ered to be “natives” of the Azerbaijani repub lic. In a polit i cal system where indigen ous ness is an ethnic admin is tra tive cate gory and not a reflec tion of actual or i - gins or the histor i cal length of resi dence, the condi tions for the rise of an ideol ogy of hospi tal ity as well as other more dele te ri ous forms of ethnic discrim i na tion are set. These are precisely the terms that have come to infor m majoritarian atti tudes in the national repub lics vis-à-vis minor it y, “non-native” commu ni ties. Azerbaijanis argue that since the NKAO is an inalien able part of Azerbaijan, if local Arme ni ans insist on act - ing like Arme ni ans, they should simply pick up and go to Arme nia . Such an atti tude implies a solu tion of the intrarepublican nationa l question by means of forced or volun tary popu la tion transfer be - tween repub lics. In the case of Arme nia and Azerbaijan, with the ex - ception of the NKAO, such a “solu tion” has already been accom plished with unde ni ably tragic conse quences. It is a far more problem atic situ a tion for the Abkhaz in Georgia, who are withou t the option of moving to an Abkhazia beyond Georgia’s borders . It is true that the rise of movements to renationalize the na tional repub lics contains posi tive dimen sions that have contrib uted to re vi - taliz ing the life of the titu lar nation al i ties in the repub lics. At the same time, however, such movements have tended not only to dis en- franchise nontitular national groups in the repub lics but in nu mer- ous cases to threaten the physi cal secu rity of those groups. To conclude, I would like to under score that given the rise of nationalisms in both the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, there has been much discus sion about the distinc tions between ethnic and civic movements. Ethnic movements are consid ered narrowly na - 134 Mark Saroyan tional and paro chial, while the civic-oriented movements are seen as reflect ing a kind of univer sal iz ing citi zen ship of the Western Eu ro - pean type. More often than not, the national movements of ma jor i- ties and minor i ties in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe are condemned as narrowly nation al is tic and danger ously chauvin is tic . But while this may be a fair inter pre ta tion, Western Europe is mis - takenly raised in contrast as a compar a tive model of the success of univer sal citi zen ship. The suggested distinc tion between ethnic and civic is a false one, since citi zen ship, wherever it has emerged—in - cluding the nation-states of Western Europe—has always had an ethnic compo nent. In condi tions of increas ingly strident, na tion al- ity-based polit i cal conflicts and peri odic bouts of intercommunal vi - olence, the challenge to national movements in the Soviet Union is not to emu late a false model of West Euro pean success. Rather, na - tional activ ists must forge inno va tive models of state forma tion and nation-building that move beyond the histor i cally formed in sti tu- tional framework of Soviet rule. In order to reduce the level of interethnic collec tive vio lence, the vari ous national movements need to estab lish a polit i cal system that upholds the rights of all, ir re spec- tive of ethnic distinc tions. Only such an achievement would secur e the final disman tling of one of the founda tions of the Stalin ist po lit i- cal order .

NOTES

1. See Mark Saroyan, “Beyond the Nation-State: Culture and Ethnic Poli tics in Soviet Transcaucasia,” Soviet Union/Un ion Soviétique 15, 2–3 (1988). 2. For an elabo ra tion of what I call the “Karabakh syndrome” in Azerbaijani poli tics, see my “The Contra dic tions of Polit i cal Reform in Azerbaijan,” Problems of Commu nis m (forthcom ing 1990). [Edi tor’s note: Issued as “The ‘Karabakh Syndrome’ and Azerbaijani Pol i tics,” Problems of Commu nism , Septem ber–Oc to ber 1990.] 3. For exam ple, while there is very little oil left in the repub lic, Azerbaijanis ar - gue that they should be able to sell their petro leum products in foreign mar - kets at world prices instead of selling them for soft currency (often at a loss) to the union . BEYOND THE NATION-STATE: CULTURE AND ETHNIC POLITICS IN SOVIET TRANSCAUCASIA

INTRODUCTION

Ethnic activ ism has emerged as one of the most diffi cult chal - lenges for the USSR in the Gorbachev era. From the Baltic repub lic s to the Cauca sus and Central Asia, the scope and inten sity of ethni c activ ism, along with the diver sity of the issues raised, came as some - thing of a surprise both for Soviet leaders in Moscow and observ er s of Soviet poli tics in the West. Western ana lysts of the Soviet ethni c poli tics have tradi tion ally focused on the changing nuances of mean - ing artic u lated in party ideolog i cal tracts and nation al i ties polic y, but reli ance on offi cial polit i cal discourse has willy-nilly been con - sider ably discred ited as a barom e ter of the diverse social and po lit i - cal inter ests emerging in the USSR’s multi na tional soci et y. In the not too distant past, the legit i mate issues of ethnic poli tics were largely defined by this offi cial discourse that tended to concen trate its at ten - tion on rela tions between the center and the repub lics and betwee n the domi nant Russian popu la tion and the rest of the country’s eth nic commu ni ties. Now, it is ethnic activ ism itself, as diverse as the eth nic commu ni ties in which it is based, that has increas ingly come to de - fine the issues on the USSR’s ethnic polit i cal agenda. The overt artic u la tion of ethnic polit i cal inter ests in polit i ca l rheto ric was constrained by a formu laic obeisance to the ideolog i ca l tenets of a “new histor i cal commu nit y, the Soviet people” and the “friendship of peoples,” but other fields provided more open and flexi ble forums for the elabo ra tion of ethnic inter ests. One of these

I would like to thank the Social Science Research Council and the Inter na tiona l Research and Exchanges Board for research support, and Martha and Tony Olcott, Louisa Schein, and Michael Cooper for their criti cal comments on earlie r drafts of this arti cle .

135 136 Mark Saroyan realms was that of culture, the products of liter ary, artis tic, and other intel lec tual endeav ors. Indeed, some of the major trends in ethni c culture of the post-Stalin period prefig ured the contours of ethni c poli tics in the Gorbachev era. The themes of yester day’s ethnic cul - ture have often emerged as the issues of today’s ethnic activ ism . Thus, the obso lete notion that culture in the USSR is a passive victi m of state policy needs to be replaced with a view of culture as an ac tive partic i pant in the defi ni tion of social inter ests and the forma tion of polit i cal agendas . The emergence of public protests and conflict over Karabakh, a predom i nantly Arme nian enclave in the Azerbaijani repub lic, not only rattled polit i cal stabil ity in the Cauca sian repub lics, it also raised the is - sue of the rights of ethnic minor i ties outside their home repub lics to the all-Union level. But the Karabakh conflict and the tragic vio lence that it contin ues to produce are best under stood in this broader context of the increas ingly vocal asser tion of polit i cal and cultural rights for ethni c popu la tions without admin is tra tive auton om y. This arti cle exam ine s the cultural ori gins of this dimen sion of ethnic activ ism among the Ar - meni ans and the Azerbaijanis. It reviews the ways in which Stalin is t poli cies shaped the construc tion and recon struc tion of ethnic identit y and the changes that repre sen ta tions of ethnic identity under went in the post-Stalin period. In this process of nation-building, cul ture, es pe- cially national liter a tures and historiographies, has served to le git i- mate the changing concep tions of ethnic identit y. But the produc tion of culture does not proceed inde pend ently of poli tics and insti tu tions. In - stitu tions do not unilat er ally deter mine the forms and contents of cul - ture, but the novel forms of polit i cal orga ni za tion brought by Sovie t rule in the Cauca sian repub lics estab lished a new context for both cul - tural activ ity and ethnic poli tics in the USSR.

STALIN ANSWERS THE NATIONAL QUESTION: NATIONAL-STATE CONSTRUCTION

One of the crucial issues facing the young Soviet govern men t was the devel op ment of new forms of polit i cal orga ni za tion for the country’s multi-ethnic popu la tion. Early Soviet poli cies concerne d with state forma tion were deci sively influ enced by Joseph Stalin’ s Beyond the Nation-State: Soviet Transcaucasia 137

1913 arti cle “Marxism and the National Question.” The core of this arti cle is Stalin’s defi ni tion of a nation: “A nation is a histor i cally con - stituted, stable commu nity of people, formed on the basis of a com - mon language, terri tory, economic life, and psycho log i cal make-up mani fested in a common culture.” 1 Stalin’s defi ni tion of a nation has elicited much debate and crit i - cism, but one of the points least discussed is his inclu sion of terri tor y as an attrib ute of the nation. 2 The salience of the terri to rial di men- sion to Stalin’s under stand ing of nation al ity is reflected in the text of the arti cle itself, which reads like an extended polemic against Austro-Marxist theo ries of the national question that identify na - tional rights with the ethnic commu nit y, or nation, irre spec tive of lo - cation. It is against the Austro-Marxist concep tion of the nation and the related program for extra-territorial cultural-national auton om y that Stalin estab lished his counter-program for the self-determination of terri tori ally based nations . It was only after the 1917 revo lu tions that the Bolshevik lead er- ship embraced the notion of feder al ism—an idea that had pre vi ously been vehe mently denounced in Lenin’s writings on the nationa l question. One of the funda men tal inno va tions of federal state for ma - tion under Soviet rule was based in the Stalin ist linkage of ethnic it y, terri tor y, and polit i cal admin is tra tion and enshrined in the idea of national state hood (natsional’naia gosudarstvennost’). The concept of national statehood was made an insti tu tional real ity by the creatio n of a feder a tion of polit i cal divi sions that were in fact eth no-territorial units and orga nized into an admin is tra tive hier ar chy extend in g from the highest form of national statehood, the national repub lic, to the lowest, the national dis trict (natsional’nyi okrug). In this way, the building blocks for the new Soviet federal system were not simpl y geographic admin is tra tive divi sions but a collec tion of na - tional-territorial states. The polit i cal practices that grew out of the idea of na - tional-statehood contrib uted to the devel op ment of national iden ti fi- cation within the bounds of the terri to rial state as a means to “modern ize” Soviet soci ety along the lines of an essen tially West Eu - ropean model—despite the sometimes assimilationist views of Bolshevik leaders. 3 Nation-building in the repub lics was en gi neered in order to coin cide with the ethno-territorial orga ni za tion of Sovie t state forma tion. Tradi tional social identi ties that had been con - 138 Mark Saroyan structed around social cate go ries such as class, clan, tribe, and loca l patterns of urban and rural resi dence gave way, under Soviet pol i - cies, to a newer, overarch ing identity based on ethnic ity. Thus, eth - nic consol i da tion, not assim i la tion nor the atten u a tion of ethni c identity, has become one of the hallmarks of Soviet power. The So - viet state further insti tu tion al ized ethnic identity in 1932, when it in - augu rated an inter nal passport system that included an offi ciall y recog nized ethnic affil i a tion for each Soviet citi zen. Through the passport system the state estab lished itself as a regu la tory agency for ethnic ity, since it both endowed its citi zens with an ethnic marker and reserved the rights to maintain or change their formal eth nic- ity.4 Azerbaijan provides an exam ple of the regu la tory function of the state in formal ethnic iden tity. In 1937, the majoritarian pop u la- tion of the Azerbaijani repub lic, formerly known as “Türk,” was reidentified with a new ethnonym, “Azerbaijani” (in the Azerbaijani language, “azärbaïjanly”). The ethno-genesis of the Azerbaijani na - tion can thus be traced, in a formal, bureau cratic manner at least, to the late 1930s. Hardly unique in the history of the Soviet or other states, the Azerbaijani case demon strates the logic of Stalin ist na - tional-state construc tion, whereby the forma tion of a Soviet repub li c named Azerbaijan required the exis tence of an Azerbaijani nation to inhabit it.5 More than just name changes, the forma tion of na - tional-territorial admin is tra tions served to promote and rein forc e ethnic cohe sion in a number of ways. Most basi call y, the creation of a state appa ra tus endowed with the features of a modern nation-state , includ ing national flags, seals, and anthems in the language of the titu lar nation al ity of each repub lic, provided a sense of polit i cal and sociocultural secu rity for each titu lar national commu nit y. For Geor - gians and Azerbaijanis, whose terri to ries were domi nated unde r Tsarism by a combi na tion of Russian polit i cal admin is tra tion and Arme nian, Russian, and, to some extent, Euro pean economic elites, Soviet power provided the symbolic attrib utes of nationa l self-determination. For the Arme ni ans, the exis tence of one’s own national state provided an impor tant sense of psycho log i cal and physi cal secu rity for a popu la tion at least one quarter of which was comprised of refu gees from the widespread massa cres in Tur key.6 Beyond the Nation-State: Soviet Transcaucasia 139

The federal system of national repub lics estab lished not just the symbolic trappings of modern nation-states, but also the in sti tu- tional basis for the forma tion of indig e nous ethnic leader ships. The policy of korenizatsiia (nativization), adopted at the Soviet Com mu- nist Party’s Tenth Congress in 1921, promoted person nel from each repub lic’s titu lar nation al ity into a program of training and re cruit - ment for service in the repub lic’s polit i cal, economic, and cultura l admin is tra tion. Although after 1934 the pace of nativization fal tered, the net result was the creation of an ethnic admin is tra tive elite that remains dura ble to this day. Despite the polit i cal ups and downs of central iz ing and decen tral iz ing tenden cies in the Soviet federal sys - tem during vari ous peri ods of its histor y, the day-to-day man age - ment of poli tics, econom ics, and culture has remained essen tially in the hands of Arme ni ans in Arme nia and of Azerbaijanis in Azerbaijan. Partic u larly in the cultural sphere, overrepresentation of the titu lar nation al ity in terms of its propor tion of the repub lic’s pop - ula tion is not uncom mon, even in the post-Stalin period. 7

CULTURE AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF AN ETHNIC HABITUS

The transfor ma tion of cultural insti tu tions and practices played an impor tant part in the Bolshevik vision of how to construct a social is t state. Lenin himself argued that one of the essen tial founda tions of the new social and polit i cal order was the learning of social ism, and so the produc tion of a new culture was aimed at instruct ing the people in so - cialism. 8 Espe cially in the wake of the cultural revo lu tion of the late 1920s and early 1930s, the produc tion and distri bu tion of culture was orga nized in and through a series of orga ni za tions, from the state pub - lishing houses and the minis tries of cul ture and edu ca tion to the cre - ative unions of artists, writers, archi tects, and other cultural produc ers . In the national repub lics, the forma tion of this network of cul - tural admin is tra tions and the forms of cultural produc tion they pro - moted reflected the encour age ment of nation-building within the context of Stalin ist national-state forma tion. Cultural insti tu tions in the national repub lics orga nized the creation, not simply of a na - tional culture in general, but of one that would contrib ute to the identity-formation and ethnic cohe sion of the polit i cally desig nate d 140 Mark Saroyan titu lar nation al ity of each repub lic. In the realm of culture, the in ter - connec tion between the insti tu tional form of the national repub li c and the program of nativization and nation-building became most appar ent. The forma tion of cultural orga ni za tions and the or ga ni za- tion of cultural practice reflected a polit i cally inspired oper a tiona l code of “one repub lic—one culture” that fit securely within the institutionalization of the Stalin ist troika: one nation—one ter ri- tory—one repub lic. In this sense, the status of “titu lar nation al ity” in a national-state admin is tra tive terri tory provided more than merely a nomi nal prestige; in fact, such status enti tled the given ethnic com - munity to cultural hege mony within its own terri tory . The consci en tious promo tion of an ethnic cul ture during the pe - riod of national-state construc tion did not simply reflect exist ing forms of cultural and ethnic identity; rather it actively consti tuted a distinc t sociocultural space and identity for the titu lar commu nity of each re - public. While the cultur ally medi ated “nation al iza tion” of the re pub- lics often referred back to ethnic tradi tions, the process of national-cultural construc tion devel oped not simply from the amor - phous activization of “tradi tion” by the cultural intel li gen tsia but re - flected the “modern” insti tu tional inno va tions of Soviet national-stat e forma tion. Cultural produc ers orga nized in the vari ous creative un ions often engaged in the inven tion and reinvention of tradi tions that would rein force the posi tion of the titu lar nation on the terri tory of each na - tional repub lic. The hege mony of the titu lar nation al ity was re pro- duced in all spheres of cultural practice, from the publish ing of books, peri od i cals, and newspa pers to the activ i ties of theater and folklori c song and dance ensem bles. 9 For exam ple, the forma tion of the Azerbaijani Writers’ Union brought together writ ers mainly of Azerbaijani nation al ity to orga nize and regu late the produc tion of a So - viet Azerbaijani liter a ture— not simply liter a ture in Soviet Azerbaijan. During the Stalin ist period of national-cultural construc tion , the forma tion of an ethnic envi ron ment centered around the pro duc - tion of cultural repre sen ta tions of ethnic identity in which the link - age of nation and terri tory was deci sive. Thus, ethnic cultura l practices promoted, as a rule, a concep tion of national identity that was insep a ra ble from the given terri tory of the national repub lic.1 0 In the Arme nian repub lic, for exam ple, a toponym ic transfor ma tio n during the Soviet period replaced a major ity of the previ ously wide - Beyond the Nation-State: Soviet Transcaucasia 141 spread Turkic or Muslim place names with Arme nian toponyms that more appro pri ately identify the given terri tory as Arme nian.1 1 Histo ri og ra phy was produced backwards from the current con - nection between nation al ity and terri tor y, and, as a result, the of fi - cially canon ized history of the titu lar nation al ity and that of the repub lic became virtu ally inter change able. Azerbaijani histo ri an s produced histo ries of “Azerbaijan” in the medi eval period based not on the histor i cal facts of a prior national state but on the assump tio n that the gene al ogy of the present-day Azerbaijani repub lic could be traced in terms of puta tive ethnic-territorial conti nu it y. Simi larl y, the history of the early medi eval Christian kingdoms of Cauca sian Al ba - nia that devel oped on the terri tory of the present-day repub lic was assim i lated by Azerbaijani histo ri ans into the history of the Azerbaijani nation, despite the absence of linguis tic and cultura l simi lar i ties between the Cauca sian Alba nians and the contem po rar y Azerbaijanis. In this way, cultural practices substan ti ated claims to ethnic conti nu ity based on the modern form of the terri to rial na - tional state. In liter a ture, the produc tion of histor i cal novels, includ ing works ideal iz ing the rela tively recent expe ri ences of revo lu tion and col lec tiv- ization, contrib uted to the histor i cal recon struc tion of national identit y and often glori fied ethnic heri tage and conti nu ity largely within the context of the national homeland—that is, the national repub lic. In Ar - menia, the writing of histor i cal novels often served to assim i lat e pre-Armenian his tory into the history of the Arme nian nation.1 2

ETHNIC HEGEMONY AND MINORITY CULTURE IN THE NATIONAL REPUBLICS

The hege mony of the titu lar nation al ity was reflected not only in the cultural practices of the domi nant nation al it y, but also in the cultural insti tu tions and practices of ethnic minor i ties—that is, the nondominant national commu ni ties of each repub lic. Ethnic cul tural insti tu tions for the so-called “nonindigenous” national com mu ni ties are weak, unlike in their home repub lics.1 3 While there are na - tional-language schools, newspa pers, and dramatic and liter ary as - soci a tions forming the nucleus of a cultural life for nontitular ethni c 142 Mark Saroyan commu ni ties, these cultural insti tu tions are few and oper ate with limited resources. Moreover, they lack the infrastructural support of the entire network of cultural orga ni za tions in the home repub lic. In practice, the privi leges granted to the titu lar nation al ity led to the de - priva tion of other nation al i ties resi dent in the repub lic . The consol i da tion of the titu lar national commu nity’s he ge - mony resulted in the historiographic and present-da y compartmentalization of other ethnic groups in every thing from the writing of history to the preser va tion of histor i cal and cultural mon - uments.1 4 The Azerbaijanis, once a major ity of the popu la tion of present-day Arme nia, remain to this day a people without his tory, at least in Arme nia. Simi larly in Azerbaijan, the legacy of Baku’s flour - ishing Arme nian cultural past is not a topic for local research agen - das. In a recent Azerbaijani study of nineteenth-century archi tec tur e in Baku, Arme nian archi tects are assim i lated into the broader cat e- gory of Russian and Euro pean archi tects, and Baku’s numer ou s monu ments of Arme nian archi tec ture are liter ally written out of the city’s histor y.15 Nontitular nation al i ties were elimi nated not only from the past but from the present as well. Thus, if one walks through the over - whelmingly Arme nian-populated districts of Havlabar in Tbilisi or Ermänikänd in Baku (liter all y, “Arme nian village”), street markers , storefront signs, and other basic features of the urban landscape are uniformly in the titu lar nation al ity’s language (Georgian or Azerbaijani) as well as Russian. The numer ous Azerbaijani village s of Arme nia and Georgia likewise display a “typi cally” Arme nian or Georgian charac ter. More over, they lack the cultural features such as bookstores full of liter a ture in the national language or monu ment s to heroes of ethnic history that one could find in profu sion in simi la r regions of the home repub lic. In effect, the cultural construc tion of social space remains remark ably loyal to the logic of the nationa l state. Assim i lated into the domi nant ethnic envi ron ment, very littl e distin guishes these “distinct” ethnic areas from the surround in g landscape except for the ethno-cultural identity of the inhab it ants . Apart from the insti tu tional limi ta tions on the cultural activ it y of nontitular national commu ni ties, the extent of which is only now emerging in the Soviet media, the compartmentalization of ethni c culture is evi dent in the domi nant themes of these groups’ cultura l practices. Whereas in the home repub lic ethnic ity is an impor tan t Beyond the Nation-State: Soviet Transcaucasia 143 theme of cultural produc tion, and national culture and history are conven tional subjects of glori fi ca tion and ideal iza tion, outside the home repub lic there is a virtual absence of self-conscious, explic itl y ethnic themes. In the minor ity national schools outside the home re - public, instruc tion, though conducted in the minor ity language , does not include national history and culture. The genre of the his - tori cal novel, which has served as an indis pens able vehi cle for the re - construc tion of ethnic history in the home repub lics, is absent from the works of Arme nian writers active in Azerbaijan and Georgia. In this sense, cultural practices among these minor i ties reflect an op er a- tional code that largely precludes the construc tion of minor ity na - tional culture outside the home repub lic.1 6

CHANGING ETHNIC REPRESENTATIONS: FROM NATION-STATE TO NATION

So far it has been argued that the forma tion of ethnic identity in the Transcaucasus was structured by the estab lish ment of nationa l repub lics and a process of cultural construc tion that favored a na - tional conscious ness based on the identi fi ca tion of the nation and with a specific terri tory and state admin is tra tion (the home re pub - lic). During the Stalin ist period of Soviet histor y, two nota ble ex cep - tions to this trend occurred in the imme di ate post-World War II period in both Arme nia and Azerbaijan. Prior to and during the forma tion of a pro-Soviet Azerbaijani state in Northern Iran during 1945–46, ethnic culture in Sovie t Azerbaijan was mobi lized to assert the exis tence and ethnic rights of the Azerbaijani nation outside the home repub lic—namel y, in the short-lived Demo cratic Repub lic of Azerbaijan. Cultural refer ence s to Iranian Azerbaijan multi plied, implic itly argu ing that the Azerbaijani nation was signif i cantly larger than simply the Soviet re - public of Azerbaijan.17 In Arme nia, widespread media cover ag e was given to the lot of Arme ni ans in the foreign dias pora in con nec - tion with the campaign to encour age repa tri a tion to the Arme nia n repub lic, partic u larly from the Middle East, that began in the im me - diate postwar period. Whereas in the Stalin ist period refer ence to the 144 Mark Saroyan national rights of the Arme nian dias pora would have been con sid - ered nation al ist devi a tion, now public culture in Arme nia focuse d on Arme nian national commu ni ties outside of the repub lic’s bor - ders.18 These depar tures, by which cultural discourse include d Azerbaijanis and Arme ni ans living outside their home repub lics as parts of their respec tive nations, came to an end by 1949, when cul - tural practices once again refo cused on the national repub lic as the sole haven of ethnic exis tence . It was not until after Stalin’s death in 1953 that signif i can t changes in the thematic patterns of cultural produc tion in Arme ni a and Azerbaijan began to emerge in a consis tent man ner. If rep re sen- tations of ethnic ity under Stalin were gener ally restricted to the So - viet nation-republic, in the post-Stalin period these repre sen ta tion s were recon structed in a more inclu sive concep tion of ethnic ex pe ri- ence unfet tered by contem po rary polit i cal borders. This meant that cultural practice came to consti tute nation hood, not just within the realm of the offi cially desig nated Soviet nation-homelands, but more broadly, in the expe ri ence of the given national commu ni ties, ir re - spective of geographic loca tion. Whereas ethnic cultural practice s had been compart men tal ized through the state-sponsored progra m of nation-building orga nized around the identity of state, terri tor y, and ethnic it y, the cultur ally medi ated process of nation-buildin g now moved to incor po rate national exis tence beyond the borders of the national repub lic.1 9

THE DECOMPARTMENTALIZATION OF ETHNICITY IN ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN

The cultural recon struc tion of a single Arme nian nation that ex - tends beyond the borders of the Soviet Arme nian repub lic has been most visi ble in the forma tion of an offi cial discourse about Wester n Arme nia, the geographic name given to the once Ar me- nian-populated provinces of the Eastern Otto man Empire.2 0 In this way, Arme nian nation hood was cultur ally decompartmentalized from empha sis on the Arme nian repub lic to incor po rate the once large Arme nian popu la tions of Western Arme nia into the broader cate gory of the Arme nian nation . Beyond the Nation-State: Soviet Transcaucasia 145

The rein te gra tion of Western Arme ni ans into Soviet discours e about the Arme nian nation devel oped along a number of lines, but one of the more impor tant themes of this discourse concerns the genocide of Western Arme ni ans that took place in the Otto man state during the First World War. The genocide is one of the most sig nif i- cant events of modern Arme nian his tory, but Soviet Arme nian writ - ing on this subject devel oped only in the early 1960s. The author i ta tive benchmark for this new, inclu sive histo ri og ra phy was the publi ca tion of Jon Kirakosyan’s The First World War and the West - ern Ar me ni ans, published in 1965 and revised for second publi ca tio n in 1967. The mid-1960s witnessed the produc tion of a number of other works on the genocide, yet it was only during the late 1970s and 1980s that a number of Arme nian scholars under the spon sor - ship of Kirakosyan began to turn out an entire series of publicistic ar - ticles and studies exam in ing the genocide and counter ing Turkis h govern men tal and aca demic deni als of the massa cres. Apart from the genocide, an increas ing number of studies were produced on the nineteenth- and early twenti eth-century social, economic, and po lit i- cal history of Western Arme nia.2 1 Western Arme nian themes also devel oped in liter ary studies , where, as in histo ri og ra ph y, they emerged only in the late 1950s and early 1960s.22 This scholar ship has produced not just general criti ca l histo ries of Western Arme nian liter a ture, but also works on in di vid- ual writers and movements within the broader phenom e non. Along with the aca demic study of liter a ture, more and more atten tion has been given to the publi ca tion and distri bu tion of Western Arme nia n poets and prose writers, and major Western Arme nian liter ary fig - ures were well repre sented in the multi-volume series, the Library of Arme nian Classics, that began publi ca tion in the 1970s. Not only has scholar ship on and publi ca tion of Western Ar me - nian liter a ture devel oped during the post-Stalin period, but the Western Arme nian theme has become popu lar in the liter ary pro duc - tion of Soviet Arme nian writers themselves. Poetry with Western Ar - menian themes has been produced by leading Arme nian liter ar y figures, includ ing Hovhannes Shiraz, Paruyr Sevak, and Gevorg Emin. Strongly nostal gic prose, espe cially works devoted to the nineteenth-century Arme nian revo lu tion ary movement in the Ot to- man Empire, has figured among the most popu lar writing in con tem- porary Soviet Arme nia.2 3 During the 1960s and 1970s, Arme nia n 146 Mark Saroyan liter a ture devel oped its own version of village prose, but the genre often reflected ethnic expe ri ences in the rural areas of Western Ar - menia prior to the genocide during the First World War outside , rather than in, Soviet Arme nia itself. By the mid-1980s, Western Ar - menian themes had become so widespread in Soviet Arme nian lit er - ature that the former head of the Arme nian Writers’ Union, Vardges Petrosyan, complained, in his address to the Ninth Congress of Ar - menia’s writers in 1986, that Western Arme nian themes had vir tu- ally overwhelmed indig e nous Soviet Arme nian liter a ture.2 4 Along with Western Arme nia, the worldwide Arme nian com - muni ties that comprise an ethnic dias pora (in Ar me nian, spyurk) have become an increas ingly popu lar theme in Soviet Arme nian cul - ture. Simi lar to the Western Arme nian thematic, diasporan themes emerged as a signif i cant trend only in the post-Stalin period, par tic u- larly in the wake of Khrushchev’s destalinization campaign ini ti ated at the party’s Twenti eth Congress.2 5 Espe cially during the late 1950s and 1960s, a range of histor i cal and polit i cal studies of the Arme nia n commu ni ties of the Middle East and elsewhere contrib uted to the in - tegra tion of diasporan Arme nian expe ri ence into the histo ri og ra ph y of the Arme nian nation as a whole.26 By the time of the publi ca tio n of the first volume of the Arme nian Soviet En cy clo pe dia in 1974, it seemed only natu ral that the geographic diver sity of Arme nian na - tional exis tence be reflected. At the end of each arti cle devoted to a specific country and sometimes even city, the ency clo pe dia’s edi tor s included descrip tions of the history and present state of the given lo - cale’s Arme nian commu ni ties . Along with the discur sive inclu sion of diasporan Arme ni an s into the cate gory of “history of the Arme nian people,” diasporan writers and liter a ture have been increas ingly incor po rated into the distri bu tion of liter a ture in Soviet Arme nia. Not only is diasporan Arme nian liter a ture now a specific topic of Soviet Arme nian liter ar y studies, but also anthol o gies and sepa rate publi ca tions of diasporan liter a ture have become increas ingly evi dent in Soviet Arme nia’s lit - erary landscape.2 7 Local Soviet Arme nian liter ary practice has also incor po rated diasporan themes, such as the popu lar travel ogues of the poet Silva Kaputikyan, that have served to extend cultural rep re- senta tions of ethnic ity from Soviet Arme nia to a shared yet distinc t Arme nian ethnic expe ri ence in Leba non, Argen tina, and the United States. Beyond the Nation-State: Soviet Transcaucasia 147

One of the signif i cant trends within the diasporan theme in So - viet Arme nian cultural produc tion is the “inner dias pora” theme (in Ar me nian, nerkin spyurk )—that is, the history and culture of Ar me- nian settle ments within the current terri tory of the Soviet Union . This trend includes studies of the formerly large Arme nian com mu- nities of the Ukraine, Mosco w, and Peters burg along with smaller commu ni ties in the Crimea and Central Asia.28 While the genera l diasporan themes devel oped begin ning in the late 1950s, Soviet Ar - menian writing on the “inner dias pora” emerged much later and much more slowly. More over, the produc tion and distri bu tion of knowledge about the inner dias pora has, espe cially in compar i so n with the non-Soviet diasporan theme, in the case of history writin g often been restricted to the prerevolutionary, pre-Soviet period.2 9 Offi cial histo ri og ra phy of the inner dias pora often ends in 1917, but the contin u ing vital ity of Arme nian cultural practice outside Ar - menia became a subject of greater atten tion in the 1970s and 1980s. Studies of Arme nian cultural devel op ment in Soviet Georgia, es pe - cially in the fields of liter a ture and theater, have figured prom i- nently. Arme nian culture and liter ary activ ity of the Arme nia n commu ni ties in Southern Russia and along the Black Sea coast have more recently been highlighted.3 0 Some atten tion has been given to Arme nian cultural activ ity in Soviet Azerbaijan, but recent Ar me - nian publi ca tions have tended to focus on the poor state of Ar me nian cultural monu ments in that repub lic’s formerly Arme nian Karabakh and Nakhichevan regions.3 1 In Azerbaijan, the themes of post-Stalin cultural produc tio n have likewise been decompartmentalized to allow a more inclu siv e repre sen ta tion of Azerbaijani ethnic expe ri ence. In post-Stalin Azerbaijani culture the repre sen ta tion of an Azerbaijani nation now extends beyond the borders of the repub lic to incor po rate the Azerbaijani popu la tions of northern Iran, known in Baku as South - ern Azerbaijan, as well as the Azerbaijanis of Arme nia, Georgia, and Dagestan. Indeed, one of the main trends of Soviet Azerbaijani cultur e during the post-Stalin period has centered around Souther n Azerbaijan, often referred to simply as the South (in Azerbaijani, Jänub ). In the late 1970s and into the 1980s, the South became an in - creasingly visi ble compo nent of Azerbaijani cultural produc tion in Baku. In liter a ture, the abundance of Southern themes has even 148 Mark Saroyan given rise to the forma tion of an entire subgenre of Sovie t Azerbaijani liter a ture, dubbed the “liter a ture of longing” (in Azerbaijani, häsrät ädäbiïïaty) by its practi tio ners.3 2 Prose writer s such as Mirzä Ibrahimov, and poets, includ ing Balash Azäroghlu, Süleïman Rüstäm, Äli Tudä, and others, many of whom were born in Iran and later emi grated to Soviet Azerbaijan, have been at the fore - front of this cultural movement which has warmly embraced the South as an inte gral part of the Azerbaijani nation. This devel op in g rein te gra tion of the ethnic expe ri ences of the Southern Azerbaijani popu la tions with those of their northern co-nationals was often ex - empli fied in works with titles such as We Were Sepa rated from One Root, suggest ing that a single Azerbaijani nation exists in spite of its divi sion between two states.33 Poets have been espe cially active in the produc tion of a lit er a- ture of longing that perme ates contem po rary Azerbaijani liter ar y practice. Remarking that the South has played an impor tant role in Azerbaijani liter a ture’s return to its roots and to its iden tity, the for - mer head of the Azerbaijani Writers’ Union, Ismaïyl Shykhly, in his address to the Eighth Congress of Azerbaijan’s writers, was moved to claim that: “We can find longing for the South and pain for the South in the works of practi cally all our poets.”3 4 Indeed, not only has the South become a theme of a do mes ti- cally produced Soviet Azerbaijani culture, but the 1980s has wit - nessed an increase in the publi ca tion and distri bu tion of Souther n Azerbaijani liter a ture in Baku. One large-scale under tak ing in this trend is the publi ca tion of a four-volume anthol ogy of Souther n Azerbaijani liter a ture, of which three volumes have already been published.3 5 Concom i tant with the rise of Southern thematics in liter ary pro - duction, Soviet Azerbaijani histo ri og ra phy has increas ingly focuse d its atten tion on the history and culture of the South. Reflecting on the need to recon struct the public discourse on Azerbaijani his tory, the head of the History Faculty at Azerbaijan State Univer sit y, I. Mahmudov, recently noted: “We have [previ ously] tried to look at our people’s histor i cal past only within the framework of Sovie t Azerbaijan’s current borders. As far as I’m concerned, when dis cuss- ing all issues of our ancient, medi eval, and contem po rary histor y, the history of Southern Azerbaijan must not be forgot ten.”3 6 Beyond the Nation-State: Soviet Transcaucasia 149

The focus of this new, decompartmentalized histo ri og ra ph y most often explores the modern histor y, culture, and poli tics of the South.37 One of the more impor tant publi ca tions in this field is a re - cent volume that provides a compre hen sive history of Souther n Azerbaijan after 1828—the first Azerbaijani history that con cen trates on the South’s distinct devel op ment since the divi sion of Azerbaijan between the Persian and Russian empires.3 8 Thus, at the same time that Azerbaijani histo ri ans are endow ing the South with its own his - tori cal iden tity, they are also working to rein te grate the South into their repre sen ta tion of a unified histo ri og ra phy for a unifie d Azerbaijani nation . But the discur sive unifi ca tion of North and South in con tem po- rary Azerbaijani cultural practice should not overshadow the more general expan sion of the idea of a single Azerbaijani culture and na - tion, as is often the case with polit i cal recep tion and inter pre ta tion s of this trend in the West.39 Repre sen ta tions of Azerbaijani nationa l exis tence have simul ta neously expanded to include the large Azerbaijani commu ni ties of present-day Arme nia, Georgia, and Dagestan. The legit i ma tion of this trend was recently argued by an Azerbaijani intel lec tual, who proposed that: “The arts and culture of the Azerbaijanis living in Georgia, Arme nia, Central Asia and Ira - nian Azerbaijan are without a doubt an insep a ra ble part of the arts and culture of the entire Azerbaijani people.”4 0 Although in Azerbaijani cultural discourse there is not, as yet, a notion simi lar to the Arme nian one of an ethnic dias pora, nev er the- less the culture of Azerbaijanis living outside both North and South has gained increas ing atten tion in Baku. Espe cially promi nent in this trend is the inclu sion of Azerbaijani history and contem po rary cul - tural activ ity on the present terri tory of the neighbor ing repub lics of Arme nia and Georgia.4 1 The devel op ment of Azerbaijani culture , espe cially liter a ture, in Dagestan has also been a subject of emergin g explo ra tion.4 2 At times, this trend has come to include refer ences to a Turkic-speaking ethnic group in Iraq, the Turkmens, who are con - sidered in Baku to be the descen dants of Azerbaijani emi grants.4 3 Taken as a whole, these trends focus ing on the South and the Azerbaijani commu ni ties outside Azerbaijan reflect a cor re spond ing shift in the oper a tive code of cultural practice from the com part men- talized Stalin ist notion of “one repub lic—one culture” to the 150 Mark Saroyan post-Stalin princi ple of “one nation—one culture,” irre spec tive of polit ico-administrative and geographic consid er ations .

CULTURAL CONTEXT AND THE LEGITIMATION OF ETHNIC DEMANDS

Conven tional polit i cal commen tary on the ori gins of the cur - rent upsurge of ethnic demands points to the role that Gorbachev’s policy of glasnos t has played in legit i mat ing the expres sion of ethni c claims and demands. Some exag ger ate the role of state policy and ar - gue that glasnost has somehow “caused” the expan sion and in ten si- fica tion of these demands. While it is unde ni ably true that curren t poli cies have served to legit i mate the claims for national and cul tural rights “from above,” there has also been a legit i ma tion of ethnic de - mands “from belo w,” espe cially from within the realm of cultura l produc tion . In Arme nia and Azerbaijan, cultural practices have provided a forum for the post-Stalin recon struc tion of ethnic identity that em - braces the nation as a whole and not just the popu la tion of the na - tional repub lic. The climate of opinion formed in the realm of cultural practice has led to a crisis of polit i cal repre sen ta tion, in which demands for the national and cultural rights of co-nationals living beyond the borders of the home repub lics have figured prom i- nently. In this way, not only has glasnost had an impact on cultura l practices under Gorbachev, but the poli tics of culture has deci sivel y influ enced the culture of poli tics in Arme nia and Azerbaijan. By pro - viding a novel framework for the concep tion of ethnic identit y, cul - tural practices have contrib uted to the legit i ma tion of an agenda of ethnic rights which include problems of national exis tence beyon d as well as within the borders of the repub lics . It is in this context that the Arme nian movement for Karabakh emerged. In view of the post-Stalin shift in ethnic identity describe d in this paper, in which the cultur ally medi ated defi ni tion of the na - tion empha sized ethnic and cultural attrib utes over polit i cal and ter - rito rial features, the demand for the legit i mate rein te gra tion of the Arme ni ans of Karabakh into the Arme nian nation as a whole is a nat - ural one. Beyond the Nation-State: Soviet Transcaucasia 151

The Arme nian struggle over Karabakh was expressed most overtly in its terri to rial designs, but behind the calls for annex atio n was the larger, indeed, more complex, issue of the rights of na tion al i- ties living outside their home repub lics.4 4 One of the funda men ta l thrusts of the Arme nian movement for Karabakh has been the res ti- tution of Arme nian national-cultural rights in Azerbaijan—from the provi sion of Arme nian-language televi sion and radio broadcast in g to the improve ment of Arme nian edu ca tional, publish ing, and other cultural facil i ties in the disputed region. In a word, Arme ni ans de - manded that the same national and cultural rights accorded to Ar - meni ans in the Arme nian repub lic be provided to the Arme nia n popu la tions of Azerbaijan. The Karabakh question is only one of a series of issues focus in g on the rights of Arme ni ans to their language, histor y, and cul - ture—to their national identity—be yond the borders of their re pub- lic. In this sense, even the success ful annex ation of the Karabakh auton o mous region to Arme nia would leave unsolved the relate d problem of national-cultural rights for the large Arme nian com mu- nities of Azerbaijan that are located outside the region.4 5 Prompted in part by the pan-Armenian eupho ria over Karabakh, the Arme nian repub li can media have reflected an up - surge of inter est in the Arme nian dias pora both within and beyon d Soviet borders. During the past year, the multi pli ca tion of demand s for edu ca tional and cultural rights of Arme ni ans outside the re pub - lic has produced a pattern of conces sions that have either followed or preempted these demands. In addi tion to the conces sions made in Karabakh, Arme nian schools in Georgia are being rebuilt and ren o- vated, and the teaching of Arme nian history in Georgia’s Arme nia n schools has been improved with the publi ca tion of new Ar me- nian-language textbooks and the creation of teacher-retraining pro - grams.46 Simi lar devel op ments outside the southern Cauca sus have re - ceived wide atten tion in Arme nia’s media. In order to meet the cul - tural needs of the growing Arme nian commu nity in Mosco w, an Arme nian cultural center was recently opened at the Perma nen t Repre sen ta tion of the Arme nian SSR in the Soviet capi tal, where, in addi tion to other activ i ties, special courses in Arme nian languag e are now offered.4 7 In Rostov, the site of an old Arme nian colon y, a new asso ci a tion, “Nor Nakhichevan,” recently began oper a tion, and 152 Mark Saroyan instruc tion in Arme nian language and liter a ture has begun.4 8 New Arme nian cultural orga ni za tions have also been orga nized for the Arme nian commu ni ties in Lenin grad, Tallinn, Riga, Lvov, Kharkov, and Simferopol, among others . 49 This pattern of demands for the rights of a people beyond their national repub lic has also been repli cated in the case of the non-Soviet Arme nian dias pora. Special consid er ation to Arme nia’ s rela tions with the dias pora was given during a plenum of the Ar me - nian Commu nist Party in Septem ber 1988. In line with the renewe d atten tion to the Arme nian dias pora, Norayr Adalyan, a secre tary of Arme nia’s Writers’ Union and the former edi tor of the union’ s weekly news pa per, Grakan Tert, has argued that the “half of our peo - ple” living in dias pora merit greater consid er ation from Arme nia’ s polit i cal and cultural leaders. He complained that the efforts to ex - pand dias pora-homeland rela tions through the state Commit tee for Cultural Rela tions with Arme ni ans Abroad have been insuf fi cient . He called for Yerevan to publish at least five or six books per year by diasporan writers, and added that local publi ca tions should be printed in larger press-runs to meet demands for their distri bu tion in the dias pora.5 0 A number of orga ni za tional changes have also been propose d to expand rela tions with the dias pora. One of the points of the un of fi- cial Karabakh commit tee’s program was the forma tion of Arme nia n repre sen ta tions in foreign countries with large Arme nian com mu ni- ties.51 The recent opening of Yerevan offices for the foreign-base d Arme nian General Benev o lent Union and the Arme nian Assem bl y of America, report edly planned before the earthquake, provides ex - panded orga ni za tional channels for the devel op ment of close re la - tions between the Arme nian repub lic and Arme ni ans of the dias pora.5 2 Demands for the expan sion of rela tions with diasporan Ar me- nians have obtained an economic dimen sion as well. In his addres s to the Septem ber 1988 plenum of Arme nia’s Commu nist Party’s Central Commit tee, First Secre tary Suren Arutunian (Harutyunyan) empha sized that peres troika allows for the improve ment of economi c coop er a tion between Arme nia and the diasporan Arme nian com mu - nities. Echoing this posi tion, one recent arti cle called for the creatio n of a special govern ment office to foster greater economic col lab o ra- tion between Arme nia and Arme ni ans in the dias pora.5 3 Such an or - Beyond the Nation-State: Soviet Transcaucasia 153 gani za tion could more effi ciently promote invest ment by diasporan Arme ni ans who have become espe cially active in the recon struc tio n of the earthquake-devastated regions of northern Arme nia . Though very few Arme ni ans remain in present-day Turke y, the cause of Western Arme nia has not lost its contem po rary polit i cal rel - evance. As a direct result of popu lar demands voiced during the Karabakh crisis, the repub lic’s leader ship offi cially recog nized the genocide of the Western Arme ni ans as a national tragedy and pro - claimed 24 April a repub li can holi day to commem o rate the event. More than of just symbolic impor tance, Western Arme nia has the po - tential to become a practi cal polit i cal cause. Despite the current lack of success in the campaign to annex Karabakh to Arme nia, Viktor Hambartsumyan, presi dent of Arme nia’s Academy of Sciences and a member of the Congress of People’s Deputies, spoke to the Suprem e Soviet to voice Arme nian polit i cal and terri to rial claims to the West - ern Arme nian provinces now in Tur key. In Azerbaijan, polit i cal demands for national rights for Azerbaijanis living outside the repub lic devel oped in the context of an inclu sive cultural discourse on Azerbaijani nation hood, but there is little doubt that the polit i cal cata lyst for the recent upsurge of de - mands is the Arme nian movement for Karabakh. In this sense, glas - nost has perme ated Azerbaijani polit i cal life as a result of the pressures of Arme nian activ ism from below and not just at the be - hest of Mosco w. Often formu lated as a set of counter-demands to the Arme nia n struggle for Karabakh, Azerbaijanis have voiced repeated concer n over the fate of their co-nationals and demanded the protec tion of their culture in the Arme nian repub lic.5 4 Like the Arme nian com - plaints, Azerbaijanis point to exam ples of cultural repres sion in the Arme nian repub lic and call for the provi sion of full national and cul - tural rights for the Azerbaijanis of Arme nia.5 5 In response to pop u- lar Azerbaijani demands for the elimi na tion of Karabakh’s auton o mous status, numer ous Azerbaijani intel lec tu als have ar gued instead for the forma tion of an auton o mous district for Azerbaijanis in Arme nia in order to protect their status as a national com mu - nity.56 Azerbaijanis have also made broader claims for the protec tio n of their nation hood. In review ing the threat to Azerbaijani nationa l exis tence outside Soviet Azerbaijan, the direc tor of the Nizami In sti - 154 Mark Saroyan tute of Azerbaijani Liter a ture, Ïashar Garaïev, complained that the more than 15 million Azerbaijanis in Iran are deprived of their rights to cultural and social devel op ment. Garaïev also points out that the large Azerbaijani commu ni ties in Georgia, Arme nia, and Dagestan are gener ally less devel oped and not accorded the same rights as other local inhab it ants. Attacking the inat ten tion to Azerbaijani cul - tural facil i ties in these repub lics, he further complains that the Ar me - nian govern ment has changed Azerbaijani toponyms in Arme nia in an effort to deprive Azerbaijanis of their own history.5 7 Simi larly , Anar, the current head of Azerbaijan’s Writers’ Union, has made ap - peals to safeguard the Azerbaijani patri mony outside the repub lic by linking the protec tion of national monu ments to the devel op ment of ethnic culture and national self-preservation in Arme nia and else - where.58 Despite increased atten tion to the plight of Azerbaijanis livin g in Arme nia and other parts of the Soviet Union (to a large extent a re - sponse to the Arme ni ans’ Karabakh movement), the formu la tion of ethnic demands ema nat ing from Baku has increas ingly revolve d around the Azerbaijanis “on that bank”—that is, the Azerbaijani popu la tions living south of the Araz River that sepa rates the USSR from Iran. Garaïev’s comment rings a common note of concern : “Throughout history Azerbaijan has been parceled up many times. Three-fifths of its terri tory and its popu la tion have remained on that bank of the Araz. This is a histor i cal injus tice.”5 9 In a recent series of essays on histor y, culture, and edu ca tio n sponsored by the liter ary monthly Azärbaïjan, the inclu sion of “Southern” themes in school and univer sity curric ula was a re peated point of concern. A Baku liter ary critic complained that the teachin g of liter a ture in the repub lic gives the impres sion that Azerbaijan is a nation of only five million, not twenty million.6 0 Simi lar demand s for includ ing study of Southern liter a ture, histor y, and geog ra ph y have been voiced by other Azerbaijani intel lec tu als.6 1 The demand s to publish more liter a ture on Southern Azerbaijan, as well as to pub - lish more liter a ture from writers living in Iran, are made in the name of the entire Azerbaijani nation. Thus, the increased atten tion to Southern issues in Baku often reflects the perceived polit i cal re spon - sibil ity of Soviet Azerbaijanis to act on behalf of their foreign com pa - triots, whose ethnic cultural activ ity is stringently restricted by the Iranian govern ment.6 2 Beyond the Nation-State: Soviet Transcaucasia 155

Connected with the issue of Southern Azerbaijan is the im por- tant problem of access. Contem po rary Soviet Azerbaijani is writte n with a modi fied Cyril lic script, but mate ri als published in Souther n Azerbaijan are in the tradi tional Arabic alpha bet. As one critic com - plained: “One people with two alpha bets! There isn’t a second phe - nome non like this in the world. The alpha bet divides not only our history but also our geog ra phy into two.”63 Such demands for ex - panded instruc tion in the “old” alpha bet have been met by requir in g coursework in the Arabic script for all students in the human i tie s and social sciences at Azerbaijan State Univer sit y, and Azerbaijan’s Bilik (Knowledge) soci ety has intro duced a new public program to teach Azerbaijani in the Arabic alpha bet. Promoters of the plan note that the allo ca tion of addi tional resources neces sary for the de vel op- ment of textbooks and other reading mate ri als has not yet oc - curred.64 The desire for expand ing rela tions with Azerbaijanis abroad has also increased. In 1988, the new Vätän (Homeland) soci ety was orga nized to promote and regu late ties between the repub lic and Azerbaijanis living outside the USSR. Formed out of the Azerbaijani compa tri ots’ depart ment at the Azerbaijani Soci ety for Cultural Re - lations with Foreign Countries, the new orga ni za tion provides an impor tant insti tu tional channel for the devel op ment of rela tions not only with Southern Azerbaijan, but also with Iranian Azerbaijani emi grants now living in the West, espe cially Europe and North America.6 5 Nonethe less, a review of Vätän‘s activ i ties demon strates the still limited poten tial for a rapproche ment of Soviet and Irania n Azerbaijan. In this respect, recent complaints voiced in the Azerbaijani press point out that improved access to rela tives , friends, and compa tri ots living in Iran cannot be met without the right of free movement across the Soviet-Iranian border: “I well un - derstand that the claim to change current borders means creat ing the danger of war. But along with respect ing today’s borders, isn’t it [possi ble] to broaden economic and cultural ties between North and South Azerbaijan and to guaran tee travel back and forth [across bor - ders] on certain days of the week?”66 156 Mark Saroyan

ETHNIC CULTURE AND THE EMERGENCE OF CROSS-REPUBLIC CONTACTS

The Homeland Soci ety in Azerbaijan and Arme nia’s Com mit tee for Cultural Rela tions with Arme ni ans Abroad each provide or ga ni- zational channels for the devel op ment of contacts between the re pub - lic and co-nationals resi dent outside the USSR. A seemingly more conten tious issue is the devel op ment of rela tions between the na - tional repub lic and nation als living beyond the repub lic’s tradi tiona l polit i cal juris dic tion. Appeals for the protec tion of national com mu - nities outside the home repub lic are often linked with propos als to es - tablish cross-republic insti tu tional ties aimed at an improve ment of ethnic inte gra tion regard less of tradi tional juris dic tional bound aries. Approx i mately one-third of the USSR’s Arme ni ans live outside the home repub lic; hence the perceived need for greater extra-territoria l cultural protec tion is partic u larly acute for the Arme ni ans.6 7 Since the forma tion of a special govern ment admin is tra tion for Karabakh in Janu ary 1989, cultural insti tu tions in the region have de - veloped greater orga ni za tional connec tions with like insti tu tions in Arme nia, thus provid ing a model for an emergent pattern of hor i - zontal ties between repub lic-based nations and extra-republican na - tional commu ni ties. Yerevan students have orga nized volun tee r groups to work tempo rarily in Karabakh, while admis sion of Karabakh students to Arme nia’s insti tu tions of higher edu ca tion, es - pecially teacher-training insti tutes, has been facil i tated. While the prospects of opening a branch of Yerevan State Univer sity in Karabakh are dim, numer ous newly estab lished cultural or ga ni za- tions there have promoted a series of coop er a tive agreements with their counter parts in Arme nia. Empha sizing the impor tance that these measures hold for the cultural and ethnic inte gra tion of the Ar - menian nation, activ ists have argued that the cultural contacts are conceived of as ties between “two sections of the same people.” Like - wise, Arme nian cultural leaders under score that the further de vel - opment of ethnic culture must transcend polit ico-administrativ e divi sions and oper ate on the princi ple of “one people—one cul - ture.”68 The expan sion of Arme nia’s cross-republic insti tu tional ties has not been limited to Karabakh. The Arme nian Writers’ Union re cently Beyond the Nation-State: Soviet Transcaucasia 157 announced its inten tion to develop contacts with Arme nian writer s throughout the Soviet Union, espe cially the strong liter ary com mu - nities of Tbilisi, Baku, Rostov, and Sukhumi.69 Remarking on the ad - vanced Arme nian liter ary and publish ing life of Sukhumi in the pre-Soviet period, one member of a Writers’ Union dele ga tion vis it - ing Arme ni ans along the Black Sea coast, Vazgen Kansuzyan, asked rhetor i cally: “[And] now? Not one Arme nian paper, not one page, not one word.” In view of the situ a tion, Kansuzyan called not only for better orga ni za tion of Arme nian writers in the region, but also for the expan sion of possi bil i ties for publish ing the works of local Ar me - nians in Yerevan. In addi tion, he pointed to the need for Yerevan-based teacher-training courses to improve instruc tion in the Arme nian schools of Abkhazia.70 In the vari ous Soviet cities where Arme nian cultural center s have opened to serve the local Arme nian commu ni ties, cultural ac - tivists have appealed for mate rial assis tance, as well as moral sup - port, from the home repub lic. In Tallinn, Arme nian requests for a perma nent building to house the cultural asso ci a tion were recentl y met by local author i ties, but Tallinn’s Arme nian activ ists plan to ex - pand and reno vate the premises by secur ing the aid of the Arme nia n repub lic’s vari ous creative unions.7 1 In order to accom mo date the sudden increase in cultural rela tions between the repub lic and Ar - menian commu ni ties throughout the USSR, the Arme nian histo ria n Sergei Vardanyan has pressed for the forma tion of a new gov ern- ment commit tee to orga nize and promote these cultural ties. The model for his proposal is the Commit tee for Cultural Rela tions with Arme ni ans Abroad, an orga ni za tion whose juris dic tion is over only Arme ni ans outside the USSR. 72 Azerbaijani measures to estab lish rela tions with co-nationals outside their repub lic have been espe cially concerned with the large commu nity in Georgia, in part because most of the once large Azerbaijani popu la tion of Arme nia has now emi grated. During the 1987 visit of the Tbilisi Azerbaijani writers’ group Dan Ulduzu to Baku—itself a product of improv ing ties—members of the Azerbaijan Writers’ Union empha sized that the repub lic’s cultura l asso ci a tions had special tasks to fulfill since Azerbaijani culture ex - tended far beyond the current polit i cal borders of Azerbaijan. At a meeting with the Dan Ulduzu orga ni za tion, Anar, head of the Azerbaijan Writers’ Union, addressed the direc tors of publish in g 158 Mark Saroyan houses and the edi tors of major Baku peri od i cals by name, to em pha - size the need for them to facil i tate local publi ca tion of Azerbaijani lit - era ture from Georgia.7 3 By 1989, the central commit tees of Georgia’s and Azerbaijan’s Commu nist parties had devel oped a program for the exten sion of rights to Georgia’s Azerbaijani commu nit y. Accord ing to the agree - ment, Azerbaijani language edu ca tion in Georgia is to be expande d and improved and is to include instruc tion in the history and cultur e of Azerbaijan. An Azerbaijani cultural cente r, to be estab lished in Tbilisi, will serve as a base for the exchange of cultural workers from the Azerbaijani repub lic and house muse ums devoted to Azerbaijani heroes; special retail outlets for Azerbaijani products and other cul - tural facil i ties are planned for the Azerbaijani-populated districts of Georgia.7 4 Azerbaijan’s promo tion of extra-republican cul - tural-institutional ties has reached Moscow as well. The es tab lish- ment of an Azerbaijani cultural center in Moscow to serve the cultural needs of the Azerbaijani “dias pora” has recently been com - plemented by the intro duc tion of Azerbaijani radio broadcasts to bring music and news of the home repub lic to the esti mated 50,000 Azerbaijanis resi dent in the country’s capi tal.7 5

NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY AND SOVIET POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS

Ethnic poli tics in the national repub lics has increas ingly re - volved around claims for sover eignty and the rights of citi zen ship in an effort to substan ti ate demands for more control over local affairs . Claims of sover eignty are hardly new in Soviet poli tics.7 6 But toda y argu ments are no longer made for the sover eignty of the national re - publics; ethnic activ ists currently conceive of a kind of sover eignt y that inheres not simply in the national repub lic but in the nation , without regard to polit i cal borders. The decompartmentalization of ethnic identity devel oped in the realm of culture throughout the post-Stalin period has now emerged full-blown in social and po lit i- cal activ ism under Gorbachev. The explo sion of demands for ethnic rights in the national re - publics has been met with the Kremlin’s promise of greater au ton- Beyond the Nation-State: Soviet Transcaucasia 159 omy and the decen tral iza tion of deci sion-making in polit i cal , economic, social, and cultural affairs. Nonethe less, the emergen t princi ple of a “strong center and strong repub lics” has done little to meet the challenge of demands in Transcaucasia, which move across repub li can borders to focus on the rights of national commu ni tie s living outside their home repub lics. In the wake of the Karabakh cri - sis, and espe cially since the Nineteenth Party Confer ence held in 1988, the Kremlin leader ship has expressed a prepared ness to pro - tect the rights of national commu ni ties without forms of ad min is tra- tive auton omy, includ ing ethnic groups living outside their desig nated homelands.7 7 But this tendency repre sents more a col - lection of ad hoc measures in face of acute ethnic polit i cal crises than the reflec tion of a coher ent nation al ity policy . The problem of ethnic minor i ties is espe cially challeng ing since the provi sion of greater auton omy to the national repub lics ofte n contra dicts the center’s professed concern for the protec tion of mi - nority civil and cultural rights. Ethnic leader ships in the national re - publics of Transcaucasia are increas ingly respon sive to demands for the “restruc tur ing” of ethnic cultural insti tu tions to bene fit the tit u - lar national commu ni ties at the same time that minor ity nationa l commu ni ties are demand ing more resources for their own cultura l devel op ment. In Azerbaijan, for instance, discus sions of languag e policy have concen trated on the exten sion and rein force ment of Azerbaijan improve ment of their own ethnic cultural facil i ties in the region; the Azerbaijanis have empha sized the need to earmark these national languages.7 8 Moreover, compe ti tion over the allo ca tion of scarce resources in the Cauca sus has repeat edly led to conflict between the region’ s domi nant and nondominant ethnic groups. This ethnic compe ti tio n is one of the reasons for the contin u ing polit i cal crisis over Karabakh; while Arme ni ans are claiming specially allo cated govern ment re - sources for the improve ment of their own ethnic cultural facil i ties in the region, the Azerbaijanis have empha sized the need to earmar k these resources for the devel op ment and protec tion of Azerbaijani culture in the Azerbaijani-populated areas of Karabakh. A simi lar conflict over the orga ni za tion and financ ing of ethni c cultural devel op ment has emerged in the case of Georgia’s Abkhaz minor it y. This conflict has resulted not in greater protec tion of Abkhaz culture but in the activization of anti-minority chauvin is m 160 Mark Saroyan among the Georgians. In this context, the emergence of more stri dent ethnic activ ism among the Georgian repub lic’s large Arme nian and Azerbaijani minor i ties lies omi nously on the hori zon . Where national repub li can leader ships are intent on furthe r “nation al iz ing” their ethnic space, minor ity ethnic commu ni tie s quickly learn the impli ca tions of increas ingly “strong repub lics. ” The massive, vio lent exchange of ethnic popu la tions that occurre d between Arme nia and Azerbaijan in the fall of 1988 came after nearly a year of tense polit i cal struggle, but it ulti mately reflected a kind of common sense imposed by the logic of the nation-state. Espe cially in the Transcaucasus, the promise of greater auton omy and sov er eignty for repub lics founded on an ethnic princi ple can thus easily translat e into the power ful and even vio lent domi na tion of titu lar nation s over national commu ni ties that are insti tu tion ally deprived of the bene fits of such newly gained power. Despite the expressed will to solve the complex challenge of the Soviet Union’s new national question, the Gorbachev leader ship has in effect proposed polit i cal solu tions to a funda men tally in sti tu- tional problem. Thus, while the Kremlin moves to rein force the rights of the national repub lics and rede fine Soviet feder al ism, eth - nic poli tics has already transcended the insti tu tional bounds of the national-republic system. The emergence of cross-republican cul - tural ties has miti gated the sever ity of ethnic compe ti tion, but these devel op ments in the Cauca sus, even in the case of Arme nia’s re la - tion with Karabakh, remain fairly limited . To borrow a meta phor from Samuel Hunting ton, ethnic po lit i- cal activ ism has outpaced the state’s capac ity for inno va tive polit i ca l institutionalization.79 Popu lar partic i pa tion in movements for na - tional rights outside the home repub lic has greatly outflanked the ability of party and state offi cials to find new forms to manage the national-cultural demands of these commu ni ties without ad min is- trative-territorial auton om y. Indeed, as long as the system of na - tional states remains one of the orga niz ing princi ples of Soviet rule, the problem of minor ity popu la tions resi dent in someone else’s eth - no-territorial space will continue to challenge Soviet policy-maker s as a living legacy of Stalin ist national-state forma tion . Beyond the Nation-State: Soviet Transcaucasia 161

NOTES

1. J. V. Sta lin, Works, vol. 2 (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1953), p. 307. 2. For recent Western discus sions of Stalin and the national question, see Walker Connor, The National Question in Marxist-Leninist Theory and Strateg y (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univer sity Press, 1984), and Hélène Carrère-d’Encausse, Le Grand Défi: Bolchéviks et nations, 1917–1930 (Paris: Flammarion, 1987). 3. On the connec tion between national-state forma tion and social mod ern iza- tion, see Gregory J. Massel, The Surro gate Pro le tar iat (Princeton, N.J.: Prince- ton Univer sity Press, 1974). 4. On the workings of the passport system in Soviet ethnic rela tions, see Victo r Zaslavsky, The Neo-Stalinist State: Class, Ethnic ity and Consen sus in Soviet So- ci ety (Armonk, N.Y.: Sharpe, 1982), pp. 91–129. 5. In addi tion to the “ethnic” Azerbaijanis, distinct ethnic groups living in Azerbaijan, includ ing the Talysh, Kurds, and others, were also reidentified as Azerbaijani during this period. The promi nent Azerbaijani histo ria n Süleïman Äliïarov has recently argued that the full history of ethnonymic changes under gone by the Azerbaijanis should become public knowledg e and no longer hidden. See his comments in “Bizim sorghu,” Azärbaïjan, no. 7 (1988): 176. In fact, the 1937 name-change was only the last move in a lengthy debate that emerged in the late nineteenth century over how to name the Azerbaijanis. For a brief discus sion, see E. M. Akhmedov, Filosofia azerbaidzhanskogo prosveshcheniia (Baku: Azämäshr, 1983). 6. For esti mates on the influx of Arme nian refu gees into Russian Arme ni a from Turkish Arme nia, see G. E. Avagyan, Haykakan SSH bnakchutyune (Yerevan: Yerevani Hamalasarani Hratarakchutyun, 1975), pp. 32–33. 7. Grey Hodnett, Leader ship in the Soviet National Repub lics: A Quanti ta tiv e Study of Recruit ment Pol icy (Oakville, Ontario: Mosaic Press, 1978), p. 399. 8. V. I. Lenin, “The Tasks of the Youth Leagues,” in his Selected Works, vol. 3 (Moscow: Progress, 1971), pp. 470–83. 9. For a recent general discus sion of trends in the produc tion and con sump tion of titu lar national culture in the repub lics, see Sotsial’nokul’turnyi oblik sovetskikh natsii (Moscow: Nauka, 1986), esp. pp. 180–295. 10. Here, as elsewhere in this arti cle, I am empha siz ing predom i nant trends in cultural practice. Never the less, cases in which ethnic repre sen ta tions move beyond the national repub lic can be identi fied in, for exam ple, liter ary pro - duction. For instance, Vahan Totovents’ three-volume novel published in the 1930s, Baku (Yerevan: Haypethrat, 1930–34), and Mämmäd Said Ordubadi’s three-volume novel of the same pe riod, Dumanlv Täbriz (Baku: Azämäshr, 1930–48). 162 Mark Saroyan

11. A useful refer ence for study of Arme nia’s toponyms is A. A. Aslanyan and H. Gh. Grgearyan, Haykakan SSH ashkharhagrakan anunneri hamarot bararan (Yerevan: Haykakan SSH GA Hratarakchutyun, 1981). 12. For exam ple, see the mythi cal recon struc tion of pre-Armenian history in Sero Khanzadyan’s novel Taguhin havots (Yerevan: Sovetakan Grogh, 1978). 13. Termi no log i cal usage serves to rein force this ideolog i cal tendenc y. Thus, Arme ni ans who for centu ries have lived in Baku or Azerbaijanis who have simi larly popu lated the country side of contem po rary Arme nia are clas si- fied as “non-indigenous” ( nekorennyi ) national commu ni ties . 14. I am grateful to Louisa Schein for suggest ing the meta phor of compartmentalization. 15. Sh. S. Fatullaev, Gradostroitel’stvo i arkhitektura Azerbaidzhana XIX—nachala XX veka (Lenin grad: Stroiizdat, 1986). 16. This analy sis is based on my reading of contem po rary Arme nian prose and poetry published in Tbilisi and Baku and the Arme nian liter ary journal s Grakan Adrbejan (Baku) and Kamurj (Tbilisi). The complaints of Arme nia n writers and other cultural workers in Baku and Tbilisi, collected during my fieldwork in these cities, confirm the limi ta tions placed on the expres sion of “national” themes outside the home repub lic . 17. For more detailed treatments of these cultural trends, which virtu ally dis ap- peared by the late 1940s, see David B. Nissman, The Soviet Union and Irania n Azerbaijan: The Uses of Nation al ism for Polit i cal Pen e tra tion (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1987). 18. On the Arme nian repa tri a tion, see Claire Mouradian, “L’Immigration des Arméniens de la Dias pora vers la RSS d’Arménie, 1946–1962,” Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique, 20, 1 (Janu ary–March 1979). 19. A simi lar shift occurred in theo ret i cal ethnog ra ph y, where the concept of “ethnos” provided a way in which to discuss ethnic ity beyond the geo - graphic and tempo ral restric tions inscribed in the Stalin ist defi ni tion of na - tion. See Iu. V. Bromlei, Ocherki teorii etnosa (Moscow: Nauka, 1983). 20. For a detailed study of Soviet Arme nian inter est in Western Arme nia and the dias pora more gener all y, see Claire Mouradian, “L’Arménie soviétique depuis la mort de Staline,” Ph.D. disser ta tion, EHESS, Paris, 1982. 21. Kirakosyan, up to his death in the mid-1980s, served as Arme nia’s minis te r of foreign affairs and produced a two-volume work, Yeritturkere gatmutyanggdatastani araj (Yerevan: Hayastan, 1982–83). Arti cles con demn- ing Turkish histo ri og ra phy of the genocide continue to be published by his colleagues in the monthly jour nal Sovetakan Hayastan. 22. This is corrob o rated in the intro duc tion to a recent anthol ogy of Western Ar - menian poetry: V. A. Kirakosyan, Arevmtahay banasteghtsutyune 1890–1907 tt. (Yerevan: HSSH GA Hratarakchutyun, 1985), p. 5. Beyond the Nation-State: Soviet Transcaucasia 163

23. See, for exam ple, Mushegh Galshoyan’s Dsori miron (Yerevan: Sovetakan Grogh, 1983); and Khachik Dashdents, Ranchparneri kanche (Yerevan: Sovetakan Grogh, 1984). 24. Grakan Tert, 23 May 1986. 25. H. U. Meliksetyan, Havrenik-Spyurk arnchutyunnere yev hayrenadardsutyune (1920–1980 tt.) (Yerevan: Yerevani Hamalsarani Hratarakchutyun, 1985), p. 13. 26. These works include, for exam ple, A. G. Abrahamyan, Hamarot urvagitz hay gaghtavayreri patmutyun, 2 vols. (Yerevan: Haypethrat, 1964); S. Gasparyan, Spyurkahay gaghtojakhnern aysor (Yerevan: Haypethrat, 1962). For a fairly complete bibli og ra ph y, see Meliksetyan, p. 97. 27. While conven tional repre sen ta tions of Arme nian ethnic ity in the dias por a were limited to “progres sive” Arme nian circles, more recent writings have included posi tive appre ci a tions of commu nity life connected to the tra di- tionally anti-Soviet Arme nian Revo lu tion ary Feder a tion (the so-called “dashnaks”). See, for exam ple, Silva Kaputikyan’s recently publishe d Argentinian travel ogue, “Buenos-Ayres hska kaghakum,” Sovetakan Grakanutyun, no. 8 (1987), and Maro Margaryan, “Kilikyan hayatyan arzhanavor zharangnere,” Sovetakan Grakanutyun, no. 12 (1987). 28. For exam ples of this histo ri og ra phy, see V. A. Mikayelyan, Ghrimi haykakan gaghuti patmutyun, 1800–1917 tt. (Yerevan: Haykakan SSH GA Hratarakchutyun, 1964); A. A. Grigor’iants, Armiane v srednei azii (Vtoraia polovina XIX v.-1917 g.) (Yerevan: Izd-vo AN ArmSSR, 1984). On Mos cow, see A. Arsharuni, Moskvayi usanoghutyune (Yerevan, 1965), and also his Moskvayi hay mamule (Yerevan: Hayastan, 1971). 29. This limi ta tion was recently criti cized by the Arme nian histo rian Sergei Vardanyan in “Menk partavor enk,” Sovetakan Hayastan, 9 Febru ary 1989, pp. 2 and 3. 30. On the history of Soviet Arme nian liter a ture in Georgia, see A. Mkhitaryan, Vrastani sovetahay grankanutyune (Yerevan: Hayastan, 1966); and A. Mkhitaryan [Mkhitaryan], Armianskaia literatura v gruzii (Yerevan: Sovetakan Grogh, 1980). On the liter a ture of the Hamshen Arme ni ans along the Black Sea coast, see the anthol ogy published in Sovetakan Grakanutyun, no. 10 (1987): 69–79, as well as the more general study of Hamshen Ar me- nian culture presented in A. E. Ter-Sarkisiants, “Sovremennyi byt armian abkhazii,” in Kavkazskii etnograficheskii sbornik, vol. 8 (Moscow: Nauka, 1984). 31. Shahen Mkrtchyan, Lernayin Gharabaghi patmachartarapetakan hushardsannere (Yerevan: Hayastan, 1985). On the history of Karabakh, see B. Ulubabyan, Artsakhe patmakan aghbyurnerum yev patmagitakan grakanutyan mej (Yerevan, 1969); G. A. Hovhannisyan, Sovetakan ishkhanutyan hastatume Lernayin Gharabaghum (Yerevan, 1971). Arme nian histor i cal monu ments of Nakhichevan have been described in Argam Ayvazyan, Nakhijevani patmachartarapetakan hushardsannere (Yerevan: Hayastan, 1978); Jugha (Yerevan: Sovetakan Grogh, 1984); and Agulis (Yerevan: Hayastan, 1984). 164 Mark Saroyan

32. For an exam i na tion of this genre see David B. Nissman, “The Ori gin and Devolopment of the Liter a ture of ‘Longing’ in Azerbaijan,” Journal of Turk - ish Studies, no. 8 (1984). 33. Müzäffär Shükür, Bir kökdän aïryldyg (Baku: Ïazychy, 1987). 34. Ismaïyl Shykhly, “Ädäbiïïatymyzyn väziïïäti vä väzifäläri,” Ädäbiïïat vä Injäsänät, 30 May 1986, pp. 2–4. 35. Jänubi Azärbaïjan ädäbiïïty antoloqïïasy (Baku: Elm; vol. 1, 1981; vol. 2, 1983; vol. 3, 1988). 36. Quoted in “Kechmishin Öïränilmäsi: problemelär, väzifälar,” Kommunist , 2 March 1989, p. 2. 37. For some recent exam ples of this work, see Jäfär Khandan, Ughur ïolu: Jänubi azärbaïjanda ädäbiïïat, mätbuat, maarif vä injäsänät (Baku: Azänäshr, 1987); M. M. Chesmazar, Azärbaïjan Demokrat Partiïsynyn Ïaranmasy vä fäalliïïäti: Jänubi Azärbaïjan 1945–1946-chy illär (Baku: Elm, 1986). On premodern histor y, see Hüsein Äli Dalili, Azärbaïjan jänub khanlyglary (Baku: Elm, 1979). 38. Jänubi Azärbaïjan tarikhinin ocherki, 1828–1917 (Baku: Elm 1985). 39. I have in mind Nissman’s works, cited above, as well as S. Enders Wimbush, “Divided Azerbaijan: Nation-Building, Assim i la tion and Mobi li za tion in Three States,” in Soviet Asian Ethnic Fron tiers, ed. William McCagg, Jr. and Brian Silver (New York: Pergamon, 1979). 40. Ingilab Kärimov, “Bir daha ïazylmyshlar haggynda,” Ädäbiïïat vä Injäsänät, 21 June 1985, p. 3. 41. On Azerbaijani culture in Georgia, see A. Hajyïev, Tiflis ädäbi mühiti (Baku: Ïazychy, 1980); A. Hajyïev, Tiflis Azärbaïjan teatry (Baku: Ishyg, 1984). For Ar- menia, see Sabir Rzäiev, Azärbaïjan teatry Ermänistanda (Baku: Azärbaïjan Teatry Jämiïïäti, 1963); Hidaïät, “Burdan min atli kechdi,” Azärbaïjan, no. 1 (1988). This trend is also evi dent in publi ca tions outside the Azerbaijani re - public. See Adil Mishiïev, Azärbaïjan Ïazychylary vä Tiflis ädäbi-ijtimai mühiti (Tbilisi: Ganatleba, 1987). 42. See the anthol ogy of Dagestani Azerbaijani poets recently published in Baku: Daghystan töhfäläri (Baku: Ïazychy, 1987), as well as Mövlud Ïarähmädov, Azärbaïjan-Daghystan ädäbi älagäläri tarikhindän (Baku: Elm, 1985), which, despite the name, empha sizes Azerbaijani liter ary produc tio n in Dagestan. 43. “Irag Türkmanlary,” in Azärbaïjan Sovet Ensiklopediïasy, vol. 4, pp. 500–501; and the account by Räsul Rza, Azärbaïjan, no. 2 (1961). 44. Useful collec tions of mate ri als relat ing to the Karabakh movement include : Artsakhean daregrutiown (Los Angeles, Calif.: Asbarez, 1988), and The Karabakh File (Cambridge, Mass.: Zoryan Insti tute, 1988). 45. In Azerbaijan alone, for exam ple, the Arme nian popu la tion of Baku is still nearly twice as large as that of Karabakh, even after the mass migra tion of late fall, 1988. Beyond the Nation-State: Soviet Transcaucasia 165

46. Hayrenih dsayn, 19 Octo ber 1988, p. 4. 47. Grakan Tert, 4 Novem ber 1988, p. 1, and Asbarez, 7 Janu ary 1989, p. 7. 48. The city of Rostov devel oped and eventu ally incor po rated the Ar me- nian-founded colony of Nor Nakhichevan. On the new orga ni za tion, see T. Liloyan, “Doni hayeri enkerutyune,” Sovetakan Hayastan, 4 Febru ary 1989, p. 3. 49. “Khorhdaktsutyun HKK kentkomum,” Grakan Tert, 31 March 1989, p. 1. On the “dias pora” Arme nian cultural asso ci a tion of Riga, see K. Margaryan, “’Spyurk’ latviayi hoghum," Sovetakan Hayastan, 7 Novem ber 1988, p. 3. For the Tallinn report, see Petros Demirchyan, “Arzhe Khorhel,” Grakan Tert, 10 March 1989, p. 2. 50. Born in the Crimea, Adalyan has person ally expe ri enced the needs of the di - aspora, both inter nal and exter nal, that he expresses in “Grakan entatske yev ardiakanutyune,” Sovetakan Grakanutyun, no. 8 (1986): 120–21. 51. “Hayots Hamazgayin Sharzhum,” Artsakhean daregrutiown, p. 1–10. 52. On the AGBU office, see the report in Asbarez, 8 March 1989, p. 9. 53. Inter est ingly, the author of the piece sees homeland-diaspora economic co- oper a tion as a means not just to stem the tide of emi gra tion from Arme ni a but to encour age new immi gra tion as well as the return of former resi dent s of the repub lic. H. Hakopyan, “Nor moretsum hayrenik-spyurk kaperin,” Hayreniki Dsayn, 2 Novem ber 1988, pp. 3–4. 54. Such claims, albeit much less strident, were made before the Karabakh cri- sis. See Ädäbiïïat vä Injäsänät, 12 April 1985, p. 8. 55. For a selec tion of these demands, see Bäkhtiïar Vahabzadä, “Täläblärimiz,” Ädäbiïïat vä Injäsänät, 25 Novem ber 1988, p. 2; Sabir Azäri, “Aghy garadan sechmäïi bajarag,” Ädäbiïïat vä Injäsänät, 2 Decem ber 1988, p. 5; Ä. Dashdämirov, “Aghy garadan sechmäk lazymdyr,” Kommunist, 3 De cem ber 1988, p. 3. 56. For exam ple, Bäkhtiïar Vahabzadä, “Birliïï äldän vermäïäk, tämkinli olag,” Kommunist, 25 Novem ber 1988, p. 4. 57. Ïashar Garaïev, “Millilik amili,” Azärbaïjan, no. 8 (1988): 151. Vilaïät Guliïev makes simi lar charges against Arme nia and Georgia, and calls for the col lec- tion of Azerbaijani histor i cal toponyms within and outside the “present bor- ders” of the repub lic. Vilaïät Guliïev, “Bizim sorghu,” Azärbaïjan, no. 7 (1988): 183. 58. Anar, Ädäbiïïat vä Injäsänät, 8 July 1988. An earlier call for the protec tion of Azerbaijani cultural monu ments in Arme nia, Georgia, and Dagestan was made by Mäshädikhanym Ne’mätova, “Kitabälär gorunurmu?” Ädäbiïïat vä Injäsänät, 11 March 1988. 59. Ïashar Garaïev, “Millilik amili,” Azärbaïjan, no. 8 (1988): 158. 60. Imamverdi Äbilov, “Bizim sorghu,” Azärbaïjan, no. 10 (1988). 166 Mark Saroyan

61. See Vilaïät Guliïev, “Bizim sorghu,” Azärbaïjan, no. 7 (1988): 185, and Bähriïïä Mämmädova, “Bizim sorghu,” Azärbaïjan, no. 12 (1988): 171. 62. “Ingilab vä poeziïa,” Ädäbiïïat vä Injäsänät, 12 July 1985, p. 7. 63. Ïashar Garaïev, “Millilik amili,” Azärbaïjan, no. 8 (1988): 151. 64. On the univer sity curric u lum, see Tofig Hajyïev, “Gashy düzältdiïïmiz ïerdä,” Ädäbiïïat vä Injäsänät, 2 Decem ber 1988, p. 8. On the Bilik soci ety’s un - dertak ing, see Z. Ähmädzadä, “Köhnä älifbaïa täza häväs,” Kommunist, 7 Febru ary 1989, p. 4. 65. Azerbaijani media now carry regu lar reports on the activ i ties and contact s of the new soci et y. See Ädäbiïïat vä Injäsänät, 8 July 1988; 21 Octo ber 1988; 4 Novem ber 1988, p. 7; 25 Novem ber 1988, p. 2. 66. Babäk Ädaläti, “Söz vakhtyna chäkär,” Ädäbiïïat vä Injäsänät, 25 Novem be r 1988, p. 1. 67. By contrast, only about 15 percent of the USSR’s Azerbaijani popu la tio n lives outside Azerbaijan. For precise data, see Brian D. Silver, “Popu la tio n Redis tri bu tion and the Ethnic Balance in Transcaucasia,” in Transcaucasia: Nation al ism and Social Change, ed. Ronald G. Suny (Ann Arbor: Michi ga n Slavic Publi ca tions, 1983), p. 375. 68. See the inter view with heads of six cultural orga ni za tions in Karabakh dur - ing their working visit to Yerevan, “Hamategh ashkatenk mshakuyti asparezum,” Sovetakan Hayastan, 8 March 1989, p. 4. 69. There are also plans to publish anthol o gies of works of Arme nian writer s from Georgia, Abkhazia, and other parts of the Cauca sus along the lines of the recently published col lec tion Grakan Gharabagh of Karabakh Arme nia n liter a ture ( Asbarez, 11 Janu ary 1989), p. 5. 70. See “Barev, Hamshentsi hayer,” Grakan Tert, 11 Novem ber 1988, p. 2. 71. Petros Demirchyan, “Arzhe khorhel,” Grakan Tert, 10 March 1989, p. 2. 72. “Menk partavor enk,” Sovetakan Hayastan, 9 Febru ary 1989, pp. 2 and 3. 73. Personal obser va tion of the author in Baku (30 Octo ber 1987). 74. See the report in Kommunist, 12 May 1989, p. 1. 75. “Moskvada Azärbaïjan evi,” Kommunist, 8 Janu ary 1989, p. 1; “’Araz’ ümumittifag efirindä,” Kommunist, 21 March 1989, p. 3. 76. For exam ples from the Cauca sus, see M. A. Kafarzade, “Azerbaidzhanskaia SSR—suverenaia respublika v sostave SSSR,” unpub lished Ph.D. dis ser ta- tion, Mosco w, 1955, and Sh. N. Petrosian, Istoriia konstitusionnogo razvitiia sovetskoi gosudarstvennosti v Armenii (Yerevan: Mitk, 1968). 77. The platform on the protec tion of ethnic minor ity rights outside their re pub- lics, adopted at the Nineteenth Party Confer ence, contin ued to form the ba- sis for Gorbachev’s policy one year later. See his appeal broadcast on Sovie t televi sion, reprinted in the central and repub li can press on 2 July 1989. Beyond the Nation-State: Soviet Transcaucasia 167

78. These discus sions of language use were espe cially promi nent in Azerbaijan’s press during the fall, 1988. 79. Samuel Hun ting ton, Polit i cal Order in Changing So ci eties (New Haven . Conn.: Yale Univer sity Press, 1968). TROUBLE IN THE TRANSCAUCASUS

More than disas ter relief was on the minds of Soviet author i tie s in the wake of the 7 Decem ber earthquake that devas tated two majo r cities and innu mer a ble towns and villages in the north of the tiny re - public of Arme nia. Profiting from the diver sion of public atten tion to the traged y, the Soviet govern ment unleashed a coor di nated attac k against the movement for the annex ation of Karabakh, an Arme nia n enclave in the neighbor ing repub lic of Azerbaijan. Several member s of Arme nia’s unof fi cial Karabakh commit tee were jailed, and a me - dia blitz was launched against the leader ship of the movement in both Arme nia and Azerbaijan. For the moment, Moscow has set aside the new poli tics of accom mo da tion in favor of old-style co er - cion, in an effort to stifle a campaign that over the past year had pushed glasnost to its limits . When hundreds of thousands of Arme ni ans began gather ing in protest rallies in late Febru ary 1988, few imagined that their actio n would produce a civic movement that would force Gorbachev into a quandar y. Opti mis tic about the promise of perestroika, Arme ni an s expected author i ties to resolve their demands quickly by allow in g them to annex Karabakh. For its part, the Moscow leader shi p thought that a 400-million-ruble ($560 million) rede vel op ment pro - gram for Karabakh, thrown together last March, and increas ing con - tacts between Arme nia and the disputed region would miti gate the crisis if not resolve it. In a Soviet televi sion inter view after his tour of the earthquake-ravaged zone, Mikhail Gorbachev complained that the govern ment’s finan cial gener os ity to the tiny enclave should have been enough to satisfy the Arme ni ans. But a leader of the Karabakh commit tee responded that Moscow had merely applied an economic solu tion to a polit i cal problem. 1 After a year, the Arme nian-Azerbaijani struggle for Karabakh has produced two power ful, broad-based social movements that have exposed contra dic tions in the Soviet polit i cal system as well as in Gorbachev’s vision of reform ing it. And neither Western nor So -

167 168 Mark Saroyan viet journal ists have been much help in inter pret ing the conflict : both groups have explained it largely in terms of tradi tional enmit y between Christian Arme ni ans and Muslim Azerbaijanis, without ex - ploring the two peoples’ inter twined histo ries. The actual histor i ca l legacy suggests that the conflict is more than a natu ral conse quenc e of ethnic and reli gious differ ences . The dispute over Karabakh is somewhat differ ent from the usual Soviet nation al ity problem, in which primary conflicts occu r between the hege monic Russians and the rest of the country’s ethni c popu la tions. Elsewhere Gorbachev has faced unprec e dented chal - lenges from the nation al i ties: riots broke out in the Kazakh capi tal of Alma-Ata when he replaced a corrupt party chief with a Russian ; and Baltic groups have sought to extend economic and polit i cal re - forms far beyond what even radi cal reform ers in Moscow have ad vo - cated. Gorbachev’s handling of these conflicts has won enormou s respect in the West, if not at home. The Karabakh crisis, by contrast , has pitted two neighbor ing repub lics against each other in a series of polit i cal battles and recur rent vio lence; Russian inter ven tion has been required to maintain or der. And the crisis has left Gorbachev at an impasse . Baku, the present capi tal of Azerbaijan, was an indus trial cen ter in Tsarist Russia. Its oil fields produced about half of the world’s oil supply before World War I, stimu lat ing an indus trial boom in the late nineteenth century and contrib ut ing to the forma tion of an Ar me - nian economic elite, based in the cities of Baku and Tbilisi, capi tal of neighbor ing Georgia. This emerging capi tal ist class formed the nu - cleus of an Arme nian soci ety outside what is now Arme nia, com - plete with polit i cal asso ci a tions, an active press, and cultura l estab lish ment, churches, and schools. When smaller numbers of Azer- baijani entre pre neurs began to enter into their own region’ s devel op ment, they met head on with the already power ful and well-established Arme ni ans, who maintained hege mony until the collapse of Tsarism . In the heart of Baku’s commer cial district, an Arme nian church built in 1863 stands as a histor i cal reminder of Arme nian prosper it y in Azerbaijan. Early this centur y, Tsarist author i ties scrapped pro - posals to build a central mosque for Shi’ite Azerbaijanis in the same district because of the church’s proxim it y, and the mosque was even - Trouble in the Transcaucasus 169 tually tucked away in a Muslim neighbor hood outside the city cen - ter. While Arme nian soci ety was flourish ing in urban centers, the terri tory of what is now Soviet Arme nia remained an unde vel ope d agri cul tural region, domi nated by large Azerbaijani landown ers and popu lated by a mostly Azerbaijani peasantr y. Arme ni ans were a ma - jority in only three of the seven districts that formed the present Ar - menian repub lic. Even Yerevan, now the capi tal of Arme nia, was a small town with numer ous Azerbaijani bazaars and mosques sur - rounding the city cen ter. So while Arme ni ans domi nated Azerbaijan econom i cally and polit i call y, Azerbaijanis consti tuted a demo graphic force in the heart of the tradi tional Arme nian homeland. In this brew of class dis tinc - tions rein forced by ethnic and reli gious differ ences, tensions flared during peri ods of insta bil it y. The Russian revo lu tions of 1905 and 1917 resulted in intercommunal vio lence and massa cres that spread across both terri to ries. In the wake of the 1917 revo lu tion, Arme nia n irreg u lars razed dozens of Azerbaijani villages in Arme nia, ex pel- ling the resi dents. Anti-Armenian vio lence also struck Azerbaijan, and in 1919 most of the Arme nian popu la tion of Shushi, once the cul - tural center of Karabakh, was forced to leave. The Russian revo lu tion of 1917 reshaped the constel la tions of power in the region, known as the Transcaucasus. After Tsarist au - thority collapsed in Febru ary 1917, a Transcaucasian feder a tion at - tempted to unite Arme nian, Azerbaijani, and Georgian polit i ca l parties. But the efforts soon failed, and in May 1918 three sepa rate , inde pend ent repub lics were set up in Georgia, Arme nia, and Azerbaijan. Belea guered by mili tary confron ta tions over border s and by their own inter nal conflicts, the fledgling inde pend ent states were ulti mately sovietized, and the three Transcaucasian people s came back into the fold of the new Soviet empire . Bolshevik leaders decided to build social ism on the basis of a federal system of national repub lics. “National-state construc tion ” was to remake ethnic rela tions in the Soviet Union by estab lish in g ethnic admin is tra tions in each of the country’s non-Russian com mu- nities. Follow ing Marxian notions of level of economic devel op men t and size of popu la tion, each ethnic commu nity was endowed with its own terri tor y. The terri to ries were then orga nized into fifteen na - tional repub lics and dozens of less promi nent auton o mous re pub - 170 Mark Saroyan lics, provinces, and regions. The Mountain ous ( Nagorno ) Karabakh Auton o mous Province was one of these regions, created in 1923 for the Arme ni ans who, as a result of the mili tary balance of power be - fore sovietization, had remained within the newly formed Azerbaijani repub lic . At the top of this hier ar ch y, national repub lics were given all the trappings of modern nation-states: flags, national anthems, and min - istries—even minis tries of foreign affairs. A pano ply of state-sponsored cultural insti tu tions, includ ing schools, research in - stitutes, and liter ary and artis tic unions, promoted the cultural de - velop ment of the domi nant commu nit y, the so-called titu la r nation al it y, in each repub lic. In addi tion, an insti tu tion al ized pro - gram of affir ma tive action, known as nativization, trained ethni c cadres for service in the state and party appa ra tus. This contrib ute d to the forma tion of ethnic elites composed of the titu lar nation al ity in each of the terri to rial admin is tra tions. In a system where ethnic iden - tity is orga nized by the state and ethnic affil i a tion is included on each citi zen’s inter nal passport, ethnic ity can be consid ered in every thin g from polit i cal recruit ment to job promo tions . With this system, the Bolsheviks hoped to ensure more eq ui ta- ble rela tions between the tradi tion ally domi nant Russians and the formerly subject nations of the Tsarist empire. But the same in sti tu- tions that have, in the Soviet view, solved the national question by granting special privi leges to ethnic commu ni ties in their own re - publics have also created new forms of oppres sion. The polit i cal bor - ders of the national repub lics often do not corre spond with ethni c borders, and ethnic commu ni ties without their own admin is tra tion s or resi dent outside their offi cially desig nated “homelands” are ofte n deprived of the privi leges and rights they would receive in abun - dance in the home repub lic . So the seemingly irra tio nal intran si gence of the Arme nia n movement’s demand to annex Karabakh to Arme nia in fact makes polit i cal sense. Arme ni ans in the Karabakh auton o mous provinc e complain of seventy years of abuse by Azerbaijani author i ties in Baku. Resources for economic devel op ment have been withheld or diverted elsewhere, they argue, and Arme nian cultural and ed u ca- tional facil i ties in the province have been system at i call y underfunded and restricted. Arme ni ans in Karabakh rightly rec og- Trouble in the Transcaucasus 171 nized that only the Arme nian repub lic’s admin is tra tion would as - sure their secu rity and devel op ment . But Gorbachev and his colleagues in Moscow face more than just the unin tended conse quences of Soviet nation al ity polic y. They must now deal with Arme ni ans and Azerbaijanis who have turned the slogans of glasnost and perestroika to their own ends and have acquired immense polit i cal power gener ated by the inter nal course of their social movements . When mass public demon stra tions broke out in Arme nia last spring, many West ern observ ers assumed that rallies of such size and disci pline must have been orga nized by the Commu nist Party. Instead , by the time of these demon stra tions, several years of effort by the Ar me- nian cultural intel li gen tsia had already mobi lized Arme nian con - sciousness. During the Stalin, Khrushche v, and even Brezhnev pe ri ods, Arme nian intel lec tu als spearheaded campaigns to incor po rat e Karabakh into the Arme nian repub lic, but they remained silent as countless letters and peti tions sent to Moscow were shelved and for got- ten. When Gorbachev came to power, announc ing his radi cal program s of restruc tur ing and openness in a new Soviet Union, Arme ni ans em - braced the programs as a means to revive their pursuit of the Karabakh issue. Arme nian media refer ences to Karabakh multi plied, and Ar me- nian aca dem ics engaged in heated scholarly battles with their Azerbaijani colleagues over the history of the region . By fall 1987, the Karabakh campaign had moved from scholarl y journals to the public arena. Peti tioners report edly collected 400,000 signa tures in Arme nia support ing annex ation of Karabakh.2 Later in the fall, Haidar Äliyev, an Azerbaijani, was removed from his post in the Commu nist party’s ruling Polit buro, and Arme ni ans assume d that the last high-level oppo nent to their demands was now out of the picture. During a Novem ber trip to Western Europe , Gorbachev’s top economic adviser, Abel Aganbegyan, an Arme nia n born in Georgia, publicly spoke of the economic ratio nal ity of unit - ing Karabakh with Arme nia. News of Aganbegyan’s comment s reached an eager Arme nian popu la tion, galva niz ing support for the campaign among Arme ni ans in both Karabakh and Arme nia. News also spread quickly to Baku, where by early Decem ber, intel lec tu al s had turned liter ary events into sessions denounc ing Aganbegyan and the Arme nian claims to Karabakh.3 172 Mark Saroyan

The mass public rallies in Yerevan in late Febru ary 1988 were cata lyzed by a special session of Karabakh’s regional council, which issued a call for the province’s transfer to Arme nia. In mid-March, the local party orga ni za tion in Karabakh took a simi lar posi tion . Within weeks, Arme ni ans were mobi lized in a pan-national cam - paign for Karabakh. Orga nizing commit tees for the Karabakh cam - paign sprang up in facto ries, collec tive farms, schools, and in sti tutes. Workers staged general strikes unprec e dented in Soviet histor y, and estab lish ment intel lec tu als coop er ated with party and govern men t offi cials to seek a “posi tive solu tion” to the Karabakh question . Despite sometimes tragic devel op ments, includ in g anti-Armenian riots and killings in the Azerbaijani town of Sumgait, tens of thousands of Arme ni ans real ized that they could make party and state orga ni za tions work in their inter ests and that they could orga nize public protests without fear of retri bu tion from Mosco w. They lobbied members of the repub lic’s Supreme Soviet, or par lia - ment, threaten ing not to vote for them in upcom ing elections if they failed to support the popu lar demands. Once the broad-based socia l movement had obtained a measure of polit i cal power unimag in abl e in the Brezhnev period, few were willing to give it up. Moscow’s failure to satisfy Arme nian demands, combined with this new sense of power and soli dar ity cemented by weeks of strikes and public protests, rein forced Arme nian deter mi na tion and em - boldened the popu la tion to continue the struggle for Karabakh. But the orga nized civic campaign broadened to include problems of the envi ron ment, Arme nian culture, and other social and cultural is sues. The old practice of covert poli tics and backroom discus sions gave way to public poli tics in the streets of Arme nia and Karabakh, trans - forming them into common ground for hundreds of thousands of Arme ni ans—for merly subjects, now citi zens . The scope and persis tence of the Arme nian movement for Karabakh also left its mark on the Azerbaijanis. Historicall y, Azerbaijani nation al ism formed in reac tion to a domi nant Arme nia n nation al ism, and this tendency has been repli cated in the Karabakh movement. Azerbaijanis, too, began orga niz ing protest rallies to prove themselves capa ble of greater polit i cal sophis ti ca tion than they exhib ited in the vio lent Sumgait riots. The themes were simi la r to the Arme ni ans’: histor i cal claim to Karabakh, distor tion of the is - sues and the movement by the news media in Mosco w, demands for Trouble in the Transcaucasus 173 protec tion of their co-nationals in the neighbor ing Arme nian re pub - lic. Just as Arme ni ans had drawn on Lenin ist language and the So - viet consti tu tion to artic u late their demands, Azerbaijanis branded Arme nian activ ism with the tradi tional Soviet epi thets of extrem is m and national chauvin ism and accused Arme ni ans of vio lat ing Sovie t laws and the Lenin ist princi ple of friendship of nations . Azerbaijani activ ists, too, embraced a broad range of social and cultural issues revolv ing around their new sense of citi zen ship and national identit y. During the public gather ings in Baku, some Azerbaijanis called for the elimi na tion of Karabakh’s auton o mou s status, but more author i ta tive voices advo cated instead estab lish in g an Azerbaijani auton o mous region in Arme nia. 4 If Arme ni ans could claim their national rights, so could Azerbaijanis. Gorbachev’s response was avoidance. He maintained that the accu mu la tion of problems for the Arme ni ans of Karabakh was a Sta - linist legacy that had been left to fester during the period of stag na - tion, the current catch phrase for the lengthy Brezhnev era. Gorbachev has yet to admit that the Karabakh crisis was in part due to the ethnic polit i cal insti tu tions that define Soviet rule. At the party confer ence last June he skirted direct discus sions of the Karabakh crisis and instead spoke vaguely of increas ing the auton omy of the repub lics. He has contin ued to avoid the issue by pointing to the con - cessions already made and by holding out the promise of a specia l party plenum devoted to nation al ity problems sometime this year. Gorbachev appar ently hoped that time would miti gate the Ar - menian-Azerbaijani conflict. Instead, tensions have increased . Growing frustra tions resulted in isolated inci dents of armed strife between Arme ni ans and Azerbaijanis until late last fall, when the conflict esca lated to the verge of a civil war. Fearing that an up com- ing meeting on Moscow’s project for consti tu tional reforms would autho rize Karabakh’s transfer away from Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani crowds attacked the Arme nian neighbor hoods of Kirovabad, a city north of the Karabakh province. Anti-Armenian attacks spread throughout the repub lic, leading to a mass exo dus of tens of thou - sands of Arme ni ans. Back in Arme nia, Arme ni ans replied in kind, at - tacking Azerbaijani villages and forcing thousands of Azerbaijanis out of the repub lic. As each side witnessed the vio lence and massiv e depor ta tions of their compa tri ots from the neighbor ing repub lic , Gorbachev and the Moscow leader ship stood helpless. Arme ni an s 174 Mark Saroyan who had carried Gorbachev’s portrait during the spring rallies now joined Azerbaijanis in denounc ing the central govern ment for its in - ability to maintain the secu rity of Soviet citi zens outside their home repub lic . The year-old crisis between Arme nia and Azerbaijan over the isolated Arme nian mountain district of Karabakh has confused the Soviet leader ship. Gorbachev and his colleagues in Moscow have cir - cled round and round the issue, trying to resolve one of the most fun - damen tal polit i cal crises in contem po rary Soviet poli tics with ad hoc measures. In yet another initia tive in Decem ber, promi nent Sovie t aca de mi cian Andrei Sakharov went on a peacemak ing mission to the Transaucasus with full support from Gorbachev, but he received a lukewarm recep tion in Arme nia and was simply rebuffed in Azerbaijan. In frustra tion, the Kremlin leader ship has retreated to the Brezhnevist tactics of arrests and intim i da tion to under cut the move - ment’s strength. This may prove to be a seri ous miscal cu la tion. Over the past year, thousands of Arme ni ans and Azerbaijanis have learned the poli tics of protest, and both peoples are prepared to set - tle in for their own version of citi zens’ movement, Soviet style.

NOTES

1. “Inter view with Levon Ter Petrosyan,” Asbarez (Glendale, Calif.), 24 De cem- ber 1988. 2. Arme nian Weekly, 3 Octo ber 1987. 3. Azarbaijan (Baku), no. 2 (1988). 4. Kommunist (Baku), 25 Novem ber, 3 Decem ber 1988. THE “KARABAKH SYNDROME” AND AZERBAIJANI POLITICS

In future histo ries of the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev, Azerbaijan will hold a place of partic u lar distinc tion . The Azerbaijani repub lic will be remem bered as one of the first sites where inde pend ent polit i cal forces mobi lized as a popu lar move - ment in the spirit of perestroik a . At the same time, Azerbaijan will be recorded in histor i cal annals as the first repub lic to expe ri ence an acute collapse of the Stalin ist system of party rule and Brezhnevist stagna tion along with the vio lent repres sion of polit i cal forces mil i - tating for a new, Gorbachev-style Soviet poli tics . The process of reform initi ated by the Gorbachev coali tion in Moscow is frequently perceived as a top-down process begun at the center and extend ing to the periph er y. By contrast, the impulse for polit i cal change in Azerbaijan came not from Moscow but from Azerbaijan’s own periph ery—the Nagorno-Karabakh Auton o mou s Oblast (NKAO), a largely rural, Arme nian-populated province sit u- ated on the repub lic’s western bor der. Using the Gorbachevian lan - guage of peres troika, glas nost, and democ ra ti za tion, Arme nia n depu ties to the region’s provin cial council gathered on 20 Febru ar y 1988, in the admin is tra tive cen ter, Stepanakert, to artic u late in lega l form their decades-old aspi ra tions for union with Arme nia. The en - suing contra dic tions of change in Azerbaijan, marked by tense po lit- ical struggle and punctu ated with bloody intercommunal conflict , reached a climax with a final round of anti-Armenian vio lence in Baku in mid-January 1990. The massive inter ven tion of Soviet troops in Azerbaijan’s capi tal on 19–20 Janu ary 1990 brought to a close the initial period of perestroika in Azerbaijan. This arti cle exam ines the ori gins of polit i cal change in con tem - porary Azerbaijan, the troubles attend ing the efforts to promote a democ ra tiz ing poli tics, and the contra dic tory imper a tives of refor m in a repub lic with a multi-ethnic popu la tion and compet ing vision s of perestroika. While much of the expe ri ence of the past two years

175 176 Mark Saroyan speaks to the unique histor i cal and demo graphic condi tions in which a new kind of poli tics emerged, devel oped, and ulti matel y failed in the repub lic, the Azerbaijani case holds impor tant lesson s for the reform process in other Soviet repub lics . As in Azerbaijan, poli tics in the Gorbachev era in all the Sovie t repub lics is a compli cated process of nego ti a tion, compro mise, and recur ring conflict involv ing the local and central appa ra tuses of the Commu nist Party, newly forming yet quite power ful inde pend en t polit i cal asso ci a tions, and popu la tions that have largely failed to ex - peri ence the bene fits of a democ ra tiz ing polity and a marketizing econom y. Given the multi na tional compo si tion of the popu la tions in the repub lics—ag gra vated by the unequal distri bu tion of polit i ca l power, cultural prestige, and economic resources—the impli ca tion s of ethnic differ ences inform the larger set of complex and trou ble- some challenges to the success of reform in the respec tive repub lic s and the Soviet Union as a whole. It is thus the depth of the sim i lar i- ties, and not the equally impor tant differ ences, that draws atten tio n to Azerbaijan as an exam ple of the ways in which conflicts betwee n the old system and an emergent new poli tics can result in failed, and poten tially vio lent, outcomes .

INSTITUTIONAL ORIGINS OF CONTEMPORARY ETHNIC POLITICS

One of the funda men tal insti tu tional inno va tions carried out by the Soviet leader ship in the wake of the Octo ber Revo lu tion was the linking of ethnic it y, terri tor y, and polit i cal admin is tra tion in the pro - cess of state-building. Termed “national statehood,” the Soviet im - age of a new form of the state was put into practice through the creation of a hier ar chi cal system of ethno-territorial admin is tra tiv e divi sions extend ing from the national repub lic down to the nationa l district ( okrug ). The building blocks of the new Soviet feder a tion thus did not simply repli cate the geographic divi sions exist ing unde r Tsarist domin ion. Rather, the Soviet federal system fostered new, na - tional-territorial forma tions that would contrib ute to the con sol i da- tion of ethnic identity by insti tu tion al iz ing nation al ity at the level of the state. The “Karabakh Syndrome” and Azerbaijani Poli tics 177

The Soviet process of nation-building was planned in order to coin cide with the forma tion of the novel national-state structures. 1 Cultural orga ni za tions, from state publish ing houses and minis trie s of culture and edu ca tion to unions of writers, artists, archi tects, and others, were estab lished to aid in creat ing new cultures or, at times, reno vat ing ancient cultures. Primacy in Soviet cultural construc tio n was accorded to the “indig e nous” national commu nity of the given national-territorial admin is tra tion, referred to as the “titu lar na tion - ality” in Western Sovietological discourse . In Azerbaijan, for instance, the artis tic unions engaged chiefly in orga niz ing and regu lat ing the produc tion of a specif i call y Azerbaijani culture. As a polit i cal corol lary to the bene fi cial ar range - ments provided for the “indig e nous” nation al it y, other nationa l commu ni ties living in the repub lic, irre spec tive of how long they had lived on the terri tory of the given repub lic, were consid ere d “nonindigenous” and essen tially excluded from the broader proces s of repub lic-based national-cultural devel op ment. Iranian-speakin g Talysh and Kurds, and Dagestani groups such as Lezgius and Avars, as well as other smaller ethnic commu ni ties resi dent in the Azerbaijani repub lic, were assim i lated into the domi nan t Azerbaijani nation al it y. National cultural devel op ment for other commu ni ties, such as the Arme ni ans, with their stronger sense of ethnic identity forged in national insti tu tions with a longer histor y, was frequently restricted or simply neglected . At the level of the national repub lic, then, tradi tional socia l identi ties of the “indig e nous” commu nit y, based on clan, region, ur - ban resi dence, and even class, gave way under Soviet poli cies to the forma tion of a modern, overarch ing ethnic identity devel ope d through new polit i cal and cultural insti tu tions inscribed in the na - tional repub lic. The state’s role in consol i dat ing nation-building is espe cially evi dent in the case of Azerbaijan, where with the ex cep- tion of the short-lived inde pend ent Repub lic of Azerbaijan (1918–1920), there was no prior history of inde pend ent, specif i call y Azerbaijani state-building. Soviet power not only provided the Azerbaijanis with their first long-term and exten sive expe ri ence in national-state building, but it also gave them their name. In the late nineteenth centur y, Azerbaijani intel lec tu als had engaged in lengthy debates over how to name their nation, since they were vari ously referred to as Cau ca- 178 Mark Saroyan sian Turks, Muslims, or Tatars in offi cial Tsarist usage, as well as in local Russian and Arme nian histor i cal and liter ary sources.2 Early Soviet termi nol ogy identi fied them as “Turk.” Begin ning in the late 1930s, however, the indig e nous popu la tion of Azerbaijan was reidentified as “Azerbaijani” (in Azerbaijani, “ azärbayjanlï ”).3 A program of “nativization” ( korenizatsiia ) comple mented the nation-building process by foster ing the creation of a native ethni c leader ship through target programs of recruit ment and training for service in the national repub lic’s polit i cal, economic, and cultura l admin is tra tion. Korenizatsiia as a kind of insti tu tion al ized progra m of “affir ma tive action” for the “indig e nous” nation al ity has resulte d in the forma tion of national elites in the national repub lics . Nativization also resulted in the polit i cal disen fran chise ment of so-called nonindigenous groups. This policy proved to be espe ciall y impor tant in legit i mat ing Soviet power among the Azerbaijanis of the repub lic, who in the prerevolutionary period had been dom i- nated polit i cally by the Tsarist Russian admin is tra tive elite and eco - nomi cally by a mix of mainly Arme nian and Russian entre pre neurs. 4 The estab lish ment of Soviet author ity in the region thus served to disen fran chise the Russian and, espe ciall y, Arme nian elites while it empow ered Azerbaijanis in the fields of polit i cal admin is tra tion and economic manage ment. How ever, these Soviet-sponsored polit i ca l insti tu tions and practices created condi tions for the emergence of ethnic-based conflicts under a more liber al ized regime .

KARABAKH AND THE ORIGINS OF POLITICAL CHANGE IN AZERBAIJAN

Several years into Gorbachev’s program of polit i cal and eco - nomic reform, Azerbaijan was one of many repub lics that remaine d aloof from the processes of renewal emerging throughout the Sovie t Union. 5 Kämrän Baghïrov, the first secre tary of the Commu nis t Party of Azerbaijan, was quite repre sen ta tive of the atti tudes of his party orga ni za tion. In addresses to repub lic and all-Union party meetings, he barely paid lip service to perestroika, glasnost, and de - mocra ti za tion. In practice, reform touched neither the Azerbaijani The “Karabakh Syndrome” and Azerbaijani Poli tics 179 party appa ra tus and govern men tal admin is tra tion nor Azerbaijani soci ety as a whole. Although inde pend ent polit i cal forces have usually emerged in urban areas, a coali tion for polit i cal renewal in Azerbaijan first de - veloped among the Arme ni ans living in Nagorno-Karabakh—a re - mote rural area along the repub lic’s western bor der. The fact that the first and most persis tent bearers of a glasnost-style polit i cal activ is m in Azerbaijan emerged not among the major ity Azerbaijanis but from within the Arme nian popu la tion of the NKAO would set the process of polit i cal change in the repub lic along a troubled, con tra - dictory path. The movement for the union of NKAO with the Arme nian re - public is often cast in terms of a terri to rial conflict between the two neighbor ing repub lics of Arme nia and Azerbaijan. And the Karabakh movement did indeed develop into an unprec e dente d inter-republican crisis that by the fall of 1989 had grown into full-scale warfare between the two repub lics. However, contrary to Azerbaijani critics who have sought to paint the movement solely as a product of foreign Arme nian agi ta tion and inter ven tion in Azerbaijani affairs promoted by nation al ist Arme nian polit i cal or ga - niza tions oper at ing outside the repub lic and the Soviet Union, 6 the movement for Karabakh’s union with Arme nia was initi ated—an d has been contin ued—pri mar ily by the Arme ni ans living in the NKAO itself. 7 Given the national-state forma tion of the Soviet Un - ion as outlined above, Karabakh Arme nian argu ments for unio n with the Arme nian repub lic can be seen more as an autochthonous, ratio nal response to contem po rary insti tu tional constraints than as the amorphous eruption of latent, primor dial ethnic and reli giou s senti ments. 8 Indeed, the list of Arme nian complaints in the cultural sphere, from underfunding of local Arme nian edu ca tion to the lack of Ar me - nian-language textbooks and televi sion broadcasts, is com pre hen si- ble in an insti tu tional context in which the state’s subsi di za tion of cultural devel op ment favored the Azerbaijanis over other ethni c commu ni ties resi dent in Azerbaijan. In this regard, the dramati c multi pli ca tion of demands for more cultural ties between Karabakh and the Arme nian repub lic reflects the histor i cal lack of atten tio n that Azerbaijani repub li can minis tries have accorded specif i cally Ar - menian inter ests in the sphere of cultural produc tion as much as it 180 Mark Saroyan does the desire for union with Arme nia. In a recent exposé on the ex - tent of cultural disen fran chise ment in Karabakh, instruc tively en ti - tled “Why and How All This Started,” an Arme nia n cine ma tog ra pher recounted a story of the shelving of a doc u men tary film dedi cated to the sixti eth anni ver sary of the NKAO. The reason , the film-maker notes, was that the film was consid ered by au thor i- ties in Baku to be “too Arme nian” in its content, despite the fact that it recounted the history of a region with a major ity Arme nian pop u - lation. 9 A simi lar pattern was reflected in the complaints of Ar me - nian writers and journal ists in Baku, who argued that Arme nia n national themes were not consid ered a legit i mate field of local cul - tural expres sion in the Azerbaijani capi tal.1 0 The leitmo tif of cultural disen fran chise ment runs throughou t the Karabakh Arme nian movement, but this should not turn one’s atten tion away from equally impor tant issues of polit i cal and eco - nomic auton om y. In fact, one of the earli est Ar me nian samizda t texts, origi nat ing from Stepanakert in 1962, was much more strident and expan sive on economic problems than on cultural issues in the NKAO. The complaints raised in this docu ment range from underinvestment in the NKAO economy to numer ous exam ples of the subor di na tion of local enter prises to the admin is tra tive control of orga ni za tions and other enter prises located in Baku and in other cit - ies outside the auton o mous oblast.11 Almost three decades later, these same issues form the nucleu s of contem po rary Arme nian claims to economic auton omy in the NKAO. Manip u lating the Gorbachevian language of khozraschet (self-financing and economic self-management), Ar me- nian-dominated enter prises in the NKAO have chosen to develo p economic ties with Arme nia at the expense of admin is tra tive link - ages with the Azerbaijani econom y. Thus, local enter prises have in - creasingly sought to produce manu fac tured goods and other commod i ties not accord ing to the Azerbaijani state plan but in line with market and planning needs in Arme nia . The virtual inde pend ence of economic deci sion-making emerg - ing in the NKAO has put an ironic twist on economic demands em a- nating from Baku. While Azerbaijani econo mists are argu ing for greater devo lu tion of economic deci sion-making to the repub li c level,12 the refusal of NKAO enter prises to supply Azerbaijani com - modity markets and the nego ti a tion by them of contracts with firms The “Karabakh Syndrome” and Azerbaijani Poli tics 181 based in the Arme nian repub lic have elicited Azerbaijani con dem na- tion of local economic auton omy in the NKAO as a vio la tion of Azerbaijan’s sover eignty and calls for the reas ser tion of repub li c control over the produc tion and distri bu tion of goods in Karabakh. In polit i cal affairs, the Karabakh movement threatened the Azerbaijani repub lic not just with Arme nian nation al ism, but also with inde pend ent polit i cal activ ity by tradi tional organs of the party and state control appa ra tus. One of the first ethnic-based splits in the Commu nist Party appa ra tus under Gorbachev took place betwee n the Commu nist Party of Azerbaijan and the once-subordinate Ar me- nian-controlled NKAO oblast party commit tee ( obkom ). Despite ini - tial hesi ta tion of party orga ni za tions in the NKAO, by mid-March of 1988, the NKAO obkom publicly backed the 20 Febru ary 1988 re - quest by the NKAO oblast soviet of people’s depu ties for union with Arme nia. Faced with a lack of posi tive response from Moscow and Baku, NKAO polit i cal author i ties have increas ingly taken the man - agement of local polit i cal affairs into their own hands.

KARABAKH AS CATALYST FOR ETHNIC ACTIVISM IN AZERBAIJAN

The NKAO Arme nian movement and subse quent devel op men t of a polit i cal crisis over Karabakh cata lyzed Azerbaijani conscious nes s not only about events in the troubled region, but also about broader is - sues facing the Azerbaijan SSR. Nonethe less, Azerbaijanis recog niz e the pivotal role that Arme nian mili tancy has played in inform in g Azerbaijani national and polit i cal self-awareness. In a reveal ing com - mentary given to a Turk ish newspa per re porter, an Azerbaijani jour nal- ist provided a con cise reflec tion on this phenom e non . We had a weak sense of soli dar ity in the past and minded our own business. The devel op ments [in the NKAO, Arme nia, and Azerbaijan] have helped to unite us. A national feeling and state of awareness have emerged in the commu nity for the first time. We had not observed this in the past. I can say that Azerbaijan has changed. It is as if the Arme nian atti tude has awakened the peo - ple and moved them to safeguard their rights.13 182 Mark Saroyan

Even a brief review of the emergence of inde pend en t Azerbaijani poli tics reflects the deep and deci sive way that the Ar - menian movement has informed a range of issues brought up by Azerbaijanis. The reac tive, at times even emu la tive, charac ter of the Azerbaijani movement with regard to the Arme ni ans is clear. At pro - tests in Novem ber 1988, for instance, Azerbaijani mili tants de - manded that some form of auton omy be estab lished for Arme nia’ s Azerbaijanis on the model of the NKAO in Azerbaijan. Such de - mands were subse quently reflected in the argu ments of Azerbaijani intel lec tu als published in the repub lic press.14 The pattern of reac tion to Arme nian activ ism at times led to irony. An Azerbaijani journal ist, comment ing on the Azerbaijani re - sponse to Arme nian efforts to extract themselves from Azerbaijani rule, argued that the Azerbaijanis wanted “the Arme ni ans of Nagorno-Karabakh to respect Azerbaijani laws. They are acting as if they were free.”15 In this sense, Arme nian “freedom” was seen as a direct challenge to Azerbaijani inter ests in the repub lic . Azerbaijanis often attempted to downplay the actual stimu lu s that moti vated the candid expres sion of their concern by shifting fo - cus from the NKAO to other problems in the repub lic. The Azerbaijani poet Hidayat, for exam ple, contrasted the poor so cio eco- nomic condi tions about which the Arme ni ans of the NKAO were complain ing to the situ a tion in Baku, which, he argued, was much more seri ous than in the auton o mous province.1 6 Simi larl y, after the massa cre of Arme ni ans in the indus trial town of Sumgait in Feb ru - ary 1988, the idea of “Sumgait” emerged in the Azerbaijani imag i na- tion not as a tragedy of anti-Armenian vio lence but as a mani fes ta tion of the city’s endemic social, economic, and en vi ron- mental problems.1 7 Azerbaijani journal ists focused their atten tio n on the destruc tive effects of indus trial pollu tion in the area and the simul ta neous need for the devel op ment of the local economy and the expan sion of public services.1 8 In the spring of 1989, Azerbaijani televi sion broadcast a program on Sumgait that was much com - mented on in the repub lic press.19 Enti tled “Death Zone” ( Ölü zona ), the broadcast ironi cally ignored the massa cre of Arme ni ans and other civil ians in Sumgait to focus on the fatal effects of indus tria l pollu tion on the city’s resi dents . The “Karabakh Syndrome” and Azerbaijani Poli tics 183

THE POLITICS OF PARTY PARALYSIS

Despite the quick pace of events in early 1988, from the be gin- ning of the popu lar movement in Karabakh and the massa cre of Ar - menian civil ians at the end of Febru ary to Moscow’s announce men t of a program of social and economic devel op ment for the NKAO on 26 March, Azerbaijani polit i cal author i ties were slow to respond to pressures at home for a more active stance with regard to the Ar me- nian movement. At meetings of the Central Commit tee of the Com - munist Party of Azerbaijan in late April, party activ ists, led by First Secre tary Baghïrov, focused primar ily on the seri ous economic sit u a- tion facing the repub lic and called for more party control and for im - provement in the provi sion of social services . But the ongo ing polit i cal conflict over the status of the NKAO soon fully discred ited Baghïrov as repub lic party chief. At a May party plenum, the party named Äbdülrähman Väzirov, a forme r Komsomol offi cial and Soviet ambas sa dor to Paki stan, to replac e Baghïrov as party first secre tar y. Väzirov faced a double challenge . On the one hand, he had to revi tal ize the party orga ni za tion in line with the general process of polit i cal and economic reform occur rin g in the rest of the countr y. On the other hand, he had to restore socia l order and attempt to rebuild the Azerbaijani popu la tion’s con fi- dence in a party that seemed to have been inca pa ble of defend in g Azerbaijani national inter ests from the threat of Arme nian na tion al- ism in the NKAO and in Arme nia . Väzirov’s vision of renewal in both the party and soci ety de vel- oped along fairly conser va tive, almost predict able lines in the fol - lowing months. The outlines of his strategy were reflected in his address to the Nineteenth All-Union CPSU Confer ence in July. Al - most a third of his speech was devoted to artic u lat ing Azerbaijani posi tions on the Karabakh crisis, but he also focused on the polit i ca l destabilization brought about by the party’s paral y sis and the ac cu- mula tion of unre solved social and economic problems in the re pub - lic. Remarking on the justi fied dissat is fac tion of the Azerbaijani popu la tion, he empha sized the need to “strengthen the leading role of the party” and argued that “the Azerbaijani people ties its hopes and future to the Commu nist Party.” In this regard, one of his pro - posed solu tions to the current crisis was the rein vig o ra tion of the 184 Mark Saroyan party appa ra tus. Remi nis cent of Yegor Ligachev’s posi tion at the CPSU’s twenty-seventh congress, Väzirov stressed the need for cadre renewal through improved recruit ment and training and the intro duc tion of cadre exchanges and rota tion of duties.2 0 During the late summer and fall of 1988, Väzirov began to pur - sue his program for the renewal of the party. In a short two and one-half months, 43 secre tar ies of district and city party commit tees , includ ing 22 party first secre tar ies and 17 chairmen of urban ex ec u- tive commit tees, were replaced.2 1 A Central Commit tee plenum in mid-November adopted a massive reor ga ni za tion and streamlin in g of the Azerbaijani party’s central appa ra tus, to take effect from the start of 1989. The number of Central Commit tee secre tar ies was cut from 6 to 5, and—mirror ing the reduc tion of depart ments of the CPSU Central Commit tee—Väzirov reduced the number of de part- ments of the Azerbaijani Central Commit tee from 16 to 6. Viktor Polyanichko, formerly a high-ranking Soviet polit i cal adviser in Af - ghani stan, was appointed to the post of second secre tary of the Azerbaijani party and named head of its reor ga nized Or ga ni za tional Party Work Depart ment. In the course of the restruc tur ing, the party slashed its regu lar staff by 30 percent—from 194 to 136 func tion ar ies. In addi tion, as with the CPSU appa ra tus in Mosco w, new Centra l Commit tee commis sions were estab lished, includ ing an Oversigh t Commis sion to moni tor the activ ity of the repub lic’s city and dis - trict-level party orga ni za tions. The orga ni za tional structure of city and district party commit tees was also streamlined.2 2 Väzirov sought to renew the party’s leader ship in the socia l sphere by initi at ing a series of new programs. The most pressin g problems involved economic devel op ment and invest ment, es pe- cially in the poorer rural and mountain ous regions. At the Centra l Commit tee’s August plenum, party leaders called for the creation of new jobs in a number of the repub lic’s districts.2 3 In Octo ber, the party announced programs for the social and economic de vel op- ment of the Nakhchïvan auton o mous repub lic (ASSR), as well as of districts encom pass ing the plains portion of Karabakh (as oppose d to Karabakh’s mountain ous portion, the NKAO).24 The party also devoted atten tion to the repub lic’s urban areas. An impor tant new housing program designed to overcome the backlog in the provi sio n of apartments in both urban and rural districts was announced by Väzirov simul ta neously with the Central Commit tee’s plenum of The “Karabakh Syndrome” and Azerbaijani Poli tics 185 mid-November. One month later, the Azerbaijan Council of Min is- ters acted on a recom men da tion from the party’s Central Commit te e in announc ing a five-year program of social and economic measure s for Sumgait. The devel op ment scheme, with a total price tag of 500 million rubles, allo cated nearly 300 million rubles for invest ment in public housing and social services.2 5 Despite party restruc tur ing and announce ments of new socia l programs, mass rallies erupted in the Azerbaijani capi tal on 17 No - vember 1988. These stemmed from popu lar dissat is fac tion over a number of issues that the Azerbaijani party and state offi cials were failing to address, includ ing that of assert ing repub lic control over the NKAO. In partic u lar, Azerbaijanis were angered by the con struc- tion of new facil i ties in the NKAO’s Topkhana forest preserve by an alumi num enter prise headquar tered in the Arme nian repub lic. The Topkhana construc tion, autho rized by Arme nian offi cials in the NKAO but not by Baku, was in the Azerbaijani view yet another Ar - menian vio la tion of the Azerbaijan repub lic’s sover eignt y.26 A col- lective letter written by four Azerbaijani intel lec tu als reflected the public’s demands that the CPSU Central Commit tee and the USSR Supreme Soviet assure Azerbaijan’s sover eign rights in the NKAO in line with the central govern ment’s confir ma tion of Azerbaijan’s ter - rito rial integ rity expressed on 18 July 1988.27 At the same time, Azerbaijani demon stra tions were fueled by fears that an upcom in g session of the USSR Supreme Soviet on consti tu tional reform would lay the groundwork for an eventual transfer of the NKAO to the Ar - menian repub lic . The rallies and demon stra tions gained inten sity and spread in widen ing circles after the USSR Supreme Court’s 21 Novem ber an - nouncement of a death sentence for an Azerbaijani involved in the Sumgait massa cre of Febru ary 1988. Large meetings were staged in Baku, Kirovabad, Nakhchïvan, Shäki, and Zagatala, and smaller ral - lies and demon stra tions took place in Shamkhor, Äli Bayramlï, Qädäbäy, Minqächevir, and Gutgashen.28 News from the NKAO and Moscow and fears of the perse cu tion of Azerbaijani citi zens in Arme nia proper led to mass dismiss als of Arme ni ans from jobs and bouts of vio lence against Arme ni ans throughout Azerbaijan. In the city of Kirovabad, home to some 50,000 Arme ni ans, Azerbaijani at - tacks on Arme nian neighbor hoods and the expul sion of Arme nia n resi dents from their homes devel oped into battles with govern men t 186 Mark Saroyan troops. A simi lar pattern of anti-Armenian vio lence and con fron ta- tions with troops was repeated in Baku and other Azerbaijani dis - tricts having Arme nian minor ity popu la tions. The result was a mass exo dus of Arme ni ans from the repub lic .

REASSERTING PARTY CONTROL

The “agi tated days of Novem ber,” as the mass protests and vi o- lence came to be known in the Azerbaijani press, reflected the po lit i- cal quandary facing Azerbaijan. A movement of mass protes t devel oped in reac tion to Arme nian actions in the NKAO, couple d with the reluc tance of Azerbaijani offi cial dom to address con tra dic- tory Arme nian and Azerbaijani demands, had led not only to the in - tensi fi ca tion of interethnic ani mos ity and vio lence, but also to a widen ing gulf between the party and an increas ingly activ is t Azerbaijani soci et y. At the same time, however, Azerbaijani mil i- tants were as yet unable to orga nize themselves into a coher ent po lit - ical movement, and the party was able to take advan tage of this to suppress the trouble some inde pend ent asso ci a tions and to reas ser t itself polit i call y. Moscow’s estab lish ment of a “special govern ment ad min is tra- tion” for the NKAO on 12 Janu ary 1989, which came as a belate d measure to forestall the contin u a tion of months of intercommunal vio lence in the region, helped to defuse tensions tempo rarily in the auton o mous oblast as well as in the rest of Azerbaijan. The in stal la- tion in the NKAO of a govern men tal commis sion under the lead er - ship of the Kremlin’s Karabakh trouble shooter, Arkadii Vol’skii, was greeted by the Azerbaijani party as an impor tant measure for bring - ing greater control to the oblast. Azerbaijani offi cials empha size d that the estab lish ment of the Vol’skii commis sion meant that the NKAO was to remain within the Azerbaijan SSR, and they wel comed the subse quent disso lu tion of recal ci trant, Arme nian-dominated lo - cal party and govern ment orga ni za tions in the NKAO.29 These steps gave the Azerbaijan party a brief respite during which to con cen- trate on rebuild ing itself inter nally and exter nall y. On the inter nal front, the party took its cue from Moscow’s con - demna tion of the involve ment of party cadres in the vio lence and ri - The “Karabakh Syndrome” and Azerbaijani Poli tics 187 oting of the Novem ber days.30 Three full and two candi dat e members of the repub lic party’s Bureau, as well as several member s of the Central Commit tee, were retired.3 1 Simi larly, several leadin g cadres in the repub lic Komsomol were stripped of their posi tions in the youth orga ni za tion’s Bureau and Central Com mit- tee.32 In addi tion, Väzirov under took a more broad-ranging purge of the party and secu rity organs during De - cember 1988 and early Janu ary 1989. Commenting vaguely on the ex - tent of dismiss als from the repub lic’s KGB and Minis try of Inter na l Affairs, Väzirov noted that 2,532 cadres, includ ing 612 in posi tions of leader ship, were censured by the party, and 222 offi cials were re - moved from their posts. A total of 65 people were expelled from the ranks of the party and the Komsomol.33 However, despite the broad criti cisms and forced retire ments, many party function ar ies who had been involved in the unrest appar ently remained in their po si- tions.34 Prepa ra tions for March elections to the new USSR Congress of People’s Deputies, a process that in many other repub lics provide d unprec e dented oppor tu ni ties for the exer cise of popu lar power, in Azerbaijan reflected the regime’s contin ued conser va tism. Com plete election results were never published in the repub lic press, but party offi cials boasted of the high propor tion of “worker,” “peasant,” and “women” candi dates—in many cases far above the all-Union av er- ages for these cate go ries.3 5 This, and the reported 98.5 percent pub - lic partic i pa tion in the 26 March ballot ing,3 6 evoked a Brezhnevist, not a Gorbachevian, image . Although incom plete press cover age makes it diffi cult to judge accu ratel y, there appear to have been certain discrep an cies betwee n the number of candi dates elected at the pre-electoral meetings and those formally regis tered as candi dates in the NKAO by the electora l commis sions.3 7 A review of local press accounts of discus sion meet - ings and regis tra tion of candi dates and of election results publishe d in Moscow reveals the overall conser va tive trends in Azerbaijan’s sixty-three electoral districts. Leading Azerbaijani party and gov ern- ment offi cials were regis tered as candi dates in fifteen districts, and lesser offi cials ran in five others. With the sole excep tion of party chief Väzirov, party offi cials never ran unop posed. Yet in ten of eleven cases, Commu nist Party offi cials won their election cam - paigns against lesser offi cials or workers from facto ries or farms. 188 Mark Saroyan

Six districts had single-candidate elections: these included the candi dacy of Väzirov in the Imishli national-territorial electoral dis - trict and of Vladimir Chernavin, commander-in-chief of the Sovie t navy and a deputy USSR minis ter of defense, in the Länkäran ter ri to- rial district. In the Imishli district, Väzirov’s candi dacy was dis - cussed with those of two other indi vid u als, the first secre tary of the Füzuli district party commit tee and the head of the party or ga ni za- tion at a local collec tive farm. Rather than challenge the repub li c party chief, the latter two nomi nees withdrew from the contest and backed Väzirov as the district’s sole candi date. During the electio n campaign follow ing the electoral commis sions’ offi cial regis tra tio n of candi dates, the press highlighted visits by Väzirov and other party-backed candi dates to their respec tive districts for meeting s with voters.3 8 In a number of cases, three and even four candi dates ran for a single seat, but most of these were in the eleven districts where con - tests were among females and often quite young peasants and work - ers. In the Yevlakh terri to rial district, which is proba bly not atypi cal , electors ulti mately endorsed candi dates that they consid ered to lack the neces sary quali fi ca tions for deput y, includ ing knowledge of the Russian language.3 9

TOWARD A POPULAR MOVEMENT

As the repub lic party moved to recon sol i date power, in de pend- ent forces were having trouble estab lish ing themselves on the re pub- lic polit i cal scene. The first concerted effort to estab lish inde pend en t Azerbaijani polit i cal asso ci a tions seems to have emerged during the “agi tated Novem ber days” of 1988. In an arti cle published on the first page of the repub lic’s liter ary weekly, Babäk Ädaläti explaine d that he and other like-minded indi vid u als had come together to form what he vari ously referred to as a “people’s front” or a “people’s na - tional front.”40 Adaläti’s primary concern was the expan sion of re la- tions with Southern Azerbaijan—that is, the Azerbaijani popu la tio n of northern Iran. The popu lar appeal of this theme, one never ad - dressed by Azerbaijani offi cial dom, would eventu ally exac er bat e tensions in an already destabilized Azerbaijan.41 The “Karabakh Syndrome” and Azerbaijani Poli tics 189

This initial attempt at forming a popu lar front movement was frustrated before it really even got off the ground. Azerbaijani mil i- tants active in the protest rallies at the time traced its failure to gov - ernment repres sion.4 2 After the impo si tion of martial law throughout the repub lic in late Novem ber, author i ties arrested nu - merous Azerbaijanis who had played a central role in speaking to the crowds assem bled in Baku’s Lenin Square and charged them with anti-Soviet agi ta tion and other vio la tions of the law. At the Academ y of Sciences and other cultural insti tu tions, intel lec tu als who had helped incite the crowds were subjected to criti cism and even dis - missal.43 The polit i cal envi ron ment in Azerbaijan was hardly condu civ e to the forma tion of inde pend ent polit i cal asso ci a tions. Azerbaijani polit i cal life was marked by the contin ued hege mony of an en - trenched party elite that was only begin ning to be transformed un - der the party’s rela tively new leader ship. Party offi cials condemne d the inde pend ent activ ists as “semi-literate, ideolog i cally un prin ci- pled, and irre spon si ble.”4 4 Väzirov referred meta phor i cally to the prolif er a tion of inde pend ent publish ing in the repub lic as a case of “ideolog i cal AIDS.”45 Offi cial intran si gence was only part of the story. Just as im por- tant a factor in the failure of a more effec tive inde pend en t Azerbaijani polit i cal movement to emerge was what I would call the “Karabakh syndrome.” The relent less insis tence of the NKAO Ar me- nians on self-determination repeat edly called for Azerbaijani re ac- tions and made it diffi cult for the Azerbaijani movement to shift the focus of its activ ity and of popu lar Azerbaijani atti tudes towar d more broad-based national emanci pa tion, irre spec tive of the Karabakh crisis.4 6 In March 1989, some two dozen intel lec tu als orga nized an “ini - tiative group” for an Azerbaijani Popu lar Front (APF). The group’s govern ing council was composed entirely of middle-level in tel lec tu- als, includ ing journal ists and scien tific research ers at the Azerbaijani Academy of Sciences, all of whom were of Azerbaijani nation al it y. Most of the remain ing members of the initia tive group had a simi la r profile, although it included a sprinkling of workers and two Rus - sians—one an engi neer and the other an econo mist. The advi sor y council of the initia tive group included several promi nen t Azerbaijani writers such as Ismayïl Shïkhlï, Yusif Sämädoghlu, and 190 Mark Saroyan

Sabir Rüstämkhanlï, but with these excep tions, writers were at first nota bly absent from the ranks of the APF’s leader ship.4 7 The Azerbaijani Popu lar Front was not an umbrella group for previ ously exist ing orga ni za tions but rather was composed mainly of indi vid u als. This is an impor tant distinc tion, since the APF’s for - mation did not reflect an attempt to build a coali tion between or ga ni- zations that had already worked out their own respec tive program s and concerns regard ing polit i cal, economic, cultural, or en vi ron- mental issues. Rather, as an asso ci a tion attempt ing to accom mo dat e varying inter ests and polit i cal orien ta tions of diverse indi vid u als , the APF contained within its own inter nal orga ni za tional structur e the possi bil ity of sharp polit i cal divi sions and eventual frag men ta- tion. A central polit i cal aim of the Azerbaijani Popu lar Front was, predict abl y, rejec tion of Arme nian claims to self-determination in the NKAO and mainte nance of the terri to rial integ rity of the Azerbaijani repub lic. The APF also envi sioned a broad program with respect to polit i cal, economic, cultural, and envi ron men tal issues in Azerbaijan. In contrast to the popu lar fronts in the Baltic repub lics , the APF did not assert near- or long-term claims for the sepa ra tion of Azerbaijan from the Soviet polity; instead, it focused on enhance d polit i cal and economic sover eignty for the Azerbaijani repub li c within the context of the Soviet federal state.48 The notion of sover eignt y, a pivotal concept in the program put forward by the APF, comprised two distinct aims, one with exter nal , the other with inter nal dimen sions. With respect to the federal struc - ture of the Soviet Union, APF activ ists called for greater devo lu tio n of deci sion-making author ity and auton omy to the Azerbaijani re - public in its dealings with both the center and the other union re pub - lics. Within Azerbaijan itself, the APF program demanded the estab lish ment of sover eign Azerbaijani control over the repub lic’ s polit i cal, socio eco nomic, and cultural life, as well as over the natu ra l resources of the repub lic. One of the key points of the APF’s progra m was the exten sion of Azerbaijani sover eignty to the entire terri tory of the repub lic, includ ing the NKAO and the Nakhchïvan ASSR. The APF’s vision of sover eignty neces sar ily called for an end to the vio la tion of the repub lic’s rights by exter nal forces—namely, Moscow and the Arme nian repub lic—as well as by inter na l forces—that is, the Arme ni ans of the NKAO. In this regard, the APF The “Karabakh Syndrome” and Azerbaijani Poli tics 191 activ ists condemned the activ i ties of the NKAO’s special gov ern - ment commis sion headed by Arkadii Vol’skii as a case of Moscow’ s inter fer ence in the domes tic affairs of the repub lic. Simi larly to the Azerbaijani party leader ship and protest ers at public rallies, the Azerbaijani Front condemned what it viewed as repeated Arme nia n vio la tions of Azerbaijani sover eignty, whether the sources of such activ i ties ema nated from the Arme nian repub lic or from Arme nia n mili tants within the NKAO itself. Thus, the APF’s appeal for the re - public’s economic sover eignty implied at once greater auton omy for Azerbaijan in its foreign economic rela tions—whether within or be - yond the USSR’s borders—and the rein te gra tion of enter prises in the NKAO back into the Azerbaijani economy . Despite the APF’s rela tively moder ate program of reform in the repub lic, it was repeat edly shunned by the repub lic’s polit i cal es tab - lishment. Offi cial argu ments on behalf of democ ra ti za tion of the re - public’s polit i cal life were often coupled with condem na tions of “meeting dicta tor ship,” a refer ence to the fact that the inde pend en t orga ni za tions in Azerbaijan often devel oped out of partic i pa tion in rallies held in the repub lic’s public squares.49 After the forma tion of the APF initia tive group, Azerbaijani activ ists applied to the Su - preme Soviet of the Azerbaijan SSR for legal iza tion. But in con for- mity with the conser va tive princi ples of the Väzirov leader ship, the Azerbaijani legis la ture did not even debate the issue . In April 1989, top Azerbaijani party offi cials, includ ing Väzirov, had several unpub li cized meetings with repre sen ta tives of the APF to discuss prospects for the orga ni za tion’s legal iza tion. These early attempts at nego ti a tion failed. The party condemned the APF’s al - leged aspi ra tions to challenge party hege mony in the repub lic and for the time being refused to have further contacts with the group. During August and Septem ber, the APF orga nized increas ingl y large rallies and strikes. Väzirov condemned these actions, argu in g that they would only distract from the solu tion of the repub lic’ s “real” problems and weaken the struggle for Azerbaijani sov er- eignty.50 As unrest in the repub lic grew, the party first secre tar y eventu ally began to speak as if he was willing to nego ti ate with pop - ular forces, but he refused to name as his nego ti at ing partner the Azerbaijani Popu lar Front.51 The party appar ently hoped that the APF would somehow simply disap pear from the Azerbaijani po lit i- cal scene if it were not offi cially recog nized. (The author i ties dealt 192 Mark Saroyan more harshly with smaller inde pend ent asso ci a tions, such as Birlik [Unity], a group seeking a union of Soviet and Iranian Azerbaijan. Police forcibly dispersed a Birlik rally in early July and arrested lead - ers of the orga ni za tion.)5 2 In the months follow ing the forma tion of the initia tive group, the APF had remained largely an isolated group of intel lec tu als that failed to win either the active partic i pa tion of the Baku-based Azerbaijani intel lec tual elite or effec tive support from Azerbaijani soci ety at large. This pattern persisted even after the front’s offi cia l founding congress, held in Baku in mid-July 1989. The promi nen t Azerbaijani poet Bäkhtiyar Vahabzadä argued that “other repub lic s have popu lar fronts, why shouldn’t we have one?”53 But structura l imped i ments blocking the growth of the popu lar front in Azerbaijan were stronger than convic tions in Azerbaijan support ing such an or - gani za tion. In general Azerbaijani soci ety proved itself to be es sen - tially conser va tive and failed to share the APF’s dedi ca tion to the Gorbachevian ideals of polit i cal and economic reform or to lend ac - tive support to the movement. Instead, both outside and within the front, popu lar partic i pa tion in Azerbaijani poli tics remained pred i - cated on anti-Armenian senti ments and an intense inter est in the Karabakh crisis . The rela tively conser va tive spirit of Azerbaijani soci ety was compounded by the influx during the fall of 1988 of nearly 200,000 Azerbaijani refu gees displaced from the Arme nian country side, plus numer ous refu gees from the NKAO itself. The refu gees, who flooded into Azerbaijan’s urban and rural districts, had been trau - matized by the combi na tion of psycho log i cal terror and peri odic vi o - lence against them and entered a soci ety already strained by high unem ploy ment, an endemic housing shortage, and a rela tively poor distri bu tion of social services, not to mention the polit i cal crisis over the NKAO.54 In this setting, the refu gees often emerged as the most active ele ments in Azerbaijani soci ety and also the ones most per me - ated with anti-Armenianism. APF activ ists could not expect appeal s for polit i cal and economic reform to reso nate strongly with the Azerbaijani popu la tion and faced the unhappy prospect that only an anti-Armenian, NKAO-oriented platform could bring thousands of Azerbaijani support ers into the streets. In the APF’s inter nal struggle between efforts to expand the agenda seeking the democ ra ti za tion of Azerbaijan and the temp ta - The “Karabakh Syndrome” and Azerbaijani Poli tics 193 tion to cater to the acutely anti-Armenian orien ta tion of the Azerbaijani popu lace, the Karabakh syndrome proved the more power ful force. Even Azerbaijan’s intel lec tual mainstream re mained aloof and suspi cious of the APF and its increas ingly radi cal polit i ca l strate gies, prefer ring to play a cautious game by shunning the front and focus ing on Karabakh as the repub lic’s primary problem. Thus, in late August, several hundred Azerbaijani intel lec tu als orga nized , with offi cial consent, a Commit tee for Aid to Karabakh that could serve as an alter na tive to the front and channel popu lar discon ten t toward the narrow goal of secur ing Azerbaijani rights over the NKAO.55 By that time, the polit i cal struggle between Azerbaijan and the NKAO had inten si fied. The series of attacks and counter at tacks that had become common in and around the NKAO were on the rise. And the Arme ni ans of the NKAO, convinced that the Vol’skii com mis sion was imple ment ing pro-Azerbaijani poli cies in the region, orga nize d unau tho rized elections to a National Council to replace the specia l govern ment commis sion.5 6 Prevented from estab lish ing direct un - ion with Arme nia, the National Council fashioned itself as the only legit i mate author ity in the oblast and issued a procla ma tion of in de - pendence to add an aura of legal ity to what had long since become a polit i cal fact. Para dox i call y, the Azerbaijanis viewed the Vol’skii com mis sion with equal suspi cion, but condemned it for facil i tat ing the NKAO’s union with Arme nia and subvert ing Azerbaijani sover eignty over the region. The estab lish ment of an inde pend ent Arme nian Nationa l Council in the NKAO only exac er bated Azerbaijani resis tance to the Arme nian movement and cata lyzed Azerbaijani popu lar oppo si tio n to Azerbaijan repub lic author i ties, who appeared more and more in - capa ble of restor ing Azerbaijani control over the NKAO.57 In this context, the APF initi ated appeals for a series of in dus - trial strikes in the repub lic in order both to force the govern ment to recog nize the APF as a legit i mate polit i cal force repre sent in g Azerbaijani public opinion and to obtain the rees tab lish ment of di - rect Azerbaijani rule throughout the repub lic’s terri tor y, includ in g the elimi na tion of the Vol’skii commis sion in the NKAO. Beyon d these central concerns, the APF also demanded the nulli fi ca tion of the March elections, the lifting of the curfew imposed in response to 194 Mark Saroyan the Novem ber 1988 demon stra tions, and the release of impris one d polit i cal activ ists.5 8 Despite the power ful momen tum created by the strike move - ment, Azerbaijani polit i cal author i ties contin ued to shun the front and its program for a reso lu tion of the Karabakh crisis. In response , APF activ ists inten si fied their struggle by calling for a railway strike to prevent the transport of supplies to both the NKAO and the Ar me - nian repub lic. Although it was termed “economic terror ism” in the Arme nian press and was more widely viewed as a “blockade, ” Azerbaijani activ ists defended the campaign as a case of “economi c sanctions” or “reac tive economic measures” against vio la tions of Azerbaijan’s national-territorial sover eignty.5 9 APF repre sen ta tive s also viewed the railway strike as an impor tant tactic in forcing party author i ties in Azerbaijan to legal ize the front and accede to a series of other APF demands. Accord ing to APF Exec u tive Board membe r Äbulfäz Äliyev, the front did not exclude the possi bil ity of or ga niz- ing a general rebel lion.6 0

THE APF AND THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF AZERBAIJANI CHAUVINISM

Faced with unabating strikes and rallies at home and with threats from Moscow over its failure to termi nate the transpor ta tio n blockade, the Commu nist Party of Azerbaijan granted a series of conces sions to the APF, includ ing an extraor di nary session of the re - public’s Supreme Soviet in mid-September at which front rep re sen- tatives were permit ted to speak. Fulfilling demands of APF activ ists , the repub lic legis la ture voted to abolish the Vol’skii commis sion and to begin drafting laws on Azerbaijan’s polit i cal and economic sov er - eignty. In spite of the permis sion granted to the front to partic i pate in the Supreme Soviet session and the incor po ra tion of points from the APF polit i cal platform into state pol icy, the legal and polit i cal statu s of the Azerbaijani Popu lar Front itself remained uncer tain. Ac cord- ing to an APF repre sen ta tive, party chief Väzirov at one point in the legis la tive debate threatened to have front repre sen ta tives ar - rested.61 With strikes contin u ing throughout the repub lic into Oc to- The “Karabakh Syndrome” and Azerbaijani Poli tics 195 ber, repre sen ta tives of the APF and the Commu nist Party held tense, lengthy nego ti a tions that finally brought legal iza tion of the front. Although the party leader ship acceded to the legal iza tion, it re - mained deeply hostile to the front activ ists. Whereas the legal iza tio n of inde pend ent polit i cal asso ci a tions in Arme nia and the Baltic re - publics to a great degree marked a water shed in the party’s tol er a- tion of orga ni za tional rivals, in Azerbaijan talks over the recog ni tio n of the front were conducted in an atmo sphere of crisis and threats of contin ued strikes.

THE LAW ON SOVEREIGNTY

Apart from the initi a tion of public discus sions of a draft law on the repub lic’s economic inde pend ence, one other achievement that followed in the wake of the legis la ture’s special session was the drafting of a law on sover eignt y. This law was promul gated in its fi - nal form in late Septem ber and published in the press in early Oc to - ber.62 It estab lished the legal basis for reject ing federal laws that contra dict repub lic laws, but the law was in essence a moder ate one, since the Azerbaijan SSR was proclaimed a “sover eign social is t state” within the Soviet feder a tion and not a state inde pend ent of the Soviet polit y. The Azerbaijani law on sover eignty is notewor thy for the ways in which it applies the concept of sover eignty within the repub lic, es - pecially consid er ing the extent to which debates over the law re - volved around the Karabakh crisis.6 3 Proclaimed as a law of the Azerbaijan SSR’s sover eignt y, the law was in fact a procla ma tion of the Azerbaijani natio n ‘s sover eignty over the repub lic. The law pre - amble refers to the Soviet Union not as a feder a tion of inde pend en t national repub lics but as a “social ist feder a tion of Soviet nations. ” The Azerbaijani language was recon firmed as the state language,6 4 and the repub lic’s land and natu ral resources were defined as “na - tional wealth” belong ing to “the Azerbaijani people.” Accord ing to the law, Azerbaijani sover eignty extends throughout the repub lic , includ ing the NKAO and the Nakhchïvan ASSR. The borders of the repub lic are not to be changed without approval by a popu lar ref er - endum—that is, without the approval of the Azerbaijani nation . 196 Mark Saroyan

In connec tion with the reas ser tion of legal author ity over the NKAO, the law notes that the repub lic retains the inde pend ent right to resolve all inter nal problems , and it includes arti cles by virtue of which the repub lic govern ment can proclaim martial law in any dis - trict of the repub lic and estab lish or elimi nate auton o mous district s within its sover eign juris dic tion. This aspect of the law was in part a response to APF demands that the Karabakh crisis be recog nized as an inter nal Azerbaijani problem that could not be decided in Mos - cow, Yerevan, or Stepanakert, but only in Baku.65 Thus, the law es - tablished the legal framework for a poten tial “reso lu tion” of the Karabakh crisis by the impo si tion of martial law under Azerbaijani auspices in the region or the simple abo li tion of the in sti tu- tional-administrative basis of Karabakh Arme nian claims to self-determination and sepa ra tion from the Azerbaijani repub lic .

THE END OF AZERBAIJANI REFORM

Offi cial recog ni tion of the APF’s status as a repre sen ta tive of the Azerbaijani people had the perverse effect of expos ing the front’s rel - atively weak author ity over the popu lar movement in Azerbaijan. With only tenu ous support from the Baku intel li gen tsia and rel a- tively little control over the popu lar movement on whose shoulder s it had risen to promi nence, front activ ists were unable to keep their part of the bargain with the party and convince strikers to put an end to the economic sanctions against Arme nia and the NKAO that they had spearheaded.6 6 The contin u ing Azerbaijani railway blockade of the NKAO and Arme nia served only to heighten the deter mi na tion of Arme nian na - tional ists in the NKAO and in Arme nia to take control of the oblast. The increas ingly intran si gent posi tions of both Arme ni ans and Azerbaijanis led to expanded armed conflict between the two riva l popu la tions in the NKAO. During the fall of 1989, raids and coun - ter-raids that had become common place in and around the NKAO multi plied and spread to the Arme nian-Azerbaijani and Ar me- nian-Nakhchïvan border regions. Although Soviet spokespeople were hesi tant to accept inquis i tive Western corre spon dents’ char ac - The “Karabakh Syndrome” and Azerbaijani Poli tics 197 teriza tion of the conflict as “civil war,” the southern Cauca sus was indeed in a full-scale state of war.67 Faced with increas ingly strident vio lence, Moscow again in ter- vened with irres o lute polit i cal measures. At the end of Novem ber , central author i ties decided to abolish the Vol’skii commis sion, which had proven inca pa ble of resolv ing the local tensions. By re es tab lish- ing Azerbaijani rule over the NKAO, Moscow thus returned the re - gion to a virtual status quo ante. A new, repub lic-level oversigh t commit tee, appointed by the Presid ium of the Azerbaijani Suprem e Soviet and staffed primar ily by ethnic Azerbaijani offi cials, was to take over the day-to-day manage ment of the NKAO until local party and state orga ni za tions could be resus ci tated.6 8 To compound its mistake, Moscow reas signed author ity for secu rity functions in the NKAO to agencies of the Azerbaijan repub lic, clearly a danger ou s step consid er ing the contin u ing Arme nian-Azerbaijani hostil i ties . In Azerbaijan, espe cially among party offi cials, Moscow’s de ci- sion was embraced as a step toward restor ing Azerbaijani sov er- eignty in the NKAO, although in practice the oblast remaine d beyond the control of Azerbaijani author i ties. The Arme nian re - sponse was proclaimed in Yerevan in a matter of days, when in a joint legis la tive session, the NKAO’s National Council and the Ar - menian Supreme Soviet declared the unifi ca tion of the two ter ri to- ries under a single Arme nian govern ment.6 9 In the NKAO itself , Arme nian author i ties refused to deal with the newly orga nized over - sight commit tee and sought further expan sion of polit i cal, eco nomic, and cultural rela tions with the Arme nian repub lic . With the failure of polit i cal solu tions to the crisis, war raged on between Arme ni ans and Azerbaijanis in the border areas. And the Azerbaijani Popu lar Front, despite its enhanced posi tion in soci et y, remained excluded from meaning ful partic i pa tion in policy-makin g in Baku. In this situ a tion, the Popu lar Front’s inter nal divi sion s verged on fragmen ta tion. Using the Popu lar Front’s name, Azerbaijani mili tants attacked party and Minis try of Inter nal Affair s offices in the southern districts of Jälilabad and Länkäran in De cem- ber. By the new year, orga nized groups of Azerbaijani mili tants with no appar ent ties to the Baku-based APF attacked posts along the So - viet-Iranian border in Nakhchïvan to force an opening to Souther n Azerbaijan. Protesters reit er ated long-standing demands for the ex - pansion of direct rela tions with the large Azerbaijani popu la tion in 198 Mark Saroyan

Iran, as well as the right of Azerbaijani refu gees from Arme nia to set - tle on lands in the wide, uncul ti vated Soviet-Iranian border zone.70 Repre sen ta tives of the APF sought meetings with the repub lic au - thori ties and the protest ers in a vain attempt to restore order, but un - rest contin ued for weeks. Finally, in mid-January 1990, angry Azerbaijani protest ers in the city of Baku turned on the remnants of the city’s Arme nian ci vil - ian popu la tion for a final round of mur der, pillage, and depor ta tion . Hardly active partic i pants in the mili tant nation al ist movement s forged in the NKAO, the Baku Arme ni ans were nonethe less an eas ily acces si ble target for the expres sion of Azerbaijani frustra tions. For almost a week, groups of Azerbaijanis preyed upon the often elderl y, defense less Arme nian resi dents of a city that tradi tion ally prided it - self on inter na tion al ism and multi-ethnic toler ance . In the context of armed war in the NKAO, unrest along the Azerbaijani-Iranian borders, and the reeruption of anti-Armenian vio lence in the capi tal, the endemic polit i cal paral y sis of the Com - munist Party of Azerbaijan was quickly transformed into acute po lit- ical collapse. Party appeals for calm and an end to vio lence in Baku that appeared in newspa pers and were broadcast by the repub lic’ s mass media fell on deaf ears among a popu la tion that had lost all confi dence in the party appa ra tus. Within the Azerbaijani party it - self, offi cials as high as Bureau member Häsän Häsänov publicl y condemned the party’s paral y sis and polit i cal mistakes.7 1 The mounting polit i cal crisis and social chaos eventu all y brought Moscow’s decla ra tion of martial law, first in the NKAO and then in Baku, and the massive intro duc tion of Soviet troops in the re - public. It is proba bly too early to piece together the chain of rapidl y unfold ing events in Decem ber and Janu ary and the ele ments of de ci - sion-making that led to the inter ven tion of Soviet troops in Azerbaijan over 19–20 Janu ary 1990.72 Irre spec tive of any pur ported intent, in practice Soviet author i ties delayed the intro duc tion of troops until the remains of Baku’s Arme nian popu la tion had been killed or expelled. Only then did the central govern ment exer cise its prerog a tive to restore order in Azerbaijan through the often bruta l repres sion of Azerbaijani popu lar forces, appar ently discrim i nat in g little between those who were vio lent and those who were not. First Secre tary Väzirov was ousted on 20 Janu ar y, and was replaced four The “Karabakh Syndrome” and Azerbaijani Poli tics 199 days later by the chairman of the repub lic’s Council of Minis ters , Ayaz Niyaz oghlu Mütälibov, a research engi neer.7 3 It is perhaps both fitting and ironic that simul ta neously with the destruc tion of Baku’s Arme nian commu nit y, attempts at refor m in Azerbaijan were also dealt a fatal blow. The conser va tive moves toward polit i cal reform under Väzirov, promoted as they were in condi tions of unabated crisis over the NKAO, contrib uted to the to - tal disin te gra tion of the party’s social author ity and orga ni za tiona l integ rit y. More over, the attempts at demo cratic coali tion-buildin g under the auspices of the APF, radi cal ized by its long exclu sion from poli tics and the increas ing power of Azerbaijani chauvin ism, col - lapsed under the weight of both Soviet tanks and the front’s own in - ternal fragmen ta tion and disar ra y. The inter ven tion of the Soviet mili tary in Azerbaijan provide d the Commu nist Party of Azerbaijan an oppor tu nity to rebuild itsel f inter nally and rees tab lish itself more firmly in the repub lic’s po lit i cal life. By the late spring of 1990, the party appa ra tus, buttressed by the contin ued presence of the mili tar y, allowed the reemergence of in de - pendent polit i cal asso ci a tions, includ ing the Azerbaijani Popu la r Front.74 Nonethe less, party chief Mütälibov, who had himsel f elected presi dent of the Azerbaijan Supreme Soviet, has remained in - tent on control ling the repub lic’s polit i cal process, even if display in g greater concern for the defense of Azerbaijani national inter ests. Un - der Mütälibov, harass ment of polit i cal activ ists has contin ued, and the APF newspa per has been shut down on occa sion for “slander ” against the Azerbaijani presi dent.7 5 Elections to the repub lic’s Su - preme Soviet hastily scheduled for autumn 1990 have already been postponed once; the results will most likely differ only slightly from those of the Commu nist-dominated elections of March 1988. Polit i cal change in Azerbaijan emerged with its own partic u la r trajec tor y, but many of these devel op ments reflect the more genera l conflicts inher ent in any process of radi cal polit i cal transfor ma tio n in a multi-ethnic soci et y. In partic u lar, the contra dic tory imper a tive s of the Arme nian and Azerbaijani national movements in Azerbaijan reflect a more general set of structural conflicts between minor it y and major ity nationalisms that exist in all the Soviet repub lics with multi-ethnic popu la tions. As the multi na tional Soviet feder a tio n moves into the 1990s, Azerbaijan stands as a reminder of the dan ger- 200 Mark Saroyan ous poten tial of ethnic conflict and polit i cal change unde r Gorbachev’s perestroika .

NOTES

1. For a fuller elabo ra tion of this issue and others discussed in this section, see my “Beyond the Nation-State: Culture and Ethnic Poli tics in Sovie t Transcaucasia,” Soviet Union/Un ion Soviétique (Atlanta) 15, 2–3 (1988): 219–31. 2. On this debate, see E. M. Akhmedov, Filosofiya azerbaydhanskogo prosveshcheniya (The philos o phy of Azerbaijani edu ca tion) (Baku: Azerneshr, 1983). 3. On the ethnonymnic change, see Azerbaijani histo rian Süleyman Äliyarov’s comments in “Our Query,” Azärbayjan (Baku), no. 7, 1988, p. 176. 4. Ronald G. Suny, The Baku Commune, 1917–1918: Class and Nation al ity in the Russian Revo lu tio n (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univer sity Press, 1972). 5. On the lack of glasnost in Azerbaijan, see Eliza beth Fuller, “The Transcaucasian Repub lics in 1987,” Radio Free Europe–Ra dio Libert y, Radi o Liberty Re search (Munich), RL 8/88, 30 Decem ber 1987. 6. For an argu ment on the Karabakh movement’s ori gins in foreign Arme nia n nation al ist circles, see the arti cle symptom at i cally titled “Evil Inten tions , Foreign Voices,” Kommunist (Baku), 25 Novem ber 1988. 7. For useful collec tions of docu ments on the ori gins and devel op ment of the Karabakh movement, see The Karabakh File (Cambridge, Mass.: Zoryan In sti- tute, 1988), and Artsakhean Taregrutiown (Artsakh annals) (Los Angeles, Ca - lif.: Asbarez, 1988). 8. For a critique of the view that stresses the ethnic and reli gious ori gins of the Karabakh crisis, see my “The Arme nian Protests: Is It Passion or Poli tics? ” Dead line (New York), July–August 1988, pp. 8–11. 9. Khorhrdayin Hayastan (Yerevan), 7 Febru ary 1990. 10. I inter viewed Arme nian writers and journal ists on this subject in Baku in autumn 1987. 11. Claire Mouradian translates portions of this docu ment in her “The Nagorno-Karabakh Problem or Diffi culties with the ‘Friendship of Peoples ’ in the Transcaucasus,” Slovo (Paris), no. 7, 1985, pp. 53–82. 12. For an Azerbaijani argu ment for more economic auton omy from Mos cow, see Kommunist, 1 May 1989. The “Karabakh Syndrome” and Azerbaijani Poli tics 201

13. Milliyet (Istan bul), 21 Novem ber 1988, translated in Foreign Broadcast In - forma tion Ser vice, Daily Report: Soviet Un ion (Washing ton, D.C.—hereaf ter , FBIS-SOV ), 28 Novem ber 1988, p. 65. 14. For exam ples, see Ädäbiyyat vä Injäsänät (Baku), 25 Novem ber 1988, and Kommunist, 3 Decem ber 1988. 15. AFP report translated in FBIS-SOV , 25 Novem ber 1988, p. 37. 16. Azärbayjan Qänjläri (Baku), 5 Novem ber 1988. 17. In some cases, promi nent Azerbaijani intel lec tu als accused Arme ni an s themselves of orga niz ing the Sumgait massa cre to gain public sympa th y. For exam ple, see Ziya Buniyatov, “Why Sumgait [Hap pened],” Azärbayjan SSR Elmlär Akademiyasïnïn khäbäläri. Tarikh, fälsäfä, vä hügug seriyasï (Baku), no. 2, 1989. 18. On envi ron men tal pollu tion, see Azärbayjan Qänjläri , 10, 17, and 22 Sep tem- ber 1988. 19. For ex am ple, Kommunist, 5 May 1989. 20. Azärbayjan Qänjläri , 2 July 1988. 21. Report by R. Y. Zeynalov, Kommunist, 15 Novem ber 1988. 22. Väzirov report on restruc tur ing of party in ibid. 23. The need for more employ ment oppor tu ni ties was empha sized throughou t 1988 and 1989, includ ing at sessions of the Azerbaijan CP’s Commis sion on National Rela tions. See, for ex am ple, Azärbayjan Qänjläri , 20 Septem be r 1988. 24. On Nakhchïvan, see Bakinskii Rabochii (Baku), 22 Octo ber and 20 Novem be r 1988; on the plains Karabakh devel op ment project, to include the districts of Aghdam, Aghjabädi, Jäbrayïl, Mirbäshir, Füzuli, and Gasïm-Ismayïllï, see ibid., 26 Octo ber 1988. 25. Ibid., 9 Decem ber 1988. 26. Ibid., 18, 19, and 23 Novem ber 1988. On the histor i cal meaning of Topkhana for the Azerbaijanis, see ibid., 20 Novem ber 1988, and Kommunist , 23 and 24 Novem ber 1988. 27. The letter is reprinted in Bakinskii Rabochii, 30 Novem ber 1988. 28. Among the reports of rallies throughout the repub lic, see ibid., 23 No vem ber 1988. 29. Kommunist , 14 Janu ary 1989, and Väzirov’s comments in ibid., 15 Janu ar y 1989. 30. Bakinskii Rabochii, 7 Decem ber 1988. 31. Azärbayjan Qänjläri , 3 Janu ary 1989. 32. Ibid., 7 Janu ary 1989. 33. Kommunist , 15 Janu ary 1989. At a press confer ence held in Mosco w, rep re- senta tives of the USSR Minis try of Inter nal Affairs reported the dismissal of 202 Mark Saroyan

100 leading and rank-and-file function ar ies of the Azerbaijani Minis try of Inter nal Af fairs; Krasnaya Zvezda (Moscow), 8 Febru ary 1989. 34. Azärbayjan Qänjläri , 3 Janu ary 1989. 35. Kommunist , 14 and 26 March 1989. 36. Ibid., 5 April 1989. 37. The pre-electoral campaign and candi date regis tra tion was reported only for the Shusha district, the only part of the NKAO with an Azerbaijani ma- jority . 38. For an account of Väzirov’s visit to Imishli, see Kommunist , 5 March 1989. For a simi lar story run on party second secre tary Polyanichko, see ibid. , 24 March 1989. 39. Kommunist , 9 Febru ary 1989. 40. Ädäbiyyat vä Injäsänät, 25 Novem ber 1988. 41. For more discus sion of demands with regard to Southern Azerbaijan, see my “Beyond the Nation-State. ” 42. Unpub lished inter views given to the Azerbaijani service of Radio Libert y. 43. Bakinskii Rabochii, 9 Decem ber 1988. 44. Ibid., 16 Decem ber 1988. 45. Pravda (Moscow), 27 April 1989. 46. In this regard, the Arme nian national movement in Arme nia also origi nall y emerged in response to the Karabakh movement, although the dynam ics of rela tions between the NKAO and Arme nia were of an entirely differ ent or- der. 47. For a full descrip tion of members of the initia tive group, see Azärbayjan Khalg Jäbhäsi Täshäbbüs Märkäzinin Bülletini (Baku), no. 1, 1989, pp. 8–9. 48. For an early statement of APF inten tions, see “Programme of the People’ s Front of Azerbaijan,” Central Asian and Caucausus Chroni cl e (London), Au - gust 1989, pp. 7–10. 49. Kommunist , 18 Febru ary 1989. 50. Ibid., 31 August 1989. 51. Ibid., 6 Septem ber 1989. 52. Radio Free Europe–Ra dio Lib erty, Report on the USSR (Munich), 21 July 1989, p. 50. 53. Unpub lished inter view with the Azerbaijani service of Radio Libert y. 54. The Azerbaijani press was filled with discus sions of the refu gee crisis and attempts to resolve it. See, for ex am ple, Kommunist , 29 April and 15 De cem- ber 1989. 55. Azerbaijani intel lec tu als first made an appeal for an aid commit tee in mid-August and held a founding congress at the end of the same month; ibid., 17 and 31 August 1989. The “Karabakh Syndrome” and Azerbaijani Poli tics 203

56. Khorhrdayin Hayastan, 20 August 1989. 57. Despite its condem na tion of the National Council as “uncon sti tu tional” (see Bakinskii Rabochii, 27 August 1989), the Azerbaijani govern ment was unabl e to take any practi cal steps to curtail the council’s activ i ties . 58. For Moscow accounts of strike demands, see Pravda, 10 Septem ber 1989, and Izvestiia (Moscow), 11 Septem ber 1989. 59. Bakinskii Rabochii, 5 Octo ber 1989. 60. Expressed in an inter view published with some delay in Tercüman (Is tan- bul), 23 Novem ber 1989, newspa per . 61. Moscow News, 1 Octo ber 1989. 62. Kommunist , 5 Octo ber 1989. 63. Eliza beth Fuller, “Moscow Rejects Azerbaijani Law on Sover eignty: A Moral Victory for Ar me nia?” Report on the USSR, 1 Decem ber 1989, pp. 16–18. 64. Kommunist , 5 Octo ber 1989. Along with those of Arme nia and Georgia , Azerbaijan’s consti tu tion had, well before the Gorbachev reforms, include d a clause that regarded the national language as the state language . 65. Ibid., 4 Octo ber 1989. 66. Earlier attempts by the APF to call a tempo rary mora to rium had also failed. See Pravda, 24 August 1989. Reports on the contin u a tion of the blockad e were published regu larly by the Arme nian and inter na tional press through - out autumn 1989. See, for ex am ple, New York Times, 3 Decem ber 1989. 67. As late as mid-January 1990, USSR Foreign Minis try spokesper so n Gennadii Gerasimov was only willing to refer to the Arme nian-Azerbaijan i battles as “almost a civil war”; Inter na tional Herald Tribun e (Paris), 17 Jan u- ary 1990. 68. The precise compo si tion of NKAO repre sen ta tion was left tempo rarily un - re solved; Kommunist , 7 Janu ary 1990. 69. For the text of the deci sion, the Khorhrdayin Hayastan, 3 Decem ber 1989. 70. Kommunist , 10 Janu ary 1990. On the history of Azerbaijani inter ests in Southern Azerbaijan/Northern Iran, see my “Beyond the Nation-State, ” and David B. Nissman, The Soviet Union and Iranian Azerbaijan: The Uses of Nation al ism for Polit i cal Pen e tra tion (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1987). 71. Cumhuriyet (Istan bul), 15 Janu ary 1990. 72. In partic u lar, the notion—picked up by Western corre spon dents—of a con- spiracy to dislodge the APF by promot ing the front’s radi cal iza tion and anti-Armenian vio lence must be consid ered with caution. See, e.g., New York Times, 19 Febru ary 1990. 73. See Eliza beth Fuller, “Azerbaijani Central Commit tee Elects New First Sec- retar y,” Report on the USSR, 2 Febru ary 1990, p. 16. Accord ing to this report , the repub lic Supreme Soviet had earlier in Janu ary demanded the remova l of Väzirov. 204 Mark Saroyan

74. Ibid., 25 May 1990, p. 23. 75. On the closing of the APF news pa per Azadlyg, see Kommunist , 20 July 1990. For other cases of harass ment of the APF, see Bakinskii Rabochii, 19 May 1990, and FBIS-SOV , 20 July 1990, p. 103, and 27 July 1990, p. 88. THE ARMENIAN PROTESTS: IS IT PASSION OR POLITICS?

It was in late Febru ary when the first reports of massive pro tests in Soviet Arme nia reached Western report ers. The New York Times and the Washing ton Post provided exten sive cover age of this com plex breaking news story, which centered on Arme nian terri to rial claims to the predom i nantly Arme nian district of Nagorno-Karabakh in the neighbor ing repub lic of Soviet Azerbaijan. In spite of the volume of cover age, how ever, the Ameri can re - ports, which focused on what was depicted as deep-seated and seemingly immu ta ble hostil ity between Arme ni ans and Azerbaijanis, failed to explore in depth a range of social, economic , and polit i cal factors that were also impor tant ele ments of the story. By con trast, Le Monde , the Pari sian daily noted for its cover ag e of inter na tional news, reported ethnic hostil ity but, in addi tion, un - derlined the changing nature of the polit i cal situ a tion in the Transcaucasian region of the USSR, the economic issues divid ing the Arme ni ans and Azerbaijanis, and the subtle ties of the nego ti a tion s that took place between Moscow and the leader ship of the souther n repub lics . The report ing of this story from Mos cow was a textbook case of the frustra tions that face a reporter bent on getting the facts—even in the Gorbachev era. Yet, at a time when it is widely agreed that the na tion al i- ties question is going to be high on the Soviet agenda for years to come, it is none too soon for journal ists to recon sider their ap proach to this complex subject and perhaps, in light of Le Monde ‘s cover age, to con - template addi tional ways of under stand ing this story.

ARMENIA, THE POST , AND THE TIMES

In the New York Times and the Washing ton Post , the events be gin- ning with the first demon stra tions in Arme nia and culmi nat ing with

204 The Arme nian Protests: Is It Passion or Poli tics? 205

Moscow’s announce ment of measures designed to resolve the crisi s in late March were presented as expres sions of a kind of primor dia l ethnic senti ment. “The riots have brought to the surface deep-seated bitter ness between two rival ethnic groups,” Gary Lee, Moscow cor - respon dent for the Washing ton Post , wrote in a story published on 3 March. That hostil ity, Lee contin ued, “has existed for decades and been left to smolder by past Kremlin poli cies of benign neglect to - ward the Soviet nation al i ties problem. ” In this view, which was appar ently widely shared among those report ing the story, ethnic and reli gious differ ences themselve s seemed to provide a suffi cient expla na tion of the conflict. This as - sumption was appar ent in cover age that repeat edly pointed out the fact that “Arme ni ans and Azerbaijanis are divided by reli gion and a history of conflict that predates the forma tion of the Soviet Union, ” in the words of Philip Taubman, the New York Times Moscow burea u chief, on 6 March. David Remnick, a member of the Washing ton Post ‘s bureau in Mos cow, also empha sized such historic tensions, quoting a senior Western diplo mat in a report published on 5 March to the ef - fect that the conflicts are a product of ethnic rela tions “that go back deeper in history” than the Soviet state itself. Instead of describ in g the charac ter of each national claim and the ori gins and nature of the conflicts between them, such arti cles lead to the conclu sion, ob vi - ously not intended by the writers but sedimented in their texts nev - erthe less, that ethnic enmity is inher ent in ethnic differ ence itself . If ethnic conflict is inev i ta ble in this view, it seems that it finds its primor dial expres sion through reli gion. The fact that Arme ni an s are Christian and Azerbaijanis Shi’ite Muslim, for exam ple, ap - peared often in Post and Times accounts as the most funda men tal ex - plana tion of conflict between the two peoples. “The most impor tan t differ ence between them is reli gion,” Gary Lee wrote in a story pub - lished on 3 March that explained the causes of the vio len t Azerbaijani protests in Sumgait a few days before. Two days ear lier, in fact, he had written, “Whether the Sumgait distur bance was in sti- gated by the earlier [terri to rial] squabbles or not, reli gious dif fer - ences seem to be at the root of the outbreaks.” Reports appear ing in the Times took a simi lar posi tion, empha siz ing what reporter Felic it y Barringer referred to on 24 Febru ary as “Islamic-Christian fric tions.” An obser va tion by Taubman the same day that “most Arme ni ans are Christian and most Azerbaijanis Muslim” appeared under the sub - 206 Mark Saroyan head “What the Protests Are About”—as if the fact of reli gious dif - ference was ade quate to explain the nature of the complex conflict . Undoubt edly intended to provide infor ma tion helpful in un der - standing the current terri to rial disputes, this descrip tion appeared , with some varia tion, in nu mer ous Times and Post arti cles publishe d during the first weeks of the Nagorno-Karabakh events. By means of such mantralike repe ti tion, this accu rate descrip tion of reli gious di - versity was transformed from a statement of fact into an expla na tio n of events. Indeed, little addi tional analy sis of the situ a tion would seem to be neces sary once corre spon dents present as natu ral and logi cal the fact that Christians and Muslims do not get along. Without such further analy sis of the specific circum stances of Arme nian-Azerbaijani rela tions, it was perhaps inev i ta ble that cor - respon dents, seeking to gauge the signif i cance of the conflict, would be tempted to conflate the Arme nian-Azerbaijani events with na - tional conflicts elsewhere in the Soviet Union. Taubman, for one, in - cluded the Arme nian and Azerbaijani protests in an account of nation al ist movements in the USSR that grouped together such dra - mati cally dispa rate cases as Esto nia and Kazakhstan. A day ear lier, on 24 Feb ru ary, Taubman had already proposed that “many [na tion- ali ties] remain hostile to Moscow and, encour aged by Mr. Gorbachev’s calls for increased openness and democ rac y, have ag i- tated for more auton om y.” As sub se quent Times cover age made clear, however, during the Arme nian demon stra tions that Taubman was report ing, protest ers did not call for more auton omy from Mos - cow but appealed for Moscow’s inter ven tion in local affairs to sat isfy claims against Azerbaijan. In other reports, the reli gious dimen sion of the conflict was dra - matized by linking it to the threat to Soviet author ity posed by the large Muslim popu la tions in Soviet Asia. Despite the fact that it was Arme nian claims that sparked the protests, Taubman wrote in a 6 March story that the protests were “most of all a warning about po - tential insta bil ity in predom i nantly Muslim regions that arc across the southern part of the countr y.” The tendency to inter pret Chris - tian Arme nian activ ism as a warning about the polit i cal insta bil ity of the Muslim popu la tion was also in evi dence in a 1 March Post arti cl e by Lee, which reflected on the vio lent Azerbaijani reac tions to the Arme nian demon stra tions and argued that “the Sumgait clash ap - peared to illus trate the vola til ity of reli gious conflict in offi cially sec - The Arme nian Protests: Is It Passion or Poli tics? 207 ular Soviet soci ety and partic u larly in the southern Muslim re pub lics located near the Islamic funda men tal ist state of Iran.”

AN EMPHASIS ON CONTROL

This view of Arme nian-Azerbaijani rela tions comple mente d certain assump tions about the actions that the Soviet govern men t took in response to the crisis. Depicting national conflicts as pri mor - dial and natu ral, and therefore proba bly irresolvable short of true in - depend ence, the report ers could not but pay scant atten tion to the conces sions offered by the Soviet govern ment that were intended to satisfy the Arme nian protest ers. For exam ple, the Kremlin’s seven-year, 400-million-ruble ($668 million) program of social, eco - nomic, and cultural devel op ment for Karabakh, an impor tant con - cession designed to address the offi cially accepted claims of discrim i na tion, received little atten tion in the newspa pers. Simi larl y, an impor tant meeting between Gorbachev and Arme nian writer s Zori Balayan and Silva Kaputikyan, during which the Arme ni an s listed a range of nonterritorial complaints, includ ing a lack of Ar me- nian televi sion broadcasts and textbooks in Azerbaijan, was noted only briefly in the Ameri can newspa pers . Instead, report ers focused on Soviet efforts to control the pro - tests. On 3 March, for exam ple, soon after Gorbachev nego ti ated a mora to rium on the Arme nian street protests, Gary Lee turned not to the impli ca tions of the recent nego ti a tions but to specu la tions about how the Kremlin was “appar ently . . . studying how seri ously it needs to crack down to keep nation al i ties under control.” In fact, Lee’s conclu sion on 30 March that the Kremlin’s “primary objec tiv e is the mainte nance of law and order” was repre sen ta tive of a num ber of reports. Thus, despite some stories describ ing diplo matic moves to resolve the crisis, the most salient accounts in these papers durin g this time featured Moscow’s efforts to assert control for its own sake. 208 Mark Saroyan

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO LE MONDE

Nearby, at the Le Monde office, however, another way of look ing at the events held sway. In his second report as the new USSR cor re- spondent for Le Monde , published 1 March, Bernard Guetta com - pared the Arme nian demon stra tions with a diverse group of other social movements, includ ing Poland’s Soli dar it y, the May 1968 stu - dent rebel lion in Paris, and the 1975 Portu guese revo lu tion. “How can one explain that in all lati tudes and under all regimes, great col - lective movements find, as if instinc tivel y, the same gestures and the same rhythms?” Guetta asked. To Guetta and his colleagues at Le Monde , the cause of the Arme nian protests could not be reduced to the national or reli gious charac ter of the protest ers alone. In stead, Le Monde ‘s reports gener ally portrayed the conflict between Ar me ni ans and Azerbaijanis as polit i cal in nature . Although ethnic ity remained vital to Le Monde ‘s presen ta tion of the events, the poli tics by which it was expressed and medi ated were of most inter est to the paper. In a brief work of Kremlinological anal - ysis on 6 March, Michel Tatu, the paper’s former Moscow cor re spon- dent and one of France’s leading journal ists writing on Soviet af fairs, discussed recent person nel transfers in Azerbaijan. The story, pub - lished the same day that Taubman was warn ing Times readers about the Muslim arc of insta bil ity across the country’s southern flank, dis - cussed what had actu ally aggra vated the Arme ni ans, includ ing an attempt by an Azerbaijani to repre sent the Arme nian city of Stepanakert in the repub lic’s Supreme Soviet, and a case in which Azerbaijan’s most impor tant newspa per ridi culed Arme nia with im - punit y. “Put other wise,” Tatu wrote, “the offi cial organ of the Com - munist party of Azerbaijan allowed itself to insult the nationa l dignity of Arme ni ans.” These events, insult ing to Arme nian pres tige and inim i cal to Arme nian polit i cal inter ests, were among the in ci - dents contrib ut ing to the outbreak of Arme nian protests in Febru ar y, Tatu wrote. Simi larl y, Guetta sought to explain Azerbaijani riots in the city of Sumgait in terms of what, concretel y, had irked the Azerbaijanis. “They were protest ing, on the one hand, against their denun ci a tion [as oppres sors of Arme ni ans] before the world, and on the other hand, against the possi bil ity of seeing their repub lic de - prived of terri tory that they had controlled since 1923.” The Arme nian Protests: Is It Passion or Poli tics? 209

A 9 March background piece by Charles Urjewicz, an instruc to r at the Institut National de Langues Orientales Vivantes in Paris, added a histor i cal and socio log i cal dimen sion to Le Monde ‘s re port- ing. Accord ing to Urjewicz, in nineteenth-century Transcaucasia “cities became cosmo pol i tan centers domi nated by a dynamic and expe ri enced Arme nian bourgeoi sie. In the eyes of Azerbaijanis and Georgians,” Urjewicz contin ued, the Arme ni ans “became a symbo l of foreign capi tal ism. ” As a result of Le Monde ‘s close atten tion to the inter nal dy nam- ics of the situ a tion, the paper’s corre spon dents also followed more closely than did the Ameri cans the polit i cal maneu vers of the Sovie t leader ship as it sought to appease Arme nian demon stra tors. In con - trast to the sparse cover age given these efforts by the Times and the Post , Le Monde carried two long arti cles that promi nently feature d the Karabakh rede vel op ment program proposed by author i ties in Mosco w, one by Agence France-Presse, published on 25 March, and a second by Guetta on 26 March. Noting that Moscow’s solu tion “isn’ t annex ation to Arme nia, but isn’t nothing either,” Guetta un der- scored the Kremlin’s two-track policy toward the Arme ni ans: re - press any further street actions and offer better condi tions for Karabakh Arme ni ans in the short term, while hinting at a promise of more in the future . Le Monde ‘s inter est in the real poli tics of the conflict also pro - duced consid er able cover age of debates within the central Com mu - nist Party leader ship over the conflict. Pieces by Guetta and foreig n corre spon dent Sylvie Kauffman closely ana lyzed the constraints felt by Moscow in its efforts to resolve the crisis. In fact, Guetta, from his very first dispatch from Mosco w, focused on the identity of inter est s that emerged between Gorbachev and the Arme nian protest ers and specu lated on future polit i cal maneu vers and compro mises each side might make. In his arti cle, headlined “A Search for Compro mis e Seems to Take Hold in Arme nia,” Guetta provided a sense of the mu - tual accom mo da tion that emerged between Gorbachev, the Ar me- nian party leader ship, and the protest ers. “The whistling that had welcomed the appear ance of the [Arme nian Commu nist Party] first secre tary ended,” Guetta wrote of one demon stra tion. “Every on e under stood that a deal was in the air. Soon men who were in tune with the crowds took to the micro phone . . . to make the crowds un - 210 Mark Saroyan derstand that all one could hope for had been gained and that one had to let things play themselves out.”

POLITICS ABOVE ALL

In some nota ble instances, Ameri can report ers did provide a descrip tion of such dynam ics. A detailed arti cle by Felic ity Barringer and Bill Keller, published in the Times of 11 March, and a 21 March piece by Gary Lee in the Post paid more atten tion to what the Ar me- nians and Azerbaijanis themselves were thinking. Reporters from both papers did describe the polit i cal and diplo matic solu tions pro - posed by Gorbachev, but far less fully than their counter parts at Le Monde . The Ameri can report ers basi cally subscribed to the posi tio n that the issue is, as Gary Lee put it in the Post of 29 Febru ar y, one of “control ling restive nation al i ties” whose reli gious differ ences ap - peared natu rally to moti vate them to mutual antag o nism. Seen from this perspec tive, no Soviet polit i cal solu tion was likely possi ble , since primor dial national inter ests must come into inev i ta ble con flict with (as Taubman put it) the equally immu ta ble “ethic of Soviet so - cialism—cen tral control, a premium on disci pline, abhor rence of dis - order. ” For the corre spon dents of Le Monde , how ever, the conflict be - tween the Soviet state and the social actors is a dynamic one. Instea d of focus ing on the unchang ing nature of the rela tion ships, the French report ers took Soviet poli tics seri ously on its own terms, em pha siz- ing the fluid nature of the polit i cal situ a tion and the give-and-take among the parties. With this in mind, they followed closely the dy - namics of the Arme nian movement, the Azerbaijani reac tions, and the combi na tion of coer cive and diplo matic moves by the Gorbachev leader ship to manage, if not to resolve, the tensions. In doing so, they sketched the outline of inter est-group poli tics, Soviet style, in con - trast to the picture of erupting primor dial passions that domi nate d the Ameri can cover age. For the French journal ists at Le Monde it was poli tics—eth ni cally moti vated—but poli tics all the same. REPRESENTATION AS A REALM OF CONFLICT: TWO EXAMPLES FROM SOVIET ARMENIAN LITERATURE

In April l965 Soviet Arme nian polit i cal leaders dedi cated a newly built memo rial complex on a forested hill in Yerevan. Con - structed of large gray granite blocks, the monu ment commem o rate d the fifti eth anni ver sary of the Arme nian genocide carried out by the Turkish govern ment during World War I. The dedi ca tion of the me - morial signalled more than just respect for a tragic page in Arme nia n histor y. It announced an offi cial recog ni tion of a growing inter est in the status of Western (Turkish) Arme nia in the public life of Sovie t Arme ni ans . Prior to the l960s, polit i cal and liter ary discourse virtu ally ex - cluded histor i cal and contem po rary refer ences to Western Arme ni a in the artic u la tion of a distinct Soviet Arme nian iden tity. By the l980s, howeve r, repre sen ta tions of Arme nian ethnic ity in all do mains of cultural produc tion—from music and the visual arts to his to ri og- raphy and ethnog ra phy—made the Western Arme nian expe ri enc e publicly acces si ble to the repub lic’s popu la tion. 1 The incor po ra tion of Western Arme nian themes was not a monolitic process but was marked by conflict over the meanings at - tached to these themes in contem po rary Soviet Arme nian culture . This essay takes up the conflictual dimen sion of the changes in cul - tural repre sen ta tions of Arme nian iden tity. Through a textual anal y- sis of some recent Arme nian liter a ture, I hope to highlight the conflict ing impli ca tions of national history for the construc tion of national iden tity.2 I have chosen exam ples of histor i cal fiction that repre sent Ar - menian ethnic identity in the context of Soviet power. These are Mushegh Galshoyan’s no vella Dsori Miro (Miro of the valley) and Gevorg Emin’s poem Sasuntsineri pare (The dance of the Sasuners). Both authors are “mainstream” Soviet writers. Galshoyan’s novell a has been published in a run of 20,000, translated into Russian and other languages, and made into a popu lar film. Emin’s poem has

211 212 Mark Saroyan been published twice, most recently in an illus trated produc tion of 50,000 copies—vir tu ally the limit for fiction publi ca tions in Ar me - nia. Dsori Miro begins with the trip by a certain Miro, who is ac com- pany ing his son to a mili tary induc tion office at the begin ning of World War II. Against this background Galshoyan sets up a series of exchanges between Miro, his son Harut, and the driver Aro about the meaning of the war. Most of the text relates Miro’s personal rec ol lec- tions, evoked by discus sions of the war. Later scenes in the novell a tell us that Harut has been killed in the war, that Miro remar ries and has a second son (also named Harut), and that eventu ally he sends this son off to an insti tute in Yerevan. Miro, the main charac ter, repre sents an unre con structed Ar me- nian identity in the sense that he is rela tively unintegrated into daily Soviet life. Though popu larly consid ered one of the founders of the village (now kolkhoz) of Karaglukh, he has few friends apart from two “counter-revolutionaries,” Elbek and Babek. The rest of his friends, it appears, have been “taken away.” He was opposed to col - lectiv iza tion and contin ues to avoid admin is tra tive meetings of the kolkhoz where he lives. He goes to the kolkhoz office for his secon d visit in seven years only to borrow the kolkhoz cart to take his son to the induc tion office. Simul ta neous with the charac ter iza tion of Miro as alienated from Soviet life, Galshoyan begins to estab lish the pro - tago nist’s Arme nian quali ties by inform ing the reader that he is a na - tive of Gortsvark village, Khut district, Sasun province, of Wester n Arme nia. Perhaps such a village does not really exist, but for the Ar - menian reader it is enough to know that he is from Sasun, a moun - tainous province of Western Arme nia renowned for its repu ta tion of proud defi ance of Otto man Turkish rule and the tenac ity of its pop u - lation. Having escaped the massa cres of the Western Arme nian pop - ula tion during World War I and partic i pated in the guerrill a movement of self-defense, Miro is both an Arme nian victim and an Arme nian hero. Such a charac ter reso nates well with a Soviet Ar me - nian audi ence that shares a common expe ri ence of the massa cres (ex - cept for the aged, nowa days only vicar i ously) and a popu lar respec t for those who fought in the fedayi (guerrilla) movement against Turk - ish rule. In constrast to the “Arme nian” Miro, Galshoyan constructs a “Soviet” Harut. The reader is told little about Harut, but the im pres- Repre sen ta tion as a Realm of Conflict 213 sion is given that he is a “typi cal” Soviet youth: he goes to school, is a member of the Komsomol, and appears to be comfort able in his iden - tity as a Soviet person. In addi tion, Galshoyan tells the reader that Harut has tried to explain his Komsomol activ i ties and the in tri ca cies of world poli tics (which he learned at Komosomol meetings) to his uncom pre hend ing father . From the outset of the story, Galshoyan sets up the contrast in g charac ters of Miro and Harut. Harut is a contem po rary person, but Miro—fixated in his own past—is estranged from the present. Miro constantly drifts from the present to the past and recalls his nativ e village, his father Harut (for whom his son is named), his wife, the massa cres—in a word, anything connected with his expe ri ence in Western Arme nia. As Miro relates his life stories in the form of ad - vice to his son, the exchange between the father and son is de vel oped by Galshoyan to under score their alienation from each other and to estab lish two conflict ing repre sen ta tions of the war’s mean ing. During the trip the three men discuss every thing from the weather to Harut’s fiancée, yet the under ly ing theme of their con ver- sation is the war. At unex pected moments, Miro counsels his un com- prehend ing son with some wise words, the meaning of which remains deep in his memory (but is narrated through the text to the reader). Recalling how the Turkish author i ties tried to intim i date his village, Miro instructs his son that strength is in the unity of the peo - ple. Recalling his father’s murder by Turkish soldiers, his own im - prison ment and escape, and his partic i pa tion in the fedayi resis tance, Miro urges his son to be coura geous, loyal, and cunnin g in war. Through such frequent and extended repro duc tions of Miro’s recol lec tions, Galshoyan estab lishes an inti macy between the reader and Miro. The textual explo ra tion of Miro’s tragic, yet often heroi c memo ries estab lishes the reader’s sympa thy for Miro, as well as an under stand ing for his appar ently cryptic remarks. Harut’s lack of under stand ing and indif fer ence rein force the reader’s identi fi ca tio n with Miro and create distance from Harut. Unaware of his father’ s moti va tions and confused by his cryptic advice, Harut either re - mains silent, offers a perfunc tory “yes, dad,” or tries to reas sure his father that he takes the advice seri ousl y. It is in these series of exchanges that each man’s under stand in g of the war’s meaning is constructed by Galshoyan. Discussing the causes of the war, Harut places the blame on the “fascists.” Miro dis - 214 Mark Saroyan agrees and explains to his son that the problem is Hitler, a “blood rel - ative of Sultan Hamit and the heir of Enver and Talaat.” Later, Miro again likens the Nazis to the Turks. The Turkish “king” had tricked the Arme nian people by offer ing them a false freedom, and in the same way the German “king” signed a false peace with the Sovi ets . For Miro, the war is not simply against the “fascist threat” (pre - sented as Harut’s polit i cally correct concep tion). Rather he is send - ing his son to fight against an evil power that he equates with the Turkish author i ties who massa cred his people and usurped his land. Miro’s advice is not without effect. He contin ues to relate his under stand ing of the war to his son, and toward the end of the jour - ney Harut begins to compre hend his father’s message. Miro talks to Harut of his expe ri ences as a guerrilla, the dedi ca tion of the Ar me - nian fedayi, and the oath made among people in struggle. For the first time Harut is struck by his father’s words and strives to un der- stand them. Finally his father’s values and advice make sense, and Harut wonders about the sources of his father’s insights . Galshoyan thus shows the reader the possi bil ity of trans mit- ting the lessons of expe ri ence from one gener a tion to the next. Hav - ing instilled in his son a respect for his Arme nian expe ri ence, Miro pleads with his son: “Harut, don’t fight against the Germans for the big country; rather let your fight be for this Karaglukh village, for your little home.”* Miro clari fies his message to his son and says, in refer ring to the destruc tion of the Western Arme nian popu la tion , Man’s greatest loss is human, and human loss is irre vo ca ble. Loss of the Homeland and the soil is great, but land is immor tal and won’t accept another master. Land is related by blood to its mas - ter, and the land will wait for its mas ter. One day, they’ll meet again. The loss of land is not an irre vo ca ble loss. . . . The Sovi et s will win the war, and they’ll open the way to our Homeland.* *

*In contem po rary Soviet Arme nian discourse, a distinc tion is often made be - tween the term “our homeland” (Arme nia) and “our big homeland” (the Sovie t Union). Miro’s use of “the big country” is thus a subtextual refer ence to the So - viet Union . ** The term translated here as “Homeland” is not the literal Arme nian word for homeland ( hayrenik ) but yerkir, liter ally meaning “countr y,” but in fact a popu la r subtextual refer ence to Western Arme nia . Repre sen ta tion as a Realm of Conflict 215

For Miro, the war with the Nazis is not a war of salva tion for the Soviet homeland, not even the Soviet Arme nian homeland. Rather, it is an oppor tu nity to recover the past, to regain his lost identit y through the recap ture of his Western Arme nian homeland. In Miro’s under stand ing, identity is closely connected with the notion of homeland. Miro also believes that this link with identity and home - land transcends poli tics. For exam ple, the driver Aro recalls the con - fusion of “ten parties, ten lines” during the fedayi resis tance. Miro responds by praising General Andranik, who in leading the fedayi forces repre sents strength in ethnic soli dar ity and the struggle for a national homeland. * When Harut asks his father about Andranik’s polit i cal affil i a tion, Miro becomes enraged and claims that “Genera l Andranik was a man . . . the heavenly and earthly master of the [Western Arme nian] refu gees,” as if Andranik and his actions had a purely national signif i cance that cannot be reduced to poli tics or po - liti cal loy al ties. Harut becomes confused. In the Komsomol meetings, he thinks, he was told not to spare his life for the Soviet homeland, but now his father was provid ing a differ ent moti va tion to fight. Harut is thus confronted by an appar ent conflict between the offi cial Soviet mean - ing of the war and his father’s defi ni tion based on essen tially pa ro - chial and ethnic con sid er ations. World War II is one of the most common meta phors in the So - viet symbolic reper toire. In construct ing Miro’s partic u lar con cep - tion of the war, Galshoyan uses the war as a meta phor for the struggle to both reclaim lost heri tage and transmit that heri tage to the next gener a tion, repre sented by Miro’s son. The war is not a trag - edy for Miro; rather, it is an oppor tu nity to offer his son as a com bat - ant for the recap ture of his own personal and collec tive identity as an Arme nian. In addi tion, the war provides a means to instill in his son the meaning of that identit y. In this sense, the meaning of Harut’s eventual death has two dimen sions for Miro, but the ulti mate out - come—the loss of identity—is the same.

*Andranik, a general in the Bulgar ian army, was a key leader of Arme nia n armed forces during the fedayi resis tance. Thousands of Western Arme nian ref- ugees retreated with his forces and settled in present-day Soviet Arme nia. He had quit the Dashnak (nation al ist) party when it adopted a social-democrati c program in l907. 216 Mark Saroyan

Galshoyan contin ues his novella at a later time in a series of postwar vignettes. Miro has not changed and is portrayed as ob - sessed with the preser va tion of his identity—man i fested in his de - sire for a male heir. Finally, Miro rapes a young woman and then forces her to marry him. The woman bears a son whom Miro names Harut. Having indulged in a crime of passion, Miro is ostra cized by the kolkhoz resi dents. But his passion was not at all sexual—his was an act of ethnic passion informed by the deter mi na tion to preserv e and pass on his identit y. For Miro, the transmis sion of the past means more than just having a son and symbol i cally naming him after his murdered fa - ther. Rather, it also involves imbu ing the child (and symbol i call y, the entire new gener a tion) with an appre ci a tion of the inti mate con nec - tions between homeland and identit y. But Miro’s deter mi na tion is in vain. Although Miro was finally able to transmit something to his first son, there is little under stand ing between Miro and his secon d son. Galshoyan presents us with a vignette that illus trates the alien - ation of this second son from his father. Wanting “the best” for his son, Miro had arranged for Harut’s admis sion into a Yerevan in sti- tute. One day Harut returns to the kolkhoz and talks of his career in “comput ers”—a word Miro does not even under stand. Harut brings with him a woman whose manner of dress only shocks Miro. When Miro inquires into the possi bil ity of marriage, he learns that the two are already married and plan to live in the city. His author ity rejected, Miro feels betrayed by his son. But his sense of failure is greater. Miro can define the preser va tion of iden - tity only in terms of an attach ment to the land, and his son’s refusa l of both his author ity and the land repre sents a rejec tion of the iden - tity he had done every thing to preserve. At the end of the novella, the dejected Miro wanders out into his orchards and reas sures the land, “Don’t worry; it’s Dsori Miro. Your master hasn’t died.”

Gevorg Emin’s epic poem is a very differ ent text, but like Galshoyan’s novella, it treats issues of Arme nian iden tity, nationa l homeland, and Soviet power in the light of themes of Western Ar me - nian rural expe ri ence, massa cres and resis tance, and a new life in So - viet Arme nia . Emin tells the story of Ashnak, an actual village located in So - viet Arme nia and popu lated by Sasun-born refu gees of the geno cide. Repre sen ta tion as a Realm of Conflict 217

He paints an ideal ized picture of rural life in Ashnak—complet e with happy homes, fertile fields, and new brides bearing children . He explains, however, that Ashnak hardly compares to the town of Sasun, with its emer ald peaks in the clouds, pure waters, and a church on every hill.* Emin’s account affirms to the reader that life is good in Soviet Arme nia but nonethe less contrasts it to an “other”: an idyllic Arme nia that existed in the not-so-distant past but now lives on only in the minds of the refu gees. But this ideal Arme nia sym bol - ized by Sasun was destroyed by the Turks, and its inhab it ants were forced to flee. Thus the people of Sasun are disen fran chised from the founda tions of their identity—the connec tion with their homelan d and way of life. Emin quickly returns the reader to Ashnak, where the refu gee s are trying to rees tab lish what they had lost in a new land. As por - trayed by Emin, a success ful recontruction is not possi ble, how ever, until the advent of Soviet power in Eastern Arme nia : Until the blood thickene d And became a red-colored flag; Until the sickle rose from the soil And the hammer flew off the anvi l And the two of them, like brother s Rose onto the flag. And a new sun broke over the land. In the context of Soviet power, the villag ers of Ashnak were able to remake their past by recre at ing Sasun. Thus Ashnak repre sent s not an advance to a new way of life but the resur rec tion of tradi tion . This recon struc tion of tradi tional identity is described by Emin through the meta phor of dance. The people of Ashnak can dance just as they did in Sasun. Through their dancing, these people invok e their tradi tional glory and estab lish the author ity of the past for those in the present. Emin under scores the fact that it is only in the new Soviet condi tions that Arme ni ans are able to recontruct their identity expressed in both its form (dance) and its content (memor y of Sasun, tradi tional history) :

*As noted, Sasun holds a partic u larly impor tant place in contem po rary Ar me- nian mythol ogy and can be seen as a synecdoche for Western Arme nia . 218 Mark Saroyan

Sasun danced, and the whole world stood in awe. Sasun danced, and the whole world un der stood That this was not merely a dance, but the brave History of a land. And nothing will conquer that ancient peopl e That with such effort and with such will Can dance. Emin uses dance as a means to define ethnic identity by equat - ing dance with ethnic his tory. He draws an inti mate connec tion be - tween cultural activ ity (the dance) and the affir ma tion of one’s identity symbol i cally embod ied in the homeland, Sasun. It is thus by their ability to dance that the Ashnak villag ers reclaim the tradi tio n of which they had been deprived : The spirit of Sasun sparked anew on Mount Aragats. . . . and Sasun danced again. But the cultural form of dance allows for more than the sym - bolic recon sti tu tion of identit y. The dance also serves to ensure eth - nic regen er a tion. Identity is not merely what exists at present (a symbolic Sasun recre ated in Ashnak). It is also what will be. This fu - ture state is simi larly achieved through a recap tur ing of the past, but in a differ ent way. Like Miro’s homeland that can accept no foreig n master, Emin’s Sasun still cries out for its former owners. Recallin g Sasun’s longing for its former inhab it ants, Emin ends his poem with an appeal : Dance, until you raise up all Arme ni an s And dance this dance On the slope of Ararat . . . Previ ously confined to the slopes of Aragats (in Soviet Ar me- nia) and the towns and villages of Soviet Arme nia, Emin now calls for a regen er ated Arme nian nation to dance on the slope of Mt. Ara - rat—another tradi tional symbol of Arme nian identity now con spic u- ously located in Tur key (hence “Western Arme nia”). The recon struc tion of ethnic identity is achieved not just by recre at in g ethnic his tory, but also by the symbolic retak ing of the histor i cal ob - ject itself—West ern Arme nia . Repre sen ta tion as a Realm of Conflict 219

One of the features common to both Galshoyan’s and Emin’s texts is a consis tent Armenianization of expe ri ence. This is most ob - vious in the case of Galshoyan’s hero Miro, who can make sense of the war, Nazism, or anything else only in terms defined as Ar me- nian. In the case of Nazism, for exam ple, he can under stand it only as an evil analagous to the Turks and as a threat to his own Arme nia n identity (and not to the Soviet homeland). In Emin’s poem, this Armenianization is even more total: the estab lish ment of Sovie t power in Arme nia is presented only in terms of the bene fits and op - portu ni ties it has brought to Arme nian national self-assertion. This Armenianization of Soviet expe ri ence (Soviet power, the Great Patri otic War) is signif i cant because it challenges the con ven - tional Western view—as well as the oft-stated Soviet inten tion—tha t cultural produc tion in the USSR is a means of propa gat ing offi cia l Soviet values such as inter na tion al ism and friendship of peoples . But beyond this, the two authors present differ ent concep tions of the rela tion between Arme nian identity and Soviet real i ties. For Emin, there appears to be no conflict between the cate go ries “Soviet” and “Arme nian.” The inter re la tion is bene fi cial (if not para sitic) from the defin i tively Arme nian point of view, since Soviet power has pro - vided the means for Arme nian self-assertion. Galshoyan presents a more compli cated vision of Soviet-Armenian rela tions. Part of Miro’s mainte nance of his tradi tional Arme nian identity can be at - tributed to his rejec tion of things Soviet: he remains far from the kol - khoz admin is tra tion and other realms of Soviet public life. Likewise , it is his intense devo tion to the preser va tion of his identity that leads him to his anti so cial behav ior. In spite of this, Galshoyan portray s Miro as a genu ine hero with whom the Arme nian reader can identif y. Galshoyan also clearly points to the incom pat i bil ity of Arme nia n and Soviet under stand ing—a subject that Emin avoids. Miro’s and his son’s concep tions of the war are presented as mutu ally exclu siv e and incom pre hen si ble, mani fested by the lack of under stand ing be - tween father and son. Simi lar in their compre hen sion of real ity in Ar - menian terms, both authors nonethe less provide conflict in g repre sen ta tions of the fate of an Arme nian identity under Soviet rule. 220 Mark Saroyan

NOTES

1. In a report to the Arme nian Writers’ Congress, Vardges Petrosyan com- plained of current liter a ture’s virtual preoc cu pa tion with Western Ar me- nian topics and criti cized their indif fer ence toward more practi cal issues of contem po rary life in the Arme nian repub lic. The text is published in Grakan Tert (Yerevan), 23 May l986. It seems that cultural policy can differ widely from repub lic to repub lic. In his report to the congress of the Azerbaijani Writers’ Union, Ismayïl Shïkhlï made a case for the greater incor po ra tion of Southern (Iranian) Azerbaijani themes in Soviet Azerbaijani liter a tur e (Ädäbiyyat vä injäsänät [Baku], 30 May l986). 2. When they study liter a ture, social scien tists almost exclu sively work with a reflec tion theory of art. This implies that art “reflects” real ity in provid in g access, albeit limited, to other wise unob tain able social infor ma tion. This problem is not directly addressed here, but I have written this essay from the perspec tive of recent critiques of reflec tion theory and related theo ries of cultural repre sen ta tion (this includes princi pally Raymond Wil liams, Marx- ism and Liter a ture ; Pierre Macherey, For a Theory of Liter ary Pro duc tion; and Hayden White, Tropics of Discours e ). While not deny ing the impor tance of both reflec tive and repre sen ta tional dimen sions in the soci ol ogy of lit er a- ture, I have largely limited myself to a repre sen ta tional analy sis for this es - say. AZERBAIJAN LOOKS “WEST”: NEW TRENDS IN FOREIGN RELATIONS WITH IRAN AND TURKEY

Azerbaijan is a periph eral countr y, yet this fact has been a source of great richness and civi li za tion. One need simply conside r the region’s legacy of ethnic and reli gious diver sit y, polit i cal lib er al- ism, and cultural sophis ti ca tion. But being in the periph ery has its disad van tages as well. Azerbaijan has in its modern history been caught in a tug of war between three great empires: the Otto ma n Turkish Empire, the Persian Empire (with its vari ous dynas ties), and the Tsarist Russian Empire. Since the begin ning of the nineteent h centur y, however, Azerbaijan north of the Araz River had fallen clearly under Russian domin ion. Azerbaijan’s orien ta tion towar d Russia—whether Tsarist or Soviet—has had immense polit i cal, so - cioeco nomic, and cultural conse quences for the area. As the Soviet Union as a state was collaps ing, Azerbaijani po lit- ical activ ists began to reori ent domes tic poli tics and the foreign re la - tions of their newly emerging countr y. This rethink ing of Azerbaijani polit i cal identit y, espe cially as it relates to the repub lic’s emergen t foreign ties, has neces sar ily involved the three “great powers” that surround the country: Russia, Turke y, and Iran. It is clear, for ex am- ple, that the vast major ity of Azerbaijani polit i cal elites have re - jected—if not in actual practice at least formally—the Soviet Unio n as a federal state, the ideol ogy of Soviet social ism, and the in sti tu- tions and poli cies of what we used to call the “Soviet system. ” But Russia is not the Soviet Union. In the past, ana lysts tended to confuse “Soviet” and “Russian,” and while this confu sion has had dele te ri ous concep tual and polit i cal conse quences that remain to this day, at the present moment the polit i cal impli ca tions of such a miscon cep tion are much more signif i cant. In short, most Azerbaijanis’ rejec tion of “Soviet social ism” should not be in ter- preted as an outright rejec tion of Russia—in polit i cal rela tions and economic ties, and even in culture . Nonethe less, Azerbaijani polit i cal elites and perhap s Azerbaijani soci ety as a whole are now engaged in a major his tor i cal

221 222 Mark Saroyan reori en ta tion away from Russia, and the two most impor tant ref er - ents in this reori en ta tion are Iran and Turkey. I began with ref er - ences to Azerbaijan’s histor i cal rela tions with Iran and Turkey, but this does not mean that history deter mines poli tics. Indeed, if we simply use “history” as a model to inter pret the present and futur e course of Azerbaijani poli tics, all we will obtain is confu sion. Tur - key: the one-party state imposed in the 1920s and 1930s by Kemal Ataturk, or the marked trend toward liberal democ racy in the past decade. Iran: the modern iz ing but author i tar ian regime of the Shah, or the Islamic Revo lu tion under the guidance of Imam Khomeini. And these are only a few possi bil i ties of what “Iran” and “Turkey ” can mean. Moreover, many observ ers combine vague notions of “history ” with other argu ments of a cultural deter min ist sort when they in ter - pret the direc tion of contem po rary Azerbaijani poli tics. The ethnolinguistic charac ter of the Azerbaijanis, it is argued, draws them to Turke y, while their Shi’i Islamic faith draws them to Iran. These cultural simi lar i ties are impor tant in facil i tat ing rela tions be - tween these states, but the problem with most analy sis is the as sump- tion that even if other factors are recog nized, language, culture, and reli gion are still viewed as the most funda men tal deter mi nants of poli tics. This leads analy sis to odd extremes. Many Ameri can com - menta tors, for exam ple, empha size the role that Islam plays in the re - gion but simply ignore the fact that Azerbaijan shares geographi c borders with Iran and Turke y. Islam is thus viewed as all impor tant , and geographic conti gu ity is virtu ally irrel e vant . The “Sovietness” of Azerbaijani poli tics, which is concretely ex - pressed in insti tu tions and polit i cal culture that have devel ope d over decades, will remain at mini mum for several gener a tions. Yet in the process of refor mu lat ing Azerbaijani polit i cal insti tu tions and an identity to match, Iran and Turkey hold an extremely impor tan t place in thinking about a newly emerging Azerbaijan. With these consid er ations in mind, I want to discuss curren t trends in the evolu tion of Azerbaijani polit i cal iden tity. I will begi n with some general comments on the place of Iran and Turkey in the polit i cal imagi na tion of the Azerbaijani polit i cal leader ship and in - tellec tual classes. Then I will discuss the nuances of contem po rar y domes tic poli tics in Azerbaijan by focus ing on the country’s majo r sociopolitical forces: the former Commu nist Party appa ra tus, the Azerbaijan Looks “West” 223 popu lar oppo si tion, and the Muslim clergy. Thereaf ter, I will speak about the emerging patterns of Azerbaijani foreign policy vis-à-vis Iran and Turkey and the posi tions taken by these three major po lit i- cal groupings . Observers commonly assume that Azerbaijani identity is con - fused: on the one hand, the argu ment goes, Azerbaijanis, as Shi’i Muslims, identify with Shi’i Iran; and on the other hand, the close re - lated ness of the Turkish and Azerbaijani languages is the basis for a great inter est in Turke y. In fact, how ever, outside ana lysts are more confused than Azerbaijanis themselves . If we assume that the Azerbaijani nation is a thinking and act - ing subject, then there is a confu sion. But if we under stand the “Azerbaijani nation” to be a collec tion of people with varying ideas, identi ties, and inter ests about themselves and their place in the world, then there is much less confu sion. There is no one Azerbaijani posi tion; rather, there are conflict ing posi tions. Of course, some de - gree of gener al iza tion is fine, but too much gener al iza tion is the o ret i- cally inac cu rate and polit i cally danger ous . Among Azerbaijani polit i cal leaders and intel lec tu als, Turkey is viewed mostly in a posi tive light. In the late Soviet period, for exam ple , there was quite a lot of intel lec tual and polit i cal inter est in Turke y. And despite the formalistic quali ties of the offi cial anti-Ottomanism, anti-bourgeois nation al ism, and anti-U.S. impe ri al ism, there was ac tu- ally quite a lot of sympa thy for Tur key, despite its NATO asso ci a tions . To put this comment in perspec tive, one need only mention prevail in g atti tudes toward Arme ni ans and Irani ans. Azerbaijanis could combin e an offi cial posi tion against the “nation al ist falsi fi ca tions” of Arme nia n histo ri ans over the history of Cauca sian Alba nia with a genu ine fear and envy of Arme nian histo ri og ra ph y. Simi larl y, many Azerbaijani his - tori ans and polem i cists expe ri enced no conflict of inter ests in con - demning Kasravi as a Persian chauvin ist, be it from an “offi cial Soviet ” or “unof fi cial Azerbaijani” point of view. By contrast, many mod ern- ized Azerbaijanis (includ ing Commu nist Party offi cials as well as au - tono mous intel lec tu als, who themselves were formed by almost two centu ries of modern iz ing Russian rule) saw Tur key as a more cul tur ally intel li gi ble “Turkic” model of rule: modern, inde pend ent, and sec u lar, yet profoundly national . The range of Azerbaijani atti tudes toward Iran stands in stark contrast with the prevail ing sympa thy accorded to Turke y. Es pe- 224 Mark Saroyan cially in the late Soviet period, Azerbaijani atten tion increas ingl y turned toward Southern Azerbaijan, which in the Iranian and West - ern mind is simply northern Iran. In this region, there were at least double the number of Azerbaijanis than in the Soviet Union as a whole. But unlike in the Soviet Union, where Azerbaijanis had ac - cess—restricted and often sani tized—to their identity as Azerbaijanis, in Iran they were deprived of even formal rights to their identity. Unlike in the Soviet Union, they were consid ered to be “Turkified Persians” à la Kasravi. This meant that unlike in the So - viet Union, there were no Azerbaijani schools or univer si ties and very little in the way of Azerbaijani cultural insti tu tions. None the- less, unlike in Turkey, where speaking Kurdish was consid ered a crimi nal act against the state, semipublic use of the Azerbaijani lan - guage was perfectly accept able . Thus, for your aver age, nation ally conscious Azerbaijani, Iran symbol ized ethnic oppres sion and Persian chauvin ism. Of course, the situ a tion changed with the Iranian Revo lu tion of 1979, when there was quite a lot of liber al iza tion as far as Azerbaijani cultural ac - tivism is concerned. But for Azerbaijan’s largely secu lar ized in tel lec- tual class, it was diffi cult unequiv o cally to embrace the polit ico-religious notion of vilayat-e-faghih in Iran—even if it meant more rights for ethnic minor i ties . As for Azerbaijan’s Muslim reli gious leader ship, the situ a tio n is even more complex. Many Muslim clerics had accepted the West - ern and Soviet notion of a sepa ra tion of reli gion from the state, yet even their poten tial sympa thy for a Shi’i Muslim state was com pli - cated by their identity as Azerbaijanis, who consider themselves to be oppressed by that same state. These remarks may be confus ing, and for the moment they are neces sar ily incom plete and prelim i nar y. The most impor tant con sid - eration is to keep in mind that in general Azerbaijani atti tudes to - ward Turkey in the past and present have gener ally been favor able . In contrast, the Azerbaijani image of Iran runs a much broader range of possi bil i ties—from the more simple but prevail ing view of Iran under the Shahs as an oppres sor state to the more complex rela tio n between vilayat-e-faghih and Azerbaijani nation al ism . These admit tedly prelim i nary consid er ations feed into an un - derstand ing of Azerbaijani domes tic poli tics in the contem po rar y period. There are funda men tal debates about all issues of human life Azerbaijan Looks “West” 225 going on in Azerbaijan, but for lack of space I will concen trate mostly on poli tics and econom ics . There are two major trends in Azerbaijani poli tics toda y. In the terms of the debates that are being conducted over the future of the repub lic, these two trends can be referred to as an “Iranian” vs. a “Turkish” orien ta tion. These terms are widely used in the West as well, but I use them in a very specific manne r. The “Turkish” ori en ta- tion does not neces sar ily reflect a desire for polit i cal union with the Repub lic of Turke y. In the same manner, an “Iranian” orien ta tio n does not neces sar ily mean sympa thy for Iran and the Islamic Rev o lu- tion. Rather, Iran and Turkey—es pe cially in Azerbaijani discours e on domes tic poli tics—stand as power ful symbols whose conten t must be speci fied and cannot simply be assumed . Another way of thinking of these two orien ta tions in domes ti c poli tics would be to refer to the “Turkish” orien ta tion as a gener all y Western ized, liberal-democratic, and market-oriented ideol og y. The “Iranian” orien ta tion, however, can best be described as a statist , funda men tally neo-Stalinist ideol og y. At its most open and toler ant , this posi tion reflects in some ways the recon structed vision of Sovie t social ism promoted by Mikhail Gorbachev. It should be made clear from the outset, then, that what I refer to as an “Iranian” orien ta tio n has very little to do with Shi’i Islam or reli gious identity overall . In discuss ing the rela tive strengths of the Iran vs. Turkey de - bates in Azerbaijani poli tics, I want to focus on three groupings, all of which have their polit i cal bases in the Azerbaijani capi tal of Baku. The first is the formerly Commu nist Party appa ra tus, led by Azerbaijan’s presi dent Ayaz Mütälibov. The party has now changed its name, and despite conflict and dissen sion within the party, the polit i cal machine under Mütälibov’s guidance is still one of the most power ful and most exten sive polit i cal forces in the countr y. The sec - ond grouping is the oppo si tion, by which I mean mainly the mod er- ately popu lar Azerbaijani Popu lar Front (with all its inter nal splits) and the small but influ en tial Social-Democratic Party of Azerbaijan. Last is the Muslim clergy asso ci ated with the Muslim Reli giou s Board of Azerbaijan, led by the chairman of the board and sheikh-ul-Islam of Azerbaijan, Allahshukur Pashazada. The most consis tent adher ents to a “Turkish” orien ta tion in Azerbaijani poli tics are the oppo si tion. They are on the whole sup - portive of a Western-style, demo cratic, election-based govern men t 226 Mark Saroyan and rela tively free market rela tions. The APF’s newspa per, for ex am - ple, has a regu lar column on how Turkey’s parlia ment works. But Turkey is not simply Turkey; it is the West, it is Europe and North America. For the Western ized, largely secu lar Azerbaijani in tel li gen- tsia that forms the core of the oppo si tion, Turkey is a window to the West, a symbol of progress, democ racy, nation al ism, inde pend ence , and secu lar ism—in short, the ideol ogy and practice of Euro pean lib - eral-democracy—but with a Turkish face in a Muslim soci ety . While this Western-oriented ideol ogy is shared by the op po si- tion as a whole, some distinc tions must be made. There are seri ou s rifts within the Popu lar Front itself, and despite the common al ity of splits in polit i cal orga ni za tions based mainly on personal conflict s (such as the Birlik/Erk split in Uzbekistan), the split in the APF runs much deeper. One of the more surpris ing events in Azerbaijani pol i- tics last year came during a major summer time assem bly of the front, when the two major groupings in the front failed to break into or ga- niza tions. The split consists of adher ents of the more toler ant, lib - eral-democratic type described above and a much less demo crat i cally oriented group led by people such as E’tibar Mammadov, whose vision of a future Azerbaijan is much more in - formed by Azerbaijani chauvin ism and polit i cal author i tar i an ism. In this way, the more radi cal nation al ist wing of the front can be seen as having a more “Iranian” orien ta tion than the rest of the oppo si tion . This may be an exag ger a tion, but for the radi cal wing of the front one can simply replace the ideol ogy of neo-Stalinism with that of Azerbaijani chauvin ism but maintain the insti tu tional profile of the former Soviet system of rule intact . In stark contrast to the oppo si tion, the former appa ra tus of the Commu nist Party is proba bly the most consis tent supporter of an “Iranian” orien ta tion. Of course, this does not mean that the Mütälibov regime is packed with closet funda men tal ists. Rather, if Iran is thought of as a statist regime with exten sive govern ment reg - ula tion of the domes tic economy and foreign economic ties, then an “Iranian” orien ta tion among former Commu nists makes perfec t sense. The main problem in the case of the former Commu nist ap pa ra- tus is that while the combi na tion of their power and identity is based on the Soviet Commu nist system, they can no longer legit i mately re - fer to Soviet commu nism as a model for Azerbaijan’s future. In this Azerbaijan Looks “West” 227 sense, as a polit i cal orga ni za tion they have ideolog i cally trans - formed themselves into nation al ists but in polit i cal practice remai n indis tin guish able from the appa rat chiks they osten si bly replace . The posi tion of the Azerbaijani clergy under Pashazada is prob - ably the most compli cated and for me also the most fasci nat ing . Sheikh-ul-Islam Pashazada has distin guished himself in Azerbaijani poli tics by sheer polit i cal savvy and surviv abil it y. Barely 30 years old when elected to his posi tion in the late Brezhnev period, he has sur - vived all the transfor ma tions of recent Soviet poli tics. He is proba bl y one of the most skilled poli ti cians in post–World War II Azerbaijani poli tics. Though an ethnic Talysh, he is defender of Azer- baijani na - tional ism. And though the spiri tual leader of Shi’i Azerbaijan Mus - lims north of the Araz River, he was once a supporter of the Commu nist regime. This is in part based on his keen polit i cal sense and his willing ness to coop er ate with any regime in power in Azerbaijan. These consid er ations are impor tant in evalu at ing his as so ci a- tion with the “Iranian” posi tion in Azerbaijani polit i cal debates . Closely aligned with the Mütälibov polit i cal machine, in terms of his general polit i cal orien ta tion, he is almost indis tin guish able from the neo-Stalinist groupings within the former Commu nist Party. In this sense, one of the greatest threats to his posi tion is the liberal wing of the Azerbaijani Popu lar Front, which if it came to power may es tab- lish the Western notion of sepa ra tion of church from state (unlike the front’s more chauvin ist wing, which may view Azerbaijani na tion al- ism and Islam as a single identity) . But Pashazada is not simply an unre con structed Commu nist . He is a reli gious leader. And just as current and previ ous regimes in Azerbaijan manip u lated the Muslim clergy for polit i cal ends, Pashazada is able to do the same in reverse. Under the aegis of suc - cessive govern ments in Azerbaijan’s recent history (Äliyev, Baghïrov, Väzirov, and now Mütälibov), he has increas ingly gained conces sions from the regime based on its fear of Islam and the Mus - lim soci ety in which it oper ates. The core leader ship of the Azerbaijani Commu nist Party, it must be empha sized, was and re - mains a highly Western ized (read Russianized) and anti-religious group of men. Thus, the more the former Commu nists fear the Islamicization of Azerbaijani soci ety (which is not as likely as many 228 Mark Saroyan observ ers think), the more conces sions Pashazada will be able to ob - tain as a distinctly Islamic force for polit i cal stabil ity in the repub lic . It is in the context of these domes tic polit i cal debates that the di - rection of Azerbaijani foreign policy is formu lated. But unlike in do - mestic poli tics, the polit i cal and social cleavages in foreig n policy-making are much less clear. This relates not simply to loca l polit i cal identity and its rela tion to Iran and Tur key, but also to other domes tic and inter na tional factors . Domes tically (and here I stretch the term almost beyond rec og- nition), the Arme ni ans of Karabakh and of Arme nia proper are of great concern to the Azerbaijanis. Many Azerbaijani leaders and commen ta tors, in their own minds or simply as a popu list means to maintain prestige and power over their constit u en cies, argue that the West, espe cially France and the United States but also Russia, is controlled to one extent or the other by an orga nized Arme nia n lobby. One could cite many exam ples of this from Azerbaijani po lit i- cal discourse, but one need only take note that Arme nia’s new for - eign minis ter is an Ameri can-born Arme nian . In inter na tional poli tics, Azerbaijani fears of an Arme nian con - spiracy obtained the appear ance of accu rac y. Note that the United States initi ated diplo matic rela tions with Arme nia quite quickly, but delayed the process with Azerbaijan. The fact that the new UN Sec re- tary General Boutros-Ghali, himself a Christian Copt, has an Ar me- nian rela tive, likewise taints the United Nations as biased in the Azerbaijani imagi na tion. With these consid er ations in mind, Azerbaijan looked to Iran, Turke y, and other Muslim regional actor s not simply because of some kind of genetic Muslim impulse but in part by default, since the repub lic’s leader ship felt it could not rely on support from the West. But U.S. policy has changed, and Secre tary of State James Baker is now willing to embrace any dicta tor in the Cauca sus and Centra l Asia in order to counter Ameri can percep tions of an Iranian threat in the region. In this move, the United States sees Turkey as a bridge - head to both Azerbaijan and Central Asia. Symptom atic of their ob - session with Islam in general and Iran in partic u lar, U.S. policy-makers appar ently have little concern about the growing ties between Iran and Arme nia, since quite obvi ously Iran would have some diffi culty export ing its Islamic funda men tal ist revo lu tio n Azerbaijan Looks “West” 229

(whatever that means in Ameri can eyes) to a people known as one of the oldest Christian nations in the Near East. The power of Ameri can foreign policy can help sway Azerbaijan more toward Turkey and the West, but it need not be seen as the sole deter mi nant of Azerbaijani foreign polic y. The rela tiv e success of the Turkish economy and the structures of its domes ti c and foreign economic polic y, espe cially since the inter na tional lib er - aliza tion of the 1980s, make it an apt model for Azerbaijan’s own de - velop ment. Moreover, Turkey remains, as I have said, a window on the West, and if we take the Azerbaijani image of Tur key as the West, then all the popu lar views of the “real” West as overrun by Ar me ni- ans pose much less of an imped i ment for rela tions with the West. This view holds espe cially for the Azerbaijani oppo si tion and to a large extent among activ ists in the formerly Commu nist appa ra tus . At the same time, Iran as a model for devel op ment and in - creased ties is more problem atic. Until the recent reori en ta tion in Ira - nian poli tics, the Islamic govern ment of Iran pursued highly protec tion ist foreign poli cies much like those of the former Sovie t Union. As a model of govern ment regu la tion of foreign economi c ties, then, Iran’s posi tion feeds easily into the “Iranian” orien ta tio n of Azerbaijani poli ti cians. At the same time, how ever, Iran is ofte n viewed by Azerbaijanis as a pariah state that maintains rela tion s only with other weaker states: thus, it is not like Turke y, which has strong asso ci a tions with the rich and power ful econo mies of North America and Europe . As I have noted, Azerbaijani biases against Iran are wide - spread. In a recent inter view with a member of the govern ing board of the Popu lar Front, the activ ist spoke of many things but ab so lutely refused to utter the word “Iran”. But whereas Azerbaijanis find littl e posi tive in Persian Iran, they feel compelled to improve rela tion s with the Tehe ran govern ment in order to develop more exten siv e contacts with the millions of their co-nationals south of the Araz River. But an odd situ a tion obtains. Azerbaijanis north of the Araz have many more polit i cal and cultural ambi tions with regard to the South than do Iranian Azerbaijanis toward the North. Nonethe less , it should be empha sized that Azerbaijan’s increas ing ties with Iran are not simply with Iran but perhaps more impor tantly with Irania n Azerbaijan. 230 Mark Saroyan

No one can predict the course of future events, just as no one recog nized the possi bil ity of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of at least fifteen new and inde pend ent states. But given such factors as local Azerbaijani atti tudes toward Persian Iran and the increas ingly aggres sive conduct of Ameri can policy in the re - gion, the tenden cies with Azerbaijani poli tics are more and more clearly defined. Azerbaijan is looking West, and the West is Turke y.