Pages from the Periphery: Turkmen literacy at the intersection of Islam and socialism Victoria Clement Assistant Professor, Western Carolina University [email protected] Eurasian Empire: Literary, Historical, and Political Responses to Russian Rule in the Twentieth Century Havighurst Center for Russian & Post-Soviet Studies Annual International Young Researchers Conference, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, October 26-28, 2006 Organizers: Venelin Ganev and Michael Rouland Abstract: Turkmen literati entered the 20th century with a focus on popular literacy that Turks throughout the Russian and Ottoman empires had been grappling with for nearly a century. The intellectual and social “struggles” (müjadele) of reformers (jadids) met at the intersection of the Muslim community’s (umma) experience with modernity and the advent of political upheaval in the transition from the Russian empire to the Soviet Union. When these same Turkmen elite encountered Soviet central policy in the 1920s, they approached local concerns about culture and identity in a manner that adapted to the socialist framework, while building upon their earlier initiatives. Essentially, they negotiated a space for their local concerns within central state policy. Jadidism was an important pre-revolutionary influence on Turkmen responses to empire, modernity, and later socialism. 2 In the late nineteenth century, a small group of educated Turkmen sought to bring their cultural and religious heritage in accord with modernity through “new methods” of education and alphabet reform. Using the term müjadele—“struggle” this handful of men identified “enlightenment” (bilim) as the key to modernizing the Turkmen community. Literati such as Molladurdu Nazimi wrote poetry that employed language typical of this genre, specifically warning against illiteracy, which he equated with “ignorance.” Intelligence flows from proper learning, but For those who can not read, misfortune will increase Do not let your life pass in ignorance, without making an effort School is the healing remedy for long suffering.1 The Russian empire encouraged enlightenment projects in many of her provincial centers. Inseparable from the pursuit of enlightenment was the idea that a literate society would be able to possess the skills to acquire modernity.2 This study explores the response of some Turkmen intellectuals to this idea that popular literacy was a key to modernity. While the imperial experience was critical to the Turkmen experience, we do not want to limit our understanding of Turkmen undertakings to that of “response” to Russia. A multitude of influences swept through Turkmen lands. While noting Russia’s policies in Muslim lands, we must also recognize that influences from around the Muslim world were traveling throughout the empire. Moreover, as with so many aspects of the imperial experience, the intellectual and social struggles of progressive Muslims carried 1 Molldurdu Nazymi, “Okuw,” Ruzname-i Mavera-i Bahr-i Hazar, 27 November 1915, p. 2. 2 Ben Eklof, Russian Peasant Schools: Officialdom, Village Culture, and Popular Pedagogy, 1861-1914 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986); Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Commnications and Cultural Transformations in Early-Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979); Don Yaroshvski, Empire and Citizenship,” in Brower and Lazzerini, 1997, pp. 58- 79. 3 over into the twentieth century and came to inform Soviet Turkmens’ twentieth century pursuit of “enlightenment”.3 Education in 19th century Russian Central Asia In the nineteenth century, growing dissatisfaction with the formal education available in Central Asia—traditional Islamic schools, mekteb (elementary) and medrese (secondary), and Russian sponsored tuzemnye (native) schools—prompted activists throughout the Muslim world to advocate “new methods” of education.4 The term jadid, deriving from the Arabic “usul-i jadid”, describes individuals who wished to reform Islamic cultural and social institutions through a “new” [jadid] “method” [usul] “of” [i] teaching and socialization in western-style classrooms. Inherent in this social transformation was a challenge to tradition; indeed, the very experience made the concept of tradition possible. It was the social structure and the traditional elite’s hold on power they challenged, not Islam itself. Jadids, as these reformers wished to maintain Muslim heritage and Turkmens’ group identity, but sought ways to improve society in order to meet the demands of the changing world. Though these Turkmen wished to modernize society and borrow social constructs from other cultures—such as universal education and methods of schooling— they sought to preserve their ethno-religious heritage. Jadids prescribed enlightenment— literacy—as the cure to the social sickness they identified among the people. 3 In modern Türkmen, the term “täzeçiler” is used more than the Arabic term “jadid,” “ziyalilar” (enlightened ones), or more common throughout Turkestan “taraqqiparwar” (proponents of progress). See Khalid, 1998, pp. 93, 107-08. 4 Adebb Khalid, The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), p. 89; Hasan Kırımlı, National Movements and National Identity among the Crimean Tatars (1905-1916) (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996), Edward J. Lazzerini, “Local Accommodation and Resistance to Colonialism in Nineteenth-Century Crimea,” in Lazzerini and Brower, Russia’s Orient: Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700-1917 (Blomington: Indiana University Press, 1997). 4 Poetry held a special place and powerful place in Turco-Islamic culture. It was thus an appropriate format for transmitting ideas. In his poetry, Muhammetgylyç Biçare (Nizami) (1885-1922), himself educated in a Turkmen-jadid mekteb, echoed Atabaýew’s approach. He used the traditional format of poetry to link the question of education with traditional values and general social needs. Hey friends, if you graduate from the Turkmen mekteb No matter how much torment you suffer, in the end you will be impoverished The imam holds the greatest prestige in the mosque, No matter how much torment you suffer, in the end you will be impoverished.5 Durdu Gylyç and Molla Murt expressed like concerns in poetry throughout the 1910s and 1920s. Berdi Kerbabaew likewise showed that Turkmen “backwardness” could be ameliorated with the new method. Other works, usually satirical, specifically identified the Turkmen social problems as created by the unethical, bribe-taking puppets of the Tsarist local government. These authors did not sign their works however. In fear of reprisal, they adopted pseudonyms.6 Activist Muslims consisted of both cultural intellectuals and reform-minded educators from the Islamic realm of teaching.7 Jadid proposals aimed to pull education into a middle space between religious-based instruction and the demands of the secular modern world without rejecting their Muslim identity. While jadids separated physical 5 Transcribed in Söýegow, 1998, p. 118. 6 Gylyc’s “Jykyr,” “Eşekli,” and “Çatma” came out in the 1910s. Molla Murt’s “Ýaraşmaz,” and “Telpekden” in 1929. Kerbabayew’s “Täze Tama Ýol Çekjek” in 1926. The latter set included Molla Murt’s Meňli Han” (1910); “Emir we Zelli Dastan” (1915) and Gör Molla’s “Dana kavgasy,” Söýegow, 1998, p. 114. 7 Randi Deguilhem, “A Revolution in Learning? The Islamic Contribution to the Ottoman State Schools: Examples from the Syrian Provinces,” International Congress on Learning and Education in the Ottoman World, (Istanbul: Research Centre for Islamic History, Art, and Culture, 2001), pp. 285-295. 5 spaces of learning and worship (i.e., classrooms and mosques), they merged epistemological spaces. Maktabs: Traditional Islamic Education In a world where literacy was becoming the first marker of modernity, progressive Turks perceived traditional Turkistani education to be “deficient.”8 Tatars and Uzbeks had spearheaded social and educational reforms while adopting modern Western styles of theater, publishing, or education via the Russian colonial system. They provided models for the Turkmen to follow, encouraging them to preserve their religious and ethnic identity, while engaging facets of modern life. Turkmen then targeted the maktab as arena in which to initiate their own reforms. Maktabs as elementary schools and madrssas as secondary schools aimed to impart an Islamic education or terbiýe (upbringing/education) that schooled children in the basic principles of Islamic education and social relations. Elementary school teachers were members of the clergy, who the community recognized as educated men: mollas, ishans, and ahuns.9 Clergy did not receive training in pedagogy as later professional teachers would. In addition to their duties in the maktab, they were responsible for performing life-cycle rituals at weddings, funerals, births, and holidays. When studying with a teacher, students sat on the floor in a half-circle with the instructor in the center. In this configuration, an instructor’s taýak or stick could reach 8 Muratgeldi Söyegov, Türkmen Edbiyatında Ceditçilik Dönemi hakkında Bazı Tesbitler ve Yeni Malumatlar,” bilig, 7, güz, 1998, p. 112. Ottomans spoke of reforming schools, and teaching literacy, as early as the 1840s, but did not shift the responsibility for elementary education from the şeyh ül-Islam to the minster of education until 1914. Carter Vaughn Findley, Ottoman Civil Officialdom: A Social History (Princeton: Princeton University