Tashkent-Tokyo: Yangi nashr, 2010, 744 p.
In recent years, the main direction in the study of pre-colonial, colonial and Soviet Central Asia has been the rejection of an exclusively Russian-centric view of local history, associated, of course, with the collapse of the USSR and the emergence of independent national states in the region. Freed from the ideological dictates of Moscow, they seek to rethink their history, rewrite it, including using a variety of texts by local authors, who are often seen as forerunners of independence. This turn coincided with the growing methodological criticism of Eurocentrism in world historiography, and the growing call for a more careful analysis of the voices of all participants in historical interaction, primarily those who had been "silent" for a long time, were in a subordinate and repressed position (see, for example: [Khalid, 2007,p. 15-16; Kemper, 2007). 2007, p. 126-129]). Both of these trends overlap and create a popular genre in the current "Central Asian studies" (Central Asian studies) to expose Soviet science, and also contribute to the discovery of new - non-Russian-language sources.
This turn not only causes a clash between different generations of scientists, who evaluate new fashions in different ways, and different national schools, which defend their special rights to the history of the region, but also creates some tension between different disciplines. The fact is that the Russian-centric view assumed the inclusion of pre-colonial, colonial and Soviet history of Central Asia in "Slavic/Russian" or "Soviet" studies (Russian/Slavic/Soviet studies), which today are turning into "Eurasian" studies (Eurasian studies). Everything that happened in the region was evaluated in terms of what the Russian Empire and the USSR were, and how they first drew Central Asia into their orbit, and then changed it. The same view suggests that the history of the region is studied by specialists with a basic Russian language, who study mainly Russian-language sources. However, the refusal to see Central Asian history only as a projection of Russian-Soviet history and the appeal to local-Turkic -, Iranian - and partly Arabic-language sources puts the region (due to its institutional and disciplinary organization) in the category of "Middle East" or "Islamic" studies [Abashin, 2008, pp. 456-471]. How the cross-country, intergenerational and interdisciplinary dialogue will develop in this situation, how the issues discussed will be formulated, what conceptual fashions and traditions will influence historians - all this is currently in the process of rethinking.
The book under review by the Uzbek author B. M. Babadzhanov largely reflects these trends and largely determines them. According to its content-sources, references, methods of textual analysis, etc. - it is an Islamic or Oriental study. At the same time, however, the author focuses on problems that are considered in one way or another by historians who have written and continue to write about the pre-colonial state of Central Asian society, the course of the conquest of the region by Russian troops, and the consequences of colonization. The combination of these perspectives in the book - very inconvenient and not always conflict-free for representatives of the two disciplines-gives very interesting effects, makes you take a fresh look at old questions, sometimes reformulate them, sometimes discover new topics and raise new questions.
B. M. Babadzhanov analyzes the historical works of authors who lived from about the 1830s to the 1910s and wrote about the history of the Kokand Khanate, one of the three Central Asian states that were formed by the middle of the XIX century. The predecessors who turned to the same works most often tried to compare different texts, identify the most reliable information and thus reconstruct the course of events - their chronology and sequence. At the same time, as the author of the book notes, they willingly or unwittingly loaded these events with interpretations depending on modern ideological preferences. He himself rejects this approach and suggests exploring the motivations, arguments and images that are present in the analyzed works and reflect the views, moods, cultural and ideological preferences of his time. "It is useless and not quite productive to "correct"
or "expose" the historiographer, trying to establish where he was objective and where biased, which parts of his text are "useful" for historical reconstructions, and which remain "fantasies", writes Babadzhanov. - Such a straightforward approach destroys the composition of the source that the author intended... This approach will give us a chance to evaluate the work as a single historical and narrative text" (p. 52).
Warning critics about the " representativeness "of their sources, Babadzhanov emphasizes that Kokand historiographical works not only give an" aristocratic perspective", but also reflect the opinions of different strata of society. One of the chroniclers was a poet, another was a letter writer for the khan, a third came from a professional military family, a fourth was a small merchant of spices and incense, a fifth was a minor official and judge, a sixth was an imam of a mosque, and a seventh came from a noble family. All of them approached the assessment of history from different positions, placed different accents depending on their political preferences, their attitude to a particular ruler, their religious competence, and their attitude to the Russian conquest.
Babadzhanov focuses on ways to legitimize power in the Kokand Khanate, since the works he analyzes in their genre were most often devoted to certain rulers. At the same time, the researcher studies them "through the prism of religious prescriptions", thus making Islam the main object of his book: "I was based on the fact that without a "religious component" it is impossible to adequately understand the sources and the very history of Kokand" (p. 6). Babadzhanov does not hide the fact that he borrowed the idea of studying the methods of legitimation the Swiss orientalist Anke von Kugelgen, who did similar work in relation to Bukhara in the 18th and 19th centuries (Kugelgen, 2004). However, he notes a number of features of the Kokand case and generally touches on a much wider range of topics, speaking not just about legitimation, but also about the nature of the Muslim identity of the local population in general.
The book has a very fragmented and slightly confusing structure. The first part ("A") is called "Kokand History: from Victories to defeats and decline". It consists of three chapters: the first is devoted to the characterization of sources and a brief description of the study of the Kokand Khanate, the second-tells about the geography, the composition of the population and sets out successively the history of the formation of the state, "collecting lands", describes in more detail the rule of two of the most significant figures-Umar Khan and Madali Khan; the third-traces the political crisis, after the military invasion of the Kokand Khanate by Bukhara, the continuous "ethno-political strife" that followed, the change of rulers and the beginning of the expansion of the Russian Empire, which ended under the rule of Khudoyar Khan with the liquidation of the Kokand Khanate in 1875-1876.
The second part ("B") is called " Myths, Power, and Religious Morality." It consists of five chapters: the first one analyzes the ways of legitimizing the ruling Ming dynasty - its fictional Timurid-Genghisid and Seyid (from the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad) origin, ideas about a "righteous ruler", disputes between the rulers of Kokand, Bukhara and Khiva, as well as "legitimizing territorial domination"; the second chapter is devoted to the Muslim justification the rights of the ruler to "subjugate the world", the structure of Kokand society and its aristocratic groups, forms of instruction and criticism of rulers, ideas about predestination, Islamization of legends about the origin of tribes; the third chapter deals with theological assessments of uprisings against the ruler and analyzes in detail discussions about the relationship with the Russian authorities and the first Russian rulers of the region - M. G. Chernyaev and CP The fourth chapter describes how Sharia assessments of morality in Kokand society got along with such phenomena as "male friendship", love, drinking alcohol and other hobbies, as well as, in particular, with local tax practices, and the view of Muslim immigrants from Kokand on the life of the Russian (non-Muslim)population. the fifth chapter deals with the attitude of the Kokand people to holy places, various kinds of cults, superstitions, and rituals.
From this list of topics covered in the book, it can be seen that its content is very diverse and concerns many issues. I will briefly focus on some of the main points and illustrate/demonstrate how the author builds his argument.
According to Babadzhanov, the political regime formed in the Kokand Khanate cannot be reduced to the sole unlimited power of the ruler, who adopted the title "khan"at the beginning of the XIX century. Rather, it was a "post-Mongol form of military-administrative government",
based on nomadic traditions, in which tribal elites enjoyed considerable autonomy and even sought "separatism" (!). In fact, the dynasty of Kokand rulers itself arose as a result of the transformation of a group of such tribes from an autonomous unit (whose suzerain was the Bukhara Khan) into an independent state entity. In one way or another, the Kokand khans had to reckon with these traditions, seek support from tribal elites, giving them positions and privileges in return. At the same time, the Khans tried to limit their "separatism" and reduce their dependence on the tribes. It is in the latter case that Babadzhanov examines in detail two ways of strengthening the Khan's power: the first is its legitimation through the fabrication of noble pedigrees and the adoption of various honorary titles, the second is the legitimation of power through religious rhetoric and references to various Muslim texts and dogmas. The author also draws attention to the fact that both of these methods were necessary for the Kokand rulers not only to consolidate the space they wanted to control, but also to compete with Bukhara and Khiva.
However, Babadzhanov does not reduce the issue of legitimation of power exclusively to Islamic rhetoric and the adoption of honorary titles. He rightly writes that the Kokand khans used to strengthen their positions a whole set of other political and economic tools: the development and irrigation of new lands, the relocation (sometimes forced) of people there, forcing nomads to settle, regulating taxes, developing cities (in particular, the capital - Kokand), strengthening the bureaucratic apparatus (the scientist draws attention to that the latter was copied from Bukhara). In the book, the Kokand Khanate is even referred to a couple of times as a "micro-empire" (!), which allows Babadzhanov to consider purely Islamic topics in the context of a broader study of the social history of the region.
The author is particularly interested in the role of Islam (Muslim rhetoric and legitimation) in political and social processes. Studying different genres of Muslim criticism and apologetics, he comes to the conclusion that the reference to Islam has always been subordinated to personal or group interests, which a particular historian or chronicler consciously or unconsciously expressed. Muslim self-consciousness adapted to real attitudes and desires, easily coexisted with a variety of" violations "and"deviations".
Among the many examples given in the book, I will mention the case of Madali Khan, who, after the death of his father, married his stepmother, forcing local theologians to give permission for this act (contrary to the explicit prohibition of such marriage in Muslim laws). The marriage provoked sharp criticism from various political opponents, and as a result, the Bukhara Emir Nasrullah, having obtained its condemnation from his lawyers, used the latter as a pretext for invading the Kokand Khanate (15 years after the marriage!) "with all the disastrous consequences that followed, as mentioned above.
The author also touches on such a sensitive topic as same-sex sexual drives. Historians know that in Russian-language literature, this topic was used to prove the immorality of local orders and the superiority of Christian morality (which, however, also easily got along with homosexuality). Babadzhanov shows by various examples that the Kokand people had their own tradition of writing about this topic - and not only critical and judgmental.
A separate issue that the researcher focuses on is how to study Islam. He's writing: "It is more important for researchers (whether they are Islamic scholars, historians or ethnographers) to make more correct judgments and draw adequate conclusions, to understand what functions these practices and rituals performed, who needed them, who interfered with them, and finally, why they survived or survived, perhaps acquiring other forms... This means that it is not entirely correct to" take out " such actions outside of Islam (even if they have become the subject of criticism by some theologians). Regardless of the assessment of their "correctness" and "incorrectness" from the point of view of "internal" / theological views, they were and remain within the framework of Islam, taking into account its local and intra-confessional forms, the variety of assessments of theologians, etc. The problem is much more complex and deeper, and this, by the way, was obvious to the Muslim theologians themselves ("a view from within"), who, despite all the harsh criticism of the described acts related to the permanent fetishization of cult practice, were still much more cautious in their assessments than some modern researchers" (p. 655).
If there have always been disputes within the Islamic community about what can be considered Muslim and what should not be, then the researcher faces a difficult question - how to describe it.
islam. The former Soviet (and Sovietological) approach was based on the fact that a strict distinction was made between the actual Islamic elements and elements that have a pre-Islamic and non-Islamic origin. This gave rise to different dichotomous models - "dogmatic/popular", "fundamentalist/traditionalist", "official/unofficial". Babadzhanov rejects this approach and suggests considering Islam itself as a complex social and discursive space in which a variety of groups and interpretations coexist [DeWeese, 2002, p. 298-330]. Neither theologian nor scholar has a monopoly on drawing the boundaries of "correct" Islam. We can agree with this. But with one caveat: the question of the "correctness" of Islam did not arise in the academic community, but-in its various manifestations and conflicts-in society itself. This question is important for people, because it seems to allow them to understand and design their social and cultural space.
Calling his book a "modest step", Babadzhanov is actually undertaking a thorough revision of all existing literature on Kokand (rightly noting that these studies themselves are few and sometimes very outdated). Raising a whole range of questions about the history of the region, discussing different points of view and offering his own model of explanation, Babadzhanov does not confine himself exclusively to the topic of Islamic studies, but seeks to understand how Central Asian society was organized on the eve of the Russian conquest and what transformations took place in it as a result of this. Sometimes the questions that the author poses and tries to solve are broader than the source base on which his research is based. To answer these questions, one should certainly refer to Khan's labels, waqf documents, genealogies, poetry, epigraphy, folklore, and, of course, to Russian and Chinese documents. However, the author is not able to embrace the immensity. Rather, it is a blueprint for future research and discussion on issues raised in the peer-reviewed paper.
list of literature
Abashin S. N. Reflections on "Central Asia as part of the Russian Empire" - Ab Imperio. 2008. N4.
Kugelgen A. von. Legitimation of the Central Asian Mangit dynasty in the works of their historians (XVIII-XIX centuries). Almaty, 2004.
DeWeese D. Islam and the Legacy of Sovietology: a Review Essay on Yaacov Ro'i's 'Islam in the Soviet Union' - Journal of Islamic Studies. 2002. Vol. 13. No. 3.
Kemper M. Review of Robert D. Crews. For Prophet and Tsar: Islam and Empire in Russia and Central Asia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006) - Welt des Islams. 2007. Vol. 47. N 1.
Khalid A. Tolerating Islam - London Review of Books. 2007. Vol. 29. N. 10.
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