Modern Uzebks: From the 14th Century to the Present : A Cultural History (Hoover Institution Press Publication) [Hardcover]

Edward A. Allworth (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1990 | Series: Hoover Institution Press Publication

In this study of the modern Uzbeks, Professor Edward A. Allworth provides a comprehensive and authoritative survey of an important group of Muslim people who live within the boundaries of the Soviet Union. After the Russians and the Ukranians, the Uzbeks are the largest ethnic group in the Soviet Union and the strongest of a number of Muslim communities that populate the vast region of Central Asia. Although he concentrates especially on the imperial Russian and Soviet periods of history, the author also gives earlier periods of Uzbek history solid scholarly assessment. Meticulously analyzed are Uzbek relations with their foreign rulers, the Uzbek response to Russification and modernization, and the ethnic and religous issues in Uzbek society. Also included is a critique of Soviet historiography and the underlying philosophical and ideological commitments that have shaped the study of history in the Soviet Union. Invaluable to scholars is the survey and assessment of Uzbek documents in Turkish, European, and American depositiories.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 424 pages
• Publisher: Hoover Inst Pr (July 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0817987312
• ISBN-13: 978-0817987312
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,482,381 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Scholarly History/Ethnography, May 3, 2009

By 

Suchos - See all my reviews

This review is from: MODERN UZBEKS (HOOVER INST PRESS PUBLICATION) (Paperback)

This is primarily an ethnography that addresses the changing aspects of Uzbek group identity from its emergence in the 15th Century until shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The author necessarily includes some historiographic discussion, but the book cannot simply be described as a straightforward history. There is no attempt to lay out a linear chronology that would be helpful for a beginner or even intermediate-level student.

Accordingly, I give a qualified recommendation for the book. If you have advanced background in Central Asia, and preferably some knowledge of Russian and/or Uzbek, the author's command of his sources is extremely useful. I found his approach to literary sources and intellectual movements as evidence of group identity fascinating and enlightening. Although the material is out of date (it was published in 1990, before the independence of modern Uzbekistan), it has proven prescient in its discussion of charismatic strongmen as a rallying-point for social identification -- for better or for worse. My primary complaint with the scholarship is that too many of the author's assertions that should have been foot-noted are not, making his conclusions untestable. And as Central Asia opens up in the wake of the Soviet collapse, increased access to sources will probably undermine some of Allworth's data.

For a beginner, the book is probably worthless, and possibly unfinishable. The writing is not elegant or easy. The author assumes too much familiarity with historical figures, and with archaic geographical terms (like Bactria, Sogdiana and the Qipchaq plains) which are not defined and which do not appear on modern maps. An undergraduate-level student will find the sources, very few of which are in English, almost totally worthless.

I rate this book as highly as I do because I doubt many beginners will bother to pick up such a thick book on such an obscure topic. Advanced readers should find it a treasure-trove of ethnographic information on an ethnic group that will play an increasingly large role in regional events.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "When is an Uzbek not an Uzbek ?", March 15, 2008

By 

Robert S. Newman "Bob Newman" (Marblehead, Massachusetts USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: MODERN UZBEKS (HOOVER INST PRESS PUBLICATION) (Paperback)

As empires break, new states often emerge. In the last 150 years, the basis for such new states has been mainly nationalism. But in Africa, to take the main example, the colonial powers carved out new entities on the basis of their ability to reach or control African regions. More often than not, they divided peoples and linguistic groups, creating totally artificial nations that ran counter to all traditional polities. What happened in Central Asia in the 1920s was another version of that process. Allworth has written a masterly work on aspects of Central Asian culture and--- though he doesn't often emphasize it---on what exactly can be called "Uzbek" and why. Erudite and full of careful, wide-ranging research, Allworth's book is not an easy read, full of thousands of names, and arcane details of Central Asian history. He traces the arrival of so-called Uzbeks in southern Central Asia to the start of the 15th century. They came from two directions as two separate groups and the designation "Uzbek" may have been an uncomplimentary term used by those whose lands they invaded. The name certainly never appeared in the long history of civilization in the region before that. The "Uzbeks" of that time deposed the Timurids, descendants of the famous Timur (Tamerlane). Allworth does not pursue a political history, but rather a cultural one, writing on such topics as values, religion, leadership, diplomacy, poetry, and education. He follows Central Asian civilization through the decline of the 1600s, a revival in the 1700s, decay in the first half of the 1800s, and then the Russian conquest. All this takes up the first third of the book. The Russians found a vast region--Muslim, full of clan/tribal associations, a conglomeration of city, farm, and nomadic peoples, speaking many dialects of a Turkic language, which in its literary form (though few were literate) was known as Turki. The author has almost nothing to say about Persian-speaking Tajiks, but notes that many of them spoke Turki as well.

As in most parts of Asia and Africa, the impact of the West touched off reform movements. Recognizing that gaining freedom would be a matter of using Western institutions, education, and technology against the colonialists, people tried to change their traditional culture from the inside. In Central Asia, this took place under the leadership of the Jadid movement, opposed by both the Russians and the traditionalists among the Muslim population. Russia set up a large province called "Turkistan" as well as maintaining two client states---Bukhara and Khwarazm. Literature, newspapers, education, foreign contacts, Jadid activists and writers--Allworth looks at all these in his detailed analysis of Central Asian cultural history between 1865 and 1917.

Soon after the Bolshevik Revolution, Central Asia was wracked by violent struggle and hunger. Allworth mentions these in passing, but concentrates more on how and why the new Communist leaders decided to divide Central Asia and create separate nations. For centuries, Central Asians had regarded themselves as Muslims, subjects of such and such ruler, and later as Turkistanis. There were no nationalities, no ethnic labels as such, though tribal identification had resonance. There was no such thing as specifically Uzbek literature until 1922 ! People did not identify themselves as Uzbeks. Even outsiders commonly used the word "Sart" to refer to the dwellers of southern Central Asia. "The lack of strong monoethnic identity particularly retarded the emergence of a specifically `Uzbek' culture and education in modern times." Allworth provides "reliable, firsthand proof that as late as the start of the 1920s, no unified, self-confident Uzbek aggregate existed." Soviet bureaucrats chose several subgroups from the Turkistani whole and declared them to be nationalities. After that, the process inevitably turned to creating "languages" and "national cultures" for these new "nationalities", Eventually, after the creation of an Uzbekistan whose inhabitants did not want it, (protesters suffered the usual fate of dissidents under Stalin---those who wanted a unified Turkistan were condemned as "nationalists" ! A fine piece of Orwellism.), Soviet scholars created an Uzbek history with national heroes, some of whom were Timurids deposed and killed by the original Uzbeks back in the 15th century ! The process was even more cynical and destructive than what I have described. Two-thirds of the book covers this whole creation of a reluctant nation. The text comes to an end before the breakup of the Soviet Union. Based on what Allworth has written, I would venture to say that the iron-fisted rule of Karimov continues to keep people from considering any other type of state. Anything less might lead to chaos and then an entirely new picture of Central Asia, certainly endangering Soviet types like him. Will the Soviet creations stand the test of time or will Central Asia reshape itself in future ? If you want to think about this problem, you must read THE MODERN UZBEKS. It will surely remain the foremost book on the subject for many years to come.