Cultural Construction in the Soviet Empire (HIS315 F20)

The necessity of cultural reform in Central Asia by Soviet policy was apparent to administrators was obvious even as the first entered the region. The key point of the cultural conflict between the indigenous groups and Soviet officials was in the policy of Hujum. Hujum much like other policies was ripe with Soviet bureaucratic failures and ineffective failures which came to a head in the Chust affair. The affair demonstrated that the lack of Soviet executive control and meant that officials could not apply policy effectively enough for the policy to succeed. This lead to a failure of the policy overall despite official reports speaking of the absolute success of the program. For Jahon Obidova however Hujum worked to produce the exact the result Soviets hoped for. An ardent Communist that held party ideas above those that her culture gave her. “You said according to sharia exploitation was forbidden, and all Muslims should live in conditions of equality. So then why do you yourself own about 70 percent of the land?” pg 312. She used the communist infrastructure to advance far beyond the situation she found herself in. She then used her platform to promote women’s rights in the region.

While Soviet application of the Hujum was inadequate and ended with many woman who deveiled, reveiling. There is still the more important question of if this program was properly reported on and administered effectively, whether this policy would have been to the legitimate benefit of the majority of women in the region? The question of forced unveiling is a part of the policy, there is also equality under law which was a part of the program. Is forced legal reform as much a violation of Islamic culture as forced unveiling? Is forced unveiling a legitimate way to promote women’s rights? Does Jahon stand as an example of what a woman should do to advance herself and other women or did she betray her people to get ahead? Can her situation be attributed to other woman at that time?

Jahon Obidova was an extremely impressive story within the Soviet Union that was looked highly upon by Soviet officials.” Soviet Accounts, foreigner’s observations, and Jahon Obidova’s own words express the wonder that someone born into her circumstances was able to rise to such prominence; and all credited this both to Obidova’s abilities and to the Communists Party’s policy of drawing women into activism.”( Page 314) Obidova was the success story and picture that came out of Uzbekistan who rose from the ground up. I feel that Jahon was a vital role in the fight for women in Central Asia at the time. Besides, Abidova in my eyes was the starting point for Women’s rights in the Soviet Union. I wonder as to what other roles could have Obidova played also for the Soviet Union? Foremost, was the Soviet Union successful with the mission of trying to get Jahon to get other women to modernize and be politically active?

In chapter 4 of Veiled Empire, the author covers the reactions of not only the Uzbeks but the soviet writers who documented the episode. Interestingly, the public reports of how the Uzbeks and Soviets had clashed over the hujum and how they are drastically different compared to the statements made by the OGPU (soviet secret police). Many discrepancies are uncovered, particularly regarding what had happened following the arrest of the eight people involved in the death of a local police officer. What we find is ” a relatively unvarnished view of how the party’s ill-advised actions helped create the crowd that grew steadily in size and hostility, and ultimately provoked violent attacks on Soviet personnel and property” (Northrop, 146). This was interesting because I feel we have rarely heard of the Soviets admitting their mistakes or at least taking accountability for what followed. What didn’t surprise me was how the Soviets had made such reports secretly and then chose not to reconcile their errors. Instead, a secret police report shared how after the arrest of the eight protestors, a contingent investigation called for the naming of 127 participants in the violence of the episode.

Throughout chapters 4&5 of Doug Northop’s Veiled Empire: , narrativization was used as a propaganda tool to spread misinformation about the hujum by the Soviet Union. The hujum was intended to dissolve gender inequality; specifically to empower Uzbek Muslim women and share with them the same respect and liberties their male counterparts had. However, there was a pattern of reports being written to communicate mass involvement of Uzbek Muslims at public events, Uzbek female participation of public unveilings, and a general “ upbeat tone” (Northop 167) of the crowd during these events. The language, cultural, and religious barriers set  between the Soviet power and Uzbekistan inflicted a struggle for the Soviet government to affectively end the oppression of Uzbek Muslim women. To me, the Soviet’s actions of trying to impose their “enlightened” ways of thinking sound way to similar to their attempts of correcting the “enthic backwardness” other ethnic groups within Russia were ‘plagued’ with. The idea of unveiling women as a step towards socialism seemed like a disguise for a movement towards Soviet assimilation. Questions I conjured during reading this piece are:

1. How do gender roles in the Uzbek culture influence classism? Do you think the hujum erupted a social divide within the Uzbek culture or just exploited a divide that was already there?
2. Do you think the lack of Soviet protection for women during these “liberation” movements contributed to the failure of the hujum?
3. Mentioned at the bottom of page 166, the Jadids were “…marginalized, discredited, and written out the story” of the Soviet / “party activist” written perspective of the hujum. Why do you think that is when before the Jadid and Soviet government shared similar ideologies?
4. What roles do colonialism and nationalism play in the relationship of the Soviet government and the Uzbek?

Last week, we talked a lot about how the western gaze was applicable to the Soviet’s vision of the veiled Uzbek women. I feel like we really focused on the reported health issues associated with the veil, but I am not sure if we talked about the inherently patriarchal structures at play. There are some points of validity to the claims that women were being oppressed; we see that with the Jahon Obidova story.

As the 13-year-old-fourth-bride to a 65 year old man, Jahon was subjected to horrifying circumstances: “I was not only his slave, without contradiction, silent, obedient, but also the slave of his wives, his children, who repaid all my service daily with kicks, curses, and abuse, because I was still a child who could not stand up to herself, and besides, I was from a poor family” (310).

However, I want to play devil’s advocate and say maybe that this account is the work of Soviet propaganda? I say this because the story fits the party-line a little too well. Also, the citation provided by Marianne Kamp is suspicious. The quote above is cited to her fifth footnote: a book published in 1938 … I want to specify that I am NOT supporting the idea that Jahon did not experience these things, but instead I might suggest that she was encouraged to talk about her experience in a very particular way. Thoughts?

Anyway, I think Jahon’s story further complicates our assessment of the USSR’s cultural programs because she is a success story. Their programs provided her with opportunities that she would not have had.

After analyzing numerous attempts at which the Soviet Union has tried to specifically define distinct nationalities, Northrop immediately points to the dilemma they create for themselves instead. The Soviet Union had done so by first insulting the Uzbeks in terms of their capabilities of modernization, then forcing them to change their society specifically through their women (Northrop, 34).

Was the fact that Central Asia was always seen as timeless and unchanging the perfect set up for the Soviet Union to true and push for its assimilation in hopes of using its lasting condition as a prize form of national identity in which they could pursue in showcasing as they had done with the people of the Kresy or briefly with the Romani? In Northrop’s opinion, the answer is yes, and this was evident by how Russian writers had painted ethnographic pictures of Primitive Central Asians which may have helped to bolster Russia’s position among the enlightened nations (Northrop, 37). Furthermore, Northrop explains that Central Asia and its women provided Russia with a visible civilizing mission (Ibid). Once again we the Soviet Union intervening in a long-lived traditional way of life and snatching their self-proclaimed duty of changing it, all the while exuding masculine opinion and power in justifying doing so.

Another trend that can be seen is that the Russian writers (once the Bolsheviks took control in 1917) are that they had very little background knowledge of the peoples in which they were writing about, which in this case is unique with the Muslim faith and the fact that few of the Russian writers were aware of its significance. Regardless, many of the early Russians writers placed the Muslim faith at the root of the issues they encountered, or as Northrop wittingly alludes to Marx by saying that “barbaric” practices could be easily connected to Islam, the opiate of the Muslim people (Northrop, 40).

When reading chapter 1, I find it very interesting on the issue on how to approach women’s roles in the Soviet Union in particularly in Central Asia. Woman from different groups and other backgrounds questioned on how woman should act and and how it contradicts with other cultures within the soviet Union Union. ” With these regional and historical variations … indigenous leftists and socialists.” Pages 45-46 How can the Soviet Union address this matter equally too other all groups of woman and men who may disagree with each other? In addition, what issue does this pose with other cultures and groups within the regime and how will they react when a disagreement works?

Chapter 2 is all about the Soviet attacks against a centuries old tradition. The chapter dives into the tactics the Soviet government used to accomplish this goal. So why start a war against veils? It is abundantly clear that this is not something that can be done overnight. Even the Bolshevik analyst quotes at the start of the chapter acknowledges that it is not reasonable to expect this tradition to disappear quickly. This is yet another instance of the Soviet government acting in its own best interest, but is this a goal too ambitious to achieve? What are some of the issues the Soviet government encountered along the way? What did the veils represent for Uzbek women? These are just some questions to think about as we begin our discussion. 

Northrop describes in Chapter 1 the view European Imperialists had on Central Asia. Northrop uses a quote from Hungarian scholar Arminius Vambery to describe this, “‘In a country where pillage and murder, anarchy and lawlessness, are the rule, not the exception, a sovereign has to maintain his authority by inspiring his subjects with the utmost dread and almost superstitious terror for his person…'” (page 35). It seems as though early soviets had a similar disdain for Uzbek culture. Northrop describes the soviet perspective, writing “If anyone in Central Asia had to change, it was clear who it would be: European practices were the (modern) model to which (backward, primitive) Uzbeks had to adjust” (page 59). Northrop then goes on the explain the reasons for this view, describing the terrible effects poor hygiene and isolation in harems has on the women of the area and citing a study that found “more than 45% of local women (9,772 of 21,626) to be seriously ill” (page 61). So, my question is, from the soviet point of view, is there an obligation to try to change the culture (if so to what extent) or would that be somewhat imperialistic and imposing their culture on a less developed people?

In the first Chapter of Veiled Empire, we are repeatedly supplied examples of how Uzbek women were surveyed and measured as part of Soviet nationalization policy. I found these “scientific” accounts of national identification particularly uncomfortable and invasive. I would like to us to think about the quote above and how this “method” (emphasis on scare quotes) is designed colonizing, patriarchal frame of reference. What are we supposed to make of this historical record? Do you think nationalization classification would have ever looked like this in the Kresy? Did we see these types of measurements on the other side of the empire?