Central Asia

Adrien Fauve (University of Paris-Sud), Alima Bissenova (Nazarbayev University) and Ed Schatz (University of Toronto) review Mateusz Laszczkowski's 'City of the Future': Built Space, Modernity and Urban Change in Astana, with a response by the author.

THE COURSE NAMED AS ' POLITICS IN CENTRAL ASIA AND CAUCASUS ' IS INCLUDED IN THE UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM OF THE ANADOLU UNIVERSITY , FACULTY OF DISTANCE LEARNING - INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS DEPARTMENT. THIS CHAPTER OF THE BOOK PREPARED FOR THIS COURSE  AS 7TH PART. IN ITS UNIT, THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION'S ENERGY POLICIES ON ENERGY RAW MATERIALS AND EXISTING ENERGY RESOURCES IN THE REGION; THE DOCTRINES FRAMEWORK UNDER WHICH RUSSIA FORMS NATIONAL AND REGIONAL 'ENERGY COOPERATION', ESPECIALLY THE EUROPEAN UNION(EU); THE CONSEQUENCES OF EUROPEAN AND ASIAN COOPERATION BASED ON RUSSIA'S' NEW INTERNATIONALISM ' APPROACH; THE TEXT AND EVALUATION OF RUSSIA'S CHANGING FOREIGN POLICY ARE INCLUDED.
AÖF - ULUSLARARASI İLİŞKİLER LİSANS PROGRAMINDA YER ALAN 'ORTA ASYA VE KAFKASLARDA SİYASET' DERSİNİN 7. ÜNİTESİNDE, RUSYA FEDERASYONUNUN BÖLGEDEKİ ENERJİ HAMMADDELERİ VE MEVCUT ENERJİ KAYNAKLARI ÜZERİNDEKİ ENERJİ POLİTİKALARI; RUSYA'NIN BAŞTA AVRUPA BİRLİĞİ(AB) OLMAK ÜZERE ULUSAL,BÖLGESEL 'ENERJİ İŞBİRLİĞİ'Nİ OLUŞTURDUĞU DOKTRİNLER ÇERÇEVESİ; RUSYA'NIN 'YENİ ULUSLARARASICILIK' YAKLAŞIMINDAN YOLA ÇIKARAK AVRUPA VE ASYA İŞBİRLİKLERİNİN SONUÇLARI; RUSYA'NIN DEĞİŞEN DIŞ POLİTİKASI'NA AİT METİN VE DEĞERLENDİRİLMESİ YER ALMAKTADIR.

In the middle of the 20th century the texts of two waqf documents, drawn up in the 11th century in Arabic in Samarḳand, were discovered, which are of great significance for studying the history and culture of Central Asia of the Ḳarakhanid period. One of them was drawn up for madrasa, and the second for the hospital in Samarḳand, which were donated for public use as a charitable donation by the Ḳarakhanid ruler of Samarḳand Ṭamghādj Bughrā Khān (ruled in 444-460/1052-1068) in the month of Radjab 458/June 1066. The originals of these two documents have not reached us, but their text was included in some works on jurisprudence by medieval jurists. Many manuscripts of these works, containing copies of these two documents, are kept in various manuscript collections of the world. In the Shāh-i Zinda complex at the Afrāsiyāb settlement in Samarḳand, the remains of a monumental building were excavated, which were identified with the madrasa of Ṭamghādj Bughrā Khān. The present book consists of a critical edition of two waqf documents of Ṭamghādj Bughrā Khān, a Russian translation and a detailed historical-geographical and archaeological-topographic commentary with the involvement of data from archaeological and toponymical studies.

Few aspects of the 1916 Central Asian revolt are more controversial than the measures taken by the Russian imperial authorities for its suppression. This article explores the punitive expeditions and settler vigilante violence against the Kyrgyz population of Semirech'e during and after the revolt, and the proposals to separate Kyrgyz and settlers by deporting the latter from the Issyk-Kul region and the Chu Valley to the mountains around Naryn. It argues that these persisted under the Provisional Government and into the early years of Bolshevik rule.

The fourteen chapters in this book are the selected proceedings of the 6th Language & Development Conference which was held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in 2003 with the theme 'Linguistic Challenges to National Development and International Cooperation'. The chapters discuss language policy issues in Azerbaijan, India, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Uzbekistan and elsewhere.

PhD Thesis
Central Asian crucible steel has been neglected in the scholarly literature in favour of Indian/Sri Lankan crucible steel (commonly called wootz). This is primarily because during the last few centuries Europeans frequently traded by sea, rather than via the overland route through Central Asia, with India and Sri Lanka where crucible steel was still being produced. The consequence of this was the assumption that the majority of crucible steel in Central Asia and the Middle East was imported from India and Sri Lanka. Moreover, the Central Asian crucible steel process is thought by many to be merely a variation of the Indian/Sri Lankan process. On the contrary, recently excavated archaeological evidence indicates that crucible steel was produced for centuries by a distinct process in various locations in Central Asia. This dissertation presents the first detailed investigation of crucible steel in Central Asia. The characteristics of Central Asian crucible steel production were primarily determined by laboratory analyses of archaeometallurgical remains excavated from an early Islamic (9th-10th century AD) crucible steel workshop from Merv, Turkmenistan. A selection of crucible steel production remains from Medieval Uzbekistan was also examined. Furthermore, fifty-seven blades from three locations in Central Asia: Kislovodsk Basin, Upper Kuban River Region, and around the Aral Sea, were examined using metallographic analyses. The analyses identified four crucible steel blades, one of which may be the earliest known example of Damascus steel. The laboratory analyses supports early textual accounts of the use of crucible steel in Persia/Central Asia in addition to India, and the presence of blades with a Damascus pattern. The results were compared to ethnographic reports, historical accounts, archaeological evidence, and replication experiments related to the production of crucible steel and Damascus steel blades. The results of the investigation clearly demonstrate the use of crucible steel in Central Asia for at least the past 1,500 years, and that it was being produced there for at least as long as it was produced in India and Sri Lanka.

Title in Italian: "La letteratura tagica fra riforme e rivoluzioni (1870-1954). Con uno studio preliminare delle Ëddoštho [Memorie] di Sadriddin Ajnī e appendici bibliografiche"

The thesis focuses on the period of reforms and revolutions the Tajik intellectuals and men of letters experienced in the field of culture and literature from the second half of the 19th century, when Tsarist Russia penetrated in Turkestan, to the first Soviet decades (1870-1954).
In 1870, Ahmad Donish, one of the first reformers in the history of Modern Tajik literature, wrote the Risola dar nazmi tamaddun va taovun [Treatise on the organization and regulation of common decency], trying to persuade the emir of Bukhara of the need of reforms.
In 1954, Sadriddin Ayni, the author commonly regarded as the founder of Soviet Tajik literature, died of disease. His final major work, Yoddoshtho [Reminiscences; 1948-1954, uncompleted], to which a preliminary study is devoted to in this thesis, is a collection of lively short-stories where the author describes his childhood spent in two villages near Bukhara, his youth and schooldays in Bukhara city between 1882 and 1903, also depicting the social and economic situation of the Emirate with particular reference to the lowest social strata (petty farmers and craftsmen) living there.
The period under consideration in this thesis also marked the transition from the manuscript era to the periodical press age.
The reformers of the first two decades of the 20th century, the Jadids, turned newspapers and journals into an instrument of protest against the social, cultural, and spiritual degradation of the Bukhara Emirate. In the 1920s, magazines became a platform for the expression of a nascent Tajik nationalism, as in those years Tajikistan, rather than a Federal Republic of the Soviet Union, was an Autonomous Region within the Republic of Uzbekistan. Moreover, Soviet magazines became the first editorial space for the spreading of the Tajik realistic prose, since during the 1920s and the 1930s Tajik tales and novels were first published there in serial form, later in book form."

On Thursday 1, Friday 2, and Saturday 3 December 2022, the University of Bergamo, will host the annual conference of the Italian Association for the study of Central Asia and the Caucasus (Asiac). Please find attached the Call for Papers with all relevant information

Our music contains almost all the aspects of our national culture. The need for the studies of common terminology in order to interpret our music through more extensive and meaningful expressions is recognized through the problems. If common musical terminology is designated, the musical misconception between Anatolian Turkish music and other Turkic music might be partially resolved in order to settle these problems. We assume that like in other fields, introducing words supporting common musical terminology among Turkic people will not only solve the problems but also constitute a useful source for learning regional differences in music.
This article discusses common musicological problems between the term “ashula” and “mani” basing on the relationship, similarity and current functioning of the two terms. These two genres, based on the verse types “aruz” and “parmak” and sung with particular melody types (makam),  have enriched their sources while completing their development with the time. These developments led to association of these genres with similar kinds or their differentiation. Whereas had the commonality of expressions been maintained since past, the time would not have been lost for these disputes and more novelties would have been observed instead. These problems are observed not only between the terms “ashule” and “mani”. The same is true for many terms used today. In conclusion, we will examine the term “ashula” equivalent of the Anatolian term “mani”, in terms of its prevalence within the territory of Uzbekistan and its terminological problems in comparison with the term “mani” while seeking new ways to solve this common problem.

The evolution of Caspian Sea basin energy transmission networks is entering a crucial phase. Azerbaijan is the crucible where questions concerning the future structure of geo-economic relations in Eurasia (and also therefore crucial aspects of the general geopolitical structure of world politics) are today being resolved. Azerbaijan’s significance arises both from the volume of its natural energy resources and from its irreplaceable role as a bridge from Central Asia and the Caspian Sea basin to the Black Sea basin and Europe. Most recently, this significance has only been underlined by the implementation of a multi-vectored energy export strategy. Long-term and short-term historical perspectives put into relief the significance of the expanding geo-economic energy relations between Greater Central Asia and Greater Southwest Asia.

China’s dazzling infrastructure and energy-driven Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a US$1 trillion investment across Eurasia and beyond, has lost its shine. Increasingly, China’s leveraging of the initiative is being perceived by a growing number of recipients and critics alike as a geopolitical power play, a tool to shape a new world order partly populated by autocrats and authoritarians, and progressively characterized by intrusive surveillance, potential debt traps, and perceived as a self-serving way to address domestic overcapacity

Moğolların Türkistan’ı ele geçirmesinden sonra Cengiz Han’ın oğlu Çağatay tarafından kurulan Çağatay Hanlığı, akabinde Timur’un kurduğu Timurlu Devleti ve ileriki yıllarda yine aynı coğrafyada kurulan birçok devlet, tarih sahnesinden çekilseler bile onları var eden toplumlar yok olmamış, bilakis yeni siyasî yapılar kurarak günümüze kadar varlıklarını devam ettirmişlerdir. Bu siyasî yapılardan birisi de adını Altın Orda Hanı Özbek’ten alan Özbek ulusunun kurduğu Buhara Hanlığı’dır. 1500-1920 yılları arasında bölgede hüküm süren Buhara Hanlığı (Buhara Emirliği), Türkistan coğrafyasında Türk-İslam kültürünün kök salmasına büyük katkı sağladı. Buharalıların, kuruluşundan Rus işgaliyle yıkılışına kadar dört asırdan biraz daha uzun bir süre hayatta kalan hanlıkları, Mâverâünnehir hâkimiyeti için Safevîlere, Babürlülere, Çarlık Rusya’ya ve Sovyetler Birliği’ne karşı mücadele ettiği gibi, zaman zaman Hive ve Hokand Hanlıkları gibi kendi soydaşlarıyla da mücadele etmek zorunda kaldı. Murat Özkan’ın Buhara Hanlığı (1500-1920) başlıklı bu kısa ama yoğun çalışması, Mâverâünnehir bölgesinin en önemli kültür ve bilim merkezlerinden birisi olan Buhara ve adını verdiği Buhara Hanlığı’nın tarihini siyasî, iktisadî ve kültürel veçheleriyle ele alıyor.

While Eurasianism as a political ideology has made a remarkable comeback to the Russian political scene following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, it has also attracted considerable interest among Turkish political and intellectual circles since the early 1990s. Yet, Eurasianism in the Turkish context has acquired different ideological meanings in time. In this regard, it is possible to highlight two main strands of Eurasianism in Turkey: one focusing on the prospects for advanced integration between Turkey and the Turkic republics of the Caucasus and Central Asia, and other concentrating on Turkey's strategic cooperation with Russia and China as an alternative to its long-standing ties with the West. While the first approach mainly appeals to nationalistconservative groups in Turkey, the second is supported by the so-called national-patriotic groups. The article aims to discuss Turkey's role in two Eurasia-based international organizations-the Organization of Turkic States and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization-as they respectively correspond to the two versions of Eurasianism in Turkey. By analyzing the Turkish governments' policies towards these two organizations, it would also be possible to reveal the influence of Eurasianism as an ideology on Ankara's official approach to the idea of Eurasian integration, in which pragmatic political and economic concerns play an equally important role.