‘Using the concept of hybridity, Laruelle explores the multitude of historical, political and geopolitical factors that predetermine different ways of looking at nations and various configurations of nation-building in post-Soviet Central Asia. Those manifold contexts present a general picture of the transformation that the former southern periphery of the USSR has been going through in the past decades.’ – Sergey Abashin, European University at St Petersburg
‘Marlene Laruelle paves the way to the more focused and necessary outlook on Central Asia, a region that is not a periphery but a central space for emerging conceptual debates and complexities. Above all, the book is a product of Laruelle's trademark excellence in balancing empirical depth with vigorous theoretical advancements.’ – Diana T. Kudaibergenova, University of Cambridge
Marlene Laruelle is Professor at the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, The George Washington University in Washington D.C., U.S.A.
List of figures
Preface
Introduction: Central peripheries
Part 1. Writing the national biography
1. The longue durée of national storytelling: Soviet roots and the quest for ethnogenesis
2. Centrality and autochthonism: Uzbekistan’s nationhood
3. Aryan mythology and ethnicism: Tajikistan’s nationhood
4. National unity versus pluralism: Kyrgyzstan’s nationhood
5. Reborn nation, born-again religion? The case of Tengrism
Part 2. Politics and the Nazarbayev order
6. Hybridity in nation-building: the case of Kazakhstan
7. Ideology of the ‘crossroads’: Eurasianism from Suleimenov to Nazarbayev
8. Media and the nation: searching for Kazakhness in televisual production
9. Language and ethnicity: the landscape of Kazakh nationalism
10. Generational changes: the Nazarbayev Generation
Conclusion: The missing pieces of Central Asia’s nationhood puzzle
References
Index
‘There is no other book that delves so deeply into the complex issue of Central Asia nation-building. Laruelle offers comprehensive empirical evidence to highlight similarities and differences in the processes whereby the leaderships of four Central Asian states attempted to build their nationhood after the Soviet collapse.’ – Luca Anceschi, University of Glasgow
‘Laruelle explores the multitude of historical, political and geopolitical factors that predetermine different ways of looking at nations and various configurations of nation-building in post-Soviet Central Asia. These contexts present a detailed picture of the recent transformation of the former southern periphery of the USSR.’ – Sergey Abashin, European University at St Petersburg
‘Marlene Laruelle paves the way to the more focused and necessary outlook on Central Asia, a region that is not a periphery but a central space for emerging conceptual debates and complexities. Above all, the book is a product of Laruelle's trademark excellence in balancing empirical depth with vigorous theoretical advancements.’ – Diana T. Kudaibergenova, University of Cambridge
Format: Open Access PDF
B&W illustrations
Copyright: © 2021
ISBN: 9781800080133
Publication: July 01, 2021
Series: FRINGE
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