Edward Allworth

For centuries, Central Asia has been a leading civilization, an Islamic heartland, and a geographical link between West and East. After a long traditional history, it is now in a state of change. With the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, five newborn Central Asian states have emerged in place of the former Soviet Central Asia and Afghanistan. Central Asia provides the most comprehensive survey of the history of the impact of Russian rule upon the political, economic, social, intellectual, and cultural life of this diverse region. Together, these essays convey a sense of the region’s community as well as the divisive policies that have affected it for so long. Now in its third edition (it was first published in 1967 and revised in 1989), this new edition of Central Asia has been updated to include a new preface, a revised and updated bibliography, and a final chapter that brings the book up to 1994 in considering the crucial problems that stem from a deprivation of sovereign, indigenous leadership over the past 130 years. This volume provides a broad and essential background for understanding what has led up to the late twentieth-century configuration of Central Asia.

A Historical Overview

Central Asia, 130 Years of Russian Dominance

The terrible events afflicting Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Tajikistan fill the news, commanding the world's attention. This timely volume offers rare insight into the background of these catastrophic conflicts. First published in German on the eve of the breakup of the Yugoslav and Soviet republics, it is one of the few books in any language to analyze, in detail and in depth, the historical and contemporary situation of Muslims in former communist states and thus clarifies the sources, development, and implications of the events that dominate today's foreign news. In fourteen chapters and an updated introduction, European and North American specialists examine the recent evolution of Islamic expression and practice in these former Communist regions, as well as its political significance within officially atheistic regimes. Representing a wide range of disciplines and perspectives, the authors detail how the modern ethno-religious situation developed and matured in hostile circumstances, the degree of latitude the local Muslims achieved in religious expression, and what prospect the future seemed to offer just before the breakup of the Soviet Union and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Overall, the book provides a thorough analysis of the coincidence and tension between ethnic and religious identity in two countries officially devoted to the separation of ethnic groups in domestic cultural arrangements but not in the social or political realm. Contributors. Edward Allworth, Hans Bräker, Marie Broxup, Georg Brunner, Bert G. Fragner, Uwe Halbach, Wolfgang Höpken, Andreas Kappeler, Edward J. Lazzerini, Richard Lorenz, Alexandre Popovi´c, Sabrina Petra Ramet, Azade-Ayse Rorlich, Gerhard Simon, Tadeusz Swietochowski

Historical Perspectives on Nationality, Politics, and Opposition in the Former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia

Muslim Communities Reemerge

Columbia University. Center for the Study of Central Asia

Their Struggle for Survival : Original Studies from North America, Unofficial and Official Documents from Czarist and Soviet Sources

Tatars of the Crimea

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.

From the Fourteenth Century to the Present : a Cultural History

The Modern Uzbeks

Examines the situation of the Crimean Tatars since the breakup of the USSR and of their continuing strutle to find peace and acceptance in a homeland.

Return to the Homeland : Studies and Documents

The Tatars of Crimea

Andrew Wilson

Graham Smith

Vivien Law

Annette Bohr

This book examines how national and ethnic identities are being reforged in the post-Soviet borderland states.

The Politics of National Identities

Nation-building in the Post-Soviet Borderlands

Zbigniew Brzezinski

Hans Kohn

Marc Raeff

Paula G. Rubel

Alexandre Bennigsen

Václav Lamser

Robert A. Lewis

Presents an awareness by Western observers to nationality problems faced by the Soviet Union and their importance to the rest of the world during the mid-1900s.

Soviet Nationality Problems

Edward Allworth

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