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Author Index of CESS Conference Abstracts
Objective: This study reports the incidence of child abuse of Asian and White children and compares the rate of different types of abuse among the children surveyed.
Setting: The Central Asian region.
Method: This new questionnaire was developed to provide the initial presentation about the scale of types of abuse in Bishkek-the capital of Kyrgyzstan and in the suburbs.700 children and adolescents have been surveyed for possible child abuse.
Results: As the survey revealed, children have been primarily exposed to emotional abuse which constitutes 90-96% of those surveyed. Physical abuse ranks in the second place. The overall percentage of physical abuse (40-44%-in the city, and 73-75% in the suburbs). While the village children are exposed to emotional abuse in the community, physical abuse (strokes, battering) mainly occurs in the family. The main abusers are the parents (85%).
One can conclude from the data obtained that children of European ethnicity are more likely to be abused sexually than children of Asian ethnicity due to the fact of the prevalence of cultural features in the families. From the entire group surveyed, just 1-3% of children were exposed to sexual abuse. The work is to be continued.
Summary: The survey indicates that the rates of child abuse must be considered. Understanding and knowledge of the problems in this area are important for the professionals and will enable healthcare, education, and child protective services workers to implement preventive measures.
While the relationship between ethnonationalism and democracy is a recurrent theme in the literature on transitional countries, the link between ethnonationalism and economic reform has received comparatively little scholarly attention. This paper focuses on the following question: Is there any reason to believe that ethnonational conflicts affect the pace and course of economic reform?
The intuitive answer to this question is "yes": Ethnonational rivalries not only divert the time and resources of policymakers away from economic reform. They promote the formation of nationality-based parties, skewing the development of party systems away from the traditional left-right axis that provides the basis of political discourse over economic reform issues. At the same time, such conflicts encourage the rise of political demagogues preoccupied with nationality questions. Meanwhile, majority groups exploit their privileged positions to capture the benefits of whatever economic reforms that are enacted, preventing the formation of a broad social consensus for a market economy. Resort to extra-legal tactics by excluded groups further hinders the legal, regulatory, and institutional reforms essential to market-building. The polity is thus caught in a vicious cycle of ethnonational tension and economic stagnation.
A casual survey of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union appears to validate this stylized depiction of the relationship between ethnonationalism and economic reform. The former communist countries that have displayed the lowest levels of ethnonational tension (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia) have also undertaken the most rapid and far-reaching economic reforms. Countries where ethnonationalism has been most salient (Slovakia, Croatia, Bosnia, the former Yugoslavia, Macedonia, and the countries of Transcaucasia and Central Asia) have proven the slowest economic reformers.
In this paper, I argue that the relationship is not so clear cut. I entertain four alternative propositions concerning the link between ethnonationalism and economic reform.
During the years of the Communist regime children in Tajikistan schools were taught foreign languages. But with the disintegration of the Soviet Union our country got its Independence and International contact which required a deeper and intensive study of English as an International language. In everyday life and traveling on business people need English more.
I work at the secondary school #31 B. Gafurov region, village Yova as an English teacher and Principle's Assistant. Our school is big. There are 1200 pupils in our school. I work at 5 to 11 forms. They are children from 12 to 17. In order to excite pupils interest in learning language I use different methods of teaching. Mostly I use expromt. Examples and the results will be given in the report.
The paper contains a discussion of the Georgian suffixes -shi, roughly meaning 'in, ' and -ze: 'on' or 'at.' The occurrences of these suffixes are easily predictable in locational expressions, e.g. kalakshi, 'in the town' vs. magidaze, 'on the table. Words with temporal meaning, e.g. 'January' or 'class period' present problems, since it is not immediately clear why 'January' requires the suffix - shi while 'class period' requires the suffix -ze. For example, we find ianvarshi, 'in January' but gak'vetilze, 'in class.' Three explanations are discussed. First, the concepts of figurative and literal usage are discussed. Then Cornelius van Schooneveld's Prague School concept of 'demarcation' is used, and, lastly, a more general concepts of determination of behavior is applied. Finally, the paper evaluates the relative merits of these approaches to predict the occurrence of the suffixes -shi and -ze.
The Central Asian economies continue to grapple with the adjustment of their agricultural sectors to post-Soviet realities. Agrarian reforms have taken different directions in each of the Central Asian republics. This paper provides an overview of the policy directions chosen in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, tracks the performance of the agricultural sectors in these countries and calls attention to common challenges faced by all of the republics in managing natural resources, maintaining basic services and food security in rural areas, mobilizing new investment and accessing global markets.
The conservative governmental structure of the Kazan Khanate by 1552 already outlived itself, if only because its rulers never realized that times had changed, and the traditional military government of the Golden Horde type did not correspond to new economical and geo-political realities of the time. The foresight failed the Kazan khans, and constant disagreement between the three Islamic Khanates of Kazan, Crimea and Astrakhan made it impossible to create any sort of military and political union in the view of the Russian threat from the north.
Anyhow, the modern Kazan Tatar nationalism, especially its less than numerous radical wing, always built its political platform claiming that it was the evil of the Russian imperialist expansion that destroyed sovereign statehood and, along with it, the sublime Islamic civilization of the Kazan Khanate. Yet, as a rule, the people who strongly promote this idea are never keen to study the weaknesses of this civilization itself. Indeed, in laying all the blame squarely onto the Russian side of a centuries-long economic and political rivalry it is also all too easy to overlook the main reasons as to why Islam in what in the 16th century had already become Russia could not withstand the Orthodox Christian expansion? Why has it suffered a crushing defeat despite all its strengths and all great and bitter experience of history?
'Selective Historiography' can be defined as the 'mining' of history for symbolic events, groups, figures, and socio-political paradigms that can be promoted in the interests of a contemporary political agenda. The states of Central Asia are currently engaging in such a process in the interests of cultivating international legitimacy (i.e. distinction from neighboring states through the historical justification of current territorial occupation) and popularizing symbolic paradigms into which their communities can situate identity, conceptions of territorial belonging and destiny. Accuracy and continuity are often casualties in this blatantly political process. This is especially true within the ethnically diverse context of an independent Central Asia, where history often contrapositions one people against another. This paper attempts to examine the construction of links between territory and community-history in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, offering a conclusion that draws together the theoretical literature on historical justifications for territorial claims and community identity.
Since the emergence of an independent state of Macedonia in 1991, the country has been facing a multiplicity of social and economic problems both at the national and sub-national scales. A dynamic alteration of the demographic situation in Macedonia in the last decade has provided an additional level of complexity with regard to the country's regional development. This paper examines the interconnections between the demographic situation in Macedonia, specifically, the rates of natural increase of its population at the regional (municipality) scale, and the spatial patterns of social and economic development. Despite its relatively small territory and a long process of industrial decentralization of Macedonia, the essential regional differences regarding the average worker's salary, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, the level of unemployment, and other social and economic indicators, have remained prominent. An important, yet relatively unknown factor responsible for these spatial differences is the regional peculiarities of the population dynamics, particularly, rates of natural increase. This study analyzes territorial differences among the municipalities of Macedonia utilizing the following social and economic characteristics: per capita private investments, GDP per employed, GDP per capita, the average annual salary, living space per capita, number of residents per public library, the share of students attending colleges in the total population, the shares of health care and education expenditures in the budget, number of residents per physician/dentist. The index of development, brought into use by J. Cole, is calculated and applied as a synthetic indicator in comparing the Macedonian municipalities. It is analyzed in conjunction with the spatial patterns of changes in natural increase of population, including persons of Albanian origin. The conclusions are drawn then, concerning the implications of the differences in the natural increase of population for the social and economic development of municipalities of Macedonia.
This paper examines the role of the Türks (T'u-chüeh) and their collaborators, the Sogdians, in the seventh-century Chinese political crisis that led to the collapse of the Sui Dynasty (581-618) and the founding of the T'ang Dynasty (618-907). In particular, it seeks to understand the motives and actions of the Türks as they supported -- in a variety of ways -- a number of different candidates for the Chinese throne and, at the same time, gave refuge to members of the deposed Sui ruling house. An examination of this nature also provides some information about the role of Sogdians within the Türk Empire. In addition to the information available in Chinese dynastic histories and other standard works, an important source for this study is the "Ta T'ang ch'uang-yeh ch'i-chü chu" (Court Diary of the Founding of the Great T'ang) by Wen Ta-ya, an eyewitness whose account significantly enhances the historical record and provides interesting details regarding Türks and Sogdians during this brief but momentous period.
Archaeological links between the Xiongnu and the Huns have not been available. That may be the reason that the scholars were divided in accepting historical continuity between the Xiongnu of the east and the Huns of the west. (Outstanding representatives of the negating view are Denis Sinor and Sergei Miniaev.)
In spite of an ancient Sogdian letter in which there are two references to the Xiongnu as Huns at the time of sacking Luoyang, it was argued that the document does not decisively settle the question of historical continuity.
1. The first archaeological link is the sacrificial and funerary bronze cauldrons of the Xiongnu. The earliest publication of their map was in the Harvard Newsletter (1990) and the distribution of 185 cauldrons was mapped in 1995 in the Eurasian Studies Yearbook, dotting the territory of Central Eurasia from the Yellow River to the Danube valley.
2. The second archaeological link comprises the remains of partial horse burials, when the skull, lower legs, and later the skin of the horse was buried with the deceased male or female. The early results were presented at the ICANAS in 1997. In addition, there are fine details of four types of grave structures (or arrangements) that accompany the Hun's funerary horse cult throughout Eurasia.
3. The third archaeological link is the gold diadems of Hunnic women traversing the whole of Central Eurasia. These are unpublished result which were presented first in a lecture at Harvard University's Inner Asia Committee, 1999. There are only nineteen finds, but the highly characteristic and ethnospecific diadems convincingly demarcate the itinerary taken by the Huns at the beginning of the Migration Era. Each of these maps demonstrate the historical continuity of the Xiongnu of the east and the Huns of the west as they were migrating across Central Asia in 225 years. As a consequence the ethnic names should be interchangeable. A map of arrows shows the datable movements of the migrating branches of the Huns.
Two ancient sources substantiate the conclusions based on archaeology. One is the Wei shu referring to events in the 4th c. AD stating that the "Xiongnu" defeated the Alanliao (Alans) in Sute, the older name is Yentsai (in West Asia). The other source is one of eight Sogdian letters, found by Sir Aurel Stein in a watchtower, that was discussed above.
Post-Soviet Central Asia is facing a host of problems ranging across the wider spectrum of human existence--political, ecological, economical, social, and spiritual. Reforms are needed to bring Central Asia out of Soviet imposed isolation and make the countries competitive in the world market. One of the priorities regarding reform and restructuring of the newly independent states is the creation of socio-cultural identities that incorporate both the indigenous past and the legislated version of the "modern Soviet woman and man."
This paper shall inquire into issues arising from Russian colonial policies and the socio-political environment created by the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 as they pertain to Central Asia. As social, political and economical reforms instituted through peaceful means are on the agenda of all the Soviet successor states, it will do so by examining possible indigenous models of and for reform. Given that they existed, what were their aims and methods for reform? What event or processes brought them to the fore? What constitutes their legacy?
The purpose of this project is to suggest the chances for legal reform in a country that comes into being in contrast to the typical pattern of development in which a "nation" has come into being, after which this nation is forged into a sovereign state. A prerequisite to legal reform is the creation of a new national identity. In order for a state to create a new national identity three criteria are required:1) a memory of a common past, 2) a density of linguistic and cultural ties, and 3) a conception of equality of all members of society. Post-independence parliamentary legislation and executive orders of the Republic of Tajikistan are examined to determine 1) the form of national identity the government wants to create, and 2) the laws used to achieve that form. The implementation of these laws is then evaluated to determine their impact on society and effectiveness in creating the desired identity. The combined legislation shows that the aim of the government is to form a democratic identity based on civic equality.
Specific government action used to achieve that form include reform of the education, language, amnesty, media, political party, and citizenship laws among others. Implementation of the laws proved ineffective in the creation of the desired identity due to a lack of unified historical memory, economic instability, and institutionalized expectations of political ownership.
Dr. Maureen Nemecek and Professor Jack Hodgson are the co-PIs on a USIA-sponsored linkage grant between the journalism schools of Oklahoma State University and Al-Farabi, Kazakh State National University in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Dr. Valerie Terry was one of the participants in the program. This panel will discuss what they initially planned to do almost four years ago and what they actually accomplished, now that the grant is complete. Seven faculty, including the directors from each school, visited the other's for periods ranging from one to four months. The panelists will discuss what worked, what didn't and what they would do differently.
In the presentation I intend to follow--through time and space--the physical anthropological composition of present populations in the area of Siberia, Xinjiang, Kazakhstan, the Caucasus, and the Carpathian Basin in the west, all homelands of equestrian nomadic peoples. The results of this examination aspire to a better understanding of relationships and movements of the peoples of the grassland cultures. New Chinese research material in this area, including those from Xinjiang, together with the aid of ancient written Chinese sources, significantly add to a clearer picture. Recognizing the development and presence of specific Europoid physical variants that appear in Bronze Age Siberia and later in Central Asia, play a significant role in understanding the movements and eventual fate of these groups. It must be realized that a specific material culture, language, political affiliation, and the physical appearance of a population do not necessarily consistently overlap in time and space. My purpose is to make objective archeological and anthropological correlation's that can shed light on the population and cultural dynamics of the peoples of the steppe zones of Eurasia.
The three panelists each plan to present papers concerning collectivization in Central Asia in the 1920s and 1930s. Kamp's presentation will concern the initiation of collectivization in Uzbekistan, the state's shifting policy on women's relationship to land use, and women's responses to early collectivization. This paper will focus on the continuities as well as the radical in Soviet policy between the period of land reform (1925-26) and the beginnings of collectivization (1928-9).
Michaels will explore the relationship between the state's policy of forced sedentarization of the Kazakh nomads and its efforts to develop a modern biomedical and public health system. Collectivization and sedentarization of the nomads sparked an demographic catastrophe, as approximately one-half of all Kazakhs fled abroad or to neighboring Soviet republics, or perished from famine. By the late-1930s, nomadism in Kazakhstan had been largely destroyed, but Kazakhs continued seasonal migration for decades to come. This paper examines state policy toward the dwindling nomadic population in the wake of collectivization's attack on this way of life.
Zanca will address Soviet writings on how collectivization proceeded in parts of Uzbekistan where people mostly practiced a pastoralist mode of production. He will discuss the pros and cons of Soviet texts while adding what advantages an anthropological approach may have for the subject today, including proposals for constructive work that could and should be done regarding collectivization 70 years on.
In this paper I will discuss how the dissemination of authoritarian thought and idea transformed a theocratic agrarian country into one of the first Soviet Satellites. Relying on Mongol and English sources, this paper will demonstrate the effectiveness of Soviet ideology on another nation; specifically the effect it had on Outer Mongolia. During the socialist regime, Mongolia's operating monasteries were reduced from seven hundred and fifty to one. The literary rate increased from 4.8% to 72.2% in thirty years, and apostatizing from Buddhism became mandatory. To this day, important facts surrounding the recent political and religious turmoil of Mongolia remain undisclosed and locked within the Internal Ministries' archives. There is, however, enough information to date to justify the statement that intensive and relentless propaganda was responsible for enervating the ingrained theology, Tibetan Buddhism.
The success of this propaganda was due to the illiteracy of the populace, its ubiquity, and the intensity that accompanied it. The controlled literature that was dispersed, as well as the emotional pictures and repetitive public accusations cajoled the populace away from their culture. The Soviet style propaganda upon Mongol society was so effective that within seventy years only one protest was staged. From 1921 to 1990, there was a thick anesthetic film that blocked any and all religious thought and evolution resulted in apathy for regaining their historical identity.
In my presentation I will utilize personal narratives, examples of visual propaganda, documented statistics and historical facts to support the above claims.
The normal ethno-political situation in any country arises as a result of formulation of public policy in the field of interethnic relations directed at the consolidation of the civil peace and harmony among ethnic groups. This study assessed the present state of affairs in the field of management of interethnic relations by analyzing the opinions of the civil servants as experts and the representatives of different ethnic groups. To reach the objectives of the study the civil servants were questioned by the advanced expert interview and the representatives of the different ethnic groups filled out a questionnaire. The results of the study indicate that the civil servants considered the ethnic discrimination to be acute problem more than the representatives of the different ethnic groups did. The study revealed the main problems in the field of interethnic relations such as day-to day nationalism, personnel policy, official language problem and others. The participants highly evaluated the significance of the legislative foundation for interethnic conflict prevention and resolution. The regions and spheres of public life susceptible to the interethnic conflicts were located in this study. The civil servants considered the south of the Kyrgyz Republic to be dangerous in terms of interethnic conflicts more than the representatives of the different ethnic groups did. Concerning the potential to handle the interethnic conflicts, the civil servants considered the local authorities to be more capable to handle them. Meanwhile the representatives of the different ethnic groups were more favorable to the government agencies. Taken together the results of the study the economic, legal, educational, social and organizational recommendations were proposed for prevention of interethnic conflicts in the Kyrgyz Republic.[with Nurbek Omuraliev]
Traditionally, most parts of Kazakhstan have been used for grazing, but during the last hundred years, the land-use systems have changed several times. The most important turning point was the extension of the Soviet "Virgin Land Programme" in the 1950s and 1960s. This programme was meant to guarantee a wheat supply for the Soviet Union, even during droughts. Under extreme climatic conditions of dry-steppes, wheat production became very risky and expensive, requiring heavy Soviet subsidies. Population density grew and traditional shepherds were forced south in response to intensification of agriculture. Despite heavy subsidies, average harvests were insignificant in the dry-steppe.
The Tengiz region, our main study area and location of the projected first Kazakh UNESCO biosphere reserve, is situated in the southern belt of the steppe zone of Kazakhstan about 150 km southwest of Astana.
Since the end of farm subsidies in 1992 the land use system of the region has been undergoing far-reaching transitions. As intensive crop production was no longer a viable option, much of the state farm lands were left fallow. The return to pastoralism has been difficult, since local traditional adaptive survival strategies were lost during Soviet rule. At the same time, severe economic and social problems like emigration, high unemployment, poverty, poor education and health system, growing corruption, crime and the like, confound the process of creating and preserving a stable socio-economic environment based on local resources. A significant shift towards a land use strategy, which strikes a new balance between ecological and economic potentials and constraints, is necessary.
The research focuses on analyzing the connections between changing land use and socio-economic processes, identifying conditions under which post-Soviet people can make a living from the very limited natural resources within the southern belt of the "virgin land" zone.
Discussions of the movement of peoples between India and Central Asia generally focus on the activities of merchants, scholars, religious figures, political elites and invaders. While these groups can be credited with establishing and maintaining the bonds which in many ways formed a cultural and economic bridge connecting north India and Central Asia, one must be careful not to overlook another group of people which, despite their low status, comprised another important aspect of Indo-Central Asian relations: slaves. The movement of people as a commodity across India's northwest frontier dates to ancient times, and, alongside Qalmaqs, Russians, non-Sunni Afghans, and the predominantly Shi'a Iranians, Hindu slaves were an important component of the highly active slave markets of medieval and early modern Central Asia. The history of the institution of slavery in Central Asia is a subject that merits considerable. Its treatment here is intended only to demonstrate that the slave trade between India and Central Asia was significant, and to suggest that the presence of considerable numbers of Hindus in the Central Asian slave markets was largely a product of the state-building efforts of the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire in South Asia.
As the quest for empire engulfed the Eurasian heartland the isolated relics of the once great khanate system of bygone era crumbled under the pressures from a newly industrialized West. In the scramble for uncharted territory, the rapidly expanding empires of England and Russia became embroiled in what was to be penned, 'The Great Game'. The majority of the peoples in the area under question had been under varying degrees of influence of Muslim empires on the wane. Areas such as Bukhara were renowned throughout the Muslim world as a seat of intellectual capital, a 'pillar' of Islam. Other regions, such as the Semirech'e, had only recently come under the influence of Islam and even this was limited due to the nomadic nature of the tribes that roamed there. This region most famed in the West by the title of the 'Silk Road' had been under centuries of geographic isolation with the shift of transport from land to sea. However, this region was 're-awakened' when the advent of industrialization made possible the forging of the great expanses of steppe, barren deserts and impassable mountain ranges for the insatiable desire for empire that consumed the Houses of Europe.
With the rush of expanding empires, the Muslims of Russia felt a desperate need to adapt or face annihilation in the shadow of a burgeoning West. When introduced to such foreign topics as history, geography and science (all separate schools of thought from religion) it must have been a shocking experience to see the extent of Western domination. Most astonishing to the Muslims of Central Asia was the fact that these infidel Christians could have a better command of the languages of Islam and the teachings of the Qur'an. The abrupt awakening had left the desire to through off the yoke of oppression that had led to the decay of a once proud civilization and embrace a new paradigm much more fraught with the rigors of rationalist thought. Under such tumultuous times the usul-i jadid , 'jadid' movement was born under the nurturing of a Crimean Tatar, Ismail Bey Gaprinskii. This paper seeks to examine some of the influence that Gaprinskii's movement had on the Muslims of Central Asia and fulfill a dual purpose of bringing such a little known topic in the West, or elsewhere, back to the intellectual fore for closer examination.
During Timur's lifetime, Islamic scholars debated whether or not he was a true Muslim or a tyrannical invader who merely used Islam to legitimize his actions. This argument has continued today, not only among Muslim but also among scholars in the West. This paper examines the questions and viewpoints raised by Ibn Khaldun, Ibn Arabshah, as well as other Muslim scholars who came into contact with Timur. Based on their evidence I argue that Timur was indeed a true Muslim rule and his actions, although often based on political or strategic motives where also that of a legitimate Muslim ruler.
The purpose of my research is to gather perspectives on the key problems of trade environment in Central Asia with special focus on trans-border trade between countries, its present and future development. This research will also lead to identification of the most successful areas in facilitating trade. It is also intended to identify those areas of policy coordination; weather customs, inspection, taxation, transportation documentation, payments, or others, -which continues to present problems.
On the stage of transition to a market economy the problem of currency regulation is one of the its challenges. It is understandable, taking into account the level of integration of the CIS economies both among themselves and with the world economy, the currency policy plays a key role in providing economic stability, competitiveness of their goods in foreign markets, and consequently, in sustaining the balance of payments and approaching internal and external equilibrium.
Another problem is transfer pricing. The Central Asian region has become a great market for the multinational firms of developed West and European countries. Many of their affiliates are located in Central Asia. Transportation costs may be much higher than prices of goods itself. Transportation costs are very important for competition. They are highest among the high costs in world trade. In centralized economy of the former Soviet Union, the costs were paid by the government.
Some authors think it will be possible to transform Central Asian societies into law-based democracies on the base of their cultural and philosophical heritage. Among the causes of present situation some can find strong clan, tribal, sub-regional, regional mini-statehood and other forms of identity including ethnic-psychic and ultimately religious one. Smoothing negative trends presumes looking at relationship and factors affecting situation in different aspects and levels.
Applying a method of force-field analysis to the concrete situation of building national identity in Uzbekistan we can define some socialization stages individual passes through and simultaneously describe an equilibrium maintained by two sums of forces (driving and restraining) working in opposite directions in each stage.
Since the country's declaration of independence in 1991, Kazakstan's journalism has followed a jagged course of reversal from a relatively free atmosphere for journalism activity to a near consolidation of state control of information and the suppression of independent media. Recent examples include the "tender" requirements for frequency allocation (1997), the passage of a finely detailed press law (1999) that micro regulates nearly every aspect of newsgathering and reporting activity, and the firing in March 2000 of the news director from Informbureau, independent 31 Channel's daily news program, ostensibly for broadcasting a report about a the alleged harassment and intimidation of opposition leaders in Almaty.
The author, who has been working in journalism education in an exchange program with Kazak State University in Almaty since 1995, has been studying attitudes towards democracy among journalism students of post-Soviet states, as well as among U.S. students. As part of a USIA College and University Partnerships Program grant, students in the journalism faculty at Kazak State University were surveyed in May 2000 in a written questionnaire about their media use, their attitudes towards democracy and their expectations about a journalism career.
This paper presents the results of a survey conducted throughout Kazakhstan questioning respondents on their perceptions of and attitudes towards corruption. In addition to the survey data, the author conducted follow up interviews. The results are analyzed in terms of absolute evaluations of corruption, relative evaluations of corruption, public salience of corruption, and support for anticorruption regimes. The results indicate that corruption is very pertinent to most Kazakhstanis' lives, that most Kazakhstanis find corruption to be unacceptable, and that most support anticorruption legislation. These results are consistent even when respondents are sorted by ethnicity, by income, by gender and by rural/urban location.
Proverbs or in Turkish "Atas襵uml;", "Atalars襵uml;", "Atas髥ri", without any doubt, play a very important role in determining the cultural identity of any nation. Each culture is unique; in that what is accepted in one culture may not be so in another culture. Proverbs can be used effectively to identify both cultural differences and similarities.
In this article, Tatar and Turkish proverbs are compared by using specific examples and their similarities from the perspective of language and culture is presented.
Turkish and Tatar communities have a common past. They are two peoples of the same community that shared Central Asia as their mother - land. Certainly there are a lot of points in common in the two nation's history, culture and language. It is natural that certain similarities in their shared past is reflected in their proverbs.
The results of this research indicate are often wed to describe similar situations in the two cultures; i.e. the proverbs have similar syntax and semantics.
Another observation is that a lot of words in the two cultures are being used either in the same way or some phonetic changes have occurred with the main features still distinguishable.
The Western Yugur or Yellow Uygur are a Turkic speaking community of about 4, 600 people, living in the province of Gansu in China. The Western Yugur are part of the officially recognized Yugur minority nationality, numbering 12, 297 persons (1990). Chinese functions as a secondary language throughout the Yugur community, and its influence on Western Yugur, already noticeable in the earliest records of the language, is considerable. Chinese loanwords and calques are present in all parts of the Western Yugur lexicon. A special category are calques based on Chinese near homonyms with only a tonal difference, e.g. Western Yugur ayaq 'bowl' also means 'ten thousand', from Chinese wan (third tone) 'bowl', and wan (fourth tone) 'ten thousand'. Often, Chinese loanwords exist side by side with vernacular lexical items. In other instances, the Western Yugur vernacular lexicon is being replaced by Chinese loanwords and calques.
The aim of this paper is to show the syntactic processes involved in the formation of compounds across linguistic boundaries. Compounding resembles syntactic processes due to the fact that compounds have a constituent structure and that the relations between components of a compound may resemble the relations between the constituents of a sentence: head-modifier, predicate-argument, and apposition.
I will take into consideration root (simple) endocentric compounds in which the predicate is expressed implicitly (in the deep structure) and synthetic endocentric compounds with a verbal component in which the predicate is expressed explicitly (in the surface structure).
The root compounds N+N and A+N types appear to be the results of a surface neutralization of a number of different semantic underlying representations. Transformations of compounding of this type will involve generating a verb in the deep structure and deleting it on the way to the surface structure. For example, Tatar burtash 'limestone' (bur 'chalk' + tash 'stone') presumably comes from the participial phrase burdan tora torgan tash 'stone which consists of chalk'.
Compound nouns in Tatar are therefore derived from an underlying NP structure containing a head noun and a PartP or PP (prepositional phrase) compound construction.
Synthetic compounds with a verbal element are formed in the syntax and are subject to syntactic principles. A number of their syntactic properties and operations on the argument structure will be examined. For example, Tatar synau aluchy'examiner' (synau 'exam' aluchy'a person who takes') has the interpretation synay ala torgan keshe ('a person who takes an examination'). The verb alarga is a sister to the non-head noun synau and it associates its internal Theta role to that noun; the affix -chy has its own grid, representing a referential role (R);the combination of verb stem and suffix (aluchy) has a composite argument structure, including the internal argument of alarga. The lexical entry for the predicate alarga includes the Theta-role of Agent and Theme that its argument has and permits an association of its interal Theta role to the noun.
During a visit to Kazan in June 1998 I was approached by an elderly gentleman who claimed that there was a body of sources for Bulgar history that had been preserved through the 20th century but which was subsequently suppressed by the KGB. This body of source materials had resurfaced recently and was published privately. These materials include the three-volume publication of materials known collectively as Ca`far tarixi (or History of Ca`far) by Baxshi Iman, which I was able to obtain. These materials, which claim to be authentic historical sources for the 9th-17th/18th centuries, are viewed as the all-important suppressed historical heritage of the Bulgar people, who according to some are mislabeled today as "Kazan Tatars", "Volga Tatars", or simply as "Tatars".
This body of source material raises certain important issues which I will address:
--Who were the Bulgars?
--What Bulgar communal identity has existed in the past?
--What has been the relationship between the modern Kazan Tatar national
identity formulated by Shihab㣤in M㱣ani and the modern Bulgar identity
that has been advocated in the 20th century?
--Finally, is the publication of this collection of sources an important landmark
in the study of the Volga Bulgarians and their descendants, or is it an elaborate
forgery -- an invention of tradition -- intended to bolster the claims of modern
advocates of Bulgar nationalism?
The incursions into Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan by radical Islamists whose declared aim is to establish an Islamic state in Central Asia has sent shock waves through the region and has drawn as much international attention to the region as any issue since independence. This mobilization is conceptualized variously as popular opposition to repressive and unreformed former-Communist governments and as an attempt by an international network of anti-Western forces to bring down secular regimes. This paper will make a preliminary assessment what is behind these incursions and broader Islamist mobilization and what the implications are for political developments in the region.
There is a lot of evidence to show that second language vocabulary learning is influenced by first language vocabulary. This means that the forms and patterns of the native language are transformed to the subsequent language. Transfer may be either positive, when these patterns are identical, or negative when they are different. Much has been written about the role of transfer in acquisition of English collocations by learners of different language backgrounds: French, German, Swedish, Finnish, Polish, etc.. Researchers have also attempted to define the degree of transfer if the languages under consideration are genealogically close or distant. But the phenomenon of transfer has been ignored in Turkology. Attempting to fill the gap, we tried to find out how native language elements interfere when learners of the same native language family background, Turkic, acquire English collocations, since the English language is both typologically and genealogically different from the former. By considering language facts elicited through both empirically and especially designed tasks on the related topic, we found out that interference of native language forms and patterns is conditioned by different factors such as the language learners' unfamiliarity with the collocotional use of certain patterns, the degree of fixedness, syntactic structure and semantic volume of certain collocations.
This paper is designed to implement a comparative linguo-stylistic analyses of different European and Asian proverbs to identify their universal and specific characteristics. The analyses, realized on the Azerbaijani, Cypriot-Turkish, English, Russian and Turkish proverbs, enable us to reveal: (i) universal strategies and (ii) syntagmatic and paradigmatic similarities and dissimilarities of the proverbs of different cultures.
The study of proverbs concludes with an original look at its nature: irrespective of the origin of proverb it has one universal strategy which is materialized by different specific tactics within the framework of social and linguistic norms of a given culture.
Under the term of universal strategy we mean the general functions of proverbs targeted predominantly on the moral-didactic stabilization and normalization of socio-ethical norms and welfare of human society. Specific tactics is classified as syntagmatic and paradigmatic tactics in this paper. Phonetic, lexical and syntactic arrangements and stylistic devices employed in proverbs are syntagmatic tactics and serve to achieve the desired effect set in universal strategy. However, there exists a connotative meaning underlying the syntagmatic tactics that is referred to as paradigmatic tactics in this study.
Universal strategy may be likened to certain primary wants (such as: to be dominant, to have a sense of security and bodily comfort, to be noticed and admired etc.) underlying all human nature. Consequently, our behavior is a specific tactics by which primary wants or strategies are expressed. In fact, the difference between one person's character and another's is that the same primary wants have become focused upon different objects, or different ways of expressing themselves.
So is with proverbs: the difference between European and Asian proverbs lies in their tactics while strategies are of universal character.
The objective of the proposed paper is a complex, comparative study of the social role and functions of non-Muslim (ethno-religious) minorities (Jews, Christians, etc.) in the Islamic societies of Central. In addition, it is envisaged to review the compatibility of Islamic and non-Islamic social and economic structures, cultures and consciousness in the polyethnic societies of Central Asia. The paper is therefore devoted to a consideration of the relations between Islam and other religions - in politics and in economics, in social life and cultural interaction - especially for the regions of Central Asia.
The specialization of the ethno-religious groups under consideration in the sphere of trade, crafts, free-lance professions and the concomitant specific way of life, a special place in the social structures of Islamic societies of Central Asia give grounds to consider them as some multifaceted and diversified community, which is rather commonly called as the "merchandising", "trading" or "commercial minorities".
With the disassembly of the USSR, the legal structure of mahalla (traditional residential community associations in Uzbekistan), became targets of reform. Since mahalla are unknown to scholars in general, Part II provides an overview of the mahalla residential regime. Part III presents results of fieldwork conducted in Uzbekistan in 1998 and 1999. Part IV connects findings on mahalla with larger theoretical currents of legal scholarship on property and social norms. Mahalla provide empirical evidence for and contribute to the maturation of three currents of primarily theoretical scholarship. First, mahalla suggest that the choice of an optimal land regime may vary between cultures or over time due to degrees of internal homogeneity. Second, mahalla illustrate some of the limits of decentralized or local government in providing public goods, including the risk that state efforts to codify social norms can undermine those norms and facilitate loss of group solidarity. Third, mahalla help sharpen the distinction between binding and bridging social capital, and their relationship to democracy and civil society. Part V identifies and explains the complex issues confronted by reformers. This goal rises to the level of a conclusion given the general lack of robust analysis of these issues in Uzbekistan by domestic lawmakers and, especially, foreign donors.
Almost immediately after obtaining their political independence, all Central Asian States have adopted special legislations regarding religion, including position of religious institutions, communities and groups. These legislations proclaimed similar secular rules become the legal base for official policy toward religion. Although, in reality the relation between religion and politics was different in each state. During last years just all Central Asian states the legislation on religion either have been altered, and new versions of the law have been adapted, or the changes are to be expected. These processes reflected, from one side, the ongoing changes in the official policy toward religion, on the other - the transformations within the religious institutions and communities on the whole.
The paper aims to analyze the key points of current legislations on religion in all five states through the view of changing position of religion in a society, interrelation of religion and politics in their dynamics during the years after independence. Moreover, the analysis of the situation in the legislative field and official policy toward religion and religious organizations implies the consideration of the general dynamics of political situation, situation in the field of religious minorities and human rights.
Central Asia, in spite of the fact, that has deep historical roots, originating, possibly, from sources of formation of mankind (there exists the supposition, that who came from these countries were stimulators of emerging of the first human civilization), is extremely insufficiently studied.
Moreover, present isolation of each of Central-Asian countries on the basis of nationality, having formed in the recent past, their bent for adjust a history to the current requirements, is causing great damage to the objective assessment of the history of our ancestors.
Therefore, integrated study of Central Asia is solely true approach. It is just regarding the study of range of problems, with which modern society of Central Asian countries are facing. Especially on the issues of summarizing and forecast of the present stage of public development, on running of society. On the basis of these provisions, for shaping of principally true approaches to new investigations, for rationally usage of available scientific data, it would be expedient to set up a branch of the Society on study of Central Asia ; CESWW.
It will make possible to consolidate a scientific potential of these countries, for relatively short time to come to a unified opinion in many issues, to have effective scientific activity.
The location of a branch may be Almaty city, major intellectual centre of Central Asia. To give strength to starting impetus of the activity of study of Central Asia it would be expedient to hold a conference on CESWW 2001 with leaving for the location of supposed branch.
Our committee has an experience of holding such a conference. So, we held a Forum of UN/NGO of Central Asia countries, with participation of scientific institutions. Independent position of our committee, in contrast to scientific institutions, which, in general, are state, enable to organize the activity of a branch with overall approach.
Turks, once a nomadic people called by the ethnonym T'u-chüe, had appeared in the Chinese sources in the middle of sixth century. While they are believed to have lived in Central Asia, their language is estimated to have emerged around 1500 B.C. Starting from the sixth century onwards, due to the ecological factors, Turks began to move westward and southward in search of better living conditions, which resulted in the gain of vast territories through conquests. They encountered the Arabs, and consequently Islam, the religion of the Arabs and Iranians. As Islam started to spread among the Turkic populations of Central Asia, the Turkish women came under the influence of the conceived values of their newly adopted religion, and have therefore confined to their homes. Moreover, because women were not allowed to participate in the Islamic religious education by attending the madrasa, the Turkish women soon found themselves alienated by the system.
Similarly, the Turkish came under the heavy influence of Arabic and Persian, the languages of the lands that the Turks had conquered, falling victim to the conquests of its own peoples. These developments forced Turkish proper to retreat to the grass roots level, and essentially remain with a rural and uneducated population, particularly with women. Meantime, women had no choice but to continue using Turkish as the language of their daily communication and in the creation of a rich oral literature. As the primary contributors and carriers of the folklore, they composed and sang their elegies, eulogies, hymns, lullabies, and lyrics only in Turkish verse, hence giving Turkish the personality of the "mother tongue" quite deservedly.
I will argue that, historically, the Turkish language and Turkish women shared similar destinies, in that, they became the victims of their own imperial and patriarchal system, particularly, during the reign of the Ottomans. While Ottoman, a new imperial language came into existence, so did the gap between the ordinary citizens and the ruling class. In the end, ironically, it was the Turkish women who were instrumental in preserving Turkish upon the tablet of their memories, enabling millions of people today to speak and spread this language eagerly. The Turkish that we shall concern ourselves with belongs to the southwestern (Oghuz) branch of Turkish, which is also called the Modern Turkish. A conclusion to the paper will be drawn according to the evidence presented.
My intention in this presentation is to discuss the ongoing post-socialist transition processes in Central Asia through the lenses of two main theoretical positions on democratization. I will identify the major propositions of the structuralist and voluntarist approaches of democratization and will proceed with a discussion of how and to what extent these two frameworks can contribute and enhance our understanding of the ongoing political processes in the region.
This paper aims to examine Moscow's federal relations with Tatarstan under Vladimir Putin, who was elected as the new Russian president on 26 March 2000. The paper argues that Putin's presidency seems to mark an authoritarian turn in Russian politics that might have negative implications for Moscow's relations with Tatarstan. Immediately after replacing Boris Yeltsin as the new Russian president, Putin created seven administrative macro-regions and subordinated all federal units to the heads of macro-regions. Five of the seven macro-regions are headed by former officers from the intelligence service or army. Putin also attempted to re-define Moscow's special relations with the most autonomous republic in the federation structure: Tatarstan. The incorporation of Tatarstan into the Volga district could annul the privileges Tatarstan enjoys since 1994, and ruin everything that Tatarstan has achieved in the post-Soviet era. In fact, neither the Russian federal constitution nor the power-sharing treaty of 1994 between Moscow and Tatarstan provide for another administrative layer between Moscow and Tatarstan. Apart from damaging the Tatar illusion of sovereignty, the new form of relationship is likely to undermine the 'check and balance' role of Tatarstan against the overweening power of Moscow. Initially, the paper examines the authoritarian character of Putin's discourse of federalism. This will be followed by a discussion of the reasons for the popularity of Putin's proposals among some of Russian citizens who are looking for a way out of the country's prolonged crisis. Afterwards, it discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the Tatarstan authorities vis-is Moscow. Later, the paper will assess whether the ethnic Tatars are strong enough to shield themselves from the anticipated negative impact of Putin's new politics of federalism. It will also discuss whether the pro-Moscow Tatars and the ethnic Russian residents of Tatarstan could replace the President of Tatarstan, Mintimer Shaimiev, whom they have accused of corruption and authoritarianism, with a more pro-Moscow leader. The paper will conclude by pointing out that Putin's moves to increase Moscow's central authority at the expense of ethnically non-Russian regions, such as Tatarstan, could lead to an authoritarian order, but not to democratic federal relations that would accommodate Russia's multicultural diversity.
International public relations is a burgeoning area of scholarly inquiry as well as professional practice. Notably absent from extant PR research, however, is Central Asia. This paper will begin to fill this void by engaging the notion that PR can play a productive role in the development of civil society. The paper is theoretically grounded but will inform practice. Some of the questions the paper will try to answer include: How does one practice effective PR when the organization-media relationship is hampered by government control and an on-going struggle for media independence? How do concepts such as self-determination and choice figure into the equation? And, how can we conceptualize PR as the PROCESS of participation in civil society?
Based on interviews I conducted with PR academics and practitioners in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in May-June 2000, I observed that much of the PR being practiced there is by people untrained and not formally schooled in the field. Degrees in PR are still unavailable from universities in the region, although enrollment in Journalism programs is up and demand for PR coursework is growing. Too, much of the PR that is being practiced is tactical versus strategic. That is, PR in Central Asia is still about setting up press conferences and distributing press releases and not yet about establishing long-term collaborative relationships. These relationships can and should be with social and political entities (i.e., publics) such as government, citizens/consumers, and employees as well as the media.
Since 1987, the Crimean Tatars who were exiled to Central Asia by Stalin have been repatriating to the Crimean peninsula on a massive scale. The bulk of scholarly attention has been devoted to the Tatars' renewed struggle for survival in their historic homeland. But between 50, 000 and 200, 000 are estimated to remain in Central Asia. Do they, too, aspire to return? If not, how do they construct their lives in what are now former places of exile? Based on ethnographic fieldwork from 1996-1998, this paper suggests Crimean Tatars express both their ambivalence and their affection with regard to life in Central Asia by means of various idioms. As a visit to a cemetery in Uzbekistan revealed, intense feelings of patriotism beyond immediate narrative availability find an outlet in the "voices" of the deceased. Crimean Tatars use the imputed voices of the dead to add weight and volume to their intense attachment to the historic homeland at the same time that they acknowledge they have little hope of repatriating. Following a discussion of the reasons some Tatars remain in diaspora, I delve into Crimean Tatars' sentiments about homeland and suggest that their place-centered narration, whether on the home, the cemetery, or homeland itself, reorients our attention to the ways in which place is political. While the Soviet Union was at least imagined as a homogenous social space in which equality and a "friendship of peoples "prevailed, Tatars' self-described spectral and ghostly presence reveals the sense of oppression they sometimes still experience.
The proposed paper is about the ethnic conflicts in the two former Soviet republics- Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan, before and after the collapse of the USSR. The paper looks at the resurgence of the social movements that started with the launch of Perestroika in 1986. In particular, I am interested in analyzing what made Azerbaijani nationalist leaders more successful in mobilizing masses, as compared to the Kyrgyz nationalist leaders. In my study I focus not only on the outcomes of the ethnic movements, but also on the processes of mobilization. I study how political and economic institutions affect the development of nationalist movements, and how the nationalist leaders manage to mobilize masses, and to maintain the movement.
Nationalism represents both collective and individual aspirations. Members of a group usually have a common interest, while their individual interests and priorities do not always coincide. For example, all members of an ethnic group aspire for more rights for their group, but at the same time each member has a self-interest in how much they would like to contribute to the collective good. This individual self-interest prevents people from contributing to collective action therefore contributes to the failure of the movement.
In the paper I study the affect of the economic and political institutions on the movements, and how nationalist leaders managed to overcome the self-interest of the individual members of the ethnic groups. By focusing on these factors, I try to explain the behavior of individual participants of the ethnic movements. I, thus, ask three questions. Why did the ethnic groups rebel in the first place? How did the ethnic groups manage to ensure wide participation of the members of the community in the movement? How did regime change affect the ethnic movements?
My study tries to promote theoretical thinking about the Central Asian ethnic conflicts by testing theories of social movements developed by the Western scholars. This will contribute not only to the area studies, but also to the scholarly debate on the applicability of the theories.
Kazakhstan is a multinational country like the USA. We have peoples of different ethnic descents. All of them have languages not appertaining to one family of languages, they belong to different religious confessions, have various cultural backgrounds. Nevertheless some situations arising among youngsters may look alike. Due to the disintegration of USSR, entering market economy with a very high pace many phenomena of social life gave strong impact on behavior of young people. Some youngsters can't afford studying at colleges, Universities, nor can they find job - all this incurs new difficulties of parents in handling their offspring. School teachers do not receive any valuable recommendations from counselors, educationists. It is a real fact that many youngsters have deviational behavior, these adolescents or rather teenagers are physically and psychologically quite normal without any retardedness. There are now many non-formal groups of youngsters which behave as they please threatening sometimes welfare of surrounding people. Very often young people oppose each other without any visible reason for it. We found out that some groups have different moral values in life, different self-esteem, levels of claim. We think there is some latent periodicity in shaping these values (cultural, material, moral). If this periodicity is clearly identified then teachers, persons in charge of up-bringing young generation can set in advance positive values which are needed by the society.
Post-Soviet Central Asia has, strategically and economically, become one of the most important regions of the world and Uzbekistan is the centre point of the region. Contemporary Uzbekistan as a political entity with its boundaries and organizational structures was created by the Bolsheviks during the 1924-25 'national delimitation' that divided Central Asia into several new ethnically-based units. It became one of the fifteen constituent republics of the Soviet Union in 1924. Uzbekistan was the Soviet Union's most important Muslim community serving as a model for other Muslim groups in the empire. It was also of special economic importance because it was the world's third largest producer of cotton. After Russians and Ukrainians, Uzbeks comprised the third largest ethnic group in the Soviet Union, and Uzbekistan was the fifth largest Soviet republic. As recently as 1989, the republic represented the most subservient non-Slavic republic to Moscow in all matters. Yet the government of the republic of Uzbekistan declared its sovereignty in June 1990, and almost a year later, in August 1991, declared its independence. As a contemporary state, Uzbekistan asserts that it has committed itself to the universal democratic principles and a multi-party political system. This paper is, thus a study of the history of attempts to form a multi-party system in Uzbekistan since 1905. The paper discusses the political parties allowed to function then banned; the parties re-formed and then dissolved; and the parties created and allowed to operate in the country since the pre-evolution era. The paper gives a brief account of the function and work of the political parties and movements such as; the "Octoberians", the party of Constitutional Democracy, the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party, the party of Socialists-Revolutionists, the Jadids, "Shuroi Islamia", the "Shuroi Ulamo" and the Communist Party, and gives an up-to-date analysis of a variety of political challengers and opposition parties which the government of Uzbekistan is facing since the Perestroika, and examines the most recent Uzbek Law on political parties. The paper concludes by stating present and future prospects for a genuine multi-partyism in Uzbekistan.
Up to 1991 the Republic of Kazakhstan has 55 Institutes and 2 Universities. All educational system was free of charge and supported by the state.
Since 1994 practically all state higher educational institutions became Universities and there was obvious tendency for creating private educational industry. In 1995 the amount of institutions and universities doubled and a tendency to increase the number of private educational institutions is strong.
In June 1999 Kazakh Ministry of Higher Education printed disastrous data: per one attending the secondary school state spends 14, 000 tenge per a year; per one student a year the state's expenditures are 67, 000 tenge and to see the difference, as Minister of education K. Kusherbayev said, the state spends per one person kept in penitentiary zone 170, 000 tenge per one year.
On July 6, 1999 in Astana a brand new Kazakhstani law was adopted. The title is: "Republic of Kazakhstan's Law about education". It is rather progressive. The law contains 50 articles. Much was taken after US higher educational policy. International cooperation is proclaimed to be one of the priorities. The very positive activity of American councils for international education ACTR/ACCELS, USIS, Soros foundation, Peace Corps volunteers are considered to fruitful and mutually advantageous.
Having got democracy our Azerbaijan Republic began to cooperate with the different foreign countries of the world. Democracy gave a chance to some private universities to be set up in Baku, for example: Khazar, Western, American and Azerbaijan Universities and so on. Our Nakhchivan University has also been accredited to the State status with the decision No 84, July 4, 1986 of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Azerbaijan Republic. Unfortunately, some of the people- teachers of the state institutes are against to private universities. But they are quite mistaken, because private universities give an opportunity to the freshman to choose which university to study, like in the foreign countries.
I think little by little the private universities in Baku, including our Nakhchivan University too, will cooperate with the universities of the English speaking countries and they will overcome the difficulties.
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