SUMMARY:

In this essay on the state of the art in post-Soviet debates about ethnicity and nationhood in Central Asia, Sergei Abashin suggests two reasons for the relative isolation of indigenous Central Asian scholarship. The first is the officially supported theory of etnos, which is institutionalized in Soviet academia and which proved to be a useful tool for describing independent nationhood in ways different from the Marxist orthodoxy. At the same time, Abashin suggests that the often arrogant critique of the Soviet legacy by Western scholars tends to reduce the chances for cooperation with post-Soviet researchers and contributes to the relative isolationism of Central Asian scholarship. Abashin believes, though, that new contacts with the West have gradually loosened the grip of theories of etnos on the researchers of Central Asia, although Western scholarship is received selectively, with preferences going to more primordialist scholars like Anthony Smith. Abashin also stresses the presence of primordialist views on nationhood and ethnicity even in Western analyses, especially among less theoretically inclined researchers. In Abashin’s view, “constructivist” approaches to the history of Central Asian nations should go beyond conspiracy theory and attempt to answer questions about the relative success of the massive reconfiguration of Central Asia’s social and political map that was Soviet nation-building. Moreover, constructivist approaches tend to reproduce the nation-centered historical paradigm, while the task now is to include various ethnic, confessional, and social groups in what should become a new non-ethnic and non-nation-centered history of Central Asia. In the debate between those who argue for the reality of the feeling of ethnic belonging and those who suggest the strictly constructivist approach to the problem of Central Asian nations, Abashin sides with neither part and suggests that no political agenda can sponsor research programs.