LIST OF MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION xv INTRODUCTION Tribe, Class, and Nation in Turkmenistan 1 PART I: MAKING A NATION CHAPTER ONE Sources of Identity among the Turkmen 17 CHAPTER TWO Assembling the Nation: The Creation of a Turkmen National Republic 41 CHAPTER THREE Ethnic Preferences and Ethnic Conflict: The Rise of a Turkmen National Elite 70 CHAPTER FOUR Helpers, Not Nannies: Moscow and the Turkmen Communist Party 100 CHAPTER FIVE Dueling Dialects: The Creation of a Turkmen Language 129 PART II: CONSTRUCTING SOCIALISM CHAPTER SIX A Nation Divided: Class Struggle and the Assault on "Tribalism" 167 CHAPTER SEVEN Cotton and Collectivization: Rural Resistance in Soviet Turkmenistan 197 CHAPTER EIGHT Emancipation of the Unveiled: Turkmen Women under Soviet Rule 221 CONCLUSION From Soviet Republic to Independent Nation-State 261 GLOSSARY OF TERMS AND ABBREVIATIONS 267 BIBLIOGRAPHY 269 INDEX 287
This is a beautifully written, extremely well researched, and very well argued investigation of nation-making in Soviet Central Asia. Edgar's work goes much further than that of many of her contemporaries and moves in an important new direction. Rather than simply look out from Moscow, from the top down, she begins from Turkmenistan, from the local, and argues that the actual shapes that nations took were the result of a complex negotiation between local traditions and the plans of the Soviets themselves. This is an extraordinarily important refinement of the existing literature. -- Ronald Sun
Adrienne Lynn Edgar is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She was formerly an editor of "World Policy Journal".
This expertly written volume ... describes its shift from an obedient Soviet republic to an independent Turkmenistan with its own flag, national anthem, and problems. Choice Adrienne Lynn Edgar has filled a significant gap in the scholarship with this engaging new book on the history of Soviet Turkmenistan. There is really nothing out there quite like it. -- Michael G. Smith Slavic Review The book is one of the most important of the regional studies that are currently enhancing our knowledge of nation-building in the interwar Soviet Union. Its fluent and easy style, and Edgar's disposition not to take for granted an acquaintance with Soviet history, make it a very good introduction to Soviet nationalities policy through case study, and a book also suitable for undergraduate courses. -- Niccolo Pianciola International Review of Social History As the first English-language monograph to analyze the complexity of Turkmen life and identity within the context of Soviet policies, the book superbly reviews the compromises between the central Soviet authorities in Moscow and the European and Turkmeni communists in Central Asia. -- George O. Liber Europe: Early Modern and Modern Professor Edgar covers the period of Soviet Turkmenistan since its creation in its more constructive formative period until the time of the Great Terror. She has researched her subject admirably well and presents her discoveries in thorough yet readable detail. -- Albrecht Rothacher Asian Europe Journal One of the most exciting new works of central Asian history in recent years... This book richly illustrates the Turkmen 1920s and 1930s, but it loses none of its salience in a diagnosis of central Asian life today. An ideal length for teaching and a pleasure to take up: Edgar's book is a must-read for anyone engaged in central Asian history, ethnography, and comparative politics. -- Bruce Grant Journal of Modern History
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