Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T00:36:45.177Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Return of the Aryan Myth: Tajikistan in Search of a Secularized National Ideology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Marlene Laruelle*
Affiliation:
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC, USA. Email: [email protected]

Extract

For more than a decade, the five Central Asian republics have been “readjusting” their academic institutions in response to the new borders created by the fall of the USSR and subsequent independence in 1991. Both the university system and the Academy of Sciences have been called on to rethink their research policy in order to meet the new national stakes and current political demands. Thus, the elaboration of a national discourse is a particularly relevant object of study in order to observe the different modes of legitimization of the new Central Asian states and the scholarly tools they deem necessary for their political ratification. Consequently, in retracing the genealogy of the contemporary historical analyses we must pose a question regarding the development of the academic disciplines and the data concerning their political environment. Does Tajik independence in 1991 involve rethinking the genesis of the nation and the scholarly fields linked to the elaboration of the national narrative? Why have the political authorities declared 2006 the “year of the Aryan civilization”?

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ashurov, G. “Ideinaya bor'ba vokrug knigi Akademika B. G. Gafurova Tadzhiki.” Merosi niëgon—Nasledie predkov, no. 6 (2003): 7278.Google Scholar
Askarov, A.Ariiskaya problema: novye podkhody i vzglyady.” In Istoriya Uzbekistana v arkheologicheskikh i pis'mennykh istochnikakh. Tashkent: Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan, 2005.Google Scholar
Avesta i mirovaya tsivilizatsiya. Dushanbe: Akademiya Nauk Respubliki Tadzhikistan, 2001.Google Scholar
B. G. Gafurov: dialog kul'tur i tsivilizatsii, Moscow: IV RAN, 2000.Google Scholar
Djalili, M. R., ed. Le Tadjikistan à l'épreuve de la guerre civile. Geneva: Institut d'études internationales, 1995.Google Scholar
Drevnyaya tsivilizatsiya i ee rol’ v slozhenii i razvitii kul'tury Tsentral'noj Azii epokhi samanidov. Dushanbe: Mezhdunarodnyi nauchnyi Tsentr, 1999.Google Scholar
Dudoignon, S. A. “Changements politiques et historiographiques en Asie centrale (Tadjikistan et Uzbékistan, 1987–1993).” Cahiers d'études sur la Méditerranée orientale et le monde turco-iranien (CEMOTI), no. 16 (1993): 85135.Google Scholar
Dudoignon, S. A., ed. “Le Tadjikistan existe-t-il? Destins politiques d'une nation imparfaite.” Cahiers d'études sur la Méditerranée orientale et le monde turco-iranien (CEMOTI), no. 18 (1994).Google Scholar
Gafurov, B. G. Istoriya tadzhikskogo naroda v kratkom izlozhenii. Moscow: Politizdat, 1949.Google Scholar
Gafurov, B. G. Tadzhiki. Drevneishaya, drevnyaya i srednevekovaya istoriya. Dushanbe: Irfon, 1989.Google Scholar
Gafurov, B. G., and Litvinskii, B. A. Uzlovye problemy etnogeneza i etnicheskoi istorii narodov Srednei Azii i Kazakhstana (teoreticheskii aspekt). Moscow: Nauka, 1976.Google Scholar
Laruelle, M. “Continuité des élites intellectuelles, continuité des problématiques identitaires. Ethnologie et ‘ethnogenèse’ à l'Académie des Sciences d'Ouzbékistan.” Cahiers d'Asie centrale, no. 13–14 (2004): 4576.Google Scholar
Laruelle, M. Mythe aryen et rěve impérial dans la Russie du xixe siècle. Paris: SNRS-Editions, 2005.Google Scholar
Laruelle, M.Tengrism: In Search for Central Asia's Spiritual Roots.” Central Asia and Caucasus Analyst, 22 March 2006, available from http://www.cacianyst.org/view_article.php?articleid=4102.Google Scholar
Laruelle, M., and Peyrouse, S. Asie centrale, la derive autoritaire. Cinq républiques entre héritage soviétique, dictature et islam. Paris: Autrement–CERI, 2006.Google Scholar
Masov, R. Tadzhiki: istoriya s grifom “sovershenno sekretno.” Dushanbe: Paivand, 1995.Google Scholar
Masov, R.Turan—eto ne Turkestan.” In Avesta v istorii i kul'ture Tsentral'noj Azii, edited by Radzhabov, A. Dushanbe: Akademiya Nauk Respubliki Tadzhikistan, 2001.Google Scholar
Masov, R. Merosi niëgon—Nasledie predkov, no. 6 (2003): 2.Google Scholar
Masov, R. Arii: istoriya i sovremennost'. Dushanbe: Sharki Ozod, 2006.Google Scholar
Mukhtarov, A., and Sharipov, Sh. Akademik Bobodzhan Gafurov. Dushanbe: Irfon, 1983.Google Scholar
Mumidzhanov, Kh. Kh. “Avesta ob etnogeneze tadzhikov.” Izvestiya Akademii Nauk Respubliki Tadzhikistan, seriya filosofiya i pravovedenie, no. 1–2 (2002): 8997.Google Scholar
Nasirova, F. “Chtrikhi k prarodine ariev (gorizonty molekulyarnoi genetiki cheloveka).” In Zoroastrizm i ego znachenie v razvitii tsivilizatsii narodov Blizhnego i Srednego Vostoka, edited by Radzhabov, A. Dushanbe, 2003.Google Scholar
Negmatov, N. N. Gosudarstvo samanidov (Mavarannakhr i Khorasan v ix–x vv.). Dushanbe: Donish, 1977.Google Scholar
Negmatov, N. N. Tadzhiki. Istoricheskii Tadzhikistan, sovremennyi Tadzhikistan. Gissar, 1992.Google Scholar
Negmatov, N. N. Tadzhikskii fenomen: teoriya i istoriya. Dushanbe, 1997.Google Scholar
P'yankov, I. V. “Ariana po svidetel'stvam antichnykh avtorov.” Vostok, no. 1 (1995).Google Scholar
Rakhmonov, E. P. Tadzhiki v zerkale istorii. Vol. 1: Ot ariitsev do samanidov. London: Flint River, 1999.Google Scholar
Rakhmonov, E. P. “Rodina zaratushtry i yavlenie proroka”. In Zoroastrizm i ego znachenie v razvitii tsivilizatsii narodov Blizhnego i Srednego Vostoka. Dushanbe, 2003.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C. L'Enigme indo-européenne. Archéologie et langage. Paris: Flammarion, 1990.Google Scholar
Shnirelman, V. Who Gets the Past? Competition for Ancestors among Non-Russian Intellectuals in Russia. Washington, DC and Baltimore: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Shozimov, P. D. Tadzhikskaya identichnost’ i gosudarstvennoe stroitel'stvo v Tadzhikistane. Dushanbe: Irfon, 2003.Google Scholar
Suny, R. Grigor. Intellectuals and the Articulation of the Nation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Tolstov, S. P., Nabiev, R. N., Gulyamov, Ya. G., and Shishkin, V. A., eds. Istoriya uzbekskoi SSR. Vol. 1, book 1. Tashkent: Akademiya nauk, 1956.Google Scholar
Vklad iranskikh narodov v razvitie mirovoi tsivilizatsii. Istoriya i sovremennost'. Dushanbe: Donish, 2002.Google Scholar