A time for feasting? Autarky in the Tajik Ferghana Valley at war, 1941–45

Flora Roberts

Central Asian Survey, 2017, vol. 36, issue 1, 37-54

Abstract: The well-established narrative of the Soviet Union’s victory in the Great Patriotic War emphasizes the enormous sacrifices that it entailed, and the extraordinary sufferings of both the Red Army and the entire civilian population. Throughout the war years, however, reports of lavish feasting and conspicuous consumption taking place on collective farms in northern Tajikistan continued to be submitted to Moscow. The ‘culprits’ were usually local Soviet officials, who appear to have reverted to traditional redistributive practices and modes of patronage. I argue that such acts of ‘anti-Soviet sabotage’ do not necessarily prove that Central Asians understood themselves as colonized subjects making the most of a temporary reprieve from state intrusion. The war in fact casts into sharp relief the extent to which many local officials of the Tajik SSR perceived themselves as loyal Soviet citizens – and as good Muslims, too.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/02634937.2016.1202193 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:ccasxx:v:36:y:2017:i:1:p:37-54

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/ccas20

DOI: 10.1080/02634937.2016.1202193

Access Statistics for this article

Central Asian Survey is currently edited by Raphael Jacquet

More articles in Central Asian Survey from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().