Intermarriage and the Friendship of Peoples: Ethnic Mixing in Soviet Central Asia 9781501762956

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INTERMARRIAGE AND THE FRIENDSHIP OF P ­ EOPLES

INTERMARRIAGE AND THE FRIENDSHIP OF ­P EOPLES

ETHNIC MIXING IN S OV I E T C E N T R A L A S I A

Adrienne Edgar

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS Ithaca and London

Copyright © 2022 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress​.­cornell​.­edu. First published 2022 by Cornell University Press Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data Names: Edgar, Adrienne Lynn, 1960–­author. Title: Intermarriage and the friendship of ­peoples :   ethnic mixing in Soviet Central Asia / Adrienne Edgar. Description: Ithaca [New York] : Cornell University Press,   2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021033350 (print) | LCCN   2021033351 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501762949   (hardcover) | ISBN 9781501762963 (ebook) |   ISBN 9781501762956 (pdf ) Subjects: LCSH: Interethnic marriage—­K azakhstan—­   History—20th ­century. | Interethnic marriage—  ­Tajikistan—­History—20th ­century. | Interethnic   marriage—­Asia, Central—­History—20th ­century. |   Intermarriage—­K azakhstan—­History—20th ­century. |   Intermarriage—­Tajikistan—­History—20th ­century. |   Intermarriage—­Asia, Central—­History—20th ­century. |   Interfaith marriage—­K azakhstan—­History—   20th ­century. | Interfaith marriage—­Tajikistan—  ­History—20th ­century. | Interfaith marriage—­Asia,   Central—­History—20th ­century. | Intercountry   marriage—­K azakhstan—­History—20th ­century. |   Intercountry marriage—­Tajikistan—­History—   20th ­century. | Intercountry marriage—­Asia,   Central—History—20th ­century. | Families—­   Kazakhstan—History—20th ­century. | Families—­   Tajikistan—History—20th ­century. | Families—­   Asia, Central—­History—20th ­century. Classification: LCC HQ1031 .E44 2022 (print) |   LCC HQ1031 (ebook) | DDC 306.84/5095845—­dc23 LC rec­ord available at https://­lccn​.­loc​.­gov​/­2021033350 LC ebook rec­ord available at https://­lccn​.­loc​.­gov​  /2021033351

For Amai and Ben, the youn­gest Edgars And in memory of Adil Alexandrovich Ualiyev (1993–2015)

Co n te n ts

Acknowl­edgments  ix

Introduction: Nationality, Race, and Mixed Marriage in the Soviet Union

1

1. Intermarriage and Soviet Social Science

17

2. Falling in Love across Ethnic Lines

42

3. Scenes from Happy (and Not So Happy) Mixed Marriages

67

4. Intermarriage and the “Eastern ­Woman”

90

5. Dilemmas of Identity and Belonging

116

6. Naming Mixed ­Children

140

7. Mixed Families and the Rus­sian Language

161

8. Intermarriage ­after the Soviet Collapse

187

Conclusion: Remembering Soviet Internationalism 212 Appendix I: Oral History Methodology  217 Appendix II: List of Interviews  221 Notes  225 Bibliography  263 Index  279

A ck n o w l­e d gm e n ts

I am delighted to acknowledge every­one who helped make this book pos­si­ble. First and foremost, I thank all the ­women and men in Central Asia and Rus­sia who shared their life stories in interviews for this proj­ect. Without their generosity and openness, this book would not exist. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my friends and colleagues in Kazakhstan: Saule Ualiyeva, who helped me to find my first interview subjects and whose collaboration, knowledge, and hospitality have meant so much to me over the years; Nazym Shedenova and her ­father Utegali Shedenov, who graciously hosted me for several weeks in their home in Almaty; Karlygash Toktybaeva, Bibigul Kylyshbayeva, Margarita Uskembaeva, Svetlana Shakirova, Zaure Zhanazarova, and Alnara Aimaganbetova, who shared their ideas about intermarriage in Kazakhstan, steered me t­ oward in­ter­est­ing readings and interview subjects and helped me in countless other ways. Karlygash Toktybaeva also generously offered to conduct and transcribe an interview on my behalf. Aygul Esimova conducted several interviews for this proj­ect in Shymkent, and Olga Gayko and Elena Matskovskaya transcribed many of the interviews. I thank the scholars at the Institute of Ethnography and Anthropology of the Rus­sian Acad­emy of Sciences, especially Olga Briusina, Olga Naumova, Sergei Abashin, and Viktor Shnirelman, who shared thoughts and materials with me and ­gently corrected some of my misconceptions about Soviet social science. I am also grateful to the sociologist Alexander Susokolov, who invited me into his home to discuss his impor­tant research on Soviet-­era intermarriage. I was fortunate to have two exceptionally capable gradu­ate student assistants, Zamira Yusufjonova Abman and Sergey Salushchev, who helped me with many aspects of the research for this book. My sincere thanks go out to both of them. The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation funded the initial stages of research for this proj­ect, enabling me to spend a productive year at the Humboldt-­ Universität in Berlin. I thank Jörg Baberowski and his research group t­here for hosting me and for including me in many stimulating conversations about Soviet history. I am grateful to Sophie Roche and the Karl Jaspers Centre for ix

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Transcultural Research at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, whose offer of a research fellowship afforded me the time and peace of mind to write the first draft of this book. In addition, I received support for this proj­ect from the Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation), the UC Santa Barbara Academic Senate, and the UC Santa Barbara Interdisciplinary Humanities Center. Many colleagues have read portions of this work or discussed ethnicity, race, intermarriage, Soviet identity, and oral history with me, and the final version of the book owes a ­g reat deal to them. I am especially grateful to Elena Aronova, Hilary Bern­stein, Benjamin Frommer, Ali Igmen, Marianne Kamp, Yasemin Karacaoglu, Adeeb Khalid, Marina Mogilner, Sophie Roche, Paul Spickard, Jeff Sahadeo, and Anna Whittington. I appreciate the careful reading of my manuscript by the anonymous readers at Cornell University Press, who offered many excellent suggestions for revisions. I am also grateful to my editors at Cornell University Press—­Roger Haydon, whose enthusiasm for this proj­ect during a burgeoning pandemic was truly gratifying, and Jim Lance and Clare Jones, who ably carried the book across the finish line. I have received feedback on this proj­ect at many venues over the years, including meetings of the Association for the Study of Nationalities, the Association for Slavic, East Eu­ro­pean, and Eurasian Studies, the Central Asian Studies Society, the Critical Mixed Race Studies Society, and the Desert Rus­ sian History Workshop. A workshop on race in Rus­sia at New York University’s Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Rus­sia, or­ga­nized by David Rainbow, helped me to rethink my ideas about race in the Soviet Union at a critical stage in the proj­ect. My ­family has been living the themes of this book for many years: my ­mother, Patricia Edgar; my b­ rother Tom Edgar, his wife, Grace Lee, and their son Ben; my husband, Bisi Agboola, and our son, Amai. I am grateful for their unfailing support. My late f­ather, Dallas Edgar, did not live to see this book, but I credit him with turning me into a historian by teaching me to question every­thing, always. Thanks, Dad! A version of chapter 5 appeared as “­Children of Mixed Marriage in Soviet Central Asia: Dilemmas of Identity and Belonging,” in Ideologies of Race: Rus­sia and the Soviet Union in Global Context, ed. David Rainbow (Montreal: McGill-­Queen’s University Press, 2019), 208–233. A version of chapter 6 appeared as “What to Name the ­Children? Oral Histories of Ethnically Mixed Families in Soviet Central Asia,” in Kritika: Explorations in Rus­sian and Eurasian History 20, no. 2 (Spring 2019): 269–290. In addition, some of the material in this book first appeared in “The ‘Laboratory of ­Peoples’ Friendship’: ­People of Mixed Descent in Kazakhstan from the Soviet Era to the Pre­sent” (with Saule Ualiyeva), in Global Mixed Race, ed. Rebecca C. King-­O’Riain, Stephen Small,



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Minelle Mahtani, Miri Song, and Paul Spickard, (New York: New York University Press, 2014), 68–90, and in “Marriage, Modernity and the ‘Friendship of Nations:’ Interethnic Intimacy in Postwar Soviet Central Asia in Comparative Perspective,” Central Asian Survey no. 4 (December 2007): 581–600, copyright Global South, Ltd., reprinted by permission of Informa UK Ltd., trading as Taylor and Francis Group, www​.­tandfonline​.­com. I am grateful to the publishers for allowing me to use this material.

INTERMARRIAGE AND THE FRIENDSHIP OF P ­ EOPLES

Introduction Nationality, Race, and Mixed Marriage in the Soviet Union

I ­can’t ­really say that I feel like a Kazakh or a Rus­sian. It’s hard to say. I ­don’t know, I, well, I simply feel like a ­human being. I identify more with what we had ­under socialism—­internationalism. I am a person for whom it is ­really not impor­tant what nationality I am. That is, in spirit I am very close, you might say, to this princi­ple of internationalism. —­Marina Abdrahmanova (2010)

The comment by Marina, d­ aughter of a Rus­sian ­mother and a Kazakh ­father, was hardly unusual; I heard many versions of it in interviews with former Soviet citizens from ethnically mixed families. Respondents would claim that “nationality ­didn’t m ­ atter” in the Soviet Union, that “we w ­ ere all Soviet,” and “we w ­ ere internationalists back then.” Yet the same ­people occasionally shared memories that told a dif­fer­ent story, one in which nationality and ethnicity mattered very much indeed. I heard disturbing accounts of discrimination experienced by ethnically mixed individuals, and I listened as p­ eople discussed ethnic ste­reo­types that w ­ ere widespread in Soviet times: Kazakhs w ­ ere hospitable, yet tradition-­bound; Rus­sians ­were heavy drinkers and lacked close ­family ties; Azerbaijanis ­were pathologically jealous; and Armenians w ­ ere experts at making money. How, I wondered, could Soviet citizens have been both internationalist and obsessed with ethnically defined nationality? This paradox reflects an oft-­noted tension within the Soviet multinational state, which sought to create a “Soviet p­ eople” even as individual ethnic nations ­were becoming entrenched within their own republics.1 Just as impor­ tant, it reflects the rise of a primordial and quasi-­biological way of seeing nationality in the late Soviet Union, which made stereotyping based on national origin and inherited characteristics seem natu­ral, even unavoidable. Despite the official antiracism of the Soviet state, Soviet citizens in the last de­cades of 1

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the USSR’s existence w ­ ere increasingly—­though often unwittingly—­thinking, speaking, and acting in racialized ways. This book investigates the interplay of national and Soviet through the lens of interethnic intimacy. The Soviet Union, like many modern states with ethnically diverse populations, was preoccupied with questions of ethnic mixing. In contrast to the antimixing policies prevalent in the United States throughout most of the twentieth ­century, the Soviet state celebrated mixed marriages as proof of the unbreakable “friendship of peoples” and as a sign of the impending merger of its numerous nationalities into a Soviet ­people. But what was the Soviet p­ eople, exactly, and how was membership in this supranational entity compatible with being ethnically Rus­sian, Uzbek, Georgian, or Estonian? How did individuals and families on the margins of nationality, t­ hose who possessed multiple and ambiguous affiliations by virtue of being mixed, navigate ­these two poles of identity? I argue that despite official Soviet anti racism and the state’s cele­bration of mixed marriages, mixed individuals and families in the Soviet Union faced significant challenges as they sought to define their place in Soviet multiethnic society—­challenges that ­were largely due to the increasingly racialized understanding of nationality. In the Soviet Union, it was nationality (natsional’nost’) that defined intermarriage. The USSR had more than one hundred officially recognized nationalities, which w ­ ere used in census categories as well as in the internal passport carried by ­every citizen over the age of sixteen. T ­ hese nationalities had been elaborated by Soviet ethnographers in the early years ­after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution as part of a pro­cess of dividing the Soviet Union into national-­ territorial republics.2 Natsional’nost’ was most similar to what would in the United States be called “ethnicity,” though it included a territorial component absent in the US understanding. In the Soviet context, then, a mixed marriage was simply a ­union of a man and a w ­ oman who had dif­fer­ent nationalities inscribed in their identity documents. This official understanding did not necessarily overlap with local conceptions of intermarriage. Even Soviet citizens who ­were of the same nationality might have believed themselves to be crossing impor­tant identity bound­aries when they wed, since religion, kinship, and social status all remained impor­ tant in marriage decisions. This was especially true of Central Asia, where Soviet nationality categories did not necessarily have much resonance with ­people who had historically defined themselves by religion, lineage, region, or way of life (nomadic or sedentary). In Turkmenistan, it was rare for individuals to intermarry with members of another tribe. In all of the Central Asian republics, members of sacred lineages (hojas or sayyids) traditionally did not intermarry with ­others.3 At the same time, spouses of differing nationalities,

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such as a Kazakh married to a Tatar or a Rus­sian to a Ukrainian, might not perceive their marriages as mixed b­ ecause of the cultural and religious affinities between ­these groups. For many Soviet ­people, then, nationality was not necessarily the only or even the most impor­tant identity category. Given ­these complexities, why use the Soviet definition of intermarriage at all? I use it in this book for two main reasons. First, ­because the Soviet state and its scholars w ­ ere continuously counting, celebrating, and other­wise managing mixed marriages using this definition. It was the Soviet state itself that created the notion of mixed marriage between dif­fer­ent nationalities within the territory of the former Rus­sian Empire. A ­ fter the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the new Soviet ­family code transformed marriage in the former Rus­sian empire from a religious sacrament into a civil ceremony, and the prior conception of intermarriage as exclusively interconfessional became obsolete. The Soviet regime’s emphasis on nationality and its elaboration of this category gave rise to the idea of intermarriage as marriage across national lines. Second, I use the Soviet understanding of intermarriage ­because over time it came to be widely and publicly accepted among Soviet citizens, pushing competing ideas about intermarriage into the background. In my conversations with former Soviet citizens in Central Asia, it quickly became clear that they considered only t­ hose ­couples with dif­fer­ent “official” nationalities to be mixed. Intra-­nationality marriages between p­ eople of dif­fer­ent kinship or status groups did not count. Just like Soviet nationality categories themselves, the concept of intermarriage created by the Soviet state had been internalized by Soviet citizens. The historical role of states in creating and solidifying identity categories is well documented.4 In the Soviet Union, not only the occasional census but also the continual reminders of one’s nationality when presenting personal identity documents reinforced official nationality categories. The very existence of national-­territorial republics, each with its own language, schools, newspapers, and elites, further bolstered the real­ity of Soviet nationalities.5 Just as some US and British scholars have argued that the idea of interracial marriage is predicated on scientifically questionable assumptions about the real­ ity of race, the conception of mixed marriage in the Soviet Union rested on a belief in the existence of distinct and pure nationalities.6 Paradoxically, the ongoing discussion and cele­bration of marriages across nationality bound­aries—­ marriages that would ostensibly help erase national distinctions and create a “Soviet p­ eople”—­actually helped to solidify t­hose distinctions and convince ­people of their real­ity. Intermarriage and the Friendship of Peoples addresses three interlocking areas of scholarly concern. First, it engages with the growing lit­er­a­ture analyzing ethnicity, nationality, and race in the Soviet Union, one of the most impor­

4 I NT R OD U CT I ON

tant multiethnic states of the twentieth c­ entury. In par­tic­u­lar, this book examines the ways in which state-­defined nationality categories intersected with the subjective identities of Soviet citizens. As tensions sharpened between two broad tendencies—­the national and the supranational—in the last de­cades of the Soviet Union, I argue that mixed families ­were caught in the ­middle, unable to identify exclusively with one nationality, yet unable to call themselves simply Soviet. The offspring of mixed c­ ouples literally embodied a rebuke to ­those who conceptualized nationality as unitary and primordial. Second, this book examines mixed marriage as a form of lived experience in Soviet Central Asia, thereby contributing to the embryonic fields of gender and ­family history and the history of everyday life in this poorly understood region. Although Soviet ideology saw mixed families in positive terms as the most Soviet of all families, in real­ity, this book shows, they faced vari­ous challenges that monoethnic families did not. Determining which language(s) to speak at home, finding names for c­ hildren that would express their complex identities, interacting with in-­laws of diverse cultural backgrounds, deciding which religion, if any, to practice, and reconciling dif­fer­ent understandings of gender roles—­all of ­these required extra effort and thought, even if they w ­ ere not areas of outright conflict. Third, this book takes an explic­itly comparative and global approach to interethnic marriage in the USSR, contributing to a broader understanding of the worldwide phenomenon of interethnic intimacy in the modern era. Despite the Soviet Union’s claim to be uniquely progressive in its approach to ethnic mixing, I argue, its official policies and the experiences of its mixed families ­were far from unique. The Soviet Union was not the only state to welcome and celebrate mixed marriage, nor was the categorization of its population by nationality instead of race exceptional. Moreover, the experiences and challenges described by ethnically mixed p­ eople in the Soviet Union echo in many re­spects ­those of mixed ­people in other parts of the world. My conclusions ­here complement the work of historians who have sought to downplay Soviet exceptionalism and highlight what the Soviet Union had in common with other twentieth-­century modern states.7

Ethnicity, Nationality, and Race in the USSR The study of ethnicity and nationality in the Soviet state has under­gone a rapid evolution in the three de­cades since the disintegration of the USSR in 1991. In the first de­cade ­after the Soviet Union’s collapse, scholars w ­ ere most interested in understanding the centrifugal forces that had contributed to the unexpected end of the Soviet experiment. Historians led by Ronald G. Suny

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argued that the Soviet regime had been a “maker of nations,” promoting national cultures within ethnically defined republics and inadvertently laying the groundwork for the eventual disintegration of the Soviet Union along national lines. In the first two de­cades of the twenty-­first c­ entury, historians have shifted their focus to the bonds of cohesion that held the multinational Soviet state together, most notably the concept of a supra-­ethnic Soviet ­people. Some have sought to reconcile ­these two seemingly incompatible aspects of Soviet history, arguing that Soviet citizens could si­mul­ta­neously be both national and Soviet.8 Yet none of ­these strands of scholarship has included a discussion of ethnic intermarriage, a phenomenon that directly challenged the Soviet view of nationality as both innate and unitary.9 The dearth of Western scholarly attention to intermarriage in the USSR is all the more striking since this has been an area of intensive scholarly work in the historiography of the Amer­i­ cas, Eu­ro­pean colonialism, and other parts of the world.10 An apparently distinctive feature of the multiethnic Soviet state was its categorization of citizens by nationality rather than race. During the Soviet era, Western historians tended to accept at face value Soviet claims about the absence of race and racism in the USSR. Indeed, in the formative Soviet years between the 1917 revolutions and World War II, the official Soviet view was that each Soviet nationality was distinguished by shared cultural and historical roots, not common descent or blood. Joseph Stalin’s canonical definition of nationality specifically rejected the idea that the nation had racial or ethnic origins.11 A nation, he wrote, was “not a racial or tribal group” but rather a “historically constituted, stable community of ­people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life and psychological makeup manifested in a common culture.”12 Twenty-­first-­century scholarship on the Soviet Union has begun to address the hidden role of race in Soviet thinking. Even in the Stalinist period, historians have noted, t­ here ­were signs of a more primordial and descent-­based approach to nationality; the deportation of entire ­peoples based on their presumed disloyalty in the 1930s and during World War II was a clear sign of this, as was Stalin’s virulent postwar anti-­Semitism.13 The post-­Stalin period saw an increasingly primordial understanding of nationality, as the institutionalization of national identities within national-­territorial republics ensured that t­ hese nations came to be seen as eternal and immortal.14 The revival of the discipline of ge­ne­tics in the mid-1960s, banned u ­ nder Stalin in ­favor of the biologist Trofim Lysenko’s pseudoscience, led to renewed discussions about h ­ uman communities as biological, not just social and histori15 cal, entities. Soviet ethnographers revived a term first used in the 1920s, the ethnos (Greek for ­people or ethnic group), to describe h ­ uman communities that ostensibly maintained their distinct identities over centuries or even millennia.16

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Increasingly, ethnic characteristics came to be seen as genet­ically determined and immutable. T ­ hese developments hinted at a covert racialization of the discourse and practice of nationality in the final de­cades of the Soviet Union. Some historians now argue that racial categories w ­ ere very much pre­sent in  the Soviet Union, even if ­these did not precisely correspond to ­those of “typical” race-­based socie­ties such as the United States.17 In this book, I argue that ordinary citizens in the last three de­cades of the Soviet Union often understood and spoke of nationality in racialized ways, though they almost never used the word race. Even members of mixed families, who might have been expected to have a more nuanced understanding of identity, tended to describe the characteristics of national and ethnic groups as innate and immutable and to accept the implicit existence of ethnic hierarchies both within and outside the Soviet Union. In this, they w ­ ere following the lead of Soviet scholars and officials. As I show in ­later chapters, racialized thinking in the Soviet Union had a particularly detrimental impact on the offspring of mixed marriages, who sometimes ­were made to regret their lack of a “pure” national identity. The primordial understanding of nationality also paved the way for the emergence of vari­ous forms of ethnocentrism and racism in the final years of the Soviet Union and afterward, including hostility to mixed marriages.

Subjectivity, Identity, and Everyday Life in Soviet Central Asia The heart of this book is an examination of the experiences and perceptions of mixed c­ ouples and families in Soviet Central Asia, a region viewed by Soviet leaders as especially backward and in need of rapid social transformation.18 The Central Asian republics had diverse populations, creating numerous opportunities for interaction across ethnic lines. Few regions of the USSR had such a multiplicity of cultures, languages, religions, national traditions, and phenotypes. Soviet scholars themselves focused heavi­ly on Central Asia in their studies of intermarriage. Yet l­ittle is known of how the a­ ctual experience of mixed ­couples squared with the celebratory official rhe­toric. How did a Rus­ sian f­ amily react when their d­ aughter announced that she planned to marry a Tajik man or vice versa? Did a Ukrainian w ­ oman who married a Tatar circumcise her sons according to the rules of Islam? What sorts of names did a Korean-­K azakh ­couple choose for their c­ hildren? Did a mixed Kazakh-­Russian ­couple send their ­children to Kazakh-­or Russian-­language schools? How did the ­children of mixed marriages negotiate the complexities of ethnic affiliation

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in a state where passport nationality was a key determinant of one’s social identity? This part of my book draws on in-­depth oral history interviews with members of mixed families in the post-­Soviet successor states of Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. Oral history plays a crucial role in investigating everyday life and f­ amily history in the former Soviet Union, where foreign researchers could not work freely, and rigid censorship ensured that many aspects of life w ­ ere never discussed in print. ­After the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, ­there was a surge of archive fever among Western historians excited about exploring newly opened Soviet archives and their long-­secret holdings. It was not long, however, before scholars realized that Soviet archives ­were not ­going to be a universal remedy to the prob­lem of finding sources on Soviet history. Like all archives, they reflect the culture in which they w ­ ere produced, and they contain many gaps, omissions, and silences. Archives from the Stalinist era are particularly opaque and require much reading between the lines. Oral history interviews, while also requiring careful interpretation, are one of the only ways to capture certain aspects of the experiences of the last Soviet generation before it passes from the scene. They are, at the same time, an impor­tant means of documenting the ways in which former Soviet citizens remember—­collectively and individually—­their lives ­under communism. I chose Kazakhstan and Tajikistan as the main venues for my research ­because ­these two Central Asian states, while sharing many similarities as predominantly Muslim former Soviet republics, in other ways represent opposing poles on the spectrum of Soviet experience. Both Central Asian republics ­were created as national-­territorial republics by the Soviet state in the 1920s and 1930s as part of its policy of fostering the development of non-­Russian nationalities. During the Soviet era, Kazakhstan became extremely multiethnic and Russified, to such an extent that ethnic Kazakhs ­were a minority within their own republic, and many spoke Rus­sian as their first language.19 De­cades of Rus­sian encroachment and colonization had led to the presence of a large contingent of Rus­sian settlers. A horrific famine during agricultural collectivization in the early 1930s led to the death and flight of nearly 40 ­percent of the ethnic Kazakh population.20 In the Stalin era, mass deportations, migrations, Gulag imprisonment, and war­time evacuations had brought ethnic Germans, Rus­sians, Ukrainians, Jews, Armenians, Koreans, Chechens, and o ­ thers to Kazakhstan. In Kazakhstan, ethnic Kazakhs made up only 39.7 ­percent of the population in 1989, up from a low of 30 ­percent in 1959. Rus­sians w ­ ere 37.8 ­percent, followed by smaller minorities of Ukrainians, Belorus­sians, and Germans.21 By contrast, Tajikistan was one of the least linguistically Russified of the Soviet republics and was also less ethnically diverse, at least in terms of

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Soviet nationality categories, than Kazakhstan.22 The largest ethnic minority in Soviet Tajikistan was not Rus­sian but indigenous Uzbek. Tajiks in 1989 made up 62.3 ­percent of the population, Uzbeks 24.8 ­percent, and Rus­sians only 3.2 ­percent.23 Kazakhstan, with its extremely varied population and high rates of interethnic interaction, offered fertile ground for ethnic mixing in the Soviet period. Tajikistan, more socially conservative and less ethnically and religiously diverse, offered a less welcoming environment for mixed marriages. Despite ­these differences, the life histories of mixed c­ ouples and families in the two Soviet republics bear striking similarities, a testament to the homogenizing effects of the Soviet system. It has only been in the post-­Soviet period that their paths have diverged sharply. Published accounts of mixed marriages in the Soviet era ­were almost entirely positive. in line with the official ideology that intermarriage was po­liti­ cally and socially progressive. ­These families ­were allegedly happier, healthier, and more fully Soviet than o ­ thers. Intermarriage and the Friendship of Peoples shows that the real­ity was more complex. True, the celebratory state policy provided moral support and encouragement for t­hose who wished to marry across ethnic lines, making it pos­si­ble for some ­couples even to do so against their ­family’s wishes. Rather than being stigmatized or marginalized, as was often the case elsewhere, mixed ­couples could take pride in being part of the internationalist vanguard. Yet oral history testimony suggests that mixed individuals and families in the Soviet Union found it difficult to transcend nationality and be simply “Soviet.” The offspring of mixed marriages, obliged to choose a single official nationality, felt unable to embrace all the components of their complex identity. Looking back on their lives in the Soviet Union, ethnically mixed p­ eople often reported that their official nationality did not match their subjective feelings of identity; that they w ­ ere unable to speak what they considered to be their own native language; and that their ambiguous physical appearance prevented them from claiming the nationality with which they most identified. In all t­ hese ways, mixed c­ ouples and families ­were acutely and painfully affected by the growth of ethnic primordialism and by the tensions between the national and supranational proj­ects in the USSR.

Soviet Ethnic Mixing in Global Perspective In addition to illuminating little-­known aspects of Soviet multiethnic society and everyday life, this book brings the Soviet experience into dialogue with the vast interdisciplinary lit­er­a­ture on ethnic and racial mixing around the globe. The Soviet Union has rarely, if ever, been included in comparative discussions

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of interethnic and interracial intimacy. Yet the USSR, like other modern states, sought to monitor and manage ethnic intermarriage. Soviet leaders claimed that their country was uniquely progressive in its racial and ethnic policies, particularly with regard to mixed marriage. But was this, in fact, the case? Throughout this book I show that the Soviet Union, while possessing certain distinctive features as a multiethnic communist state, nevertheless fit into recognizable global patterns in its approach to intermarriage. A fundamental reason for the exclusion of the Soviet Union from global discussions of intermarriage was its use of distinctive terminology. In the Soviet Union, the state generally used the term “nationality” instead of race when referring to identity groups and intermarriage. This contrasted with the many studies of interracial marriage conducted in the United States and elsewhere. However, the USSR was by no means unique in its terminology of classification. In a comparative study of census categories, Ann Morning found that Eu­ro­pean states, including ­those in Eastern Eu­rope, have commonly used nationality as the primary means of classifying their populations. By contrast, race has been used almost exclusively in the former settler and slave socie­ties of North and Central Amer­ic­ a and the Ca­rib­be­an.24 More impor­tant than the specific term used is how ­human groups are conceptualized by the states concerned. If nationality, ethnicity, and race are all understood as referring to ge­ ne­tic or descent-­based ­human populations, as was increasingly the case in the late Soviet Union, the Soviet experience can and should be included in discussions of the broader global phenomenon of intermarriage.25 Another seemingly distinctive feature of the Soviet case, and the one most often commented on by outside observers, was the Soviet state’s overwhelmingly positive attitude t­ oward intermarriage. As I show in chapter 1, intermarriage was impor­tant to Soviet nationality theorists for two main reasons. First, it was seen as contributing to the amalgamation of Soviet nations, allowing smaller nations and ethnic groups to merge into—or be absorbed by—­ larger ones. The ultimate result of this pro­cess, Soviet theorists believed, would be the emergence of a single Soviet ­people. Second, intermarriage was closely associated with modernity, and in par­tic­u­lar with the arrival of modernity in “backward” parts of the Soviet periphery such as Central Asia. Soviet officials and scholars subjected the well-­known hostility t­ oward racial mixing in the United States, Nazi Germany, and South Africa to withering criticism, insisting that mixed-­race individuals ­were healthier and more fit than the racially “pure.” Yet the Soviet Union was by no means the only country to promote ethnic mixing as a means of assimilation or overcoming “backwardness.” In Australia and New Zealand, marriage between Eu­ro­pe­ans and indigenous ­people was promoted as a way of assimilating or “improving” the

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latter, much as the Soviets hoped to “modernize” Central Asians through intermarriage.26 In Latin Amer­i­ca, adherents of the ideology of mestizaje celebrated ethnic mixing just as enthusiastically as Soviet nationality theorists, viewing it as a sign of modernity and f­ uture racial harmony. In both Australia and Latin Amer­i­ca, it should be noted, historians have critically analyzed the discourse of assimilation and harmony, arguing that it obscured the continuing real­ity of an ethnic hierarchy dominated by Eu­ro­pe­ans.27 In the Soviet Union, similarly, the cele­bration of intermarriage and the discourse of national equality obscured the existence of an implicit hierarchy in which Rus­sians stood above o ­ thers. As Ann Stoler points out, “Miscegenation signaled neither the presence nor the absence of racial discrimination. Hierarchies of privilege and power ­were written into the condoning of interracial ­unions, as well as into their condemnation.”28

Sources, Lit­er­a­ture, and Methods Intermarriage and the Friendship of Peoples is framed as a dialogue between the official Soviet approach to ethnic mixing and the experiences of ordinary Soviet citizens. I use Soviet documents and publications, along with interviews with Soviet-­era experts on intermarriage, to examine official ideology and policies on ethnic intermarriage; against ­these I set more than eighty in-­ depth oral history interviews that allow me to explore interethnic intimacy as a form of “lived experience” among mixed ­couples and families. This book differs fundamentally from previous Western scholarship on ethnic intermarriage in the USSR. The authors of e­ arlier works, mainly social scientists and experts on nationality policy writing before the Soviet Union’s collapse, used Soviet-­published lit­er­a­ture and census materials to identify intermarriage rates and patterns. They focused on which groups ­were most likely to intermarry and with whom, how ­these rates varied by republic, and how they changed over time. Based on t­ hese trends, they drew broad conclusions about the meaning of intermarriage for the success or failure of Soviet nationality policy.29 This book is not a so­cio­log­ic­ al or demographic study and has ­little to say about intermarriage rates and patterns (which are difficult to track, as I show below). Rather, it is a social and cultural history of the experiences of mixed ­couples and families, as well as an intellectual history of the Soviet experts who defined and studied intermarriage. Soviet scholars, mainly ethnographers, sociologists, and nationality theorists, wrote and published a g­ reat deal about mixed marriage between the 1960s and the 1980s. Hundreds of articles and books analyzed the quantita-

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tive and qualitative aspects of mixed marriages in virtually e­ very republic and region of the USSR. This body of work provides a valuable context for my oral history interviews. However, it suffers from certain limitations. The qualitative research based on ethnographic fieldwork gives a sense of the diversity of mixed families, but Soviet ideology dictated that intermarriage had to be portrayed in a positive way, so l­ittle was said about the prob­lems and challenges ­these families faced. The quantitative work, meanwhile, also suffered from serious flaws. Soviet scholars sought to track overall rates of intermarriage, both within the USSR as a w ­ hole and in specific republics and regions. They examined the rates of intermarriage for specific ethnic groups: who was most likely to intermarry, and to whom? They sought to quantify differences in intermarriage rates between rural and urban populations and between titular and nontitular nationalities. Yet ­these scholars suffered from a lack of adequate data on which to base their findings. The Soviet state had historically been secretive with information about its population, and statistical data about demographic trends ­were hard to come by.30 So­cio­log­i­cal research was essentially banned from the 1930s to the 1960s. When census data began to be published ­after Stalin’s death, the state did not include information on married ­couples according to the nationality of the spouses. The census provided data on the number of “mixed families” only in 1959, 1970, 1979, and then only on the most general level, without identifying the nationality of the individuals within each mixed ­family. Thus, much of the quantitative work on Soviet intermarriage relied on incomplete or fragmentary data.31 As a result, it is unproductive to discuss rates and patterns of intermarriage in the Soviet Union except in the most general terms, and even then a healthy amount of skepticism is in order. The official view was that intermarriage was on the rise, and Brezhnev-­era studies dutifully reported that intermarriage rates ­were steadily increasing throughout the Soviet Union, based on the number of mixed families recorded in the census. Between 1959 and 1979, Soviet scholars maintained, the overall proportion of mixed families in the country increased by one-­third, from 10.2 to 14.9 ­percent.32 This proportion, however, varied widely by republic and ethnic group. The Central Asian republics generally had low rates of intermarriage, with Kazakhstan being an exception.33 Within each Central Asian republic, including Kazakhstan, the titular nationality tended to intermarry at a much lower rate than Rus­sians and other nontitular groups.34 Moreover, most intermarriages ­were between culturally close groups who shared a religious background, such as Uzbeks and Tajiks or Ukrainians and Rus­sians.35 It is also impor­tant to realize that the categories used by the Soviet census had changed over the de­cades. Pro­cesses of consolidation and recategorization had resulted in a sharp decrease in the number of officially

12 I NT R OD U CT I ON

recognized Soviet nationalities between the 1926 and 1959 censuses, making it impossible to compare the 1959 and 1979 intermarriage statistics with ­those for ­earlier periods.36 Since Soviet nationality categories w ­ ere highly fluid, it was not always easy to determine with certainty which marriages ­were mixed. For example, when mixed ­people married other mixed p­ eople, the official statistics did not reflect the diversity of their backgrounds b­ ecause each partner was registered as having just one nationality.37 Thus, if two mixed Kazakh-­Russian p­ eople ­were married, one registered as a Kazakh and the other as a Rus­sian, this counted as a mixed marriage. T ­ here ­were other kinds of miscategorization within the Soviet system as well. The concealing of harmful class origins by Soviet citizens has been extensively described by historians, but the practice of hiding or changing ethnic origins has been less well documented.38 As the Stalinist state began to target ­people by ethnicity in the 1930s, Soviet citizens learned to protect themselves by concealing their ethnicity. One el­derly w ­ oman in Kazakhstan recalled that she had learned ­after her f­ather’s death that he had been not a Rus­sian, as she always thought, but a Tatar. Her f­ ather’s ­father had been shot in the 1930s as an ­enemy of the ­people, and relatives arranged for the boy to take the name of a Rus­sian acquaintance to hide his identity. The ­daughter, Ada, always wondered why her ­father spoke “Eastern languages” so well and why his friends called him “Zakir” instead of Pavel, his Rus­sian name. She was told it was just a childhood nickname. ­Because of his deeply held fear, Pavel/Zakir never told his d­ aughter about his—­and her—­true ethnic identity.39 I could cite many other examples, but ­these should suffice to suggest the somewhat unreliable nature of Soviet nationality labels in Central Asia, which ­were in any case very much a product of Soviet nationality policy. Such complications distorted official reports on intermarriage rates. Looking back on the scholarship of the late Soviet period, one of the leading scholars on intermarriage in the USSR, Alexander Susokolov, told me that he thought about 30–40 ­percent of the officially counted intermarriages in Central Asia w ­ ere “fictitious.”40 This book does not pretend to provide a more accurate quantitative analy­ sis of intermarriage. Rather, it is intended to be a social and cultural history of ethnic mixing in Soviet Central Asia, and as such it draws on a source that was unavailable to scholars before 1991: the testimony of mixed ­couples and their offspring in oral history interviews. In the Soviet era, it was impossible to practice oral history in a legitimate or open manner.41 Foreign researchers had ­limited access to Soviet citizens, who ­were in any case not in a position to speak freely. Moreover, the republics of Central Asia ­were almost completely closed to researchers ­until the perestroika era of the late 1980s. Since 1991,

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oral history has flourished in the former Soviet Union, yet most of this work has been carried out in Rus­sia and the other Eu­ro­pean parts of the former Soviet Union, not in the Muslim periphery. Moreover, the majority of oral history proj­ects have dealt with traumatic topics such as Stalinist po­liti­cal repression, collectivization and famine, and Nazi occupation and genocide in World War II.42 For all the obvious importance of documenting p­ eople’s memories about ­these horrific and defining events of the twentieth ­century, oral history also offers a valuable opportunity to learn more about everyday life within Soviet families in less traumatic times.43 Memory plays a complex role in the study of Soviet history, one that differs from most other contexts where oral history is practiced. On the one hand, remembering was dangerous in the USSR. Certain topics ­were taboo in public discourse—­political repression, the Gulag, and ethnic deportations, for example—­and ­people avoided talking about them even in private. Parents often failed to tell their c­ hildren about traumatic events in f­amily history such as po­liti­cal repression or dispossession as kulaks, figuring it was safer for them not to know.44 On the other hand, many Soviet citizens valued memory and oral testimony as more reliable and objective than the official history in documents and publications, with its many ideological distortions and blank spots.45 In the words of one Rus­sian scholar, for many years “historical truth within our country lived on only through under­g round memory.”46 But can under­ ground memory be relied on? Scholars of memory have argued that ­there is a close connection between individual and collective memory, so that ­people find it difficult to form coherent recollections of events if ­there is no public memory context in which to place them.47 Dalia Leinarte suggests that this lack of a public memory context helps to explain the “silences and amnesia” that characterize many interviews with former Soviet citizens, whose accounts she often found to be incoherent and nonsequential.48 I would argue that recollections of marriage and f­ amily life differ from memories of broader historical events in that they are more intimately personal and depend less on collective memory. Even so, the ways in which personal and ­family events are recalled and recounted are by no means immune to outside influences. A distinct challenge of oral history in the former Soviet Union is that it lacks “the secure historical framework established by newspapers and rec­ords against which most western historians can evaluate oral sources.”49 In concrete terms, ­there are often no corroborating sources that one can use to support what is said in interviews. Published accounts of mixed marriage ­were one-­sided. Few ordinary p­ eople in Central Asia wrote or published memoirs or diaries. Moreover, personal files and documents about individuals in former Soviet archives are closed for seventy-­five years, meaning that the marriage, divorce, and court

14 I NT R OD U CT I ON

rec­ords used by f­ amily historians elsewhere are not available for studying post1945 Soviet history. T ­ here are exceptions to this general prob­lem; for example, Brezhnev-­era archives hold numerous letters from citizens asking that the state downplay nationality and recognize a Soviet identity, demonstrating that the warm memories of Soviet internationalism in post-­Soviet Central Asia are not simply a product of nostalgia.50 Yet such corroborating documentation is rare. What­ever flaws they may have, oral history narratives are virtually the only way to learn about many aspects of Soviet marital and ­family life. A final point about oral history and memory in the Soviet Union is that the tremendous changes of the past three de­cades have undoubtedly affected what and how p­ eople remember. The passage of time always has an effect on memory, of course, but in the Soviet case the entire framework for understanding society and history changed with the collapse of the state and its ruling Communist Party. ­People ­were left “grasping for an overall narrative in order to make sense of their own lives.”51 Attitudes ­toward the Soviet period and individual experiences since the collapse of communism inevitably affect how past events are remembered.52 Thus, a person who dislikes the nationalist politics of her country’s post-­Soviet government may be more likely to emphasize the officially promoted “friendship of p­ eoples” when talking about the Soviet past. Nostalgia for the Soviet era takes many forms in Soviet oral history narratives, from ­simple longing for the bygone days of youth to an idealized memory of communism based on dislike of present-­day realities.53 As one former Soviet citizen told me in a typical comment (contradicting most contemporaneous accounts), “In the Brezhnev era, we had every­thing.” I had not originally planned to make this book primarily a work of oral history, but I was propelled in that direction by the realities of the research situation: the lack of documentary and archival sources on the everyday life of ­couples and families, the relentless positivity of the published materials on mixed marriages; and the awareness that if aging former Soviet citizens ­were not interviewed soon, the valuable information they could provide about marriages, families, and daily life in a vanished country would be lost. I had no idea how open p­ eople would be to speaking about their domestic and f­ amily lives, so I was delighted to find that most respondents spoke willingly and at length about their experiences.54 The interviews in this book w ­ ere conducted in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan with men and w ­ omen of varying ages and from a variety of regional, ethnic, and socio-­economic backgrounds. (See Appendix I for more information on my oral history methodology.) All of the interviewees w ­ ere ­either participants (or former participants) in ethnically mixed marriages or the adult offspring of such marriages. In some cases they w ­ ere both. T ­ hese mixed marriages came

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in a wide variety of combinations, from Russian-­Tajik and Korean-­K azakh to Armenian-­Ukrainian and Tatar-­German.55 While I discuss all kinds of mixed marriages, I focus to a greater extent on ­those whose partners considered themselves to be crossing an impor­tant identity boundary, ­whether linguistic, religious, or racial—or some combination of ­these. Although such marriages ­were less common, the Soviet state considered them potentially transformative, and they ­were more controversial among the population than, say, Uzbek-­ Tajik or Russian-­Ukrainian marriages. Most respondents allowed me to use their real names, while a minority preferred to be identified by a pseudonym. (­Those using pseudonyms are identified by the use of quotation marks around the name on first reference.)

Plan of the Book Chapter 1 analyzes the evolution of the official discourse of intermarriage in the Soviet Union from the 1920s to the 1980s, drawing on scholarly publications as well as interviews with ethnographers and sociologists active in the late Soviet era. The chapter traces the tensions between the biological and sociocultural understandings of ethnicity that helped to shape an increasingly primordial view of ethnic nationality in the late Soviet de­cades. Chapter 2 examines the experiences of ethnically mixed ­couples who met and married in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan between 1945 and 1991, showing that t­ here ­were impor­tant continuities in the experiences of mixed ­couples despite tremendous changes in Soviet society over this time period. Chapter 3 focuses on the characteristics of successful intermarriages, arguing that they primarily followed one of two patterns: c­ ouples in which one spouse assimilated to the other’s culture, and c­ ouples with a strong sense of common Soviet culture and less attachment to specific national traditions. Chapter 4 analyzes the gender dimensions of interethnic marriage in Soviet-­era Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. Rather than bringing Soviet-­style modernity to Central Asia, I argue, Rus­sian and other non-­Muslim wives tended to adapt to local gender norms in an attempt to forestall opposition to their marriages and forge good relations with in-­laws. Chapter 5 investigates the experiences and identities of the offspring of mixed marriages, analyzing the ways in which they coped with the expectation that e­ very Soviet citizen would possess a single nationality. Chapter 6 focuses on the naming of c­hildren in mixed families, who had to decide w ­ hether ­children should be given names from the ­mother’s nationality, the ­father’s nationality, both, or neither. Chapter 7 analyzes language use among mixed families, who ­were more likely than monoethnic families to use Rus­sian, the Soviet

16 I NT R OD U CT I ON

lingua franca, as their primary language. The result was a frequent disconnect between official nationality and language use for many ethnically mixed ­children. Chapter 8 examines the changing situation of mixed families in in­de­ pen­dent Kazakhstan and Tajikistan a­ fter 1991, when the growth of exclusionary nationalism and renewed emphasis on tradition made life more difficult for ­those who married across ethnic lines.

C h a p te r 1

Intermarriage and Soviet Social Science Interethnic marriages play a large role in the ethnogenesis of the Soviet ­people as a new historical community of ­human beings. —­L. V. Chuiko (1975)

During the final three de­cades of the Soviet Union’s existence, the Soviet scholarly establishment welcomed and celebrated ethnic intermarriage. From the early 1960s through the 1980s, articles in both scholarly and popu­lar publications consistently touted mixed marriages as proof of the success of Soviet nationality policy and as a harbinger of the consolidation of an overarching Soviet identity. Along with celebrating their own enlightened attitude t­oward mixed marriage, Soviet social scientists liked to criticize the reactionary policies of their main geopo­liti­cal rival, the United States. They frequently pointed to the prohibitions on interracial marriage in the United States, where laws preventing whites from marrying anyone with Black or Asian ancestry w ­ ere declared unconstitutional only in 1967.1 The timing of this discourse might have created the impression that Soviet support for intermarriage was a Cold War artifact, a form of progressive one-­upmanship by communists who scored points with their criticisms of US racism. In real­ity, Soviet support for intermarriage predated the Cold War and was strikingly consistent over virtually the entire history of the USSR. Whenever nationality or race was a major focus of discussion among Soviet scholars and officials, intermarriage was a topic of conversation as well. Racial and ethnic mixing became a par­tic­u­lar focus of interest in the Soviet Union during two main periods. The first was in the 1920s and early 1930s, 17

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when anthropologists and ethnographers sought to create new Soviet approaches to the study of ­human difference. In this period, Soviet scholars engaged with and ultimately rejected dominant Western paradigms of race and eugenics. In the interwar years, Nazi Germany’s laws against race mixing ­were the primary example of institutionalized racism with which the Soviet Union favorably compared its own nationality policy. The second period began in the early 1960s, a­ fter several de­cades u ­ nder high Stalinism when discussion of ethnic and racial differences was suppressed, along with entire fields such as ge­ne­tics and sociology. In the Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras, intermarriage once again emerged as an impor­tant topic for Soviet social scientists and nationality theorists.2 This coincided with the recreation of the fields of sociology and ge­ne­tics, a re­nais­sance of ethnography with a new focus on what was now called the ethnos, and a surge of interest in nationalities and interethnic relations. It also coincided with the opening of the USSR to contacts between Soviet scholars and their counter­parts in the West. A recurrent theme in Soviet discussions of ethnic mixing and intermarriage, as in the debates over nationality and ethnicity more broadly, was the interplay of biological and social in the making of ethnic communities. Is the ethnic group or nationality a biological organism, a cultural and historical entity, or both? Is ethnic mixing primarily a bio-­genetic pro­cess or a cultural pro­cess? The Stalinist revolution of the late 1920s and early 1930s put an end to ­these debates for several de­cades, as communist scholars rejected any link between the biological and the social in ­human life. However, the theme ­later returned with a vengeance, and scholars frequently revisited the role of biology and ge­ ne­tics in h ­ uman communities from the 1960s through the 1980s. This period saw the emergence of a more primordial view of nationality with the rise of the concept of the ethnos, which Soviet ethnographers defined as a h ­ uman group that maintained its distinct identity over centuries or even millennia. This new focus on the biological and ge­ne­tic aspects of ­human identity had impor­tant implications for the study of mixed marriages in the final de­cades of the Soviet Union’s existence.

Mixed Marriage: From Tsarist to Soviet The context for Soviet state policy t­oward intermarriage was uniquely s­ haped by the history of the Rus­sian and Soviet multiethnic state and Marxist-­Leninist thinking on nationality. Unlike the United States, where interracial and interethnic relations arose from a history of slavery, settler colonization, and overseas immigration, the Soviet Union was heir to the world’s largest land-­based con-



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tiguous empire. This vast land contained more than one hundred ethnic groups, most of them living in their own historic territories, speaking distinct languages or dialects, and practicing religions ranging from Rus­sian Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, and Judaism to Buddhism and Islam. Rus­sian settlers had already made inroads in many non-­Russian regions before 1917, but in the Soviet era this pro­cess accelerated. Many regions became increasingly multiethnic due to ­labor migrations, war­time evacuations, and deportations of kulaks and ­enemy nations. In tsarist Rus­sia, only marriages between men and ­women of dif­fer­ent faiths ­were considered mixed. The tsarist state had begun to interest itself in the ethnic and linguistic classification of its inhabitants in the late nineteenth c­ entury, but religious confession remained a fundamentally impor­tant category and the only one that mattered for the sacrament of marriage.3 In this context, Muslim-­ Christian marriage could only occur if one of the two parties converted and married according to the other’s rite. Such marriages did sometimes take place, particularly in borderland regions, though the conversions involved w ­ ere of4 ten strictly nominal. If two Muslims or two Orthodox subjects of dif­fer­ent ethnicities wished to marry, this was not a m ­ atter of interest or concern to the state. Other types of interconfessional marriages, such as t­ hose between Orthodox and other Christian denominations (Catholic and Lutheran), had been legalized in the eigh­teenth ­century, although the Orthodox and Catholic churches each insisted on maintaining pre­ce­dence in rituals and in child-­ rearing. In the second half of the nineteenth ­century, the tsarist regime actively encouraged religiously mixed marriages in the Baltic and Western regions of the empire as a way of integrating the imperial periphery.5 At the same time, a strain of imperial anthropologists saw racial mixing as the basis of a harmonious and modern Rus­sian empire.6 Both of t­ hese trends anticipated the Soviet cele­bration and promotion of intermarriage. ­After the 1917 revolutions, marriage was transformed from a religious sacrament into a civil ceremony, and the Bolshevik b­ attle against religion as the “opiate of the masses” rendered the faith-­based conception of intermarriage obsolete. At the same time, the Soviet regime’s emphasis on “nationality” and its elaboration of ethnic categories created a new concept of intermarriage as crossing national or ethnic lines. Thus, the Soviets redefined as intermarriage ­unions that would not have been thought to cross crucial identity bound­aries before 1917—­for example, Uzbek-­Tajik or Russian-­Ukrainian marriages, in which both partners professed the same faith. Soviet nationality policy, as it was formulated by Lenin and Stalin, had a profound impact on conceptions of identity in the USSR. In contrast to the oppressive policies of the last two tsars, the Bolsheviks promised self-­ determination and cultural autonomy to all nationalities within the empire.

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The ideology of national self-­determination was reflected in the structure of the Soviet state, which was the first state in history to be formed out of ethnically defined territorial republics.7 According to the Soviet constitution, ­these republics ­were sovereign, though in practice they w ­ ere subject to the iron rule of the Communist Party, the same party that made concessions to national sentiment. The Bolsheviks did not engage in forced Russification, as the tsarist regime had done. Soviet nationality policy instead officially supported national equality and the development of each nation’s national culture.8 The centerpiece of the Soviet approach to nationality was the policy of korenizatsiia (nativization). Korenizatsiia granted each nationality the right to use its language in schools, publications, and government institutions on its territory. At the same time, the regime sought to create an indigenous communist elite within each republic, recruiting members of the local nationality (often through explicit ethnic preferences and quotas) to positions in the communist party and state apparatus.9 Nationality became an impor­tant part of ­every Soviet citizen’s official identity and was inscribed in Soviet internal passports beginning in 1932.10 The result was to solidify and institutionalize nationality as a primary category of identity for Soviet citizens.

Ethnic Mixing, Race, and Ethnography in the Early Soviet Years In the 1920s, the new Bolshevik rulers of the Rus­sian Empire lacked information about the diverse population over which they ruled. To remedy this deficiency, Soviet ethnographers (cultural anthropologists) carried out research expeditions throughout the Soviet Union’s vast territory, studying the ethnic and linguistic characteristics of the inhabitants of e­ very republic and region.11 In the pro­cess, they helped to draw the bound­aries of ethnically inhabited territories that would serve as the basis for national and autonomous republics. In non-­European regions, ethnographers identified new nationalities among ­peoples who had not previously thought of themselves in ­those terms. In Central Asia, for example, ­people prior to 1917 had conceived of their identity in religious, regional, or kinship-­based terms, but not in terms of ethnicity, language, or nationality.12 As a result of Soviet rule, new nationalities (Kazakh, Turkmen, Uzbek, Tajik, ­etc.) ­were identified and duly granted their own republics and “national languages.”13 Many of the early Soviet ethnographers had been trained in the tsarist period and carried forward prerevolutionary themes and ideas. In the first de­cade of Bolshevik rule, some Soviet researchers still subscribed to the conceptions of



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racial hierarchy and racial pathology then prevalent throughout Eu­rope and in the United States. Ge­ne­tics and eugenics enjoyed ­great popularity in the early Soviet years, as they had in the late imperial era. The relationship between the biological and the social in h ­ uman communities was intensively debated. A Rus­ sian eugenics movement was launched in 1920 by two experimental biologists, both educated in Western Eu­rope, along with a journal devoted to questions of ge­ne­tics and eugenics, the Rus­sian Eugenic Journal.14 In the 1920s, Soviet and German scientists joined forces to study the relationship between race and disease. Soviet ethnographers and eugenicists cooperated in carry­ing out research expeditions with their German counter­parts, even planning a joint German-­Russian Institute for Racial Research.15 German anthropologists, who had lost their access to “primitive” ­peoples when Germany withdrew from its colonies ­after World War I, w ­ ere particularly e­ ager to work with what they viewed as racially backward groups in the Soviet-­ruled Caucasus and Central Asia.16 The attitudes of t­ hese German scholars t­ oward racial and ethnic mixing ­were generally negative, as w ­ ere ­those of scholars elsewhere in Eu­rope. Ideas developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by racialist thinkers, including Artur de Gobineau and Georges Lapouge in France and Madison Grant in the United States, insisted that individuals of mixed ancestry w ­ ere physically and mentally inferior and in some cases incapable of reproducing themselves.17 Some early Soviet scholars shared t­ hese views, maintaining that racial mixing led to degeneracy and arguing for eugenic mea­sures to prevent the reproduction of “unfit” individuals and groups.18 It was not ­until the period of the Stalinist “­g reat break” in 1928–1932 that a distinctively Soviet view of h ­ uman difference and ethnic mixing emerged. A new cohort of scholars in this period repudiated eugenic views and crystallized a new, official Soviet discourse on race. They rejected “bourgeois” ideas about immutable racial traits, which failed to jibe with Soviet notions about the plasticity of ­human nature. The official Soviet position was that culture was not innate and that t­here ­were no inferior and superior races.19 The increasing influence of Nazism in Germany, culminating in the installation of Adolf Hitler as chancellor in 1933, led to a breakdown in academic cooperation. Abandoning the field of eugenics, Soviet scholars began to attack German racial ideas and to argue that differences between groups w ­ ere due to history and culture, not biology. Physical traits did not determine culture, and all races w ­ ere equally capable of flourishing, given the right (i.e., socialist) conditions. Moreover, Stalinist scholars soundly rejected the very idea that t­ here was any influence at all of the biological in h ­ uman social life. To “biologize” ­human society or engage in “biological determinism” became unforgivable ideological deviations. With the entire field of eugenics declared to be not just

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“bourgeois,” but even “fascist,” the Rus­sian Eugenics Society was disbanded, and its journal ceased publication. The Stalinist regime began requiring all scholars to confirm to the Marxist-­Leninist line on race and culture; scholars could be reprimanded, even arrested, if they failed to comply.20 In the 1930s, Soviet physical anthropologists attacked the notion that racial mixing led to degeneracy and pathology. They conducted studies designed to show that mixed-­race individuals w ­ ere just as able-­bodied and productive as ethnically “pure” ­people. They maintained that racial mixing was not only positive but inevitable as society advanced.21 Soviet scholars studied racial mixing among Buriat Mongols, who had intermarried extensively with ethnic Rus­ sians, seeking to refute Western ideas that “half breeds” ­were somehow weak or degenerate. They compared Soviet “hybridization” favorably with the Nazi emphasis on racial purity—­and this meant not just physical mixing but also the fusion of cultures within the Soviet space. Soviet scholars called for more study of the phenomenon of racial mixing by progressive social scientists to ­counter the work of racists and eugenicists in the West.22 In the new Anthropological Journal, founded in 1932, the young Moscow anthropologist Arkadii I. Iarkho attacked the racial theories of 1920s Soviet anthropologists as vulgar “zoologism.”23 He harshly criticized ­those who “biologized” social relations and who claimed that racial hybrids w ­ ere physically and mentally inferior.24 By the early 1930s, t­ here could be no doubt about the Soviet state’s favorable policy ­toward ethnic and racial mixing. Yet even as t­hese debates about the virtues of hybridity ­were taking place in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Stalinist cultural revolutionaries ­were launching an assault on the traditional scholarly interests of ethnographers. Discussion of national, ethnic, and racial differences became taboo, and ethnography’s focus on “backward” ­peoples with distinctive customs came to be seen as reactionary. The discipline was dissolved and subsumed u ­ nder the discipline of history, since ethnic differences ­were presumed to have faded u ­ nder communist rule. Ethnographers w ­ ere no longer to study how ­people lived in the pre­sent but to focus on ethnogenesis, the origins of Soviet ­peoples in the distant past. Thus, ­there was no longer any need for fieldwork to study the con­temporary customs and ways of life of dif­fer­ent ethnic groups or even the relations between them. Anything that smacked of “backwardness” in the con­temporary USSR was dismissed as a “survival” of the past.25

The Reinvention of Ethnography During World War II, interest in ethnic differences once again became acceptable, in part b­ ecause of the need to know more about the p­ eoples living in



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newly acquired Soviet territories and Soviet-­occupied regions of Eastern Eu­ rope. S. P. Tolstov, a specialist in ancient Central Asia who became the director of the Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography at the Soviet Acad­emy of Sciences, sought to reinvigorate the field of ethnography. The mandate of ethnographers was once again to study ethnicity, or more precisely the “national specificities” of Soviet ­peoples.26 Yet the experience of the 1930s had left ethnographers cautious about focusing too intently on ethnic identity and differences.27 Tolstov, despite his institute’s mandate to study ethnic groups, continued to concentrate initially on ethnogenesis (the origins of ethnic groups), a safe topic b­ ecause it dealt with history rather than con­temporary conditions. Even in work ostensibly about ethnic groups ­under Tolstov’s leadership, much of it had ­little to do with ethnicity per se. Typical ethnographic works of the 1940s and 1950s focused on the new, modern life of Soviet p­ eoples ­under socialism rather than on their ethnic peculiarities. Studies of life on collective farms ­were a mainstay of ethnographic research in this period.28 During the war and the immediate postwar period, such caution was no doubt justified. State discourse in the late Stalin era glorified the Rus­sians’ role as the “leading nation” of the USSR, while xenophobic campaigns targeted supposed proponents of “bourgeois nationalism” and “cosmopolitanism.” In this context, too much focus on ethnic characteristics could land an unwary ethnographer in hot w ­ ater. It was only a­ fter Stalin’s death in 1953 that ethnicity and interethnic relations fully reemerged as a legitimate area of study.29 The Khrushchev era saw a revival of debates about nationality policy and ethnic relations in the USSR, along with the idea that the Soviet nationalities ­were now in a period of rapprochement (sblizhenie) that would eventually lead to merger (sliianie). This period’s notion of ethnic rapprochement based on a common Soviet way of life gave new life to the concept of the Soviet p­ eople that would be further elaborated in the Brezhnev era.30 It also anticipated the focus on “ethnic pro­cesses” that would dominate among ethnographers from the late 1960s through the 1980s. In his speech to the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in October 1961, Nikita Khrushchev noted that “a rapprochement of nations is proceeding in our country” and that “complete unity of nations ­will be achieved as the full-­scale building of communism proceeds.”31 The party program ­adopted at the congress declared that the approach of communism meant “a new stage in the evolution of national relations in the USSR, characterized by a further rapprochement of nations and their attainment of complete unity.” Despite this rapprochement, the document warned, “the erasing of national differences, especially linguistic differences, is a significantly longer pro­cess than the erasing of class differences.”32

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Whereas nationality theorists of the Stalin era had maintained that the Soviet nations first needed to “flourish” and only l­ater would “draw together,” ­these two pro­cesses ­were now said to be taking place si­mul­ta­neously. ­Under Khrushchev, officials and scholars also began to emphasize the emergence of the Soviet ­people (sovetskii narod), which allegedly formed a “new historical community of p­ eople.”33 In this context, intermarriage once more became a major topic of discussion, now slated to play a crucial role in the formation and consolidation of the Soviet ­people. Frequent scholarly references to the role of intermarriage in Soviet nationality policy began appearing in the early 1960s. A report sent to the Communist Party Central Committee in March 1961 by Tolstov identified national pro­cesses in the Soviet Union as taking place along two lines: the internal consolidation of Soviet nations and p­ eoples, on the one hand, and the rapprochement of Soviet nations on the basis of friendship, cooperation, and “the creation of common Soviet forms of culture and everyday life,” on the other. Tolstov mentioned intermarriage as one of the clearest signs of the rapprochement of Soviet nations.34 Other scholars soon followed suit. The first extensive scholarly treatment of intermarriage was a 1962 article in the flagship journal Sovetskaia etnografiia by veteran ethnographer and Central Asia specialist S. M. Abramzon. In this article, Abramzon hinted at the relationship between po­liti­cal interests at the Communist Party apex and his interest in the topic of intermarriage, referring several times to the October  1961 party congress and its emphasis on the rapprochement of Soviet nations. The formation of mixed families, he noted, was in its early stages in the USSR; nevertheless, it had a progressive character and “testified to the creation of new national interrelationships, the elimination of national insularity and isolation, and the overcoming of religious prejudices.”35 Abramzon wrote that the topic of intermarriage in general, and in Central Asia in par­ tic­u­lar, had received ­little attention from Soviet ethnographers; his contribution, he claimed, represented the first attempt by a Soviet scholar to address the prob­lem.36 Prior to the Soviet era, Abramzon noted, intermarriage among Muslims of dif­fer­ent ethnicities did occur—­Kazakhs with Tatars, Karapalkaks, and Kyrgyz, Uzbeks with Tajiks—­but was not common. Some groups, such as Dungans and Arabs, w ­ ere almost completely endogamous, whereas settled p­ eoples ­were generally reluctant to give their ­daughters to nomads. Intermarriage between Muslims and ­those of other faiths was considered shameful and was extremely rare. With the coming of Soviet power, Abramzon argued, conditions changed: “Social and economic conditions w ­ ere dif­fer­ent, and this could not but be reflected in attitudes ­toward interethnic marriage. Such marriages



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met with support and sympathy from the organs of Soviet power, and on this basis mixed families emerged and ­were strengthened.”37 Abramzon described the growth of previously rare intermarriages between Central Asian Muslim men and Rus­sian and Ukrainian w ­ omen, particularly during and ­after World War II, when Muslim men met Eu­ro­pean ­women while stationed along the Western front. He described ­these mixed ­unions in the idealized manner that was to predominate in works on this topic for de­cades to come. Mixed marriages, he claimed, w ­ ere stronger and happier than monoethnic marriages and exerted a positive influence on the society around them. In another theme that was to become common in Soviet works on intermarriage, he favorably contrasted Soviet attitudes t­ oward ethnic mixing with the bans on interracial intimacy then in force in many parts of the United States.38 Abramzon’s article was pioneering, yet it did not offer any real data on intermarriage in Central Asia; his approach was anecdotal and celebratory. This was broadly true of works on intermarriage in the 1960s. A 1964 article by Sh. S. Anaklychev took a similar approach to Turkmenistan, arguing that mixed marriage was rare and difficult in prerevolutionary Turkmenistan, but that it was on the rise in new Soviet conditions of interethnic harmony. Anaklychev’s evidence for this was rather flimsy, based on several years of civil registry archive data from two Turkmen towns, along with a number of anecdotes about happy mixed families.39 A 1966 article by R. Achylova touched on similar themes, arguing that intermarriage rates ­were growing in Uzbekistan, based on civil registry data from two regions of Tashkent. She, like Abramzon, highlighted the contrast between enlightened Soviet policies on intermarriage and t­ hose of the cap­ i­tal­ist world (especially the United States, South Africa, and Nazi Germany).40 ­These examples of 1960s Soviet lit­er­a­ture on ethnic mixing ­were characterized by an unsystematic approach and a narrow regional focus. Their purpose was not to analyze data but to demonstrate the strength of Soviet ethnic relations by claiming—­without much ­actual evidence—­rising rates of successful intermarriage. This celebratory narrative continued to predominate, though Soviet scholarship on intermarriage became more sophisticated over time. The social sciences underwent some major changes beginning in the Khrushchev era, which changed the context for the study of intermarriage. First, the disciplines of sociology and ge­ne­tics ­were rehabilitated ­after many years of being banned as “bourgeois.” Along with the return of ge­ne­tics came a new interest in the role of biology in ­human communities.41 Second, Soviet social scientists gained their first exposure to trends in international social science research, including the study of interethnic and interracial relations. Third, ethnography in the 1960s saw the rise of ethnos theory and a systematic focus on “ethnic pro­cesses” ­under the leadership of Iu. V. Bromlei, who

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was appointed director of the Institute of Ethnography and Anthropology in January 1966.

The Return of Sociology and Contacts with Western Scholars The rebirth of Soviet sociology represented a remarkable comeback for a discipline that had been devastated by the events of the Stalinist era. Sociology, like ge­ne­tics, had been declared a bourgeois science and banned u ­ nder Stalin from the 1930s to the 1950s. Moreover, the types of empirical data sociologists rely on—­demographic and socioeconomic statistics, public opinion, and the like—­had been impossible to collect in the Stalinist USSR. All such information was highly secret and made available only to trusted party officials.42 This began to change u ­ nder Khrushchev, when the cultural thaw and increasing openness to foreign contacts led to the rise of a new contingent of sociologists in the second half of the 1950s. ­These scholars soon came ­under the influence of Western so­cio­log­i­cal methods and theories. Initially, they became familiar with Western ideas in the pro­cess of writing “critiques of bourgeois sociology” for Soviet publications. In order to write such critiques, Soviet scholars had to read the Western lit­er­a­ture, which was generally kept u ­ nder lock and key in a special, restricted access section of the library known as the spetskhran (short for spetsial’noe khranenie or special repository). As a result, Soviet criticism of “bourgeois” scholarship was a kind of Trojan horse—an impor­tant but surreptitious means of conveying Western ideas to Soviet audiences.43 Personal contact with Western scholars soon followed. A Soviet del­e­ga­tion from the Acad­emy of Sciences’ Institute of Philosophy went to an international so­cio­log­ic­ al conference in Amsterdam in August 1956. They returned convinced of the need for a Marxist sociology based on “concrete investigations” (konkretnye issledovaniia). At the same time, foreign sociologists began to visit Moscow. Between 1957 and 1961 many foreigners arrived, the majority of them leftists or communist fellow travelers. An international congress of sociologists was held in Moscow in January 1958. The same year saw the formation of a Soviet so­cio­log­ic­ al association.44 For Soviet ethnographers, an impor­tant milestone was the world congress of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, which took place in Moscow in 1964. This conference was, one scholar recalled, “the first mass encounter of Soviet ethnographers with Western anthropologists.”45 On February 25, 1966, the presidium of the Soviet Acad­emy of Sciences ­adopted a resolution on the need to improve “concrete social investigations.” Accordingly, an Institute of



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Concrete Social Investigations was established in 1968 u ­ nder the umbrella of the Acad­emy of Sciences.46 From their readings in the spetskhran, Soviet sociologists ­were aware of the vast US lit­er­a­ture on ethnic and race relations. Much of this lit­er­a­ture was anathema to them. Soviet social scientists decisively rejected the negative view of mixed p­ eople that had long prevailed in the Western lit­er­at­ure on racial and ethnic intermarriage. In the United States, the dominant view for many years was that racially mixed individuals w ­ ere tragically confused about their identity. Scholarly as well as popu­lar accounts of multiracial ­people showed them as disturbed, pathological, and seething with resentment about their failure to find a place in the world. Studies of racial hybrids moved from a largely biological approach in the late nineteenth c­ entury, in which “racial experts” documented the presumed physical inferiority and the infertility of mixed-­race ­people, to social and psychological research in the first half of the twentieth ­century.47 Yet the highly negative view of racially mixed ­people remained. As David Parker and Miri Song write, “An antipathy to racial mixture was a constituent ele­ment in the development of the ­human sciences.”48 In the early part of the twentieth c­ entury, scholars of race relations in the United States saw mixed p­ eople as potential troublemakers and racial agitators. Such p­ eople ­were said to be uncomfortable with “their own p­ eople” and resentful about not being permitted to socialize on an equal level with whites. In the interwar period, the sociologists Robert Park and Everett Stonequist coined the term “marginal man,” referring primarily to racially mixed p­ eople, but more generally to any individual without a secure attachment to a culture and racial or ethnic group. The assumption ­behind all ­these arguments was that mixed ­people’s prob­lems ­were inherent in their psy­chol­ogy rather than due to racism and social inequities. “The condition of hybridity was understood to inspire irresolvable personality prob­lems.” Not only mulattoes, but also Anglo-­Indians, Eurasians, and other racially mixed p­ eople ­were allegedly neurotic and maladjusted. T ­ hese ideas, widespread in the 1930s and 1940s, ­were not seriously challenged u ­ ntil the 1960s.49 Soviet social scientists rejected the view of mixed offspring as psychologically damaged or maladjusted. Rather, they saw such p­ eople as the vanguard of Soviet society, better adjusted socially and more po­liti­cally progressive than their monoethnic peers. In the 1960s, a time when most white Americans w ­ ere still strongly opposed to racial intermarriage, Soviet scholars ­were emphasizing the so­cio­log­i­cal and psychological benefits of ethnic mixing. Yet they did share one belief in common with Western social scientists—­the idea that a person, even a mixed person, should ideally have a secure attachment to one par­ tic­u­lar identity.

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Through Western social science lit­er­a­ture, Soviet scholars became familiar with specific techniques for studying interethnic relations. Robin Williams’s classic work Strangers Next Door: Ethnic Relations in American Communities, published in 1964, introduced Soviet social scientists to the concept of “social distance.” The influential Bogardus social distance scale, first developed in 1924 and used widely in Western sociology to gauge interethnic relations, asked respondents to indicate how they would feel about vari­ous forms of contact with members of other ethnic groups: as neighbors, coworkers, friends, or in-­ laws. Soviet sociologists used a similar scale in their own studies of ethnic attitudes in the USSR beginning in the 1970s.50 In fact, many of the tools used by US sociologists to study interracial marriages had analogs in the Soviet lit­er­a­ture.51 In addition to social distance scales, t­ hese included analyzing the relationship of demographic structure to intermarriage rates, identifying the hierarchy of preferences regarding marriage partners among vari­ous ethnic groups, and tracking the identity choices of mixed ­children.52

The Rise of Ethnos Theory If Soviet ethnographers of the Khrushchev era made the first attempts to study intermarriage as a part of nationality policy, Brezhnev-­era scholars, particularly ­those of the 1970s and 1980s, made it an essential part of their research agenda. This is evident from even a cursory glance through Soviet scholarly lit­er­at­ ure of the period. From the beginning of the 1970s u ­ ntil the end of the Soviet era, t­ here was an incessant stream of articles on interethnic marriage in Soviet scholarly journals. ­There ­were studies devoted to intermarriage in nearly ­every republic and region of the country, while virtually e­ very book on marriage or the state of nationalities included an obligatory chapter on intermarriage.53 The intensive study of intermarriage was an outgrowth of—­indeed, inseparable from—­the emergence of “ethnos theory” in the late 1960s. The rise of a new approach to ethnicity took place as a result of a changing of the guard in the leadership of the Institute of Ethnography. Director Bromlei brought about a shift from a more descriptive, historical approach to ethnography, focused on primitive tribes and ethnogenesis, to a more theoretical one focused on the con­ temporary ethnos. Though Bromlei was a specialist in the history of the southern Slavs and not an ethnographer by training, he eagerly took on the creation of a new theoretical basis for ethnography. Moving away from its association with history, ethnography thus became an intellectual cousin of the re-­emerging



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discipline of sociology, with its focus on con­temporary social pro­cesses. Ethnographers would now focus on “ethnic pro­cesses” in the con­temporary USSR.54 ­Under Bromlei’s directorship, the Institute of Ethnography and Anthropology focused increasingly on con­temporary prob­lems of the ethnos and interethnic relations. The field of ethnic sociology or ethnosociology—­a separate subdiscipline in the Soviet Union—­became influential.55 Although the field was unique to the Soviet context, it used statistical and theoretical approaches similar to (and prob­ably borrowed from) ­those developed in the West to study ethnic pro­cesses in the USSR. Other subdisciplines, such as ethnopsychology and ethnogeography, also arose around this time. Access to Western lit­er­at­ ure and Western scholars helped t­ hese fields to develop. Ethnosociologists—­among them Yuri Arutiunian, Leokadia Drobizheva, and Alexander Susokolov—­ produced some of the most in­ter­est­ing and valuable work on Soviet nationalities in the late Soviet era, including work on intermarriage. Though they ­were constrained by Soviet ideological limits in what they could publish, they came up with some startling and controversial conclusions within the Soviet context. In par­tic­u­lar, their work offered hints that the nationality question was not “solved” and that interethnic harmony did not always reign in non-­Russian republics. A convergence in way of life, it seemed, did not necessarily create a feeling of internationalist unity.56 Their findings notably went against the more detailed elaboration of the concept of the “Soviet ­people” in the Brezhnev era, which posited ever greater unity among Soviet nationalities. In a major speech in 1971, Brezhnev called the Soviet ­people a “new historical, social, and international community of ­people having a common territory, economy, and socialist content.”57 The Soviet p­ eople was not explic­itly i­magined as a nation (natsiia), but it did have some of the characteristics of a nation, most notably a shared history, a shared way of life, and the use of Rus­sian as a common language.58 The term ethnos referred to a h ­ uman community that maintained its essential identity as it progressed through the historical and socioeconomic stages identified by Karl Marx. In this sense, it was unlike the concepts of narodnost’, national’nost’, and natsiia elaborated by ethnographers in the 1920s, each of which was linked to a par­tic­u­lar stage of socioeconomic development.59 The debates about the ethnos in the 1960s and 1970s brought back an issue that had seemingly been resolved in the 1930s, namely the role of the biological versus the social in creating h ­ uman culture. The concept of ethnos encouraged a primordialist view of h ­ uman ethnic communities; scholars specializing in par­tic­u­ lar national republics increasingly treated their ethnoses as primordial and even biological entities, rooted for millennia in their Soviet-­defined territories.60 Bromlei generally stressed that the ethnos was a historical construct, but even

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he wavered on the nature of the ethnos, sometimes maintaining that it was a ge­ne­tic population in addition to a historical and cultural entity. (He ultimately compromised by describing the ethnos as “bio-­social.”)61 In any case, the theory of ethnos was a topic of contention and discussion among Soviet scholars in the 1960s and 1970s. They debated the extent to which the ethnos was an objective or subjective phenomenon, as well as the relationship between its sociocultural and biological aspects.62 Bromlei, previously academic secretary of the history division of the Soviet Acad­emy of Sciences, had not been a universally popu­lar choice for director of the institute; some ethnographers criticized him as an “armchair anthropologist” who was unfamiliar with fieldwork.63 Members of the old guard at the institute, accustomed to approaching ethnography from a more historical point of view, ­were upset with his new theoretical approach. ­There was also some personal resentment at Bromlei’s appointment since several leading ethnographers had lobbied for the candidacy of L. P. Potapov, a protégé of Tolstov, the previous director.64 Yet Bromlei’s tenure as director brought new life to the field of Soviet ethnography. A dedicated communist, he was a capable administrator who expanded the scope and influence of the Institute of Ethnography. Ethnographers active in that era recall that he was capable of keeping higher-­ups happy while also creating decent conditions in which scholars could carry out their work. He was cautious and moderate yet willing to defend his scholars and institute when necessary. While the institute had to follow the “rules of the game” common to the Soviet Union of that time, genuflecting in their published writings to Lenin and the latest decisions of the Communist Party, producing special essays for major party congresses, and subjecting themselves to censorship and self-­censorship, which ­limited the topics they could work on, many scholars recall Bromlei as a benign figure and the Bromlei era as a good time for the field of Soviet ethnography. They note that research funds and opportunities w ­ ere plentiful, and t­ here was a certain amount of freedom to discuss impor­tant topics relating to ethnicity and nationality, both within the institute and on the pages of its publications.65 From the mid-1960s through the 1980s, u ­ nder Bromlei’s guidance, ethnographic research focused on ethnic pro­cesses, which ­were of two basic kinds—­ tendencies t­oward fragmentation and tendencies t­oward unification. Soviet ethnographers maintained that unifying tendencies w ­ ere dominant in modern cap­i­tal­ist and socialist socie­ties.66 They identified three main unifying pro­cesses: consolidation, which occurs when several groups of related language and culture unite into a larger ethnic community; assimilation, which occurs when a larger ethnos absorbs one or more smaller ones; and integration, which occurs when groups that differ in their language and culture interact, leading to the



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emergence of common ethnic features among them. Intermarriage, Soviet ethnographers argued, contributed significantly to t­ hese pro­cesses.67 Bromlei himself gave a big boost to the study of intermarriage with his article “Ethnos and Endogamy,” which appeared in the journal Sovetskaiia etnografiia in 1969. In it, Bromlei made the theoretical case for intermarriage, relating it to a Marxist view of history and providing a scholarly imprimatur for the officially approved notion that Soviet nations w ­ ere merging. In the slave-­holding and feudal periods, he argued, the ethnos had shown a tendency ­toward fragmentation, while the cap­i­tal­ist and socialist eras saw the opposing tendency: the merging of smaller ethnoses into ever larger ones.68 Bromlei maintained that ethnic intermarriage played an impor­tant role in this natu­ral pro­cess of consolidation. Since the defining feature of an ethnic group was endogamy, he argued, a rising rate of interethnic marriage was an indicator that two separate ethnoses are merging to form a new group. Even in areas with multiethnic populations and intensive interethnic contacts, such as Yugo­slavia and the North Caucasus, more than 90 ­percent of marriages ­were monoethnic, he noted. The proportion was even higher in ethnically homogeneous areas, such as the Rus­sian heartland.69 Thus, Bromlei maintained, “A significant violation of an ethnos’s endogamy is a harbinger of its destruction.”70 As evidence for this statement, Bromlei cited the examples of several small ­peoples of the Caucasus and Arctic whose consolidation into a single ethnos had been preceded by rising intermarriage rates.71 Bromlei’s article caused controversy when it came out.72 The sharp criticisms ­were not due to its support for intermarriage per se but to what some considered Bromlei’s biologization of the ethnos. Since the rejection of racial thinking and eugenics in the early 1930s, the Soviet regime had insisted on an unbreachable gap between the biological and the social.73 Conservatives who ­were opposed to Bromlei’s leadership of the institute used the controversy as an excuse to rally opposition to him and possibly even to oust him. M. S. Ivanov, head of the sector of Near and ­Middle Eastern P ­ eoples at the institute, accused Bromlei of biologization of the ethnos and a nonhistorical approach to the subject of intermarriage. He went so far as to report Bromlei to the Communist Party organs for “ideological errors.” The ethnographer D. D. Tumarkin recalled that Ivanov enjoyed the tacit support of the more conservative faction of scholars at the Institute of Ethnography. The attack on Bromlei’s article was an attempt not only to discredit the director personally but also to halt the far-­reaching changes he sought to bring to the institute, with his greater focus on analyzing con­temporary ethnic prob­lems and abandonment of the stale, historicist approach to ethnography.74 In a public discussion of the article at the institute on February 5, 1970, Bromlei elaborated on the more biological aspects of his argument, arguing

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that endogamy creates a “ge­ne­tic barrier” between ethnoses and that ­every population has a tendency to increase the homogeneity of its ge­ne­tic pool and acquire the characteristics of a race. Apparently anticipating the criticisms of his opponents, he hastened to add the seemingly contradictory point that social, not ge­ne­tic ­factors form the basis of the ethnos in the first place.75 Despite this caveat, Ivanov launched the discussion by accusing Bromlei of subscribing to a racialized view of the ethnos. In Bromlei’s account, Ivanov said, the ethnos “acquires the character not of a social-­historical phenomenon and social-­historical category . . . ​but the character of a biological category.”76 Bromlei rejected this accusation, repeating his man­tra that the ethnos is both biological and social.77 But Ivanov did not accept the idea of the ethnos being biological at all. Bromlei, he said, ignored socioeconomic ­factors and “declares the ethnic community to be at the same time an anthropological, i.e. racial group.” This defies real­ity, Ivanov said, since t­ here are many examples of ethnoses that contain a mixture of anthropological types.78 Perhaps the sharpest part of Ivanov’s attack on Bromlei was his claim that Bromlei shared the views of the renegade scholar Lev Nikolaevich Gumilev. “While Iu.V. Bromlei says h ­ ere that he came out against the [biological] definition of a population promoted by L.N. Gumilev,” Ivanov claimed, “in essence he is a proponent of the same position.”79 ­These ­were fighting words, since Gumilev’s views w ­ ere officially anathema to the Soviet academic establishment and party higher-­ups. Gumilev, a controversial geographer, Orientalist, and historian, was a well-­known and popu­lar university lecturer at Leningrad State University. He was also a prominent and tragic victim of Stalinism and a member of the cultural elite, the son of the poets Anna Akhmatova and Nikolai Gumilev. The elder Gumilev had been executed by the Bolsheviks in the Civil War, and Lev himself had spent many years in prison and exile u ­ nder Stalin ­because of his ­family connections. Gumilev had his own highly eccentric theory of the ethnos, which he viewed as a biological organism and a product of nature. He frequently expressed controversial views of interethnic relations, including opposition to “cosmopolitanism” and interethnic marriage, in his lectures and other public appearances. In keeping with the regime’s unwillingness to countenance any negative analy­sis about ethnic relations, Gumilev was not allowed to publish t­hese views. His most famous work, Ethnogenesis and the Biosphere, originally submitted as his doctoral dissertation in 1974, appeared in print only many years ­later, during perestroika.80 More traditional ethnographers sharply criticized Gumilev for his biologization of the ethnos which, they maintained, verged on racism.81 Gumilev was unable to obtain a regular academic position that corresponded to his training and stature.82 Thus, linking the eminent Bromlei to the marginalized Gumilev was highly provocative.



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Gumilev was Bromlei’s nemesis in many ways, taking positions that w ­ ere far outside the mainstream of Soviet ethnographic thought, yet he too was an influential and impor­tant theorist of the ethnos. His ideas w ­ ere widely known despite his excommunication by the establishment. Moreover, as Mark Bassin points out in his magisterial study of Gumilev, ­there ­were similarities in the way the ethnos was understood by the two scholars.83 Bromlei, too, had a quasi-­biological view of the ethnos, as is evident in his views about endogamy as a ge­ne­tic, rather than primarily cultural, barrier.84 The two men did not disagree so much on the nature of intermarriage as on its desirability. Gumilev viewed ethnic mixing as destructive to the integrity of the ethnos, while Bromlei saw it as an essential step ­toward ethnic rapprochement and the emergence of the Soviet p­ eople. Gumilev had a mystical appreciation for the ethnos, viewing it as a living organism that was born, underwent predictable stages of development, and died. He denied, however, that his view of the ethnos was biological or racial; although the ethnos was a living organism, he wrote, its ge­ne­tic origins ­were most often mixed, and its traditions ­were passed along from parents to c­ hildren through a learned “behavioral ste­reo­type.”85 It was this behavioral ste­reo­type that suffered in mixed marriage. In Ethnogenesis and the Biosphere, Gumilev wrote, “Endogamy is clearly necessary in order to maintain ethnic traditions, ­because the endogamous f­amily transmits a developed ste­reo­type of be­hav­ ior to a child, while an exogamous one passes on two ste­reo­types that mutually cancel each other out.”86 Gumilev had an undeniable charisma and a certain appeal as an intellectual rebel, and his ideas attracted considerable attention from the Soviet intelligent­sia. Colleagues recalled him speaking critically of intermarriage in public lectures during the Brezhnev period.87 The ethnographer Olga Naumova recalled having heard the two men speak at a conference. Bromlei, the power­f ul and respected scholar, droned on in a tiresome way, while Gumilev, the maverick and outsider, captivated the audience with his erudition and persuasive rhetorical style.88 Gumilev also had supporters among the Rus­sian nationalists who emerged in the Brezhnev era, some of whom lamented the “biological degeneration” of the Rus­sian nation and its dilution through “random hybridization.”89 Despite Ivanov’s attacks, the majority of speakers at the 1970 seminar supported Bromlei. (Tumarkin recalls that the purpose of organ­izing it was to fend off attacks from Ivanov and his supporters.90) Not only members of the Institute of Ethnography but also sympathetic colleagues from Moscow State University and the Institute of Orientalism attended the seminar. The venerable ethnographer and expert on religion S. A. Tokarev, who had initially been skeptical about Bromlei, provided crucial support. Tokarev intoned words of

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praise for Bromlei’s theory of ethnos and his approach to intermarriage. “In Iu.V. Bromlei’s article we see a fundamentally new approach to the topic, which has lately provoked a lively exchange of opinions. It opens a new stage in the study of ethnic history.”91 His attempt to oust Bromlei having failed, Ivanov left the institute and went to work at the diplomatic acad­emy.92 In the end, Bromlei’s ideas on the ethnos and intermarriage prevailed, and his essay provided the impetus for a rapid expansion of this field of study.93 Tokarev’s statement was prescient; ethnos theory and Bromlei’s ideas on ethnos and endogamy proved an extremely fertile new field for Soviet ethnographers.

The Peak of Intermarriage Studies ­ fter the publication of Bromlei’s 1969 article on endogamy and the ethnos, A ­there was a surge of research on interethnic marriage. The late 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s ­were the heyday of this field. The hierarchical structure of Soviet research institutions ensured that a new topic, once officially sanctioned, spread quickly. Each institute had a research plan with collective themes to which every­one was expected to contribute. The interests of the new director of an institute w ­ ere quickly picked up by his subordinates; thus, Bromlei’s ascension quickly resulted in a flood of lit­er­a­ture by ethnographers studying “ethnic pro­cesses,” tendencies ­toward the amalgamation of ethnic groups, and so on. Intermarriage was an integral part of such studies.94 In Soviet academia, the anthropologist John Schoeberlein writes, “Novelty in scholarship was to be produced by applying an accepted framework to a new field of observation rather than by proposing innovations to the framework itself, which would have been risky at best.”95 Thus, one saw a number of books and articles with nearly identical titles on intermarriage in the Baltic republics, northern Kazakhstan, Moldova, Dagestan, and elsewhere. The definition of the topic and the methodology remained the same; only the region of focus changed. Ironically, this new field, so controversial at its inception, rapidly became an orthodoxy with its own conventions. Bromlei made few changes to his theory a­ fter its introduction in the late 1960s and early 1970s.96 Ethnographers’ fieldwork in far-­flung regions of the USSR was eased by the omnipresence of the Soviet state and official support for their research. Soviet ethnographers worked rather differently than their Western counter­parts. British and French anthropologists working in imperial possessions in Africa, Asia, and the M ­ iddle East had developed a tradition of solo long-­term fieldwork, ­under which they immersed themselves for months or years in the culture of



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the place they w ­ ere studying, living with the “natives” and practicing “participant observation.”97 Soviet ethnographers, by contrast, traveled in packs. When ethnographers from Moscow visited a region to conduct field research, they generally embarked as a group on a short-­term expedition. Once t­here, they stayed in ­hotels and made brief forays into villages to conduct interviews, often through local interpreters. Yet Soviet scholars, like their Western counter­parts, enjoyed the benefits and easy access that imperial rule conferred. Upon arrival, they immediately introduced themselves at the village soviet or the provincial party committee (obkom) and presented an official letter requesting cooperation from local officials. The obkom might provide a car and arrange for scarce ­hotel rooms. Ethnographers found interview subjects through the pokhoziaistvennye knigi (house­hold books), which kept a continuous accounting of all vital statistics—­births, deaths, marriages—­within each village and had a rec­ord of every­one in the area by nationality. Based on t­ hese books, ethnographers could easily find mixed ­couples to interview.98 Scholars in the Soviet periphery w ­ ere quickly drawn into the study of approved topics. Research institutes in Moscow coordinated closely with their equivalents in the national republics. The head of a sector—­for example, the Central Asian sector of the Institute of Ethnography—­would communicate the research plan to his or her republican counter­parts, who would commit their sector to fulfill certain aspects of the plan.99 A clear hierarchy existed that was sometimes a source of resentment in the periphery. Ethnographers in the republics ­were permitted to study only “their own” populations, not do fieldwork elsewhere, whereas centrally based ethnographers could do research anywhere in the Soviet Union. Moscow had to approve all republican dissertations. Scholars in the regions w ­ ere not expected to provide new or original theory and analy­sis but to apply theories worked out in Moscow to their own local situations. The US anthropologist Tamara Dragadze recalled the blunt words of the Moscow ethnographer V. I. Kozlov: “You in the republics send us materials, and we w ­ ill provide the theory.”100 In any academic environment, certain topics attract more interest and support than o ­ thers. In the Soviet case, t­ hese pressures w ­ ere magnified by the centralization of state and academia. Some Soviet-­era ethnographers maintain that theirs was one of the least politicized and ideological disciplines in the Soviet Union.101 Yet topics for dissertations had to be approved, and once the par­ameters had been set by the director of the institute—­that the ethnos and ethnic pro­cesses w ­ ere the ­things to study—­scholars selected the correct topics without much thought or discussion. According to Iu. A. Evstigneev, a St. Petersburg-­based ethnographer, even if scholars ­were not officially assigned

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to study intermarriage, every­one understood that some topics would be approved more easily than ­others. It was obvious that intermarriage was one of the topics welcomed by the powers that be.102 At the same time, ­there w ­ ere topics that every­one knew w ­ ere problematic. Anything to do with interethnic tensions or nationalist sentiments in non-­ Russian republics was obviously taboo, as was any topic that could potentially hint at such tensions. Religion and customary law could not be discussed except as survivals from the past. Some topics ­were permissible as research subjects but closed for public discussion; a scholar could work on such a topic, defend his or her dissertation, and even discuss it within the confines of the institute but could not publish on it. When Olga Briusina began her research on the Slavic population of Central Asia in the early 1980s, her advisor warned her that she might not be able to publish the results.103 At that time, opposition to Russification and Rus­sian influence was already making itself felt in some republics, which may have played in role in the sensitivity of this topic.104 The Leningrad-­based ethnographer T. V. Staniukovich, writing about Rus­sians and Ukrainians for a 1961 volume on the p­ eoples of Central Asia, had to limit the focus of her chapter to material culture and housing, though she had collected a ­g reat deal of fascinating material on interethnic relations.105 Briusina recalled, “What is very in­ter­est­ing is that ­these materials did not have any kind of, ­shall I say, even, from the ideological point of view of the Soviet authorities, provocative character. Nevertheless, they remained unpublished.”106 As a result of ­these restrictions, much of what scholars learned in their research remained—­and remains—­hidden in their personal papers. According to Briusina, what Brezhnev-­era scholars wrote was factually true but incomplete; many ­things had to be left out.107 Even certain aspects of interethnic marriage ­were off-­limits—­for example, the prevalence of such marriages among communist elites in non-­Russian republics was never studied or discussed, presumably ­because it might call into question the “national” credentials of ­these leaders.108 Nevertheless, it was well known that many prominent Central Asian leaders had Rus­sian or Eu­ro­pean wives. Biographies of individual communist party members often waxed eloquent about their beautiful Russian-­speaking wives and what wonderful helpmeets they w ­ ere in their husband’s work.109 What was published on interethnic relations and intermarriage had a mostly upbeat and self-­congratulatory tone. Ethnographers saw their role as not just highlighting the successes of Soviet nationality policy but also warning of potential prob­lems. They saw themselves as uniquely qualified to advise the Soviet government on interethnic relations.110 At a time when most Rus­sians knew l­ittle about the state of nationality issues, ethnographers from Rus­sian institutes spent time in periph-



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eral regions of the USSR and acquired a more accurate view of conditions ­there. They described ­these conditions in secret reports to the Communist Party leadership and tried to hint at them to a broader readership by refuting the claims of “bourgeois falsifiers” in their work. As is often the case with experts, they found that the state did not value their expertise or heed their warnings. According to the nationality theorist Eduard Bagramov, Soviet leaders did not want to hear an accurate analy­sis of nationality prob­lems; they just wanted the same old tired ideas expressed in a new way. The rise of national dissatisfaction in Ukraine, Armenia, and the Baltics in the 1960s led the Brezhnev regime to make a show of attention to “national prob­lems,” creating an Academic Council on national prob­lems at the Acad­emy of Sciences and inviting con­sul­tants to advise the Central Committee of the Communist Party.111 But ­these mea­sures had ­little substance. The central party apparatus considered the nationality prob­lem to be solved, and all it had to offer ­were empty slogans about fighting nationalism, promoting the Rus­sian language, and creating a Soviet p­ eople.112 Olga Naumova agreed, recalling the many reports ethnographers sent to Communist Party officials about the terrible state of the small ­peoples of the Arctic North, which had ­little effect. “The fact is, no one ever took into account, prob­ably, the opinion of the institute, and in general, scholars, in the formation of nationality policy. They existed for themselves, and we existed for ourselves. And we always had the feeling that no one listens to us, that we know more about the life of the ­people, ­because we went out on expeditions and saw how ­people live.”113 Instead of publishing analyses of prob­lems within the Soviet nationality system, ethnographers continued to publish self-­ congratulatory reports on subjects such as ethnic intermarriage. Such reports confirmed the impression that the nationality prob­lem was, if not entirely “solved,” on the way to being solved.

Ethnographic Theory and Intermarriage The vast body of research inspired by Bromlei’s work on the ethnos and endogamy sought to relate ethnic mixing to larger ethnic pro­cesses in the Soviet Union. Specifically, it aimed to show that intermarriage was contributing to the modernization of the periphery and the consolidation of a Soviet p­ eople. As noted above, Bromlei argued that pro­cesses of ethnic unification—­ consolidation, assimilation, and integration—­were dominant in the modern period. In a mutually reinforcing cycle, mixed marriages helped to speed up ­these three pro­cesses and ­were also dependent on them.114

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In this context, it was impor­tant to demonstrate increasing rates of intermarriage in order to show ongoing pro­g ress in ethno-­unifying pro­cesses. The promotion of hundreds of distinct Soviet ­peoples that had characterized the 1920s gave way in the 1930s to a focus on consolidating the largest Soviet nationalities, especially t­ hose with their own ­union republics. Smaller groups within ­union republics, while granted ­limited autonomy and cultural rights, ­were expected to merge with other small groups or with the titular nationalities of their republics.115 The ultimate result of this pro­cess would be the emergence of a Soviet p­ eople.116 Bromlei described this pro­cess in 1983: “As is well known, the main line of con­temporary ethnic pro­cesses in our country is the integration of nations in the sphere of culture, that is interethnic integration. This pro­cess is most closely involved with the emergence and development of a new historical community—­the Soviet ­people, which represents the first international (interethnic) formation, established on the basis of socialism, in the history of mankind.”117 In his “Ethnos and Endogamy,” Bromlei sought to show that the pro­cess of intermarriage-­related consolidation was already well underway. In the North Caucasus, he wrote, the small Abazini and Cherkess ­peoples had been merging into a single group, with rates of mixed marriage between them reaching 26.8 ­percent in 1963. Similarly, the Entsy and Nentsy p­ eoples ­were merging in Siberia. As early as the 1920s, t­ hese two groups had a 60–70 ­percent intermarriage rate.118 Overall, pro­cesses of consolidation had resulted in a sharp decrease in the number of ethnonyms between the 1926 and 1959 censuses, from 185 to 109.119 Following Bromlei’s lead, Brezhnev-­era experts on the vari­ous regions of the USSR sought to show that the pro­cess of consolidation of ethnoses and assimilation of smaller p­ eoples into larger, titular nations was well advanced. In multiethnic Dagestan in the North Caucasus, ­there ­were more than thirty indigenous nationalities, according to the 1926 census. Only ten remained in 1959, one Rus­sian ethnographer noted, showing that the pro­cess of consolidation was proceeding rapidly, with intermarriage playing a large role.120 In the Baltic republics, L. N. Terent’eva noted in 1969, assimilation was taking place, as smaller populations of nonindigenous minorities w ­ ere intermarrying with and merging with the three titular nations (Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians) and with the Rus­sian ­people. Referring to her research between 1960 and 1968 in Vilnius, Riga, and Tallinn, Terent’eva observed a clear tendency “­toward the decline in t­ hese cities in the numbers of the Ukrainian, Belorus­sian, Polish and Jewish population in ­favor of an increase in the numbers of Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, and Rus­sians.”121 In the Volga and Urals region, changes in



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the linguistic situation showed the consolidation of smaller groups into larger nations. Dialects w ­ ere giving way to the literary language, as p­ eople came to identify more with being Bashkirs and less with smaller local identity groups. Moreover, intermarriage among subgroups of Mordvinians, Chuvash, Udmurts, and o ­ thers was helping along the pro­cess of consolidation. A dual pro­ cess of assimilation was ­going on as well; smaller ethnic groups such as the Mordvinians and the Karelians ­were being assimilated in some cases by larger indigenous groups, and in other cases by the Rus­sian nation. ­Because this risked sounding like forced Russification, Terent’eva stressed that in the USSR all such assimilation was strictly voluntary and natu­ral.122 Ethnographers believed that they saw similar pro­cesses taking place in the ethnically complex Central Asian republics.123 Within each national republic, the titular nationality was absorbing ethnic minority populations. In the Republic of Uzbekistan, for example, small groups of Turkmen, Kurama, Kipchaks, and Arabs had merged with the Uzbek population. In Tajikistan, the mountainous Pamir p­ eoples, previously considered ethnically distinct, ­were allegedly becoming Tajiks. Even the Eu­ro­pean populations of Central Asia—­ mainly Rus­sians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians—­were merging with each other and with Jews, Armenians, and other non-­Central Asians.124 Intermarriage played an impor­tant role in all ­these pro­cesses of consolidation. Somewhat disingenuously, Brezhnev-­era scholars even used evidence of high rates of Tajik-­Uzbek intermarriage to argue that t­ hese two nations w ­ ere drawing together at a rapid rate. In Dushanbe, marriages of Uzbeks and Tajiks ­were so common that ethnographers spoke of an inclusive Tajik-­Uzbek endogamy—­ implying that they w ­ ere on the verge of merging into a new ethnos.125 The irony is that it was the Soviet regime itself that drew sharp ethnic and linguistic bound­aries between Uzbeks and Tajiks at the time of the “national delimitation” of Central Asia in 1924–1925. By the end of the 1930s, t­hese two categories ­were seen—at least by Moscow—as distinct, primordial, and eternal.126 Prerevolutionary ethnographers, by contrast, had noted the porous bound­aries between the two groups, the difficulties involved in clearly distinguishing between Tajiks and Uzbeks ethnically and linguistically, and their overlap with a now-­defunct category called Sarts.127 Soviet ethnographers and sociologists recognized that intermarriage was more likely to occur between culturally similar groups such as Rus­sians and Ukrainians, or Uzbeks and Tajiks, and that Muslim-­Christian marriages ­were more difficult ­because of cultural and linguistic differences and continuing religious “prejudices.” Just as tribes ­were expected to merge before nations, the drawing together of p­ eoples of similar cultural and religious backgrounds

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would take place before that of more culturally distant groups. As modernization and national consolidation continued, they believed, marriages between more culturally remote groups would become more common. Along with its role in accelerating pro­cesses of ethnic unification, the other official reason for celebrating intermarriage was that it was thought to aid in the modernization of “backward” nationalities. Indeed, it was t­hose rare ­unions between representatives of “backward” and “advanced” nations that ­were most impor­tant in advancing modernity. In Central Asia, intermarried ­couples, especially ­those uniting Central Asians with Rus­sians or other non-­ Muslims, ­were believed to be uniquely capable of breaking ­free of patriarchal norms and traditional ­family life. A 1985 study found that Kazakhs in mixed marriages ­were much less tribally oriented than ­those in monoethnic marriages; 95  ­percent of the latter could name their tribal affiliation, whereas only 65 ­percent of ­those in mixed marriages could do so.128 Ethnographers maintained that mixed families w ­ ere more likely to use the Rus­sian language at home and adopt a “Soviet” lifestyle. In Kazakhstan, mixed ­couples celebrated their weddings in the Rus­sian fashion—­a quick ceremony at the Soviet registry office, followed by a dinner with ­family and friends.129 A young mixed ­couple furnished its home European-­style, with f­amily meals taken while seated at chairs at a dining ­table (not seated on the floor, according to Kazakh custom).130 Mixed c­ ouples generally used Rus­sian as the language of communication within the f­amily, and for the c­ hildren Rus­sian was often the native language. In Tatarstan, too, researchers found that mixed Tatar-­Russian families ­were more “international” (i.e., Soviet) in their material culture and food, less likely to do ­things in traditional Tatar ways, and more likely to use Rus­ sian as the primary language in the home.131 Along with being more Soviet in their lifestyles, mixed c­ ouples ­were said to have stronger and happier marriages, better relations with their in-­laws, and ­children who ­were more fully steeped in the spirit of internationalism than their peers.132 Fi­nally, mixed ­couples ­were believed to boast more equitable relations between husband and wife, making decisions together and sharing domestic chores in the home. In short, they represented the Soviet ideal and the conjugal vanguard of the ­f uture. In the final three de­cades of the Soviet Union’s existence, a positive attitude ­toward intermarriage, along with the belief that ethnic mixing contributed greatly to the integration and modernization of Soviet nationalities, was solidly entrenched among Soviet officials and scholars. Marriages between culturally distant nationalities, particularly between Central Asians and Rus­sians, ­were assumed to be especially profound in their impact. Soviet officials liked



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to contrast the enlightened Soviet policy on interethnic marriage with the negative attitudes or outright bans on interracial mixing elsewhere, especially in the United States. Nazi Germany’s laws against race mixing and the strict racial segregation u ­ nder South Africa’s apartheid regime ­were other notorious examples of institutionalized racism with which the Soviet Union favorably compared its own policies. The official cele­bration of intermarriage created a welcoming climate for mixed ­couples and families within Soviet society as a ­whole. Nevertheless, t­ here ­were ominous signs for mixed families—­and for committed internationalists in general—in the more primordial view of nationality that was emerging in the late Soviet era. To what extent did t­ hese contradictory trends trickle down to the Soviet citizenry, to the cities, villages, and communities where ­couples met and married? Did the official embrace of intermarriage make life easier for mixed ­couples and families? The next two chapters answer t­ hese questions by examining the experiences of individuals who met and married interethnically in postwar Soviet Kazakhstan and Tajikistan.

C h a p te r 2

Falling in Love across Ethnic Lines

Vera Rahimova (b. 1924), a Rus­sian w ­ oman from a village in the Amur region of the Rus­sian Far East, met her husband in 1947 when he was stationed nearby with the Red Army. He was from Tajikistan, a Soviet Central Asian republic about which she knew l­ittle. Vera’s f­ ather was a hunter by profession, her ­mother a homemaker who stayed home with the ­family’s nine c­ hildren. The parents on both sides w ­ ere opposed to their marriage. Her f­ ather sneered, “What, you c­ ouldn’t find a Rus­sian to marry?” “What business is it of yours?” Vera retorted angrily. Her fiancé’s ­father and b­ rother, similarly, tried to persuade him to take a Tajik wife instead. He refused, and the young ­couple married. They lived in Rus­sia for several years, had two ­children, then moved to Tajikistan in 1952. T ­ here they lived with her husband’s widowed ­father, where Vera found life even more difficult than in postwar Siberia. “We lived ­there for a year, but I ­didn’t like it,” she recalled. “­There was no ­house, nothing. His ­father was living ­there alone since his ­mother had died. We lived very badly. Their home was a storage shed that h ­ adn’t been fixed up at all. I was barely surviving. I cried all day long. T ­ here was nothing to eat, and we lived very badly.”1 In the face of ­these hardships, Vera told her husband, “I ­can’t live like this anymore.” She returned to Rus­sia, left the c­ hildren with her parents, and found a job at a factory. Her husband, however, would not give up on the marriage. He built a h ­ ouse in Tajikistan for the f­amily to 42



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live in. “He found me. He said, ‘Let’s go.’ I said, ‘I’m not ­going anywhere.’ ” Then my parents said, “What are you ­going to do? You have two ­children. ­You’re twenty-­five years old. You ­won’t find another husband.” So, she got on the train with her two ­children and returned to Tajikistan. Gradually, Vera and her husband built a life for themselves. She took care of her el­derly father-­in-­ law before he died, and in the end, “He was pleased with me.” It was “fate,” she believes, that led her to marry a Tajik and spend her life in Tajikistan.2 “Kamal Ibrayev” (b. 1946), a member of the Soviet urban intelligent­sia, was born and raised in the multiethnic city of Alma Ata, capital of Soviet Kazakhstan.3 An ethnic Uyghur, according to his passport, he claims both Tatar and Kazakh ancestry as well. In 1973, he married a Rus­sian ­woman whose forebears included an Estonian grand­father exiled to Kazakhstan in Stalin’s time. Kamal met his ­future wife at the film studio where they both ­were working. Attracted by her rosy cheeks and slim figure, he soon proposed. But the response from both of their families was negative. “Our parents, of course, ­were opposed! . . . ​ Her ­mother was still alive, and she was opposed. Well, why ­wouldn’t she be? [I was] a completely unknown person, and a Muslim to boot! . . . ​And my relatives ­were also against it, saying, ‘Son, ­couldn’t you find a single Uyghur, Kazakh, or Uzbek girl?’ But we got married and are still together.” Only his f­ ather reacted with greater equanimity, saying, “ ’Well, if you love each other, then what can I say? The main t­ hing is that you live in harmony!’ My ­father was a communist, a Stalinist,” Kamal recalled. Despite this relatively inauspicious beginning, both families ­were quickly reconciled to the marriage. Kamal believes his relatives came around b­ ecause of the stellar qualities of his wife, especially her ability to adapt to the cultural norms of her Muslim in-­ laws. “Of course, h ­ ere every­thing depends on the individual. Let’s say I had married some ­woman, for example, who acted very arrogantly, ­wouldn’t observe any of our traditions, and ­didn’t re­spect our relatives. Then who would have liked her? But my wife, you see, is an intelligent w ­ oman. When we came to visit my grand­mother, she immediately said, ‘Assalam aleikum.’ And she treated all their traditions with re­spect.” Ultimately, Kamal explained, “When we had lived together two or three years, and my relatives got to know her better, and her relatives got to know me better, my ­father came to feel that he could not have had a better daughter-­in-­law.” His wife’s ­family, too, eventually accepted him. In the end, he recalled, his mother-­in-­law said, “I ­couldn’t ask for a better son-­in-­law.”4 Talgat Akilov, a Kazakh man who married a Rus­sian ­woman, Marina, in the late 1980s, recalled that his ­father and elder ­brother initially opposed his choice. His was a conservative f­ amily in southern Kazakhstan that observed strict gender and age hierarchies, and they viewed Rus­sian w ­ omen as insufficiently modest.

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“My relatives ­were categorically opposed. As I said, in our f­ amily the younger ­people ­don’t go against the older ones. They can express their opinion, but they ­can’t act in opposition. That’s just our way of life.”5 It was Talgat’s m ­ other who eventually persuaded the ­family to accept his choice of bride. “They ­were trying to come to a decision, sitting at a ­table, but my ­mother uttered the decisive phrase; ‘Talgat is the one who ­will live with her, not you! If Talgat likes her, it means he’s made his decision for life!’ As a result, a­ fter about half an hour my ­father agreed. My ­brother wanted to say more, but my ­father sharply and categorically cut him off. It turned out that my ­mother was victorious.” By contrast, Marina’s f­ amily welcomed the marriage, being firm believers in Soviet internationalism. T ­ here ­were already mixed marriages in the f­ amily; Marina’s ­sister was married to an ethnic German, while an aunt had a Tatar husband. Talgat’s f­ ather and elder ­brother ­later changed their minds, and the ­brother even apologized for his early opposition to the marriage. Talgat believes that the change came about b­ ecause Talgat’s wife was respectful t­ oward her in-­laws’ way of life. “She ­didn’t become a Muslim, but she re­spects and observes our traditions.”6 ­These three examples involve two dif­fer­ent republics, three dif­fer­ent periods of Soviet history, and individuals of widely varying educational and occupational backgrounds. An educated c­ ouple marrying u ­ nder the “mature socialism” of the 1970s would seem to have ­little in common with a working-­ class or peasant ­couple marrying in the harsh Stalinist aftermath of World War II, or with a ­couple marrying amidst rising ethnic tensions in the perestroika era. Soviet society changed tremendously between 1945 and 1989. Yet ­there are impor­tant similarities in t­ hese three narratives. In each case, at least one of the families opposed the ­union. Each c­ ouple had to overcome obstacles and hardships to ensure the success of the marriage. And in each case, the skeptical relatives came around in the end and accepted a spouse of another ethnicity. The life stories of ­these ­couples share a specific kind of narrative structure; they are tales of love and per­sis­tence in the face of f­ amily opposition and other obstacles. The climax of the story, in each case (and in many other stories that ­were told to me) comes when the young person (usually the man) declares, “I’ll marry her—or no one.” Typically, t­ hese stories conclude with a fairy tale ending related in strikingly similar words by a wide variety of narrators, in which t­ hose who opposed the mixed marriage fi­nally admit that they ­were wrong. In the end, the daughter-­in-­law or son-­in-­law of the “wrong” ethnicity turned out to be, like Hans Christian Andersen’s ugly duckling, a beautiful swan—­“the best one of all, the best I ever could have hoped for.” The three marriages described above each united a Central Asian Muslim and a Rus­sian. Such marriages ­were quite rare; among the “mixed marriages”



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tracked by Soviet officials, the vast majority took place between culturally and religiously close groups such as Rus­sians and Ukrainians or Tajiks and Uzbeks. Yet marriages crossing significant cultural and religious bound­aries not only aroused greater opposition within families but w ­ ere considered especially impor­tant by Soviet officials. When Russian-­Muslim marriages did take place, they almost always united a Central Asian-­Muslim man and a Rus­sian (or Ukrainian or Belorus­sian) ­woman. Muslim men, while constrained by ties of love and obedience to their families, had more freedom to move around and meet potential spouses in postwar Central Asia. Their parents may have wished for and even tried to arrange marriages for them, but young men had a greater ability to say no. Moreover, it was Central Asian men who served in the army, or in some cases, went for higher education to other parts of the USSR, where they met potential wives. Unmarried Muslim w ­ omen, with few exceptions, ­were expected to stay home, help their m ­ others, and behave modestly. Soviet-­ sponsored dances in Central Asia ­after the war, respondents recalled, attracted Central Asian men but almost no young Muslim ­women; their families did not allow them to go. At t­ hese events the young men met Rus­sian ­women, who enjoyed a much freer existence than their Central Asian counter­parts. For Muslim girls, marriages ­were often arranged early, before they had a chance to meet any young men on their own. Fi­nally, cultural and religious rules traditionally dictated that Muslim men, but not Muslim ­women, could marry outside the faith as long as their wives converted to Islam.7 The continuities evident in the three life stories above took place against a backdrop of tremendous change in Soviet Central Asian society between the 1940s and 1980s. The postwar period saw massive internal migrations and demographic shifts, changes in the status of w ­ omen, and the rise of a new Soviet generation, more educated and cosmopolitan, and with greater familiarity with the Rus­sian language. At the same time, the period witnessed the growth of a sense of national identity within each Central Asian republic, laying the groundwork for an upsurge of nationalism at the very end of the Soviet era. All of ­these changes would have an outsized impact on the lives of mixed ­couples and families.

The 1940s and 1950s: War Brides and ­Others The Soviet Union was a multiethnic society in which, despite the concentration of ethnic groups within their own “national territories,” ­there was a ­great deal of mobility and interethnic interaction. In the 1920s and 1930s, large numbers of Rus­sians and other Eu­ro­pe­ans fanned out to outlying republics as

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skilled workers and administrators.8 Beginning in the years just before the war and accelerating during and ­after World War II, ­there w ­ ere massive population movements that brought Soviet citizens of dif­fer­ent nationalities into contact with each other. Ethnic deportations, war­time evacuations, exile and imprisonment in the Gulag, and the Khrushchev-­era virgin lands campaign all contributed to the tremendous mobility of Soviet ethnic groups and to high levels of ethnic interaction, especially in the cities.9 For Central Asians, the war was the first big ethnic and social mixer. Millions of Red Army soldiers, among them Central Asians, ­were stationed and fought in other parts of the Soviet Union alongside soldiers of other ethnicities.10 They w ­ ere compelled to learn at least a modicum of Rus­sian, which prior to World War II only a few Central Asians had mastered. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Central Asian soldiers brought home Rus­sian, Ukrainian, and other non-­Muslim brides whom they met during their ser­vice in other parts of the Soviet Union. The phenomenon of war­time mixed marriages had its own distinctive features. ­These ­were ­people born in the 1920s, for the most part—­the first generation raised with Soviet values. Their parents, on the other hand, had grown up before the revolution and had more traditional ideas. This generational difference, along with the conditions of the immediate postwar period, set the scene for ­family conflict over mixed marriages. The immediate postwar period was a time of terrible suffering in the Soviet Union. The war resulted in a severe demographic imbalance, since more than three-­quarters of the 26.6 million ­people who died in the war ­were men. Thus, in 1944 t­ here was a shortage of ten million men relative to w ­ omen between the ages of twenty and forty-­four, the prime reproductive age. This meant that many ­women could not find husbands ­after the war, or that they had lost their husbands and had fatherless ­children.11 From a practical point of view, one result may have been that w ­ omen ­were more willing to look outside their usual networks to find a spouse, and their families may have been more accepting of t­ hese marriages, given the dearth of other options. (Recall Vera’s parents urging her to return to her Tajik husband b­ ecause she was unlikely to find another.) ­There ­were also food shortages in 1946–1947, which worsened to the point of famine in the Eu­ro­pean regions of the Soviet Union, especially parts of Rus­sia, Moldavia, and Ukraine.12 This, too, may have made some ­women more willing to resettle in far-­off Central Asia, even if conditions w ­ ere less than ideal ­there. Most of ­these war­time brides have passed away, but interviews with ­those who survive, along with ethnographic work carried out in the late Soviet period, capture the range of their experiences. The “war brides” who came with their husbands to villages in Central Asia typically had l­ittle idea of what



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awaited them t­here. The Rus­sian ethnographer Olga Briusina, who did ethnographic fieldwork in the Ferghana Valley in the 1980s, encountered el­derly Slavic ­women who had met their Tajik or Uzbek husbands during or shortly ­after the war. Some of t­ hese w ­ omen recalled that many of them had had false expectations about what life in Central Asia would be like. “­There, in Rus­sia, in the army, he is dressed like a Eu­ro­pean, says he has three h ­ ouses ­here, but they come h ­ ere, and what is she ­going to do in a mud ­house?”13 Often the husband’s relatives ­were hostile to the new bride who, in turn, was resentful at the demands of her new in-­laws. Young brides in Central Asia did not just marry a husband but his entire ­family. They w ­ ere expected to live with their in-­laws and subordinate their needs to ­those of the extended ­family. In par­tic­u­lar, they w ­ ere expected to be at the mother-­in-­law’s beck and call, helping with the cooking, cleaning, and washing for the entire ­family. Moreover, they ­were expected to wear native dress and behave according to Muslim norms of female modesty. Traditional dress and hairstyles w ­ ere markers of ethnic belonging as well as of conformity to gender norms. The details of this clothing varied regionally; in Tajikistan it typically included a long, embroidered dress over narrow trousers, a head­scarf or tiubeteka (traditional cap), and hair fashioned into a long braid.14 Some Rus­sian brides could not adapt and left; according to Briusina’s in­for­mants, the majority of ­these marriages broke up soon a­ fter the wedding.15 One of my el­derly narrators, Alla Tuychiboyeva, recalled having witnessed the failure of many such ­unions. “Many of our neighbors brought home Rus­sian [wives] from the army. They brought them and immediately made them wear traditional caps, trousers, and Tajik dresses. And ­after a month or two t­ here would be a huge fight at home, and they would leave.”16 ­Those who stayed, particularly in rural areas, often had to adopt the be­hav­ior expected of ­women within the patriarchal ­family. The war­time bride married to the Central Asian soldier was the ste­reo­ typical mixed marriage in Central Asia of the 1940s and 1950s, but it was not always military ser­vice that brought together Central Asian men and ­women of other nationalities in the postwar years. Nor did mixed ­couples always meet outside Central Asia. The tremendous mobility of the period meant that many Soviet citizens found themselves far from home, away from their families, and in circumstances that permitted the mingling of p­ eoples from all over the Soviet Union. Travel for study and work was becoming more common. Many Soviet w ­ omen from Eu­ro­pean regions, already emancipated by the Bolsheviks and encouraged to work outside the home and become po­liti­cally and socially active, had taken on new roles during the war, gaining in­de­pen­dence and confidence.17 Such Eu­ro­pean ­women w ­ ere no longer ­under the thumbs of their families, a fact that also helps to explain why they ­were far more likely

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to intermarry than their Central Asian counter­parts. ­Those w ­ omen who met their spouses while already living in Central Asia had a better idea of what to expect from local f­ amily life. Lidia Evdakimova, a working-­class ­woman born in 1927, met her Tajik husband in Tajikistan ­after the war. Her parents, ethnic Rus­sians from the Penza region, had settled in Tajikistan in 1926. Her ­uncle, a committed communist, had been sent to Tajikistan to supervise the building of a railroad, and her parents with their six c­ hildren followed. Lidia went straight to work a­ fter finishing eighth grade in 1943. She met her husband at the automobile depot in the city of Proletarsk, where they both worked, she as an accountant, he as a mechanic and driver. They first became friends, part of a multiethnic group of young ­people, then de­cided to marry in 1951. Lidia’s parents opposed the marriage. However, they could not prevent her from marrying whomever she wanted. Lidia was already living on her own with one of her s­ isters, who said, “You decide, it’s your life.” Lidia recalled that her fiancé’s ­mother was also opposed. His parents had their own ­house, and the ­mother told her son to leave: “Then go where you want, and live with her.” Since Tajik sons ­were expected to bring their brides home to live with their parents, this was tantamount to the expulsion of Lidia’s intended husband from his ­family. Lidia went on: She even told him, “if you want to marry a Russian”—­they had a Rus­sian neighbor—­“then marry this one.” But he said no, I’m not marrying that one, I’m marrying this one. “Then go,” she said, “live wherever you want.” We rented an apartment and lived t­here. We lived t­here for two months and then they took him into the army. I gave birth to a son while he was away. Our son was already three when he came back. And when he came back, then we had a ­daughter.18 In Lidia’s account, her ­f uture in-­laws revealed their view of marriage as a f­amily affair rather than a m ­ atter of individual sentiment; if their son r­ eally wished to marry a Rus­sian w ­ oman, why not their neighbor, the one the f­ amily already knew? But their son had absorbed the Soviet-­favored romantic idea of love and marriage; only one person, the beloved, would do. In any case, the reconciliation between the groom’s parents and the young c­ ouple was not long in coming. As so often occurred, the birth of a grand­child spurred the parents to forgive and forget. “Then, when I gave birth, his ­mother herself was the first to come to the maternity hospital. U ­ ntil the ninth month I was at my ­sister’s, but then I moved in with them [her husband’s ­family]. They accepted [the marriage], both she and my parents.”19 Lidia’s case is illuminating on several counts. It shows the high level of interethnic socialization among young p­ eople in the cities, especially Rus­sians



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of both sexes and Tajik men, who met at dances, in school, or at work. It reveals the independent-­mindedness of many young Rus­sian/Soviet ­women, who demanded the freedom to make their own choices. It suggests the strength of purpose required by a Tajik man who wanted to marry without his parents’ approval. In Tajikistan, parents ­were responsible for arranging their ­children’s marriages, and a young man who wanted to choose his own bride faced an uphill ­battle even if she was not of another ethnicity.20 And fi­nally, it confirms the virtually universal tendency to reconcile ­after an unwelcome marriage once grandchildren w ­ ere born. Young Rus­sian ­women sometimes traveled on their own to Central Asia for work or study, finding greater social mobility t­here than at home. Maria Saliyeva, born in 1934 in Barnaul, Western Siberia, originally went to Tajikistan in 1952 to get medical training. She was from an uneducated ­family; her ­father was a driver and her m ­ other a laborer on a collective farm. Nevertheless, as a young Rus­sian in Tajikistan, Maria had a certain social status associated with her nationality. (Though all nationalities ­were officially equal in the Soviet Union, Rus­sians considered themselves the “elder b­ rothers” of the more “backward” ­peoples and occupied a higher status in the unofficial hierarchy.)21 As a result, she found a better job than she could have had in Rus­sia, working as a secretary in the provincial court. She met her husband, a Tajik, at a dance in 1953 and married him in 1955. More than fifty years ­later, she recalled the impression he made on her: “Well, you know, he had a certain importance, a certain standing among his friends and relatives. And he was so respectful, for one ­thing, and also honest. He worked at the shoe factory, every­one respected him, and his friends w ­ ere all such good ­people. He had Rus­sian and Tajik friends.”22 Maria’s ­family was opposed to the match, as was her fiancé’s ­mother, who wanted to marry her son to a cousin. “My ­family was opposed, of course. ‘You have to [marry] your own nation’ . . . ​and his ­mother was opposed ­because she had made an engagement at birth for him with his aunt’s d­ aughter. . . . ​ They wanted to marry him off to her, so my mother-­in-­law of course was opposed. But he insisted on me. ‘I ­don’t want anyone ­else; in that case, I ­won’t get married at all.’ ” Despite her fiancé’s determination, Maria was reluctant to marry in such inauspicious circumstances. She recalled, “I de­cided to go away altogether. I thought, why should I do this? His m ­ other is against it; it ­will be hard to live.” But her ­f uture husband persisted, writing her letters and promising, “I’m coming for you.” And then, as fate would have it, Maria could not find a job in her Rus­sian hometown of Barnaul. Ultimately, Maria returned to Tajikistan and married her Tajik fiancé.23 Alla Tuychiboyeva, a Rus­sian ­woman born in 1938 near Moscow, met a young Tajik at an international youth festival in Moscow in 1957.24 He was a

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student at the Moscow Institute of Physical Culture (named, at that time, ­after Joseph Stalin). Her ­mother, widowed a­ fter Alla’s f­ather perished at the front in 1944, was opposed to the marriage. She asked, “Why marry a non-­Russian?” Alla explained: “­Here [in Tajikistan], boys d­ on’t go out with girls, but [in Rus­ sia] they meet, go out, get to know each other. So, we fell in love, I guess, and he said, ‘I’m ­going to marry you.’ Well, of course, my ­family was opposed. I came ­here, and his ­family was also opposed. That’s how it was, but we lived together anyway [laughs].”25 When Alla moved to Tajikistan, she was eigh­teen years old and knew nothing about life in Central Asia. Moreover, she had led a sheltered life in Rus­sia and knew hardly any non-­Russians. Her in-­laws w ­ ere kind; they did not force her to wear Tajik clothing, and every­one spoke Rus­sian with her. (In fact, she never learned Tajik.) Nevertheless, Alla found it difficult to adjust. The claustrophobic atmosphere of the extended ­family and the mahalla (traditional Central Asian neighborhood), where every­one knew every­one ­else’s business, both­ered her, coming from a culture where a young c­ ouple expected at least a ­little bit of privacy.26 She recalled, “I once ran away . . . ​took my son and left. They w ­ ere looking for me . . . ​I was gone for around a month. Then he [her husband] came and got me.” Asked why she left, Alla explained: “I guess ­because I fought with every­one [laughs]. The entire ­family was interfering, gossiping . . . ​one says one t­hing, a second person says something e­ lse, then a third. . . . ​It used to be like that, every­one interfering in your business, but then, when we started to live normally, that was it, no one both­ered us. He [my husband] d­ idn’t listen to anyone.” Her husband’s support and refusal to listen to gossip ­were clearly impor­ tant in her decision to stay. Alla eventually became well integrated into the local community. She had lived in Tajikistan for fifty-­two years at the time of our interview, forty-­eight of them with her husband before his death. “Now, the w ­ hole mahalla loves me,” she remarked. “I’m very happy with every­one, and the older ­people who have passed away, they all loved me very much. Somehow we found a common language.”27 Sazhida Dmitrieva’s parents, a Rus­sian ­mother and a Tatar f­ather, initially faced strong opposition from the Rus­sian side of the ­family. They met in 1953 in Ust-­Kamenogorsk (­today Öskemen), northeastern Kazakhstan. Sazhida’s f­ather courted her ­mother at the post office, where she was an employee. He was a Tatar whose ­family was originally from Bashkiria and who had migrated to Kazakhstan for work ­after the war. The ­couple married in 1957. His parents accepted the marriage, but his wife’s widowed m ­ other did not. This opposition, which continued over many years, led to the m ­ other’s estrangement from her ­daughter and grandchildren. Sazhida recalled, “My grand­mother was absolutely



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opposed to their marriage. . . . ​She was absolutely opposed to a Muslim, as she said, a non-­Christian and all that. For religious reasons, in other words.” Her paternal grand­father, on the other hand, was “a real communist, a proper internationalist.” As for the rest of her Tatar relatives, “Maybe somewhere in the depths of their souls they also wanted a Tatar girl, but they never spoke about this.” Thus, Sazhida’s parents moved in with her f­ ather’s Tatar relatives a­ fter they married, and they mainly socialized with that side of the f­amily throughout Sazhida’s childhood. “They lived with them, and Mama, well, she basically distanced herself from her own relatives. She joined the f­ amily of her husband, and so we always saw more of my ­father’s relatives and his Tatar friends.”28 ­Later, as an adult, Sazhida began seeing cousins on her Rus­sian m ­ other’s side. Eventually, her maternal grand­mother accepted her son-­in-­law. “Well, as the years went by, he became the ‘best son-­in-­law, so caring, so helpful.’ Over the years all this went away, but in the beginning it was very difficult.”29 The strong objections of Sazhida’s m ­ other’s Rus­sian ­family ­were the exception rather than the rule. In general, interviews suggest that ethnic Rus­ sians ­were often more receptive to mixed marriages than members of other nationalities. P ­ eople belonging to non-­European nationalities ­were often the least enthusiastic about such marriages. The ­limited amount of survey evidence from the Soviet era seems to bear this out.30 A large survey of 30,000 Soviet citizens conducted in the early 1970s in five ­union republics asked a number of questions about interethnic relations, including views of intermarriage. Respondents ­were asked how they would feel about working with, befriending, or having marital/family relationships with p­ eople of vari­ous other nationalities.31 The survey found that Tatars ­were more likely than Rus­sians to oppose intermarriage. For example, 52 ­percent of Tatars in rural areas had a negative attitude t­ oward interethnic marriage.32 By contrast, only 39.7 ­percent of Rus­sians in rural areas opposed such marriages.33 In Uzbekistan, only 16 ­percent of Uzbeks believed nationality to be unimportant in marriage, while 24 ­percent said that mixed marriages w ­ ere undesirable. The rest w ­ ere undecided or declined to say—­a refusal that in itself may reflect negative attitudes ­toward mixed marriage that ­people ­were reluctant to express to the survey researchers. By contrast, 44 ­percent of Rus­sians living in Uzbekistan said that nationality should play no role in marriage decisions.34 Other surveys found that Muslim elites ­were more prone than elites of other nationalities to oppose mixed marriage.35 Thus, among the urban Tatar intelligent­sia, nearly 20 ­percent opposed intermarriage. Among the Rus­sian intelligent­sia the corresponding figure was less than 5 ­percent.36 Rustam Iskandarov, a mixed Tajik-­Russian resident of Tajikistan, offered an example of the greater Rus­sian receptiveness to mixed marriages. His parents,

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who married in 1949 or 1950, faced a much more negative reaction from the Tajik side when they married. His Tajik paternal grandparents ­were ­people of the old school. “That is, they had lived before the revolution and a­ fter the revolution and so forth. That’s why they d­ idn’t take it very well. And my m ­ other had to spend several years proving that she was worthy to be the wife of this man.” Rustam’s Tajik grandparents eventually found a pragmatic reason to accept their son’s Rus­sian wife: “­After she had become a doctor, they all understood that they should accept her ­because she would be able to provide medical care for every­body.” As for his Rus­sian ­mother’s parents, they expressed no objections, even though it meant that their ­daughter went to live in a remote republic. “­Things w ­ ere simpler with the Rus­sians. Yes, she came and announced to them, I’m marrying this person, and that’s it. She got married, and she came ­here. And so her parents lived the rest of their lives alone. Well, of course, we went ­there e­ very year and saw them, but they lived alone.”37 By “alone,” Rustam meant that they lived without their ­daughter and her f­ amily nearby. Similarly, Maria Hamidova’s Rus­sian parents had no objection to her mixed marriage. Maria was born in 1936 in a village in Tiumen oblast, Siberia, into a ­family with seven ­children. When she finished school, she found that t­ here was no work for her at home. For a while she did odd jobs such as clearing snow, before a friend who lived in Tajikistan helped her get a job at a silk pro­ cessing plant and a room in a worker’s dormitory. Shortly ­after turning eigh­ teen, Maria left home and moved to Tajikistan. For most of her ­career she was a worker at a shoe factory. Maria met her ­f uture husband, a Tajik, in the dorm where she was living. She married him in 1956. Maria recalled the reasons she was attracted to her husband: “He was sociable and spoke good Rus­sian; I liked that his speech was clean. Well, you can tell that a person knows the language. I ­didn’t think too much about it, maybe I d­ idn’t think about it all, I was young, That’s all. I was around twenty years old.” Maria’s recollections suggest the importance of the Rus­sian language in facilitating mixed marriages, something that ­will be discussed in a l­ ater chapter. She does not recall any negative reaction from her parents when she announced her intention to marry. “I wrote a letter and I told them. They d­ idn’t know who, I d­ idn’t tell them who. They answered, ‘You decide, it’s your decision.’ They basically agreed, and that was it. My parents ­were not opposed.” She also got along well with her in-­laws. They lived for six years with his f­ amily before receiving their own apartment.38 Svetlana Vizer’s grandparents likewise welcomed their Tatar son-­in-­law into the f­ amily. Svetlana’s ­father, Ahmetshakur Abdulghaniev, was a Russified Tatar who went by the name Sasha (a common nickname for Alexander) instead of his given name. Svetlana’s ­mother had been born into a f­ amily that hailed



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from Ukraine but considered themselves Rus­sian. Ahmetshakur and Nadezhda ­were both born in the 1920s, met in the Kazakh capital of Alma Ata, and married in 1951. Sasha was from Semipalatinsk, where t­ here was historically a large Tatar community, and had a degree from the automotive institute, though he aspired to be an artist. He and Nadezhda met at the Main Roads Administration, where they both worked. Nadezhda’s ­family accepted their Tatar son-­in-­ law without hesitation, and he even moved into their crowded apartment. Svetlana recalled, “They accepted him just fine. No m ­ atter what, it was their ­daughter’s choice, and they did not treat him badly, no. Not at all. They accepted him into the ­family, especially since he had nowhere to live. He was from Semipalatinsk and was renting an apartment. . . . ​They cordoned off a corner in this big room, where seven ­people w ­ ere already living.’39 Postwar conditions meant that many young ­people ­were uprooted, living at g­ reat distances from their families. When they met and married far from home, their families found out about the marriage only a­ fter the fact. In such cases, they could hardly object. The parents of “Aigerim Semenova” (b. 1952) met and married in the early 1950s. Her f­ ather, a Kazakh, was stationed in Rus­ sia with the Red Army. He got to know his ­future wife when both w ­ ere far from home, and they married without having met each other’s relatives. Aigerim was born in Sakhalin province in the Rus­sian Far East. Her ­mother’s ­family w ­ ere ­simple, uneducated ­people from the Rus­sian province of Kostroma. They accepted their new son-­in-­law without complaint when they eventually met him. “They treated him very well. They ­really loved him, Papa. And they ­were happy that every­thing was okay with Mama. Basically, they [my parents] ­were very happy all their lives. They never quarreled seriously, the only time was when Papa would become jealous of somebody [laughs].”40

Love, Soviet Style: Mixed Marriages from the 1960s to the Perestroika Era Mixed ­couples who married between the 1960s and the 1980s did so in a rather dif­fer­ent context. T ­ hese ­were ­people who came of age during the Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras rather than during World War II and Stalinism. As historians have noted, this generation had grown up without the experience of war and terror. They w ­ ere less accustomed to privation and sacrifice, less afraid to speak their minds, and had higher expectations than their parents for social change and personal fulfillment. They w ­ ere more urban and more highly educated.41 And, perhaps most crucially for mixed marriage, they ­were developing new ideas about being Soviet. The experience of the war had consolidated

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a feeling of solidarity and common identity, particularly in Central Asia.42 The postwar period saw the further spread of the Rus­sian language and culture due to rising education levels and mobility. A growing elite class of local nationals, educated in Russian-­language schools, emerged with changes in education policy in the late 1950s.43 Many Soviet citizens in the 1960s and 1970s lived in environments where it was easy to meet, befriend, and ultimately fall in love with p­ eople of dif­fer­ent ethnicities. Interviewees who grew up in the late Soviet era described schools, institutes, workplaces, and apartment buildings where the population was multiethnic and p­ eople socialized without regard to ethnicity. They went to pioneer camp, joined the Komsomol, did their stint in the army, studied in Moscow or Leningrad if they w ­ ere strong enough students—­all with a multiethnic cohort of friends and colleagues. Large cities in non-­Russian republics such as Almaty, Dushanbe, and Tashkent tended to be ethnically mixed, a fact in which many respondents felt obvious pride. T ­ here ­were many types of mixed marriage in this period, as Rus­sians, Ukrainians, Germans, Armenians, Azeris, Koreans, Tatars, Kazakhs, Tajiks, and Uzbeks all met and fell in love. As in the immediate postwar period, however, most marriages of Central Asians to Rus­ sians and other Eu­ro­pe­ans continued to involve a Central Asian man and a Eu­ro­pean ­woman. For this generation, too, the pattern described above for successful intermarriages held true; even when relatives w ­ ere initially unenthusiastic or opposed to an interethnic marriage, almost every­one reported that their relatives quickly relented if the ­couple stood firm and persisted in their desire to marry. Friends and colleagues or classmates of the same age w ­ ere typically supportive. A lucky few reported only positive reactions from their families. This was more likely when the parents of the bride and groom w ­ ere committed communists, atheists, and internationalists. “Ruslan Isayev,” a mixed Kazakh-­ Ukrainian who grew up in Rus­sia, recalled that his parents encountered no objections when they married in the late 1960s. They w ­ ere both mathematicians working in Akademgorodok, a specially designated academic city near Novosibirsk in the Rus­sian Far East. His ­future grandparents “reacted with absolute equanimity b­ ecause on both sides they ­were all communists.”44 Sazhida Dmitrieva, whose Tatar ­father and Rus­sian ­mother had faced so much opposition when they married in the 1950s, faced no objections from ­either side when she wanted to marry a Rus­sian man. Her parents’ reaction was “absolutely normal. Mama and Papa ­really liked him—­they ­were very much in ­favor. And his ­mother too.” Sazhida was somewhat apprehensive the first time she called her ­f uture mother-­in-­law on the telephone. “When we started calling, the first t­ hing you think of when y­ ou’re getting married is what



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to call this w ­ oman. Should I say Mama or not? How to address her? And as soon as we got on the telephone with her to invite her to the wedding, she immediately said to me, ‘Hello, D ­ aughter!’ ­There was nothing for me to do but answer ‘Hello, Mama!’ No, t­here ­were never any prob­lems, ­either from his parents or from mine.” Sazhida explains that both sets of parents w ­ ere very Soviet in their mindset. “They w ­ ere products of Soviet society, international society, t­ hey’re all the same age—­his parents and my parents.”45 (The fact that her Tatar ­father’s first name was Avror, ­after the Rus­sian ship that fired the first shot in the October Revolution, suggests the communist convictions of her paternal grandparents.) “Daria Kim,” a Ukrainian ­woman who married an ethnically Korean man in 1975, had a dif­fer­ent experience. She recalled her m ­ other’s keen disappointment at the first sight of her prospective son-­in-­law: “My ­father took it pretty calmly, well, like a man, but Mama . . . ​when she saw him . . . ​Mama sobbed without stopping, and kept saying to me, ‘Let’s go home!’ I d­ on’t know why she was like that, but I think that she simply d­ idn’t like the way he looked. He was short and thin, and in Ukraine t­ here simply ­aren’t any ­people who look like him, and she kept saying, ‘How are you g­ oing to show him to our relatives when you come to visit!’ ” Daria told this story in a light tone, but the picture it paints is disturbing; a man’s prospective mother-­in-­law sobs uncontrollably upon meeting him, simply ­because he looks like a Korean. Yet the story, like so many ­others, had a happy ending: “All this quickly passed, of course. [My husband] and my m ­ other had a very good relationship; right up to the end, Mama loved him very much. ­Because he always behaved very respectfully ­toward my parents. . . . ​So he entered our f­ amily without any prob­lem.”46 Tatiana Soliboyeva’s life story offers another case of strong f­ amily opposition, though hers lacked a fairy tale ending. Her Tajik husband’s parents opposed the marriage even though they w ­ ere highly placed communist officials and quite Russified themselves. Tatiana’s story, unlike t­ hose recounted above, ended in divorce rather than in reconciliation; even the birth of five grandchildren to Tatiana and her husband failed to warm her mother-­in-­law’s heart. Tatiana, an ethnic Rus­sian, was born in Tajikistan in 1953. Her ­mother was from Saratov, in Rus­sia; her ­father, also a Rus­sian, was born in Tajikistan. Her parents met when he was sent to Saratov to help with the harvest. Tatiana met her f­ uture husband in the early 1970s. Both families ­were strongly opposed to the marriage. Her ­mother was opposed not just b­ ecause Tatiana’s ­f uture husband was Tajik but also b­ ecause of status differences between the two. He was from a prominent Tajik ­family, some of whose members worked for the KGB, and she feared that Tatiana would not be welcomed as a daughter-­in-­law. Her

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­ other used vari­ous arguments to try to persuade her not to marry a Tajik, m including the common warning that she would find it too painful to have her sons circumcised according to Muslim tradition. Tatiana recalled: “This was in 1972. I went and told my ­mother, ‘Mama, I’m getting married.’ . . . ​She said no, no way. Of course, ­there was a big argument, but then Mama saw how we ­were suffering.”47 Her parents eventually agreed to the match. Unlike Tatiana’s m ­ other, her fiancé’s parents w ­ ere immune to the charms of suffering young love. His ­mother adamantly refused to accept a Rus­sian bride even though she herself was a Rus­sian language teacher. When the young man persisted in wanting to marry a Rus­sian ­woman, his parents expelled their disobedient son from the ­family home. He showed up on Tatiana’s doorstep, frightening her parents. His ­father said, “Take your ­things and leave.” So, he took his ­things and came to my place with his ­little suitcase. I opened the door, and he was standing ­there, saying, “May I come in?” I said, sure. “I’ve come to stay with you.” “What do you mean?” “I’ve come to you, with my t­hings, forever.” My God, my parents ­were in shock—my mom, my dad—­she almost had a heart attack. “His ­father’s in the military, he ­will put us in jail, why do you need to do this, honey? Y ­ ou’re an attractive girl, ­there ­will be a lot of men a­ fter you, including Rus­sian guys.” I said no . . . ​I ­didn’t want to listen to anything, anybody, or anything. Even ­after the wedding date had been set, the attitude of her ­future parents-­ in-­law continued to be one of outright rejection. They would not answer the phone, nor would they open the door to their son and prospective daughter-­ in-­law. “­Because they wanted [a bride of ] their own nation, they already had someone in mind. He said, ‘No, no, and that’s final. Only her. If you agree, fine. But if not . . . ​I stand by my opinion.’ ” Tatiana’s m ­ other helped plan the wedding, but her fiancé’s parents refused to attend. ­After the wedding, the young ­couple lived with Tatiana’s ­family— an unavoidable, u ­ nder the circumstances, deviation from the usual Central Asian practice in which a bride moves in with her new husband’s f­ amily. “His parents still would not accept me. One day we de­cided to visit them, we took pre­sents and went, but they met us in silence, and we left in silence.” ­After about six months, Tatiana and her husband w ­ ere offered a one-­room apartment of their own, but soon thereafter he was drafted into the army. At this point, Tatiana made the difficult decision to give up the apartment and move in with her in-­laws, despite their negative attitude t­ oward her. “I had no choice but to move in with them. I gave the apartment back to the city committee, and I said to my ­mother, ‘Mama, I’m ­going to live with them.’ ‘What? How



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can that be?’ I said, if I live ­there, our [married] life ­will be preserved, but if I stay ­here, they w ­ ill separate us ­because they ­will spread gossip.”48 What Tatiana meant was that as a ­woman living alone and unsupervised, her Tajik in-­ laws would assume that she was living a morally loose life. ­After moving in with them, Tatiana did her best to establish good relations with her in-­laws. “I myself tried to find a common language. I immediately ­adopted their faith. She [my mother-­in-­law] brought me a national dress and trousers and braid and said: ‘We ­don’t dress as you do. We have neighbors, ­you’re a new daughter-­in-­law and they w ­ ill come to look at you.’ I put on the trousers and the national dress, attached the braid, and so began my mission ­there.” The marriage lasted twenty years but ultimately failed ­because of her husband’s infidelity. Looking back, Tatiana recalled, “We lived together for twenty years. I never once fought with my mother-­in-­law. I know that I ­wasn’t her favorite. But I went through every­thing; I put up with every­thing for the sake of our life, for the sake of our love.”49 Tatiana’s story shows the ­g reat lengths to which some ­women went in trying to ensure the success of their marriages. The fact that Soviet society as a w ­ hole was supportive of interethnic marriage made a difference for some young ­couples. Most of the p­ eople I interviewed did not recall any official state programs to promote mixed marriage. Yet every­one knew that harmonious ethnic relations, as epitomized by mixed marriage, ­were a priority of the regime. Rustam Iskandarov, a mixed Tajik-­ Russian man, noted that ethnic mixing was regarded as a positive tendency in the Soviet period: “Yes, international families and all of that ­were promoted, well, of course not in a strong manner, but it did happen, meaning that it was regarded as a positive tendency. It was regarded as the right choice made by the ­people. Also, from the medical point of view, the influx of new blood would lead to better health for the nation.”50 Along with scholarly and popu­ lar articles touting the benefits of ethnic mixing, such attitudes w ­ ere also conveyed through popu­lar culture. Several respondents recalled classic Soviet-­era films that portrayed ethnically mixed romance in a positive light. For example, the musical comedy Dalekaia Nevesta (Distant Bride, 1948) follows the romantic travails of a Rus­sian Cossack army veteran who falls in love with a beautiful young Turkmen h ­ orse trainer and travels to Turkmenistan to find her a­ fter the war’s end. ­After a series of mix-­ups and misunderstandings, the two eventually enjoy wedding bells and a happy ending. Another frequently mentioned film was Svinarka i Pastukh (The Swineherd and the Shepherd, 1941), in which a Rus­sian peasant ­woman, Glasha, and a Dagestani shepherd, Musaib, meet and fall in love at an agricultural exhibition in Moscow. In this film, Glasha’s fellow villa­ger and jealous would-be suitor, Kuzma, tries to sabotage

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the relationship, but his plot is foiled and Glasha and Musaib are united in the end. The film Dikaia Sobaka Dingo (The Wild Dog Dingo, 1962), based on a ­children’s book by the same title, features a romantic triangle among three young teen­agers in the Soviet Far East.51 Pretty, blond Tanya falls in love with a Rus­sian boy, Kolya; meanwhile, Tanya’s devoted childhood friend Filka, who belongs to the indigenous Nanai nationality, is pining for her. (Filka was played by the young Kazakh actor Talas Umurzakov.) In all of t­ hese films, interethnic friendship, romance, and marriage appear as normal and positive aspects of Soviet life. A young c­ ouple knew that even if they faced parental disapproval, they would not face opposition or criticism at work or in the official sphere. On the contrary, c­ ouples facing f­ amily opposition sometimes received tacit or overt encouragement and aid from colleagues or officials. Svetlana Umarova’s marriage offered an example of this. A Rus­sian ­woman born in 1949, she met her ­f uture Tajik husband, Inomjon, in the early 1970s. Svetlana was trained as an English-­language teacher but worked for the Komsomol. Her parents had no objection to the marriage: “My parents, like me, respected him b­ ecause they saw that he was serious, educated, polite, intellectual, and capable of solving all prob­lems. Therefore, my parents reacted calmly. My ­father liked him right away.” However, Inomjon’s parents ­were strongly opposed. Like many Tajik parents, they would have preferred a Tajik daughter-­in-­law who would fulfill the customary obligations of a new bride ­toward her husband’s parents (living with them, ­doing ­house­work at the mother-­in-­law’s direction, behaving in a modest and respectful manner ­toward her elders, ­etc.). They feared that a Rus­sian bride would be unwilling to fulfill t­ hese expectations. This prospect was particularly galling ­because Inomjon’s older ­brother had also married a Rus­sian ­woman, and Inomjon had pledged not to do the same. “Nevertheless,” Svetlana said, “it turned out that he did the same ­thing.”52 Svetlana’s ­mother expressed understanding for Inomjon’s ­mother, who was dismayed at the prospect of yet another Rus­sian daughter-­in-­law. “My mom told him, you should have pity on your ­mother, she also wants to have her own daughter-­in-­law who ­will take care of her, and a­ fter all, Sveta (that’s me) was raised in a dif­fer­ent spirit, she ­can’t behave like a Tajik daughter-­in-­law.” Inomjon’s m ­ other was so upset that she tried to avoid meeting her son’s ­future bride, leaving the h ­ ouse whenever the c­ ouple tried to visit. Svetlana wondered, for a time, ­whether it was worth pursuing the relationship in the face of such opposition: “Suddenly my pride spoke up, and I said I’m not g­ oing anymore— if she d­ oesn’t want me, then why should I?”53 However, their colleagues at work, noticing that Svetlana and Inomjon ­were dating, encouraged them to marry. Even the district Komsomol secretary urged



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them to formalize their relationship. Buoyed by this support and encouragement, Svetlana and Inomjon applied for a marriage license and then went to the registry office to get married. They marked the occasion by g­ oing out for a shish kebab with close friends. For the Komsomol secretary, even this was not enough; she pressed the two to celebrate their marriage with more fanfare. She suggested that the subdued and modest nature of their wedding was more suitable to an older, previously married c­ ouple. As young, first-­time newlyweds, they should have a proper cele­bration. “Basically, she urged us on, and we or­ga­ nized a Komsomol wedding. My mom came, though his did not. His b­ rother and his friends supported us materially and morally instead of his m ­ other and ­father. It was a good wedding. I remember t­ here was a national ensemble and a variety vocal group. It was ­really nice, very classy.” This was a case in which the support of Soviet officials and the broader community made a difference in a young c­ ouple’s ability to get married despite the opposition of one of the two families. When Svetlana became pregnant, Inomjon’s f­ amily fi­nally relented. In Svetlana’s account, her mother-­in-­law said to her son: “Inomjon, ­you’re ­going to have a child. Come, let’s live together. And, just like that, before the New Year, I went.” Despite the rough beginning, Svetlana’s story, too, had the typical fairy tale ending: “My mother-­in-­law was a very good ­woman. . . . ​In the end, she learned to love me. ­Until her last breath she was calling for me.”54 ­Those who intermarried at the very end of the Soviet period, between 1985 and 1991, faced a rapidly changing social and po­liti­cal context in Central Asia. Perestroika and glasnost w ­ ere remaking the Soviet landscape and allowing the expression of hitherto forbidden ideas. Nationalist sentiment was on the rise among titular nationalities, particularly a­ fter events such as the 1986 Zheltoksan protests in Kazakhstan.55 Rus­sians and other Eu­ro­pe­ans living in Central Asia ­were unnerved by t­hese developments. Interviewees who met their spouses in this period often reported significant opposition from their families, including the Rus­sian side. Overall, though, their experiences do not seem to have been fundamentally dif­fer­ent from ­those of mixed c­ ouples in the 1960s and 1970s. In Central Asia, at least, rising feelings of national pride and exclusivity continued to coexist with the notion of a common Soviet identity. “Irina Abdulayeva,” born in 1966 in Kazakhstan, married her Kazakh husband, “Kairat,” in 1987. She was of mixed Ukrainian-­Russian background and worked as a librarian. The c­ ouple faced opposition to their marriage from both sets of parents. She recalled her first encounter with Kairat’s ­mother. “First, about his relatives. His ­mother, of course, took it hard: she ­wouldn’t stand up or greet me, nothing. She sat with her friend and looked at me.” Yet Irina’s ­future mother-­in-­law began to soften when the young w ­ oman jumped up to do

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the dishes a­ fter they drank tea. Her mother-­in-­law ­later told her, “From that moment on, I understood that t­hings would be okay.” Irina went on: “It was also hard for my ­family.” She was especially dismayed by her parents’ rejection of Kairat since they had always seemed open to p­ eople of other nationalities. I ­couldn’t understand this. I was never raised that way; they never said we should treat dif­fer­ent nations differently. I’m still close to my [Kazakh] girlfriend . . . ​she was always in our h ­ ouse at our birthday parties. We ­were friends. We never said, “Oh, this is a dif­fer­ent nation, we ­can’t.” Well, prob­ably they just ­didn’t think that I would get married [to a Kazakh] . . . ​but why did they make such a big fuss? I was astonished. I said, “Mom, why?” And she said, “You m ­ ustn’t, that’s all. You m ­ ustn’t!” 56 Like, “Your nation is your nation!” Her parents refused to help with the wedding expenses, so Irina and Kairat paid for it themselves. This included a wedding dinner at a restaurant for sixty ­people—­a major expense for a young ­couple just starting a life together. “We spent every­thing we had on the wedding and reception. Dress, rings, every­ thing was official. Then we went into the kitchen and paid our bill with the money we had received as wedding gifts. We had nothing left! No, we had seventy rubles left, and we bought shoes for him for sixty rubles. You remember ­those ‘Sabo’ shoes, Czech, good ones? We bought shoes, and that was it! That was the end of our wedding money.”57 Larisa Niyazova (b. 1966), a Rus­sian ­woman from Shymkent in southern Kazakhstan, married a Kazakh man in 1987. She met her husband Ruslan through friends in a university dormitory, when they ­were both students. Her parents ­were accepting of her choice. “When my mom saw him, she behaved normally t­ oward him. My dad also said to him right away, ‘Let’s go have a smoke and a chat.’ They spoke, and they ­didn’t try to stop me; they said, ‘It’s your life. You have to start your own f­amily. So we w ­ ill accept what­ever you decide.’ That’s why I was not worried about bringing a person of a dif­fer­ent nationality.” Larisa was not concerned about the cultural differences between her and her husband. “I said, ‘If I ­don’t know, I’ll learn! The impor­tant ­thing is that he wanted me! It’s fine with him, and if no one bothers us then we ­will cross this barrier together.’ ”58 Ruslan’s ­family, however, tried to dissuade him from marrying Larisa. They had another girl in mind for him, and their opposition contained hints of national exclusivity. Larisa recalled, “They tried to talk him out of it, saying, ‘you’d better think about this. She’s a Rus­sian. And h ­ ere you have [the Kazakh girl] Karlygash.’ And he said, ‘­Either her or nobody.’ T ­ hose w ­ ere his words. E ­ ither



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she ­will be my wife, or I w ­ ill not get married at all. He said, ‘I d­ on’t want you to choose for me! It’s my life, not yours.’ ” Larisa said that her father-­in-­law had an especially hard time with the idea of a mixed marriage, a sentiment that may have reflected the upsurge in Kazakh national pride in the late 1980s. Even the society around them seemed less sympathetic. “This was a person very committed to upholding purely national traditions, so any deviation from this . . . ​the idea of a Rus­sian girl ­going into their ­family. . . . ​It seems to me that he was more afraid of what p­ eople would say than of a Rus­sian girl joining their ­family. What ­people would say around him, and at his work, about the fact that his son chose a Rus­sian bride. And it was his eldest son—­among the Kazakhs, the eldest is the most impor­tant.” Larisa did her best to fit in and please her husband’s parents. “When I joined their f­amily, as they interacted with me, they saw that I tried to help where I could and to understand what needed to be done, and how it needed to be done. So they, kind of, I w ­ ouldn’t say reconciled themselves, but they accepted it. Accepted it to the point that they started saying, ‘this is our ­daughter.’ ”59

Mixed ­Couples of Similar Religious Background Most of the discussion so far in this chapter has been of marriages between Central Asians and p­ eople of Eu­ro­pean ethnicity. However, such marriages ­were much less common than t­ hose between ­people belonging to the same general cultural and religious group—­marriages among Muslims, for example, between Kazakhs and Tatars or Tajiks and Uzbeks, or marriages between members of historically Christian groups such as Rus­sians and Armenians or Germans and Ukrainians.60 When Central Asian ­women intermarried, it was most commonly to another Muslim, not to a Rus­sian or Ukrainian. Such marriages ­were less likely to provoke opposition from the families, though occasionally parents did express dis­plea­sure at the prospect of a Muslim son-­or daughter-­in-­law of dif­f er­ent ethnicity. Labeling Tajik-­Uzbek marriages “mixed marriages” was a product of the Soviet-­era preoccupation with ethnicity; for many Central Asians the difference between Tajiks and Uzbeks was insignificant and such ­unions ­were scarcely thought of as mixed.61 Pre-­Soviet ethnographers did not draw a sharp distinction between Uzbeks and Tajiks, who ­were both Muslim, often bilingual, and did not identify according to ethnic criteria.62 Soviet scholars reported that Tajiks and Uzbeks married each other with g­ reat frequency.63 As Tajikistan-­ based respondent Bahriniso Abdurahmonova (b. 1953) recalled, “You know,

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back then, ­there ­wasn’t any difference between Uzbeks and Tajiks. Even ­today, you know, it’s in­ter­est­ing that when I travel to Tashkent, local weddings like to play Tajik songs, and we h ­ ere like Uzbek songs. Also, back then having a Tajik daughter-­in-­law and an Uzbek one in a Tajik ­family was prestigious.”64 Ma’suda Sattorova offered an example of an Uzbek-­Tajik “mixed marriage” that was considered completely unproblematic by all concerned. She met her husband when they ­were both university students in Dushanbe, and they married in 1961. She recalls no objections from ­either side of the ­family. “Basically, Tajiks and Uzbeks are both Muslims. So my parents reacted positively to the marriage.”65 Other sorts of Muslim-­Muslim marriages ­were generally viewed positively. Lutfiya Boboyeva, born in 1956 to a mixed Tajik-­Bashkir ­couple, also recalled that both families had responded favorably when her parents married. Regarding her ­father’s ­mother, “she did not object ­because they had the same faith, the Muslim faith.” Similarly, when Lutfiya married a man who was half Azeri, half Rus­sian, her parents quickly agreed. Her f­ ather’s only concern was that the groom’s ­family might be too restrictive ­toward ­women and make his ­daughter’s life difficult: “My ­father was opposed at first. He had heard that my father-­in-­law was very strict ­toward ­women, and he said, ‘Why should you put up with that?’ But ­later, he agreed. I insisted that I would only marry him. [My ­father] said it’s good that he is a Muslim.”66 Kazakh-­Tatar marriages, too, had a long history that predated the Soviet era. According to ethnographer Olga Naumova, the term “shala-­K azakh” (literally “half-­K azakh”), used nowadays to refer to Russified Kazakhs or t­hose who have lost their language and cultural tradition, originally referred to t­ hose who ­were half Kazakh and half Tatar.67 Tatars ­were considered—by themselves and o ­ thers—to be a kind of “in-­between” nationality, halfway between Eu­ro­pe­ans and Central Asians. They w ­ ere Muslims but had been ruled by Rus­ sia for much longer than Central Asians and ­were more Russified.68 The shared religious and cultural background was enough to make intermarriage between Tatars and other Central Asians relatively unproblematic. Yet h ­ ere, too, cultural differences could inhibit assimilation and mutual understanding, and in some cases f­ amily harmony. Gulmira Abdusamatova described some of the challenges that could arise in marriages between Tatars and Central Asians. Her experience demonstrates that sharing a religion does not necessarily ensure a warm welcome in the ­family. Gulmira, a Tatar w ­ oman born in 1954, married her husband, a mixed Tatar-­Tajik man who considered himself Tajik, in 1973. She grew up in a working-­class ­family and received ­little formal education. Gulmira recalled what attracted her to her husband in the first place. “His simplicity. He was such a s­ imple guy. . . . ​He drove me around in a truck, the kind they use for



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delivering bread. And somehow, he courted me very nicely, simply, and somehow accessibly. I myself am from a s­ imple f­amily, from the working class as they say, and he was as well.”69 Gulmira’s recollections suggest the importance of not just ethnic but also socioeconomic homogeneity in marriage. Her parents approved of the marriage, but his did not. They would have preferred a Tajik bride for reasons similar to t­ hose expressed by other families; they wanted a daughter-­in-­law who would abide by local custom with regard to respecting and serving her parents-­in-­law. But Gulmira’s intended husband insisted on marrying his chosen bride and stood up for her against relatives who reacted negatively. When she de­cided to introduce her fiancé to her parents, “He came to visit us, and we chatted. My dad is a good judge of p­ eople. He said, ‘He’s a good guy,’ and my mom said, ‘You decide for yourself. ­You’re the one who has to live so that ­you’re not biting your nails ­later.’ ” As for her f­ uture in-­laws, “Well, his parents at first d­ idn’t want me. They wanted a Tajik girl b­ ecause his six ­sisters would be leaving [to marry into other families], and the two b­ rothers are supposed to live with their parents. He said, ‘­either her or nobody.’ He posed the ­matter bluntly, knew how to stand up for himself. If he had not insisted, we w ­ ouldn’t have gotten married.” Some of her husband’s relatives spread negative gossip about the marriage, saying that he was departing from Tajik tradition by marrying a Tatar. “My husband put them in their places, said, ‘­Don’t touch her, she’s my wife, my life. Do what you want in your own families, but d­ on’t interfere in mine.’ He made ­things clear, and they ­didn’t interfere anymore.” Ultimately, Gulmira forged warm relations with her husband’s ­family. “When we went to ­family events, what­ever it was, we always took gifts, and they always seated me in the most honored place. It was never ‘Oh, ­here’s the Tatar,’ no, on the contrary, it was always, ‘Where should we set a place for her, what s­ hall we give her to eat?’ They would pour me some w ­ ater and give me a l­ittle towel. We had very good relations. I never felt like a Tatar who wound up with Tajiks. It ­wasn’t like that.”70 Gulmira felt a kinship with her husband’s ­mother, who was also Tatar. Yet she found it hard to accept certain differences between the Tajik lifestyle and the one she had grown up with. For example, she complained that the Tajiks did not have proper bathrooms, “washed their hair with kefir,” and “hardly ever laundered their clothes.” She did not like living with her in-­laws since their home lacked the modern con­ve­niences she considered essential. She jumped at the chance to get a separate apartment with her husband, even though his parents begged them to stay (he was the eldest son and was expected to live with his parents). Nevertheless, she stressed the lack of fundamental differences

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between Central Asians and Tatars. “­There ­were dif­fer­ent kinds of Tatars. ­There ­were ­those who said, ‘I’m leaving [Tajikistan] b­ ecause I d­ on’t want to marry [my son] to a Tajik ­woman. I want to find someone of our own nationality. I said, what does the nationality m ­ atter if it’s a good person? We are all equal before God. We all have the same external appearance, only the language is dif­fer­ent and dif­fer­ent customs. It’s pos­si­ble to adapt if the ­will is ­there. Even if you marry your own nationality, you could get some sort of idiot or alcoholic.”71 Despite her protestations to the contrary, Gulmira’s own statements hint at the existence of a perceived social distance between Tajiks and Tatars. Ilhom and Elmira Boboyev, a mixed Tajik-­Tatar ­couple, similarly faced opposition to their marriage despite their shared Muslim background. Ilhom, a Tajik, benefited from being the youn­gest child in his ­family; his parents had dictated the marriage choices of his elder ­brother and s­ ister, forbidding them from crossing ethnic lines. However, t­ hose marriages turned out badly. By the time Ilhom came along, his parents ­were less forceful in their insistence that he marry a Tajik ­woman. Even so, Ilhom’s experience shows the salience of ethnic preferences in choosing marriage partners among Muslims. “­There ­were attempts to marry me off to a fellow Muslim (although Elmira is also a Muslim)—­I mean to my own nationality—­even to the point of suggesting my own first cousin, something I have been against since childhood. Now and forever I’ll be against this, no cousin marriages, never! . . . ​I let it be known that I am marrying her and nobody ­else.”72 Elmira’s ­father was also opposed to the marriage, Ilhom recalled. “Her ­mother, she was always kind to me. Her ­mother ­wasn’t against it, but her ­father was absolutely opposed, totally. He did not want to give her to me, a Tajik.” The reasons for this had to do with ste­reo­types about Tajiks as poor and uneducated, especially when compared with Tatars. Elmira recalled her ­father telling her, “You’ll be selling radishes at the Penshenbe bazaar all your life [laughs]. . . . ​You’ll be working at the market your w ­ hole life.”73 Elmira, who works as a university administrator, finds the memory of her f­ather’s warnings more amusing than anything ­else. Fatima Satyboldinova’s story likewise demonstrates that ethnicity was not always the most salient difference between prospective spouses and that even same-­faith marriages could be unwelcome. Born in 1951 in China, Fatima was brought by her parents to Kazakhstan as a child. Ethnically Kazakh, she married a Tatar man who hailed from the same village as her ­brother’s wife. This village had a mixed population of Kazakhs, Tatars, Azerbaijanis, Kurds, and Chechens. Fatima was sent t­ here as a student to help harvest beets, potatoes, and apples. (It was common for students to spend a month in the fall helping out on collective farms, which ­were short of ­labor.) While in the village, she



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stayed with her sister-­in-­law and first met her f­uture husband, Garifulla. At the time she was only eigh­teen and not yet thinking of marriage; he was ten years older. Fatima reencountered Garifulla a few years l­ater in the same village, at a goodbye party for a young man who was being drafted into the army. Garifulla drove her home to Alma Ata a­ fter the party, and during the drive she got to know him a bit better. They started seeing each other. Fatima soon learned that Garifulla’s m ­ other was e­ ager to have her as a daughter-­in-­law. “My sister-­in-­law said, ‘Look, his mom r­ eally likes you. So talented, efficient, hard-­ working.’ . . . ​[laughs] And so we started seeing each other.”74 Fatima was impressed that Garifulla always picked her up in his ­father’s car, a rarity in t­hose days, and always brought her wild­flowers. “­There w ­ asn’t a single day when he came without flowers.” Yet her own ­mother was opposed to the match, not b­ ecause of Garifulla’s ethnicity but b­ ecause of his age and social status. He was older even than her eldest b­ rother, and he lived in the countryside, a sign of low status for urban p­ eople. “You live in the city, why should you marry a guy who lives on a collective farm?” Fatima believed that this prejudice was unjust since her ­f uture husband was hardly a ­simple collective farmer; he had studied at a naval institute and was cultured and literate. “He spoke Rus­sian very well. He sang nicely, played the accordion beautifully. He was a slender, good looking guy. Every­one loved him in the village.”75 Her oldest b­ rother was opposed to the match, while her m ­ iddle ­brother, to whom she was closest, supported her. He joked, “With her character, t­ here is only one pos­si­ble husband for her. You should accept this; they ­will be happy together.” Nevertheless, Fatima recalled, “My ­mother was r­ eally against it. Then I said, ‘Mama, I love him.’ I told her that I’m ­going to marry him. . . . ​ She agreed but, of course, she was dissatisfied. And my older b­ rother and my younger ­brothers ­were dissatisfied. ‘why did you have to choose him, exactly?’ Well in the end. . . . ​As I said, I’m a very stubborn person. Per­sis­tent [laughs].” Her ­mother was so angry about Fatima’s intransigence that she refused to speak to her d­ aughter for an entire year. When Fatima tried to visit, her m ­ other refused to see her. When Fatima became pregnant, her ­mother continued to stay away, sending Fatima’s younger b­ rothers to see how she was faring. But during her pregnancy Fatima had serious health prob­lems. Her m ­ other, concerned, fi­nally relented and visited her in the hospital when she gave birth to her child. This was the beginning of a reconciliation between Fatima and her ­mother. Eventually, her ­mother forged a strong relationship with Fatima’s husband. Even my ­brothers said, we ­don’t need any ­sisters or ­brothers, ­because our brother-­in-­law, my ­sister’s husband, is the most precious person. . . . ​ He always understood my m ­ other. They found a common language.

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He confided in her, and she ­really came to love him like a son. . . . ​His own parents died in a fire in 1985. . . . ​And then my m ­ other said, “Look Garifulla, ­don’t grieve, ­don’t be upset. You are a son to me. ­Don’t think that you ­don’t have a ­mother or f­ ather. I’ll be a ­mother to you.”76 Fatima’s story reminds us that even in cases where ethnicity and religion w ­ ere not an issue, t­ here could be other reasons for rejecting a match, such as differences in age or socioeconomic status. Fatima’s story also reaffirms the fact that parents and siblings felt they had the right to veto a young ­woman’s choice of husband. Marriage was a ­family affair. This chapter has shown that f­ amily responses to mixed marriages varied widely, despite the positive messages about the desirability of ethnic mixing coming from the Soviet state. In Central Asia, ­these messages ­were not always potent enough to overwhelm parents’ fears about admitting a stranger to the sanctum of the f­ amily. Like the majority of p­ eople everywhere, most Central Asians and other Soviet citizens preferred a son-­or daughter-­in-­law of “their own” group, w ­ hether interpreted in terms of the extended ­family or lineage, nationality, or religion. For many Tajiks and Kazakhs, a Rus­sian daughter-­in-­law threatened to undermine their way of life and dilute their ­family identity. Rus­ sians in Central Asia w ­ ere more open to mixed marriage than Muslim Central Asians, a phenomenon that is somewhat unusual in comparative historical terms. In many multiethnic contexts, it is the dominant or privileged ethnic group that rejects intermarriage most strongly, reluctant to dilute the “purity” of the allegedly superior race.77 Yet even Rus­sians ­were overwhelmingly endogamous, particularly in their own republic. Intermarriage, especially across religious and cultural bound­aries, remained a rare occurrence. The strikingly similar “happy endings” narrated by successful mixed c­ ouples raise the question of how they achieved such marital bliss despite often unpromising beginnings. Why w ­ ere some marriages happier and more stable than ­others? ­Were the seeds of success for ethnically mixed ­couples dif­fer­ent than for monoethnic c­ ouples? How mixed c­ ouples negotiated their differences on a day-­ to-­day level and created stable families is the subject of the next chapter.

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Scenes from Happy (and Not So Happy) Mixed Marriages I did every­thing according to Tajik custom. Received guests, when guests came, every­thing was Tajik. . . . ​I ­didn’t do ­things like the Rus­sians, I did them the Tajik way. I am like a half-­Muslim, not a Rus­sian. —­Vera Rahimova (2010) I ­don’t know, many ­people ask me, but I ­don’t sense any differences, nothing like that. When I look at him, I ­don’t think “he’s a Korean and I’m a Kazakh,” it’s as if we ­were one nation. —­Madina Nahipova (2012)

The fairy tale endings described in such strikingly similar terms by members of mixed c­ ouples in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan ­were naturally the province of ­those whose marriages ­were both happy and long-­lasting. Vera Rahimova (b. 1924) and Madina Nahipova (b. 1964) represent dif­fer­ent approaches to intermarriage in Soviet Central Asia, each of which could form the basis for an enduring marriage. Oral history evidence suggests that successful intermarriages primarily followed one of two patterns. First, ­there ­were ­couples in which one spouse, like Vera, made strenuous efforts to adapt to the other’s culture.1 Such marriages ­were most common in the early de­cades ­after World War II. Second, t­here w ­ ere c­ ouples—­like Madina and her husband—­who shared a common basis in Soviet culture and did not feel defined by their nationalities.2 ­These ­couples often spoke Rus­sian as their first language, lacked strong religious convictions, and had a f­ amily commitment to internationalism. Frequently one or both partners belonged to the Komsomol (Young Communist League) or the Communist Party. T ­ hese ­couples found creative ways to combine the two (or in some cases more) cultural traditions they represented while identifying mainly with the broader Soviet proj­ect. Such “Soviet” intermarriages became an increasingly common phenomenon from the 1960s on. 67

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On the other end of the spectrum was an unknown number of mixed c­ ouples in Central Asia whose marriages did not succeed or ­were not properly launched—­couples with families who persisted in their rejection of the new spouse, c­ ouples who w ­ ere unable to negotiate their cultural differences, and ­couples whose personality conflicts drove them apart. When intermarried ­couples in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan faced discord and divorce, the reasons most often had nothing to do with ethnic identity. Infidelity, jealousy, domestic vio­lence, prob­lems with in-­laws, boredom, loss of love and intimacy over time—­these can happen in any marriage. However, along with t­ hese common prob­lems, mixed marriages faced additional challenges linked to cultural differences between the partners. Many war­time mixed marriages failed early on when the Rus­sian partner found it too difficult to adapt to local cultural expectations of ­women in Central Asia. The new Rus­sian bride would arrive in her husband’s village, find living conditions not to her liking, and face pressure to dress and behave in certain ways. In many cases, she fled ­after just a month or two. In l­ ater de­cades, the pressure to adapt to her husband’s f­ amily norms may not have been quite as strong. Yet among the individuals I interviewed, the c­ auses of marital prob­lems included some of the same issues that drove away t­ hose early brides: differing ideas about gender roles, proper be­ hav­ior ­toward in-­laws, and obligations ­toward relatives and guests. More broadly, ­those c­ ouples in which each partner had a strong loyalty to his or her “own” culture and an unwillingness to meet the other partner halfway found mixed marriage much more difficult. Compromise, adaptability, and a sense of humor, impor­tant in any marriage, w ­ ere even more critical in mixed marriages.

Adaptable Wives (and Occasionally Husbands) The pattern of cultural adaptation was most common in the 1940s and 1950s when the urban, Russian-­speaking stratum in the Central Asian republics was still small. In this period, Rus­sian and other Eu­ro­pean ­women who married Central Asians tended to take on the characteristics of the surrounding environment. They learned to dress, behave, and speak like good Muslim wives, even if they did not formally adopt Islam. Some Rus­sian ­women assimilated so completely that Soviet ethnographers described them as indistinguishable from the native population; occasionally, t­hese w ­ omen even forgot their 3 mother tongue. Olga Naumova, a Rus­sian ethnographer who worked extensively in Kazakhstan in the late Soviet era, described several cases of Rus­ sian w ­ omen who married Kazakhs in the 1940s and 1950s and went to live in

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Kazakh villages. One was Lidia Grigorievna, who was evacuated from Moscow to Kazakhstan during the war and married a Kazakh man in 1942. She took the Muslim name Leila, wore Kazakh attire, and observed Kazakh norms of ­family be­hav­ior, such as not calling her husband and his older relatives by name.4 (Traditionally, young Kazakh ­women ­were not permitted to address more se­nior relatives by name. Instead, they used kinship terms or modified forms of ­these such as “grand­father,” “­uncle,” “dear older ­brother,” and “older ­sister.”)5 Vera Rahimova was one of ­those who eventually adapted ­after a difficult initial adjustment. Asked w ­ hether she had followed Rus­sian or Tajik traditions in her ­family life, she responded, “We are used to ­doing every­thing the Muslim way.” For ­women like Vera, it was a point of pride not to be seen as Rus­ sian. She had come to see Central Asian society as superior to Rus­sian society in many ways, especially in its traditions of re­spect for elders and hospitality. In Tajikistan, Vera said: “Every­one re­spects me . . . ​you know why I like it h ­ ere? ­People are very hospitable. . . . ​Rus­sians ­aren’t like that, t­ hey’ll never say ‘sit down,’ that’s why I like Tajiks. No one calls me ‘Urus’ [Rus­sian]. I am not saying I’m a Tajik, but they do not call me names, like ‘Urus.’ They see me, ‘Salam Aleikum,’ that’s how they greet me. With re­spect.”6 Maria Saliyeva (b. 1934), the Rus­sian ­widow of a Tajik man, offered another example of this pattern. Married in 1955, she always observed Tajik traditions at home with her husband and four ­children. “For example, when my husband died, I recited prayers according to their custom. I’m supposed to recite them on Thursday and on Monday. I recite for my husband so that he ­will be happy over ­there.” T ­ here was very l­ittle that was Rus­sian about her f­ amily life. Her ­children all married Tajiks, and “I have two wonderful sons-­in-­law, they call me buvajon [­mother dear], they r­ eally value me.” Like Vera, she noted with pride that her ­children and their families do not view her as a Rus­sian. “Once my son-­in-­law Homidjon told me, ‘One of my friends said, I saw your Rus­ sian mother-­in-­law, and I answered, I d­ on’t have a Rus­sian mother-­in-­law.’ ”7 A slightly dif­fer­ent form of adaptation was described by Alla Tuychiboyeva (b. 1938), who married a Tajik man and has lived in Tajikistan since the late 1950s. Alla said that she never felt pressured to assimilate to Tajik culture, never wore national dress, and never learned to speak Tajik. Yet she freely admitted that being in a mixed marriage had changed her, even to the point of altering the way she spoke Rus­sian. When she would visit Rus­sia, ­people t­here would notice that she spoke with an unfamiliar accent. “They say, ‘Why are you talking that way, it ­doesn’t sound right.’ And I say, ‘I ­don’t know, it’s the normal way I talk!’ [laughs] . . . ​They tell me, ‘­You’ve become completely foreign,’ and I say, ‘Well, how do you like that, I was born h ­ ere, and now I’ve become foreign.’ ”8

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Part of Alla’s “foreignness” involved adopting Tajik values with regard to f­ amily life and re­spect for elders so that she came to view life in Moscow with a certain bemused alienation, the way a Tajik w ­ oman of her generation might: “When I go to Moscow, the ­people ­there are completely dif­fer­ent, ­people ­there are rude, extremely rude . . . ​but not h ­ ere, ­here ­people are still good, they still have some re­spect, re­spect for older ­people. ­There they ­don’t re­spect their elders, young ­people just sit and ­don’t give up their seat, not in the subway, not on the bus, nobody gives up their seat for you.” Adopting at least some aspects of the local culture continued to be a common pattern in ­later de­cades. Svetlana Umarova, a Rus­sian w ­ oman who married a Tajik in 1973, described her concern about being seen as the Rus­sian wife who undermined local practices. Her husband, Inomjon, never put pressure on her to wear Tajik national dress or convert to Islam, saying, “The way you ­were when I married you, the way I fell in love with you, you stay that way.” An educated ­woman trained as an En­glish teacher who worked in the provincial committee of the Komsomol, Svetlana insisted on circumcision for her son.9 Required by Islam but officially forbidden in Soviet times, circumcision was nevertheless widespread among the Muslim population. Svetlana knew that Rus­sian wives ­were sometimes suspected of hindering the fulfillment of this Muslim religious duty: According to custom, I myself insisted on circumcising our son; it’s a Muslim law. He [my husband] was working at the Komsomol then. At that time it was very difficult, the party organs prohibited d­ oing all that, circumcision, t­ hese traditional cele­brations. He was the first secretary of the city committee of the Komsomol, and I said, ‘You know, Inom. . . . ​ You go to the doctor, do the circumcision, invite ten old men from the mahalla, do it in the presence of a small group, so that the old men know, so that they c­ an’t say that your Rus­sian wife has forbidden this. Svetlana added that in her marriage this pro­cess of adaptation went both ways. She and her husband worked together to satisfy the expectations of both sets of in-­laws. “We somehow lived in harmony, in understanding. When my parents died, he was in charge of every­thing; he did every­thing the Christian way, learned every­thing, did every­thing, helped. When his m ­ other died, I also fol10 lowed all the customs.” Cultural adaptation could also go entirely in the other direction, depending on the circumstances of marriage and ­family life. Svetlana Vizer (neé Abdulghanieva) was the only child of a Tatar f­ ather and a Rus­sian ­mother who married in 1951. Her ­father, Ahmetshakur Abdulghaniev, a road construction engineer and aspiring painter, went by the Rus­sian nickname “Sasha” (short

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for Alexander) for most of his life. He placed so ­little weight on his Tatar identity within the ­family that his ­daughter did not realize her patronymic was “Ahmetshakurovna,” not “Alexandrovna,” u ­ ntil she received her identity documents as a teenager. Although “Sasha” was born in 1926 to a cultivated Muslim ­family in Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan and spoke Tatar well, ­after his marriage he moved in with his wife’s ­family and ­adopted their way of ­doing ­things. For example, Sasha celebrated Orthodox Easter and painted traditional Easter eggs for his wife and her f­amily. Svetlana explained, “In our f­amily it was the Rus­sian side that predominated. First, b­ ecause they lived in a Russian-­ language environment. Second, my ­father joined their Rus­sian ­family. If my ­mother had joined a Tatar ­family, it would have been a dif­fer­ent situation. But in this case my ­father came into a Rus­sian ­family, and he had to adapt and accept the way of life of this ­family.”11 As Svetlana’s account suggests, it was the spouse who entered a new ­family and cultural environment who had the burden of adapting. B ­ ecause Central Asian communities ­were and are patrilocal (i.e., the bride joins and is expected to live with the husband’s ­family), this usually put the onus on the Rus­sian wives to adapt. In the exceptional cases where a Central Asian or Tatar spouse joined a Rus­sian ­family, the reverse was true.

Intermarriage, Soviet Style Along with the wives—­and occasionally husbands—­who a­ dopted ­wholesale the culture and traditions of their spouse’s f­ amily, t­ here was another common type of successful intermarriage: that uniting individuals with a strong “Soviet” identity and therefore commonalities that transcended ethnicity. Although such marriages became the dominant type of mixed marriage in ­later Soviet de­cades with the rise of a Russian-­speaking educated class, they could be found in e­ arlier periods as well, especially in urban areas. Lidia Evdakimova (b, 1927), who married a Tajik man in 1951, pointedly recalled that she, unlike some Rus­sian brides, did not become a quasi-­Muslim or quasi-­Tajik. Her husband had served in the army in Rus­sia and was quite Russified. She sometimes voluntarily wore Tajik dress, particularly when practical considerations demanded it, but did not feel compelled to do so: “They never forced me to wear Tajik dress. I was even embarrassed to dress like a Tajik and go somewhere with him b­ ecause ­people would say, ‘­There’s a Tajik and [his wife] has put on native Tajik clothing.’ I did have some Tajik dresses that I wore when I went with my mother-­in-­law to one of their cele­brations. You r­ eally had to ­because you had to sit on the floor ­there.” Lidia’s ­limited

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attempts to learn Tajik did not go well. “They tried to make me learn the Tajik language. But when I tried to say something, they laughed at me. I said, ‘That’s it, I’m not ­going to speak.’ ” Their ­house­hold was a mix of Rus­sian and Tajik traditions: “If his guests came, Tajik guests, of course we sat on the floor. But if my Rus­sian crew got together, we sat at the ­table.”12 Similarly, Maria Hamidova (b. 1936), a Rus­sian ­woman married to a Tajik from 1956 ­until his death in 2009, recalled a “live and let live” attitude during her long and happy marriage. A worker at a footwear factory, she recalled a multiethnic environment in which p­ eople w ­ ere accepting of each other’s differences. We lived somewhere on the outskirts of the city. And already at the time of the war t­here ­were a lot of mi­g rants, ­there ­were all kinds of ­people. ­There ­were Germans and Moldavians, we studied together. They went to our school. . . . ​I never felt that my husband was of a dif­ fer­ent nationality. . . . ​They never tried to force me to wear their clothing. I speak, I know the language. But as for wearing [Tajik] dress, and other ­things, no, ­there was never any compulsion. We lived freely, socialized, worked, they visited us, and we visited them.13 This type of marriage became more common as Soviet society was transformed, becoming more educated, urbanized, and Russified in the de­cades ­after World War II. Maria’s description of a multiethnic region on the outskirts of the city most likely refers to one of the so-­called microregions—­new neighborhoods made up of huge blocks of apartment buildings, which unlike the older mahallas h ­ oused mainly new arrivals to the city. The multiethnic nature of Soviet urban society, along with the rise of a new Russian-­speaking generation a­ fter the education reforms of the late 1950s, provided the context for high levels of ethnic mixing in the late Soviet period. Many of t­ hese ­couples saw themselves as primarily “Soviet” in a way that transcended nationality. Susanna Morozova (b. 1973), a mixed Ukrainian-­Armenian ­woman who grew up in northern Kazakhstan, recalled: “The ethnic composition of our school was very diverse, but I remember that ­there ­were just three Kazakh ­children in our class. The rest w ­ ere Rus­sians, Ukrainians, a lot of Germans, ­there ­were Korean girls, Tatars, a very mixed bunch, but every­one spoke Rus­ sian.”14 Nadezhda Konstaniants (b. 1954), a Rus­sian ­woman who grew up in Baku, Azerbaijan and married an Armenian, describes a similar environment in her native city: “In our class t­here ­were Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Tatars, Rus­sians, Ukrainians. Our class was so international!”15 “Maira Ahmetova” (b. 1953), a Kazakh w ­ oman who married a Rus­sian, said of her friends in school: “The ones I shared a desk with and socialized with—­they w ­ ere Rus­sian girls.

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We ­didn’t make a distinction at all back then. . . . ​We had Uyghurs, Jews . . . ​ and we w ­ ere all the same.”16 The way ­these ­women remember their childhoods, as models of happy unity in diversity, is typical of their generation. Soviet citizens who came of age in the Brezhnev era often comment that “nationality ­didn’t ­matter to us then” and “we w ­ ere all the same.” “Saltanat Tleubayeva” (b. 1970), a Kazakh ­woman formerly married to a Rus­sian, said: “For me, in my relationships, I never cared ­whether a person was Kazakh or Rus­sian. The only t­ hing that mattered to me was ­whether he was a good person.”17 In the 1960s, Susanna Morozova noted, “­there ­wasn’t such a division into Rus­sian and non-­Russian.” Susanna described her ­father, an Armenian, as a “true cosmopolitan,” who had friends of all nationalities, including “Africans, Afro-­Americans, and Indians,” while attending the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow.18 Her m ­ other’s parents, Ukrainians from the countryside, w ­ ere at first apprehensive about their ­daughter marrying an Armenian, but their ­daughter assured them that “in Moscow every­thing is dif­fer­ent ­because it’s an international city.”19 Nadezhda Konstaniants in many ways exemplified the “Soviet” person who entered into a mixed marriage. Born in Baku, Azerbaijan, she married an Armenian military he­li­cop­ter pi­lot in 1977. Heavyset and blond, confident and out­ spoken—­the type of ­woman who might be described as formidable—­she ran the sanatorium of the Vostok machine works factory in Ust-­Kamenogorsk (­today Öskemen) with a firm hand. (She proudly told me that she had worked for this factory for thirty-­three years.) In the Soviet era, Nadezhda was a committed communist and party member. She recalled that every­one—­Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Rus­sians, Jews—­used Rus­sian in the city of her youth since “it was the language of our homeland.” She had friends and neighbors of a variety of nationalities—­Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Georgians, Ossetians, Ukrainians. She declared, “Inside, I am a Soviet person. I am absolutely not a nationalist. For me, [a member of ] any nation is a person!”20 Soviet meant internationalist to Nadezhda, in her personal life as well as her po­liti­cal views. “In my ­family, I told you that my s­ ister married an Azerbaijani, and I married an Armenian. My son, who is mixed Armenian and Rus­sian, married Sonya, whose m ­ other is Jewish and ­father is half Tatar. That’s why so many types of blood are already mixed! And I love them! I re­spect my in-­laws so much!” For t­hese “Soviet” mixed c­ ouples, a mix and match approach to national traditions and cultural practices was common. Irina Domulojonova, a Rus­sian ­woman who grew up in a mixed f­amily ­after her m ­ other married her Uzbek stepfather, described her natal ­family as a cultural hybrid. “Generally, mixed families w ­ ere like this. In all mixed families, as far as I saw, ­there ­were traditions

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from this side as well as that side. They ­were always mixed.”21 Ilhom and Elmira Boboyev, a Tajik-­Tatar ­couple, described a similar pro­cess of fusing two cultural traditions. “I ­can’t say that it is ­either purely Rus­sian or purely Tajik,” Ilhom said. He described his Tatar wife’s contribution to the f­ amily culture as “Rus­sian,” reflecting the common Central Asian view of Tatars as culturally close to Rus­sians. “We had a good mixture, with both Rus­sian and Tajik ­music, culture, and socializing.”22 Similarly, Natalia Volkova recalled, “Every­thing was mixed in our ­family, both Rus­sian and Tajik.”23 Jamila Rahimova recalled that her childhood f­amily home in Dushanbe was physically divided along Tajik and “Eu­ro­pean” lines. “We had one room that was strictly ‘national’ [i.e., Tajik]. Every­one who visited this room from Leninabad was welcomed Leninabad style. . . . ​Every­thing was national in this room. And the other rooms ­were Eu­ro­pean. ­There was a living room with a furniture suite, which not every­one had back then, a tele­vi­sion, a buffet, a huge library on view. . . . ​As I said, my f­ather was a very intellectual person. ­There was a t­able, chairs, sofa, every­thing purely Eu­ro­pe­an.”24 The way Jamila spoke about the mixing of cultures in her ­family was typical of the late Soviet Union, when the essence of each nationality was drawn in a few broad strokes; Kazakhs drank tea from a bowl, Rus­sians from a cup; Tajiks sat on the floor, while “Eu­ro­pe­ans” (i.e., Rus­sians) installed furniture suites in their apartments.25 Was the blending of two (or more) cultures ­really as seamless as ­these ­children of mixed marriages recall? It is impossible to know, but their recollections fit neatly into the larger framework of nostalgia for Soviet internationalism that shapes the memories of many Soviet citizens of this era. Like the aloha spirit of Hawaii and the discourse of mestizaje (mixedness) in Latin Amer­i­ca, Soviet memory discourse invokes a power­f ul ideology of interethnic brotherhood and harmony, one that dominated the late Soviet Union and was internalized by many Soviet citizens.26 Even if this discourse, like its counter­parts elsewhere, overlooked the less pleasant realities of life in a multi­ ethnic or multiracial society—­hierarchies, conflict, and discrimination—­the belief in Soviet internationalism was real.

Religion and Mixed Families Religion was one of the areas in which compromise was most critical in mixed marriages between Central Asians and Eu­ro­pe­ans, though perhaps not for the reasons one might expect. ­Because of the officially atheistic nature of the Soviet Union, religious faith was less impor­tant in marriage decisions in the

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Soviet era than it was e­ ither before 1917 or a­ fter 1991. Soviet Central Asia was a formally secular society in which religion played l­ittle or no role in public life. Nevertheless, religious identity was closely associated with nationality and cultural identity in Soviet Central Asia, and religiously rooted customs ­were often an impor­tant part of a ­family’s lifestyle. Even ­those lacking religious belief often identified with Islam or Rus­sian Orthodoxy in a cultural sense.27 ­Because even nonbelievers valued their religious identity, intermarriages across religious lines remained much less frequent than intermarriages between nationalities within the same religious tradition.28 Muslim families, in par­tic­u­lar, ­were reluctant to take on a son-­or daughter-­in-­law who might not participate in or re­spect their religious practices and customs. Jamila Rahimova explained that religious differences ­were more of a prob­lem in mixed marriages than differences in nationality. “Mama always said . . . ​that for marriage, in any case maybe nationality i­sn’t impor­tant, but religion is impor­tant. . . . ​In this t­ here is discord, difficulties, but not b­ ecause of nationality.”29 The religious map of Kazakhstan was varied. Ethnic Kazakhs and other native Central Asians ­were traditionally Sunni Muslim, while the Eu­ro­pean population of Kazakhstan (Rus­sians, Ukrainians, Belorus­sians, Germans) was mainly Christian—­Orthodox, Catholic, and Lutheran. Sunni Tatars, Shiite Azerbaijanis, Orthodox Armenians, Christian Koreans, and Ashkenazi Jews ­were also part of the mix. Tajikistan, with its smaller population of Rus­sians and other Eu­ro­pe­ans, was less heterogeneous; the majority of p­ eople ­were Sunni Muslims, with a minority of Ismaili Shiites in the Pamir Mountains.30 The environment for religious practice in the postwar period was somewhat less fraught and repressive than it had been in the first two de­cades ­after the revolution. The concerted Bolshevik attacks on religion of the 1920s and 1930s, which had seen clerics arrested and executed, churches and mosques closed, and believers persecuted, had waned. Instead, a general loosening of restrictions during World War II had permitted a l­imited amount of religious practice. The Stalinist state created new institutions during the war to supervise and standardize religious observance for the major religions of the USSR, including Islam and Rus­sian Orthodoxy. A Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults oversaw religion in the entire Soviet Union, while a Central Asian muftiate in Tashkent supervised Muslim believers. In broad terms, the muftiate sought to institutionalize Islam and bring it u ­ nder the control of the state, while suppressing activities it considered to be part of unofficial or popu­lar Islam, such as pilgrimages to holy sites associated with saints.31 Restrictions still existed on the types of religious activities that w ­ ere acceptable—­and who could engage in them—­yet it became pos­si­ble to combine religion, at least in a l­imited sense, with a commitment to Soviet identity and communism.

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Among the Rus­sians and other Soviet citizens with an Orthodox Christian background whom I interviewed, decorating Easter eggs and baking Easter cakes ­were frequently mentioned as ways of expressing religious identity. Baptism and church attendance ­were less common since they could land a ­family in trou­ble or harm a young person’s ­career. Christmas trees w ­ ere ubiquitous, but they had become “New Year’s trees” and ­were thus detached from their association with a religious holiday. Among Muslims, religiously based rituals such as circumcision w ­ ere common, as was the cele­bration of religious holidays such as Kurban Bairam (the Feast of Sacrifice). Yet the transmission of religious knowledge had been interrupted, except within the f­amily, and the public structuring of life around Islam had been abolished. Practices such as the five times daily prayer (namaz), fasting during Ramadan, attending mosque, and abstaining from pork and alcohol ­were less frequently observed, perhaps ­because they ­were more likely to attract attention from the non-­Muslim population and the authorities. In the words of Adeeb Khalid, “Islam was localized and rendered synonymous with customs and tradition.”32 This domesticated, privatized form of Islam was largely compatible with a secular Soviet lifestyle. ­There w ­ ere two workable approaches to religious practice in interfaith marriages. In the first, one partner converted to the other’s faith or, even without formal conversion, ­adopted the beliefs and practices of that faith. (­Actual conversion, mandatory in pre-­Soviet interfaith marriages, was uncommon a­ fter 1917.) In the other approach, among families that ­were more “Soviet” in their way of life and world view, religion ­either was not a part of ­family life at all or was practiced in a folkloric or symbolic way, in which religious traditions—­ often drawn from both sides of the ­family—­were detached from the doctrines and belief systems that gave rise to them. In early postwar mixed marriages (and some ­later ones as well), Rus­sian ­women often adapted to the Muslim way of life, sometimes even formally converting to Islam. Several older ­women I interviewed reported that “they did every­thing the Muslim way.” In their comments, ­doing ­things the Tajik way or the Tatar way was often equated with d­ oing ­things the Muslim way, revealing the close association in ­people’s minds between nationality and religious identity. Maria Saliyeva (b. 1934) was a ­woman of Rus­sian Orthodox background who came from a ­family of communists, yet when she married a Tajik she a­ dopted his faith. “When . . . ​my mother-­in-­law was still alive, when I married him she said: ‘You know, we should invite a “domullo,” an imam.’ And so they invited the imam, and I accepted this faith. In fact, I do every­thing in the Tajik manner. We married the kids in Tajik manner, buried their ­father; in general, I follow all the Tajik laws.”33

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In l­ater Soviet de­cades, ­people who entered mixed marriages commonly came from nonreligious families—in some cases, families that had been atheist for several generations—­and for them no conversions or changes in religious faith ­were necessary. This reflected both the general success of the Soviet anti-­religious policy among educated elites and the fact that ­people from nonreligious families w ­ ere more likely to intermarry. Often t­hese w ­ ere families of Communist Party members, for whom religious practice was officially proscribed. Many of my respondents had grown up in families for whom religion simply was not significant. “Aigerim Semenova,” ­daughter of a mixed Russian-­Kazakh marriage, recalled a f­amily environment in which religion was viewed with extreme detachment: “My f­ather was a communist. . . . ​I joined the party myself while I was very young, of course. And my b­ rother joined the party during his ser­vice in the army. It was very prestigious, respectable, and authoritative. We studied and read about religion as if it ­were an in­ter­est­ing science.”34 “Ruslan Isaev,” a mixed Rus­sian and Kazakh man, came from several generations of atheists on both sides, and even the most basic of Christian and Muslim traditions ­were not observed in his f­amily. He did not encounter Easter egg decoration, which was ubiquitous among Rus­sians and Ukrainians in the Soviet Union, ­until the fifth or sixth grade in school. His parents w ­ ere both mathematicians and had no time for such frivolity. “They w ­ ere die-­hard communists; that means they w ­ ere atheists. . . . ​For example, even my grand­father on the f­ather’s side was not baptized ­because his parents ­were not baptized. B ­ ecause the parents 35 ­were communists.” Nargiza Nazarova, born in 1979 to two ethnically mixed parents in Tajikistan, recalled a similar rejection of religion in her childhood. Well, back then, at the time of the Soviet Union, it ­wasn’t allowed to openly demonstrate that ­you’re a follower of any religion. It ­wasn’t allowed to show that you believe in God at all. Every­one was a communist. In my f­ather’s f­amily, for instance, I have never seen them fasting during Ramadan or celebrating any sort of [religious] holidays. . . . ​My grand­ father was simply a communist. ­After he graduated from school, my ­father went to college somewhere. . . . ​Then he immediately went to work for the KGB. Every­thing gets suppressed ­there. They are cosmopolitans and atheists. . . . ​And we would always say: “We d­ on’t believe in God!”36 “Aliya Ahmetova,” a mixed Kazakh-­Tatar ­woman whose m ­ other was a devoted communist, recalled a similar absence of any sort of religious

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­ bservance: “Well, you know, in our f­ amily ­there was nothing of the sort. Neio ther Rus­sian holidays nor ­these . . . ​Muslim holidays. The only t­hing that I remember is that my grandma baked flatbreads [a Friday tradition among Muslims in Central Asia]. . . . ​Evidently she was preserving folk traditions, culture. . . . ​ She tried to explain this to us, get us involved. But my m ­ other ­didn’t encourage 37 that at all, and so we only celebrated Soviet holidays. Lesia Karatayeva, a mixed Kazakh-­Russian ­woman, stressed that her Muslim f­ather was completely “Soviet” in his lack of strong religious convictions. A ­career army man, he behaved—­ and ate—­like other Soviet citizens. “My ­father also eats pork, though traditionally Kazakhs are not supposed to eat it. But he says, in the army you eat what­ever they give you, ­whether you want to or not—­yes! [laughs] In other words, they are Soviet p­ eople.”38 Some respondents recalled that their grand­mothers (and sometimes grand­ fathers) had been religious, but not their parents. This may represent a generational difference since the grandparents of t­ hese mixed individuals born in the 1950s and 1960s would have been born before the Bolshevik Revolution. It may also reflect the fact that older p­ eople had more latitude to demonstrate religiosity within Soviet Central Asia and ­were expected to do so by their communities. Sazhida Dmitrieva (b. 1959), half Tatar and half Rus­sian, had l­ittle contact with her Rus­sian ­mother’s ­family but recalled ­g reat piety among the older ­women on the Tatar side of her ­family. “Grandmas, only grandmas ­were observant, ­because my f­ ather was an atheist, grandpa was atheist as well. . . . ​ In general, he was a genuine, ardent communist of that era . . . ​Grandma was a believer; well, ­these Tatar grannies would gather together, they prayed and observed all the Muslim holidays.”39 Svetlana Vizer, half Rus­sian and half Tatar, recalled that her Tatar grand­ mother had been religious and had received an Islamic education. She had attended an Islamic school for girls, where she had learned to read the Koran in Arabic. “She read the Koran ­every day; she was even invited to read it [aloud] when t­ here was a need for it, like when someone passed away or was born or for the blessing of a h ­ ouse. Although w ­ omen usually a­ ren’t invited, if a man was not available, then they would invite her. . . . ​She was very devout during my childhood; I stayed with them, and she always prayed five times a day in my presence.”40 Yet t­ hese grand­mothers commonly avoided sharing their religious beliefs with their grandchildren, aware that this was frowned upon in Soviet society. Larisa Niyazova (b. 1966), a Rus­sian ­woman who eventually married a Kazakh, recalled that her pious Rus­sian grand­mother avoided teaching her about Chris­tian­ity:

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My ­father and my grand­father on the ­father’s side ­were members of the party. At the time, the party forbade attending churches or even being near them. But my grand­father and grand­mother on my m ­ other’s side adhered to a more religious upbringing. . . . ​My grandma always had an icon which, during the Soviet time, she would always hide. She hid it in the farthest room. I was very curious; I would approach and look at the countenance of the Blessed Virgin Mary with Jesus with trepidation. When I asked my grand­mother to explain, she would always respond: “You, my d­ aughter, ­don’t need this yet.” Perhaps, she protected me so that I w ­ ouldn’t have any prob­lems at that moment. Such was the time.41 Similarly, Sazhida Dmitrieva reported, her grand­mother and the other pious old Tatar ladies “­didn’t involve us kids in the religion, d­ idn’t raise us that way.”42 More common than outright neglect or disregard of religion was a kind of “cultural” approach to religious practice, in which the external forms of religious life rather than their spiritual significance w ­ ere emphasized. Self-­ reported atheism did not prevent many families from carry­ing out vari­ous rituals and customs of religious origin; as several historians have observed, it was entirely pos­si­ble to be both Muslim and Soviet.43 Even families of Communist Party officials placed a ­g reat deal of weight on following religious tradition for impor­tant life cycle rituals such as circumcision or burial. Yet ­these respondents often used words such as symbolic or token to describe their ­family’s religious observance. Their recollections of religious practice in the Soviet era sometimes seem confused and contradictory, reflecting the lack of a coherent memory framework that could combine Soviet atheism with Muslim or Christian religious practice, especially in ­today’s environment when communist rule is becoming a distant memory. “Kuralai Zhemsekbayeva” (b. 1973), a Kazakh w ­ oman married to a Korean, described her natal f­amily as atheist even though they fasted during the religious holidays. “We d­ idn’t observe anything like that while I was living at home with my parents. Well, it was purely symbolic. You know, maybe fasting during religious holidays, other than that my f­ather was a communist to the end. He was an atheist; he thought that God does not exist and that every­thing is in our hands, always.”44 It is not clear how fasting during Ramadan was compatible with being an atheist and die-­hard communist, especially since any public show of fasting was strongly frowned upon in Soviet times. Maira Ahmetova noted that certain religious customs w ­ ere more frequently observed than o ­ thers. “Well, we observed Muslim traditions, of course. Certainly, if someone passed away, then the burial rites w ­ ere necessarily Muslim. Always. A mullah would be

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invited. That did happen. But other, more salient customs ­were not observed.” Maira recalled that her own f­ather, a Kazakh and a prominent member of the Soviet Writers’ Union, was buried in Soviet fashion rather than according to Muslim custom. Since her f­ather had been an eminent Soviet cultural figure, his f­ amily could not be seen publicly upholding a Muslim religious identity. The only non-­Soviet aspect of the ceremony was the presence of a Muslim cleric. “We ­were not observant. It was rare for anyone to observe e­ ither the fast or Ramadan in the Soviet time. . . . ​Even at my ­father’s funeral ­there was a mullah, but he was interred in a coffin nonetheless. Does it make sense? It ­wasn’t the way we normally do it, using a carpet or cloth. But, b­ ecause of his position, he [was interred] in a more con­temporary fashion. . . . ​­There was a mullah, but he was just a token.”45 Maira’s question to the interviewer—­“does that make sense?”—­suggests that she herself is having trou­ble making sense of t­ hese recollections. Her ­father was buried in a “con­temporary” (i.e., Eu­ro­pean and Soviet) fashion, in a coffin, rather than wrapped in cloth in the traditional Muslim way, and yet a “token” mullah was pre­sent at the funeral. Why was the mullah t­ here if the ­family was not observant? How should she describe her ­father’s religious identity, looking back on the Soviet period? Jamila Rahimova, a mixed Tajik-­Russian ­woman, came from an elite communist ­family. Her f­ather was a staunch communist and atheist, and her ­brother worked for the KGB (Committee for State Security). Her ­father nevertheless insisted on being buried as a Muslim. When he was ­dying of lung cancer, he told his ­family: “I would like to be buried in accordance with Muslim custom. . . . ​They may or may not inter me with honors and or­ga­nize rallies, but I w ­ ouldn’t want any of that, let them bury me in accordance with the Muslim customs.” Jamila recalled that her entire ­family was at her ­father’s death bed. “My ­sister, ­brother; all of us ­were ­there. My ­brother was working at the KGB at the time, and my dad said: ‘He may have trou­bles at his work, but be that as it may, I must leave this world as a Muslim.’ Even though he was a true atheist.” Her f­ ather died the next day.46 “Kamal Ibrayev,” a Uyghur man married to a Rus­sian, also recalled a natal ­family in which secularism and communism w ­ ere combined with religious practice, in seemingly contradictory ways: “I never felt myself to be a faithful Muslim. I ­can’t say that I was an ardent atheist, but I never believed or worshipped anyone. Well, my f­ather, m ­ other, grand­mother, grand­father ­were never avid atheists e­ ither; even my f­ather, who was a member of the party, always used to visit the mosque.”47 Again, this statement leaves some confusion about how, exactly, religion was combined with atheism and communism in this f­ amily.

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When ­children from such minimally observant or nonobservant families grew up and married someone of a dif­fer­ent faith, they found it relatively easy to overcome their religious differences. ­There was typically a tolerant and ecumenical approach to religion within the ­family and very ­little in the way of religious exclusivity. Families observed a mix of traditions and holidays from both religions. Often the traditions they followed w ­ ere virtually devoid of ­actual religious or spiritual content, so that f­ amily members from other religious backgrounds could have no objections to them. Religious practice, in this sense, was a part of “national culture” and not expressive of a deep commitment to a par­tic­u­lar belief system.48 The lack of strong beliefs and the symbolic nature of religion in this period meant that members of mixed families spoke about religious practices almost as a hobby or diversion, a repre­sen­ta­ tion of the colorful diversity of humanity. Traditions and holidays from both sides of the ­family could be observed, without any feeling of contradiction, along with Soviet holidays and Soviet public culture as represented by schools and the Komsomol. Elena Julchieva, a Rus­sian ­woman long married to a Kazakh, exemplified this ecumenical spirit. “Every­one walks to this power on their own path. And one should not criticize another person for practicing a dif­fer­ent religion. I also understand this. When they quarrel. . . . ​What’s the difference?” She described her relaxed approach to her ­children’s choice of religion. “The Bible is lying over t­ here. And so, first my son read the Bible and went to a church. He spoke with a priest, returned home, and said: ‘Mom, I ­didn’t enjoy it.’ I said: ‘Well, ­here is the Koran. Read the Koran.’ He read the Koran, went to a mosque, and chose Islam.”49 This approach to choosing a religion, as if one w ­ ere ordering a dish from a restaurant menu, underscores the lack of a strong commitment to any par­tic­u­lar belief system. Irina Domulojonova, whose Rus­sian m ­ other was married to an Uzbek, described the combining of religious traditions in her own natal f­ amily. Well, for example, for Easter our ­mother certainly painted eggs, always baked cakes, and l­ater we did it together. As far as I remember, I would always do it with my mom. Perhaps, that’s why I have more Rus­sian in me. We always baked. . . . ​However, my mom ­didn’t attend church. . . . ​She observed all the Muslim holidays, such as Ramadan, Kurban [Bairam]. . . . ​ She observed holidays like that. Also, guests would come to our h ­ ouse often. My ­father would often invite a domullo. All of this comes from the Muslim tradition.50 Irina had a somewhat unusual ­family background. Born in Rus­sia to Rus­ sian parents, she moved to Tajikistan as a first-­g rader in 1967 a­ fter her ­mother

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remarried an Uzbek man. All of her younger siblings w ­ ere half Uzbek. In her marriage to a Tajik man, Irina has enjoyed a similarly ecumenical approach. She said that her f­amily could not be called a strictly Muslim f­amily ­because they also celebrated Rus­sian Orthodox traditions. “My husband in this re­spect supports me very much; he is also a very cultured, educated person. He never prevents me, for example, from carry­ing out any Orthodox religious traditions. . . . ​He believes that God is one and that no ­matter which God you pray to, the impor­tant ­thing is that you believe in God and, well, ­don’t break any commandments.”51 Klara Usmanova (b. 1953), a mixed Russian-­Uzbek ­woman, recalled that her natal f­amily celebrated all major Christian and Muslim holidays, along with Soviet holidays. Her parents w ­ ere not religious, however, and did not pray. “The holidays differed from the ones that existed in the Soviet Union. For instance, for Kurban Bairam my ­father would always sacrifice a ram. . . . ​And the biggest Rus­sian holiday for us was Easter. T ­ hese two holidays w ­ ere always observed. And the rest we celebrated as usual: May 1, November 7, and the New Year, of course.”52 In the Soviet pantheon of holidays, the New Year had replaced Christmas as the major winter holiday. Larisa Niyazova, a Rus­sian ­woman who married a Kazakh man in the 1980s, recalled that her mixed ­family drew on ele­ments of both traditions in their ­family life. “We worked it out in our f­ amily that we also celebrate Easter. My husband, by the way, helps with baking cakes and coloring eggs; this is completely normal, he even likes this holiday.” Larisa went on to describe how her husband would share their Easter eggs with his friends. “If he has to go out, ­he’ll say, ‘Let me have some eggs.’ I say, ‘Where are you ­going?’ ‘I’m ­going over to my friends’ h ­ ouse.’ To Kazakhs! That is, he’s g­ oing to visit a Kazakh ­family. And I say, ‘­Here, take pasochku, take kulich [traditional Rus­sian Easter cakes], pierogi, Easter eggs.’ And he calmly goes off to visit a Kazakh ­family and brings them ­these Easter cakes and every­thing ­else. We also share with the neighbors in exactly the same way.”53 In addition to Easter, Larisa’s ­family celebrated the Kazakh holidays of Nowruz and Kurban Bairam. She said, “When they knock on the door and sing songs, I gladly listen and give candies or change to their ­children for their songs—­I do this with plea­sure.” She explained that she and her husband de­cided early in their marriage not to limit themselves by favoring—or excluding—­any one tradition. “Why limit ourselves when ­there is such a huge amount of energy and emotion that one can experience by participating in t­ hese holidays?”54 In his marriage to a Rus­sian ­woman, Kamal Ibrayev took a similarly ecumenical approach to religion. An ethnic Uyghur from a Muslim f­amily, he reported that he has always enjoyed decorating Easter eggs and visiting Christian

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churches, though he is not religious and does not believe in God. “I paint them myself, I enjoy painting. That’s my hobby.” Kamal went on: “I love g­ oing to church, although I am not religious and I am certainly not an Orthodox Christian. However, I did visit Vladimir’s Cathedral in Kiev during some major cele­ bration; in fact, I was at the forefront among t­hose who stood t­here.” Kamal enjoyed visiting h ­ ouses of worship simply as an aesthetic and spiritually restful experience, not b­ ecause he had any religious convictions. “What’s in­ter­est­ing is that ­there are many ancient monuments that you can simply enter, even if you are not a believer. . . . ​­There are certain places where it ­doesn’t ­matter if you are a Christian, or a Muslim, or a Buddhist, or a Hindu. ­There are places where you go to let your soul rest.”55 Larisa Niyazova expressed a similar openness to her spouse’s Islamic tradition. “I used to explore and I r­ eally enjoyed it; I visited many holy sites in Kazakhstan. Perhaps, it was my spiritual impulse. I mean, I traveled to so many holy places. Naturally, prayers are being read ­there, ­these prayers are read in the Arabic language, ­there’s the Koran, all the traditions are being observed, a scarf is worn, the palms of your hands must be closed, I mean, every­thing that’s supposed to be in the religion.” Larisa, living in southern Kazakhstan where Kazakhs and Muslims predominated, did not feel drawn to Christian churches despite her own Rus­sian Orthodox background. “Well . . . ​I also attended church, but I d­ idn’t feel comfortable t­ here. Perhaps b­ ecause I began to observe Kazakh customs, since ­there are more Muslims ­here and Islam is being preached more.”56 The religious be­hav­ior reported by many of the p­ eople I interviewed in Soviet Central Asia resembles what the US sociologist Herbert Gans terms “symbolic religiosity.”57 Gans, whose work focuses on immigrants to the United States, defined this as “a form of religiosity detached from religious affiliation and observance,” involving the “consumption of religious symbols, apart from regular participation in a religious culture and in religious affiliations.” This consumption occurs “in such a way as to create no complications or barriers for dominant secular lifestyles.”58 The concept of symbolic religiosity was an extension of Gans’s theory of symbolic ethnicity, which posited that immigrants, as they assimilated to the mainstream US culture, would act in ways that allowed them to identify with their ethnicity of origin, but without participating in formal ethnic organ­izations or actively practicing that ethnic culture.59 In Soviet Central Asia, something similar occurred as urban, educated Kazakhs, Tajiks, and ­others increasingly become “Soviet” in their attitudes and way of life. Ethnic and religious practices, closely related in Central Asia, became increasingly detached from ­actual systems and structures of belief. For Gans, growing rates of intermarriage ­were associated with the increasingly symbolic nature of

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both ethnicity and religion. “Intermarriage,” he notes, “sometimes signifies that religion may no longer be impor­tant to ­either partner” and that “intermarried partners may even turn to symbolic religiosity.”60 This was the case in the Soviet Union as well, where religious practice in mixed families was a way of demonstrating individual and ­family identities, even among ­those who avoided declaring a belief in God or specific tenets of faith.

“He Always Supported Me”: Secrets of Happy Marriages Many characteristics of successful mixed marriages had nothing to do with ethnicity and w ­ ere the same as in all marriages. Loving and caring for each other, supporting each other, tolerating each other’s foibles and weaknesses, sharing similar goals and overall world view—­these are impor­tant no ­matter who the marriage partners may be. In interviews with mixed c­ ouples whose marriages have stood the test of time, the same phrases came up over and over again: he supported me, she stood up for me, he helped me, she did not criticize me. Vera Rahimova married a Tajik man (since deceased) shortly a­ fter World War II. She recalled the qualities that made him a good husband. “He had a good character. Hard-­working, not a blabbermouth, ­didn’t borrow money. And, how should I say this, not a drunkard. . . . ​He never beat me. Well, he did scold me in the Tajik manner. Sometimes he used bad language. I said, why are you swearing at me like that? He said, I ­can’t hit you, so I’m swearing at you. But he never hit or insulted me. We lived together, he brought home his pay, ­didn’t hide it, trusted me. That’s what he was like.”61 Vera might be said to represent the pragmatic view of marriage of the war­time generation, with its lower expectations of emotional fulfillment in marriage. At a time of severe economic scarcity and a shortage of men, any man who brought home a salary, did not drink, and did not abuse his wife was worth keeping. In ­later generations, something more was expected of a husband. Ra’no Nazarova (b. 1956), from a mixed Tajik-­Russian ­family, married a man who was also ethnically mixed. She explained that his ac­cep­tance of her and their shared views made for a happy marriage. “My husband, right up to the very end he never said, ­you’re fat, you need to lose weight, or I ­don’t like your haircut. . . . ​He never complained, never said that he ­didn’t like something. He always liked every­thing.” Ra’no went on, “Well, the ­thing was that we had more or less identical ideas. If, for example, I celebrated national holidays, both Tajik and Rus­sian, ­there was never any opposition from my husband.”62 Gul-

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mira, a Tatar ­woman, spoke about her Tajik husband as someone who always defended her, even against his own relatives. “My husband did every­thing so that I would be happy. And we are living together to this day. Happily. I am a direct person, I say what I think. It turns out that this is not always a good idea, ­because you might offend someone. . . . ​My husband immediately defended me; he said, ‘­don’t touch her,’ and that was it. If he had been ­silent or had sided more with his parents. . . . ​my parents always raised me that ‘­you’re just the wife, and ­those are the parents.’ But he said, ‘Accept her as she is if you want to have a good relationship with me. If not, ­we’ll leave altogether, we ­won’t have contact with you.’ ”63 Irina Domulojonova spoke of her husband in similar terms. I believe that we have a happy, strong, good marriage. I married for love. I fell in love with my husband, and he with me. We’ve been together thirty years, and I still love him. Even though t­ here are some differences between us. T ­ here is the fact that I’m Rus­sian and he’s Tajik. We have tried to . . . ​avoid bringing up the notion that “I’m Tajik—­I’m better or I’m Rus­sian, I’m better.” On the contrary, we have tried to find ways to avoid this, to merge into one. And so, to the pre­sent day I live normally and happily with my husband. A happy marriage.64 Similarly, Madina Nahipova observed that nationality simply played no role in her marriage. She and her Korean husband shared the same views and never felt that ­there ­were any differences between them due to ethnicity. “Prob­ably ­because we found a common language, b­ ecause we love each other—­that’s why ­there is no difference between us.”65 Marina Makhsumova (b. 1957), a working-­class Rus­sian w ­ oman married to a Tajik, recalled that her husband always defended her and supported her ­career and educational goals. She has been in two mixed marriages, with the current marriage having lasted twenty-­ eight years at the time of her interview. The two had no ­children together, but her husband a­ dopted her son from her first marriage. Marina noted, “He is not a mean person, if someone treats him badly, he forgets quickly, but if someone treats me badly, he never forgets . . . ​so I know that I ­will never complain about my husband, he is my rock. . . . ​In this re­spect, my husband has behaved just as he promised.” She contrasted her husband’s attitude with that of many Tajiks. Often in our national Tajik families they think, even for an educated ­woman, “why should she work, let her sit [at home].” Even if they choose a university student as their daughter-­in-­law, [and promise], “she w ­ ill finish, we ­will let her finish.” As soon as she is married and has a child, it’s

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“Why should our daughter-­in-­law study? It’s not necessary; she can stay home since her husband is working.” Often, it’s like this. But he always said, “You need to study, y­ ou’re so smart, you need to develop yourself.” He was always in ­favor of this; he is always proud of me.66 Abdallah Yusupov (b. 1937), a working-­class Uzbek man, had been married to a Rus­sian w ­ oman for forty years at the time of our interview. This was his second marriage; Abdallah was briefly married to an Uzbek ­woman when he was a young man. He met his second wife, a “pure-­blooded Rus­sian w ­ oman from Siberia,” at the construction site where they both worked, she as a construction supervisor and he as a driver. They married in 1970 ­after three years of acquaintance. In 1975, they had a son, their only child. Abdallah explained the basis for his happy marriage in the simplest of terms: “I love her very much, I love her very intensely. I liked every­thing about her; her smile, her walk, her conversation. We got together, and since then ­we’ve been living happily.”67

Discord and Divorce in Mixed Families If, as Leo Tolstoy famously wrote, ­every unhappy ­family is unhappy in its own way, ­every unhappy mixed marriage has its own unique history of conflict and failure.68 The Soviet Union overall had very high levels of divorce; in the late 1970s, its divorce rate was second only to that of the United States. Divorce had first been permitted as part of the new Bolshevik ­family code in 1918 and remained legally accessible despite the imposition of some restrictions during the “­Great Retreat” of the Stalinist era and World War II. The pro­cess of obtaining a divorce was simplified again in 1965, leading to a rise in divorce rates in the 1960s and 1970s.69 In the Soviet Union as a ­whole, one out of three marriages ended in divorce, and in urban areas close to half of all marriages broke up. But divorce rates varied greatly by region and by nationality. Marriages broke up more often in cities than in rural areas and more often in Rus­sia than in the Caucasus and Central Asia.70 It was community norms and social opprobrium, not Soviet law, that accounted for the dif­fer­ent divorce rates in dif­fer­ent parts of the USSR. The Central Asian republics had among the lowest divorce rates in the USSR, mainly ­because of the stability of marriages among the indigenous populations. Muslim ­women ­were less likely than Rus­sian ­women to request a divorce, in part b­ ecause of local norms. (In Rus­sia, Brezhnev-­era studies revealed that ­women initiated up to 70 ­percent of divorces, and in roughly half of all divorces the husband’s abuse of alcohol was cited as the cause.)71

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Throughout the Soviet Union, including Central Asia, monoethnic Rus­sian c­ ouples had the highest rates of divorce. Soviet sociologists attributed this to the breakdown of extended f­amily structures and high geographic mobility among the Rus­sian population, which meant that ­couples did not have the support or constraints of nearby f­amily. Central Asian parents, by contrast, tended to live in close proximity to their ­children and ­were much more involved in their ­children’s marriage decisions and lives. They ­were also able to provide emotional and material support to struggling young ­couples. Unfortunately, ­there are no data specifically on rates of divorce among ethnically mixed ­couples in Central Asia. What is clear is that ­these ­couples ­were not as tightly integrated into local society as homogeneous Muslim ­couples, especially in ­later de­cades. In the words of A. A. Susokolov, mixed marriages ­were “outside the system of informal social control.”72 Thus, they more closely resembled Rus­sian c­ ouples in their l­ imited access to f­ amily networks of social support and constraint. Among the individuals I interviewed, c­ auses of marital prob­lems included differing ideas about gender roles and proper ways of socializing, poor relations with in-­laws, and conflicts over obligations t­ oward relatives and guests. ­Those who ­were unable to compromise or adapt to a partner’s way of ­doing ­things often divorced or suffered long-­term unhappiness in marriage. Bahriniso Abdurahmonova (b. 1953), a twice-­married ­woman of mixed Uzbek-­Kyrgyz-­ Tajik background living in Tajikistan, found certain aspects of being married to a Eu­ro­pean (her first husband, a Pole) difficult. In par­tic­ul­ ar, she found the heavy alcohol use and constant partying of her husband and his friends hard to tolerate. Among Muslims, she noted, “This is not accepted.” Bahriniso also faced insurmountable differences with her second husband, though he was a Muslim Lezgin from the Caucasus. In this case, it was differing views of responsibility ­toward the extended ­family that broke up their marriage. A year ­after she and her husband had their first child, a son, her two ­sisters and ­mother died in quick succession, leaving Bahriniso the only one available to care for her s­ ister’s c­ hildren. Her husband objected to taking this on. “He said, ‘It’s ­either me or the c­ hildren.’ I said, ‘Darling, how can I abandon them? They are my nephews.’ He said, ‘choose,’ and I chose them. He said ‘goodbye, then.’ ” For Bahriniso, it was unthinkable to abandon her ­sister’s ­children to the state social welfare system, regardless of the consequences to her marriage.73 Aliya Ahmetova’s marriage to a Rus­sian man failed in part b­ ecause she had chosen a man who “­really did not like Kazakhs,” despite having married a mixed Tatar-­K azakh ­woman. He referred to Kazakhs routinely by rude epithets and yet, Aliya recalled, “for some reason he ­didn’t consider me a

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Kazakh.” Being married to a Rus­sian man who despised Kazakhs was naturally troubling for Aliya, even though she herself was highly Russified; she was offended by his comments. (Her ambivalence about the Kazakh part of her identity may explain why she married such a man in the first place.)74 Some members of his ­family had also been hostile to the marriage from the beginning; his grand­mother had made racially tinged comments about Aliya’s Kazakh looks at the time of their wedding. Aliya and her husband divorced ­after seven years, and she and her ­daughter subsequently had ­little contact with her ex-­husband or his ­family.75 Differing attitudes about who is in charge within a f­ amily could also cause irreconcilable conflict. Liudmila Davydova, d­ aughter of a mixed Slavic-­Ingush marriage, recalled culturally and religiously based conflict between her ­mother and ­father. Her parents met in the early 1950s and married in 1954, ­after Liudmila’s birth. Her f­ather was from an Ingush f­amily deported to Kazakhstan from the North Caucasus as part of Stalin’s persecution of entire p­ eoples before and during World War II. Her ­mother was mixed Rus­sian and Ukrainian. Liudmila’s ­father insisted that they marry according to Muslim tradition, with a mullah pre­sent, though her ­mother did not convert to Islam. Both of their families ­were initially opposed but eventually accepted the marriage. In 1957, the situation for Liudmila’s ­family changed; the deported Ingush ­were rehabilitated u ­ nder Khrushchev and allowed to return to their homes in the Caucasus. Liudmila’s f­ather expected his wife and two ­daughters to return with him, but Liudmila’s m ­ other absolutely refused to go. A conflict ensued between the two parents. The ­father tried to take the ­children forcibly. He was compelled by the authorities to return the two girls, and Liudmila and her ­sister did not see their ­father for many years. As a result, Liudmila ended up feeling exclusively Rus­ sian. She visited the Caucasus when she was eigh­teen, but at that point she felt estranged from her ­father’s ­family and Ingush culture.76 A stark example of the way personality conflicts can become intertwined with ethnic grievances was offered by “Hyun Kim” (b. 1926), a well-­known ethnic Korean artist living in Kazakhstan. Nearly eighty years old at the time of his interview, Kim regretted having married a Rus­sian ­woman in the late 1950s. His marriage was deeply unhappy, a prob­lem he attributed to personality differences between himself and his wife, the interference of his Rus­sian in-­laws, and cultural differences. He described his wife as loud and aggressive. “My wife acted just like her m ­ other, an authoritative and loud w ­ oman . . . ​even l­ittle t­hings sparked hysteria, screams, and wails. I was afraid of t­hese screams. My mom never yelled at my dad; she d­ idn’t even raise her voice at the kids. Our d­ aughters grew up with this. They witnessed their ­mother’s hysterics and saw their f­ather

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immediately ­running away into his room. ­There is no re­spect for the weak, and as far as they understood, it was their ­father who was the weak one.” Kim believed that intermarriages of Asians and Rus­sians could only succeed if the non-­Russian party completely caved in and adapted to Rus­sian culture. Rather than seeing his f­ amily prob­lems as ­matters of individual temperament, he argued that Rus­sians in general ­were not capable of adapting to other cultural norms: “To be successful, the partners in mixed marriages should grow up in the same environment and have the same upbringing in the same society. I should have abandoned all my Korean habits; then, perhaps, we could have had a Rus­sian f­ amily. ­There ­couldn’t be a Korean f­ amily ­because Rus­sians, even when they move to a foreign land, attempt to re­create a semblance of Rus­sia ­there. They c­ an’t integrate.”77 Kim lamented that his ­daughters turned out “like Rus­sians” ­because he ­didn’t spend enough time with them when they ­were young. “It turns out that I ­didn’t raise them, and they w ­ ere not raised as I would have liked. This was fateful ­because we are from dif­fer­ent ethical and cultural traditions. My girls have nothing Korean or Asian about them. Nothing worked out. This was the sad result.” Kim added, “I w ­ asn’t able to teach them the Korean language or inspire a love of their Korean roots, an interest in ­Korea.” Although he and his wife never formally separated, they began sleeping in separate rooms at some point, and all intimacy between them ceased. The increasing prevalence in l­ater de­cades of Soviet style mixed marriage, in which ethnicity and religion became largely symbolic and Rus­sian language and Soviet traditions dominated, seemed to validate the official view of intermarriage as a ­factor for pro­gress and ethnic integration in Soviet society. Mixed ­couples and their c­ hildren ­were the most Soviet of families, transcending identification with a single nationality. Many of t­hese families identified as communist, internationalist, and atheist. The suppression of religion in public life made it easier for ­couples to marry across ethnic and cultural bound­aries. This would only change ­after 1991, when the revival of religion created new prob­ lems for mixed c­ ouples and families. If we take a closer look at certain dynamics within mixed marriages in Central Asia, however, their position in the Soviet vanguard becomes a ­little less clear. In par­tic­u­lar, gender roles among mixed ­couples did not necessarily correspond to the communist ideal. The official party line posited that mixed families ­were more equal—­and hence more modern—in their relations between husband and wife and the domestic division of ­labor. The real­ity was more complicated, as the next chapter reveals.

C h a p te r 4

Intermarriage and the “Eastern ­Woman”

Jamila Rahimova, born in 1953  in Dushanbe, met her husband through a marriage arranged by relatives. She saw him only twice before they married in 1975 and admits that they did not marry for love. She recalled, “My ­uncle came and said, ‘Look, so that we ­don’t lose contact [between our families], give us one of your d­ aughters.’ ” Jamila was accordingly sent to Leninabad (now Khujand) to be married to her ­uncle’s son.1 Arranged marriages between related or friendly families ­were and are not at all uncommon in Tajikistan. What was unusual in Jamila’s case was that her ­mother was ethnically Rus­sian, as was the m ­ other of the groom. Her parents met in 1941 at a hospital in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, where her ­mother worked as a nurse and her f­ather had accompanied an injured soldier from the border guard detachment in which he served. They married almost immediately and celebrated in the officer’s mess. Unlike Jamila, her ­mother and ­father married for love, despite the objections of his ­family, who had planned to arrange a marriage for him to a local girl. Her Tajik ­father and Rus­sian ­mother w ­ ere happily married, according to Jamila, for forty-­two years. Why would Jamila’s ­mother, a Rus­sian ­woman who was in­de­pen­dent enough to go to a far-­off republic at the age of seventeen, fall in love, and marry a Tajik man, have agreed to an arranged marriage for her ­daughter? Jamila’s m ­ other’s actions exemplified something often seen in mixed marriages of Muslims and Eu­ro­pe­ans, particularly ­those from the 1940s and 1950s. 90



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For vari­ous historical and cultural reasons, including the Koranic prohibition on marriage outside the faith for Muslim ­women, most Central Asian-­ European u ­ nions featured a Central Asian man and a Eu­ro­pean ­woman.2 ­These w ­ omen often went to g­ reat lengths to adapt to the local culture, dressing in native clothes, circumcising their sons, and raising their d­ aughters as modest Muslim girls. Looking back on their lives, ­these ­women reported that they had changed in fundamental ways, becoming “like a Tajik” or “half Kazakh.” Such loyalty to local norms in no way excluded the possibility of being a good Soviet citizen. Jamila’s f­ ather, the upholder of Muslim traditions who insisted that his ­daughters wear modest Tajik clothing and submit to arranged marriages, was an avowed atheist and a stalwart Communist Party member.3 A similar case is that of Alla Tuychiboyeva, who was born in 1938, grew up in Rus­sia, and met her Tajik husband at an international youth festival in Moscow. Alla acknowledged that being in a mixed marriage and living in Tajikistan had changed her, especially in her attitudes t­ oward gender relations. In Rus­sia, she recalled, “Life was f­ ree, like other girls I went places, went out with boys, we all went out together, we went everywhere.” But in Tajikistan, every­thing was completely dif­fer­ent. “When I came, t­ hings ­were very difficult for young ­people. . . . ​They ­didn’t let them go to the movies, or to dances. At the dances t­here w ­ ere only Rus­sians, t­here ­were very few Tajik girls . . . ​the men w ­ ere allowed to go, but not the girls. The girls w ­ ere all locked away at 4 home.” Early in her marriage, Alla saw one of her sisters-­in-­law, a nurse, compelled to enter an arranged marriage with a doctor who lived nearby. She vividly recalled a traumatic scene when the unwilling bride was dragged off to the wedding: “So we brought her ­there, our ­houses ­were close to each other, she started to yell: ‘I ­won’t go!’ we strug­gled to push her inside. She pleaded with me: ‘Alla, hold on to me, I w ­ on’t go anywhere, I ­don’t want to!’ she yelled. I said: ‘What’s wrong with you? So many p­ eople are ­here.’ . . . ​‘I w ­ on’t get mar5 ried, I ­won’t,’ she continued to scream.” Despite having witnessed this unhappy event, Alla ­later pushed her own ­daughter Lola into an arranged marriage. Lola Tuychiboyeva (b. 1964) recalls that her parents raised her as a Tajik girl. On the one hand, she said, her f­ amily was “completely Eu­ro­pean” in its outlook and lifestyle. Yet the relationships within her f­ amily ­were patriarchal. The ­children, especially the d­ aughters, ­were expected to defer to their elders at all times. Lola’s f­ ather chose her c­ areer for her, and her ­mother and other relatives arranged her marriage to a Tajik man. Lola was opposed to the marriage but given ­little choice in the ­matter. (In light of t­ hese facts, it’s not clear what Lola meant by calling her upbringing completely Eu­ro­pean.) Her Rus­sian ­mother, she recalls, was even a “­little stricter”

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than her Tajik ­father, who “always allowed me every­thing.” Noting that her marriage was mainly her m ­ other’s ­doing, she recalled, “I was against it, but that’s fate [laughs]. I’ve been with my husband for twenty-­eight years.”6 In their willingness to deny their ­daughters the same freedoms they had enjoyed as young Rus­sian ­women, ­these ­mothers might seem to be extreme examples of the more general pattern of adaptation of Rus­sian wives to Central Asian cultural norms. Yet the experiences of ­these ­women represent something ­else as well: the failure of Soviet-­promoted gender norms to fully take root in Central Asia, even among mixed families who ­were supposedly the most Soviet of all. Ironically, one of the reasons for official Soviet support for mixed marriage in Central Asia was the conviction that such marriages would feature greater gender equality, and that intermarried Rus­sian ­women would bring the b­ attle against backwardness and patriarchy into the heart of Central Asia. In real­ity, Central Asian f­amily and gender norms had remarkable staying power, surviving well into the late Soviet period and beyond, even in families that considered themselves to be modern, communist, and Soviet. Rus­sian brides found that they needed to adapt to local gender norms in order to establish good relationships with their in-­laws and enjoy harmonious married lives. This was true even in many families who spoke primarily Rus­ sian and considered themselves good communists. This apparent contradiction cannot be fully understood without reference to a broader Soviet story of ambivalence and halting pro­gress ­toward the transformation of gender roles and ­family life.

Thoroughly Modern Marriages? Soviet officials and scholars welcomed ­every instance of intermarriage as evidence of the burgeoning friendship of p­ eoples; however, they paid more attention to certain types of interethnic intimacy. Intermarriages between Asians and Eu­ro­pe­ans (both broad and diverse categories) in Central Asia ­were deemed particularly impor­tant, especially ­those uniting Eu­ro­pean (such as Rus­ sian, Ukrainian, Belorus­sian, or German) w ­ omen and Muslim or Asian (Tajik, Uzbek, Kazakh, Azerbaijani, or Tatar) men. The focus on ­these marriages had to do with a highly gendered Soviet discourse of backwardness in Central Asia. A major focus of the Soviet attempt to transform Central Asia had long been the status of Muslim w ­ omen, beginning with a massive campaign against female seclusion and the veil in the 1920s. While the Soviet regime was determined to liberate all w ­ omen, communists saw Muslim w ­ omen as being in even greater need of emancipation than Rus­sian peasant ­women. They



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viewed Central Asian w ­ omen as victims of patriarchal oppression, abused by men who sold them into marriage against their ­will, hid them ­behind heavy veils, and refused to let them leave home to become educated or participate in public life. Central Asian w ­ omen ­were also thought to be primarily responsible for preserving religious traditions or “superstitions” and passing them along to their c­ hildren.7 The distinctive Soviet discourse of intermarriage in Central Asia was thus closely related to this vision of Central Asian female oppression and backwardness. Soviet sociologists and ethnographers argued that mixed marriages ­were crucial to bringing modernity to non-­European regions, and an impor­tant aspect of this modernity was their alleged adoption of more equitable gender relations. Interethnic marriages ­were typically based on love and mutual attraction between two individuals—­a form of marriage that Soviet ideology considered ideal.8 This already made them stand out in a region where parents typically chose partners for their ­children.9 Soviet scholars also claimed that mixed Muslim-­European ­couples tended to make decisions through mutual consultation, divided ­house­work more fairly, and generally enjoyed more gender equality than monoethnic c­ ouples. Mixed c­ ouples, they maintained, often featured a wife who was as educated as, or even more educated than, her husband. Fi­nally, w ­ omen in mixed marriages ­were more likely to be po­ liti­cally and socially active than ­others.10 In Tatarstan, mixed Tatar-­Russian families in the 1980s ­were twice as likely as Rus­sian families to say that the husband and wife jointly headed the f­ amily. (Apparently, not a single Tatar ­couple characterized itself this way.)11 Along with the depiction of mixed Muslim-­European marriages as more equitable and harmonious than monoethnic marriages, Soviet scholars presented an idealized view of the mostly Rus­sian w ­ omen who entered into such marriages. Accounts of mixed marriages by Soviet scholars invariably stressed the positive role of the Rus­sian w ­ oman and her role in spearheading social change in native communities. For example, the prominent Soviet ethnographer Abramzon wrote in the early 1960s that domestic life in mixed Kyrgyz-­ Russian families showed a strong Rus­sian influence. This was ­because “the Rus­sian ­woman usually exerts a strong cultural influence on the f­ amily’s entire domestic life.”12 In mixed ­house­holds in rural areas, he noted, evidence of the Rus­sian feminine touch could be seen in the flowerbeds, lace table­cloths, and curtains that adorned village homes. Moreover, Rus­sian wives had introduced potatoes, carrots, cabbage, tomatoes, radishes, and other staples of the Rus­sian garden and diet to Central Asian palates.13 In Turkmenistan, mixed families ­were said to be less likely to follow “antiquated” customs and superstitions, such as circumcising their sons or seeking to protect c­ hildren from

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the evil eye.14 Overall, Soviet scholars argued, the Rus­sian ­woman played a civilizing and modernizing role in Central Asian socie­ties. At the same time, Rus­ sian brides ­were said to be highly adaptable, learning to cook local foods, acquiring near-­native proficiency in the local language, and establishing close relationships with their in-­laws.15 In the words of Abramzon, “The warm relations of Rus­sian ­women with the relatives of their husbands, with neighbors, the strong ties with the surrounding environment confirm that national and religious prejudices are disappearing gradually, and in this, as we have seen, the Rus­sian w ­ omen themselves have played a large role.”16 In this positive assessment of interethnic intimacy between Eu­ro­pean ­women and “native” men, Soviet scholarship diverged from the highly negative discourse prevalent in North Amer­i­ca and Western Eu­rope throughout most of the twentieth c­ entury. In the United States, social scientists expressed par­tic­u­lar anxiety about the prospect of white ­women becoming sexually involved with African-­American men. Such interracial marriages w ­ ere seen as abnormal, their c­ hildren disturbed, and the w ­ omen who entered them as neurotic or rebellious.17 Soviet scholars expressed no such fears about Rus­sian ­women, and they rejected one of the most influential theories about gender and intermarriage put forward by US sociologists. This was the theory of status caste exchange or hypogamy, which posited that highly educated men of a lower-­status racial group, such as African-­Americans, would marry lower-­ class white ­women, with each party gaining social status from the ­union.18 Soviet scholars denied this theory’s applicability to their own society, where all nationalities w ­ ere presumed to be equal.19 Nevertheless, the belief that Rus­ sian w ­ omen would modernize Central Asia through intermarriage suggested an implicit hierarchy in which Rus­sians w ­ ere the elders and teachers, and Rus­ sian/Soviet culture was something to which all Central Asians should aspire. In Central Asia, a fundamental difference between mixed marriages and monoethnic marriages was that intermarriages ­were invariably love matches. As Marina Makhsumova (b. 1957), a Rus­sian w ­ oman married to a Tajik for twenty-­eight years, noted: “Well, frankly speaking, such marriages happened out of love. B ­ ecause g­ oing against your parents, facing judgments and criticism could only be tolerated for the sake of someone, for the sake of love.”20 This was one of the most impor­tant ways in which Soviet authorities considered mixed marriages to be more modern than monoethnic Central Asian marriages. In the official Soviet view, shared by most ethnic Rus­sians, marriage was or should be a relationship between individuals, not between families or lineages. Marriage was supposed to be based on f­ree choice; love and companionship, not practical f­amily or economic interests, w ­ ere supposed to be 21 its foundation. The early Bolshevik rejection of the nuclear ­family as a bour-



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geois institution in f­ avor of a communal model had given way in the mid-1930s to a renewed emphasis on the traditional f­ amily. This was not meant to be traditionalism of the patriarchal variety, however, with ­women in a subordinate position, but simply a renewed recognition of the importance of stable families and procreation.22 Marriage customs in Tajikistan made mixed marriage especially difficult. Parents arranged the majority of marriages, and sometimes families exchanged brides to cement close relations between the two families. C ­ ouples might be engaged as ­children, and marriage between first cousins was a preferred form of ­union. Many families also expected to arrange marriages for their ­children in order of their birth.23 All of this militated against f­ ree choice for d­ aughters or sons. A 1982 study showed that nearly 60 ­percent of young Tajik ­people relied on their parents to choose their spouses.24 In Kazakhstan, young p­ eople enjoyed more freedom to interact with their ­future spouses since ­women w ­ ere not historically secluded from contact with men. Certain other aspects of Kazakh tradition may have simplified intermarriage as well. In contrast to Tajikistan, where marriage to close relatives was considered desirable, Kazakhs practiced exogamy; in other words, they w ­ ere expected to marry outside their 25 lineage. Ethnographic accounts of rural Kazakhstan from the late Soviet period describe two main methods of marriage: matchmaking and elopement, with “fictitious kidnapping,” in which the bride agreed beforehand to be kidnapped by her preferred bridegroom, the most common form of elopement. ­After the young man “kidnapped” the young ­woman and took her off to his ­house, the two sets of parents would meet and agree on a date for the wedding.26 “Secret meetings” between young ­people ­were also an accepted tradition of courtship.27 All of this permitted a much greater level of male-­ female contact before marriage in Kazakhstan than in Tajikistan.28 Nevertheless, young ­people in Kazakhstan, both male and female, ­were expected to defer to their elders in impor­tant ­matters, respecting both age hierarchies and gender hierarchies.29 Marrying without parental approval was unthinkable for most young men and ­women. Some Rus­sian ­women in mixed marriages became convinced over time of the merits of local marriage practices. Marina Makhsumova explained why she came to approve the idea of arranged marriage: When the time comes, a bride is found; a groom is found, even in the progressive families where I see higher education and other ­things. But when the time comes, it’s normal, it’s embedded into one’s mentality. No one is surprised when, for example, a seemingly out­going boy waits ­until a bride is found for him. It’s normal. It used to happen for us too,

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but it’s lost in Rus­sia now. So, certainly, to go against this has to be justified for the sake of something. It must be love. But marriages based on love are not always strong; marriages based on feelings are not always strong. Feelings may pass, and then a person’s shortcomings become exposed. That’s why, on the one hand, when parents select a spouse, the marriage may be stronger ­because they know the roots, they know the f­ amily’s origin, they know the person. A hardworking f­ amily ­will have a good person, seldom is ­there an exception to this rule.30 Sentiments like Marina’s help to explain why some Rus­sian w ­ omen might have agreed to arranged marriages for their half-­Tajik ­daughters. In Eu­ro­pean regions of the USSR, by contrast, surveys in the 1960s found that the majority of citizens in rural areas had accepted the Soviet regime’s vision of the ideal ­family; this was the small nuclear f­amily consisting of parents and their ­children, with the parents’ marriage based on mutual affection and f­ ree choice. It should be noted that this ideal represented as much of a departure from historical practice in the Rus­sian countryside as it did in Central Asia. In prerevolutionary Rus­sia and even in the first de­cades of the Soviet era, extended patriarchal families ­were the norm, and parents gave their d­ aughters in arranged marriages. It was a rare son or ­daughter who would marry without consulting his or her parents.31

The Many Virtues of the “Eastern ­Woman” Beginning in the 1920s, Rus­sians and the Rus­sian language enjoyed high status among a certain stratum of Central Asians as the path to ­career success and po­liti­cal and cultural power. For Central Asian communist elites and ­those aspiring to join them, marrying a Rus­sian (or Ukrainian or Belorus­sian) ­woman could be seen as a way of improving one’s life chances; it brought better knowledge of Rus­sian language and culture, access to Rus­sian social networks, and suggested a modern attitude and loyalty to the ruling party in Moscow. Many high-­ranking communists had Rus­sian wives. However, this did not necessarily translate into a broader perception that Rus­sian and other Eu­ro­pean w ­ omen ­were desirable as marriage partners. ­Needless to say, Central Asians did not necessarily accept the idea that they should aspire to become more like Rus­ sians; like ­people everywhere, they preferred their own culture and ways. As early as the 1920s, some Central Asian Muslims had expressed misgivings about the impact of Muslim men marrying Rus­sian ­women. (The prospect of Rus­ sian men marrying Muslim w ­ omen was so remote at that time that it did not



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even come up.)32 In debates published in Uzbek-­and Turkmen-­language newspapers, they argued that such marriages could undermine an emerging sense of national identity, producing c­ hildren who did not know their f­ather’s language and culture.33 In ­later de­cades, too, it is clear from interviews with both Muslim and Rus­ sian respondents in Central Asia that many Muslim parents w ­ ere apprehensive at the prospect of a Rus­sian bride entering their f­ amily. Survey evidence supports the view of Central Asians as far less enthusiastic about mixed marriage than their Rus­sian counter­parts.34 Under­lying ­these views ­were local ste­ reo­types of Rus­sian ­women as morally loose, self-­centered, and insufficiently ­family oriented. Central Asians worried that a Rus­sian bride would cause prob­ lems in the f­ amily into which she married and that she would be unwilling to adapt to Muslim cultural norms and sensibilities and subordinate herself to the f­amily hierarchy. Rus­sian ­women, Kazakhs and Tajiks suggested, would seek to be dominant in the ­family, not knowing their place relative to men and their elders. In Kazakhstan, families w ­ ere especially concerned that Rus­sian ­women would be incapable of fulfilling local notions of hospitality. In Tajikistan, ­there was par­tic­u­lar anxiety about Rus­sian ­women’s ability to adhere to local notions of female modesty, chastity, and obedience. Fi­nally, Muslims and Asians expressed skepticism about the abilities of Rus­sian w ­ omen as m ­ others and feared that the c­ hildren of mixed marriages would become estranged from their f­ ather’s culture. “Maira Ahmetova” (b 1953) explained why many Kazakhs ­were reluctant to see their sons marry Rus­sian ­women: “Well, it seems to me that a Rus­sian daughter-­in-­law ­will be dif­fer­ent; she ­will be more self-­centered. I know, from some ­people, that they spend more time in beauty salons, more time on themselves. A man, for them, means to get every­thing pos­si­ble out of him. But when it comes to their being close confidants in moments of happiness and sorrow . . . ​I ­don’t have confidence in this.”35 Maira’s views ­were based on experiences within her own f­amily. A highly educated and Russified Kazakh ­woman who married a Rus­sian man, she explained that her ­brother’s marriage to a Rus­sian ­woman had ended in divorce. Her sister-­in-­law, she maintained, had focused exclusively on her own needs rather than ­those of her husband and ­family. “My ­brother divorced his wife. And, in general, they still have a very tense relationship. . . . ​She never did any h ­ ouse­work. She would come home and worry only about her job. He needs to have comfort in his ­family, that’s how our ­mother raised him. This would have been an inconceivable situation for Kazakhs.”36 Interestingly, Maira’s marriage to a Rus­sian man has been successful and long-­lasting; the prob­lem, it seemed, was not with Rus­ sians per se but with Rus­sian ­women in par­tic­u­lar. In a convergence of local

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Central Asian notions and broader Soviet views, w ­ omen w ­ ere held to be primarily responsible for the state of the ­house­hold and the domestic culture of the ­family.37 Central Asian ­women, in contrast to Rus­sians, ­were presumed to be less self-­centered, more modest, and more willing to defer to men and subordinate their own needs to ­those of the f­amily. Lutfiya Boboyeva (b. 1956), a ­widow of mixed Tajik and Bashkir background, explained why she would like her son to marry a Muslim girl: “Why? B ­ ecause in Muslim families, morality is adhered to. That’s what I like. Modest ­women; they submit to men. And at the same time, of course, a young w ­ oman must be educated.”38 What Lutfiya meant by “morality” was sexual morality—­young w ­ omen who would not shame their f­amily by associating freely with men and raising the specter of premarital sex. Rus­sian ­women, respondents noted, enjoyed the freedom to go out in the eve­nings and attend dances and concerts with young men, but in most Tajik families this was not considered acceptable. Young w ­ omen w ­ ere expected to have l­ittle contact with men who ­were not their relatives prior to marriage.39 However, this did not mean that families w ­ ere looking for ignorant or uncultured girls. On the contrary, as Lutfiya’s comment suggests, many families valued a good education in a prospective daughter-­in-­law. Talgat Akilov, born in 1966 to a rural f­amily in southern Kazakhstan, recalled that his f­ather and elder ­brother ­were strongly opposed when he told them he wanted to marry a Rus­sian w ­ oman, Marina. Rus­sian ­women, he noted, had a reputation for being too ­free and insufficiently modest. Moreover, his relatives thought that a Rus­sian wife would not pass Kazakh traditions along to her ­children. “They thought, she’s a Rus­sian, so we ­will Russify.”40 This attitude t­ oward Rus­sian ­women in Central Asia was not ­limited to Muslims but was also held by o ­ thers who identified broadly with being Asian rather than Eu­ro­pean. “Hyun Kim” (b. 1926), the ethnic Korean whose unhappy marriage was discussed in the previous chapter, regretted having married a Rus­sian ­woman. Kim argued that Asians such as Koreans and Kazakhs enjoy harmonious families headed—as is proper—by men, while Rus­sian ­women bring disharmony and disorder to ­family life. He contrasted his married life with the culture of his Korean natal f­ amily: “The most impor­tant t­ hing is that in a Korean ­family, a man is the head of a ­family who is well-­respected. In our ­family, we never had this arrangement. It did not happen due to the Rus­sian upbringing.” Kim described his wife—­and Rus­sian ­women in general—as domineering and disrespectful. In Kim’s worldview, Asian families, ­under the beneficial influence of modest and respectful Korean ­women, are orderly, quiet, and properly respectful of male supremacy. Rus­sian ­women, argumentative and



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loud, vie for dominance with their husbands and cannot create a proper Asian ­family environment.41 Among Kazakhs, one of the chief fears about a prospective Rus­sian daughter-­ in-­law was that she would be unwilling to engage in the more or less continual entertainment of guests that is typical for Kazakh families. Many Kazakh interviewees cited hospitality as the most impor­tant characteristic of their national culture. They contrasted their own love of hosting guests with the allegedly less welcoming nature of Rus­sians, who leave visitors standing in the doorway and “­won’t invite you to sit down.” Maira Ahmetova explained how she used to view Rus­sians before she married one: “I thought that they ­were sort of cold, not so emotional. . . . ​And then, they d­ on’t know how to receive guests. Our p­ eople, if they invite someone over, they ­really serve up a feast!”42 ­Doing all the cooking and serving required by this famous hospitality falls mainly to w ­ omen, and it is common to hear stories about Kazakh men who ­were “cut off ” from their extended families ­after marrying a Rus­sian w ­ oman who was unwilling to spend her time in this way. Fatima Satyboldinova (b. 1951), a Kazakh w ­ oman married to a Tatar, told the story of a relative who became estranged from his Kazakh extended f­ amily ­because of his Rus­sian wife. He was a professor who had studied in Leningrad and met his ­future wife ­there. Fatima recalled: “But b­ ecause his wife was Rus­sian, he could not invite his Kazakh relatives into his h ­ ouse. . . . ​You know, communication with relatives had s­ topped. ­There was none. ­Because we could not visit them. He could not invite us for a visit.”43 Hyun Kim similarly recalled Kazakh friends whose marriages to Rus­sians had resulted in estrangement from their Kazakh families: “Many of ­these Rus­sian wives tried to separate their husbands from their relatives, w ­ ouldn’t welcome them in their ­houses, or would make a scene when their husbands communicated with their loved ones.”44 Aware of local concerns about non-­Muslim brides, Rus­sian and other Eu­ro­ pean ­women who hoped to succeed in their marriages to Muslim men often went to ­great lengths to adapt to local gender norms. ­There was ­little evidence of a civilizing mission or attempts to impose Rus­sian culture in the accounts of ­these Rus­sian wives; on the contrary, they often seemed even more determined than their husbands to preserve and promote local traditions. ­Those who desired good relations with their in-­laws w ­ ere well advised to adapt to local notions of female chastity and modesty, despite the difficulties this presented for ­women raised with Eu­ro­pean notions of gender equality and ­free choice. As we saw in the previous chapter, the adaptation of Eu­ro­pean ­women was partly mandated by the Central Asian norm of patrilocal marriage, in which d­ aughters left their natal ­family while married sons ­were expected to live with their parents.

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The life histories of intermarried Rus­sian ­women show just how superficial was the penetration of Soviet gender and ­family norms in much of Central Asia, even in the cities. Only in a few cases was the result a typically “Soviet” ­family (i.e. one conforming to Rus­sian cultural norms). Oral history testimony also provides an impor­tant corrective to the sometimes overly rosy views of the transformative effect of Soviet rule on gender norms. According to one leading historian of Soviet w ­ omen, urban w ­ omen in Central Asia and the Caucasus “imbibed the emancipatory values of Soviet-­style modernization.”45 Despite some remaining cultural differences and expressions of national pride, according to Barbara Clements, “By the 1970s, ­women in Baku, Tbilisi, Alma Ata, and Tashkent w ­ ere educated, ­were working outside the home, and ­were professing many of the same ideas about f­amily life and their role in society as city ­women elsewhere in the Soviet Union.”46 Though not entirely wrong, this assessment follows the upbeat portrayals of Soviet social scientists a bit too closely. Even if they ­were educated and working outside the home, Central Asian ­women did not necessarily share Rus­sian and Soviet ideas about ­family life and their role in society, nor was it easy for them to act on such ideas even if they held them. It is perhaps not surprising that ­those pioneering Rus­sian ­women who married Central Asians in the 1940s and 1950s would have found themselves needing to adapt to local gender norms, given the scarcity of Rus­sians and the dominance of local cultures. More unexpected is that this was also true of many ­women who married in the 1970s and 1980s, when Soviet culture and Soviet gender norms had supposedly made far greater inroads in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. A term I frequently heard in my interviews was “Eastern (vostochnaia) ­woman,” which meant something quite specific: a w ­ oman who subordinated herself to her husband and her ­family, thinking first of o ­ thers and then of herself. The obvious and unspoken contrast was with the “Western ­woman” (meaning Rus­sian in this case), who thought first of herself, her ­career, and her own needs and pleasures. Sazhida Dmitrieva, a ­woman of mixed Rus­sian and Tatar descent, identified herself as an Eastern w ­ oman, though her m ­ other was Rus­sian and she is married to a Rus­sian man: “Well, I d­ on’t know. Perhaps, something from Grandma’s upbringing has remained. For Muslims, one ­shouldn’t contradict a man, that’s why I never even thought of talking back to my husband. Even though my husband is Rus­sian [laughs]. Well, some of ­these perspectives of an Eastern ­woman have imprinted themselves on my character.”47 Nadezhda Konstaniants (b. 1954), a Rus­sian ­woman married to an Armenian, also stressed her willingness to defer to her husband and his f­ amily. Born in Baku, Azerbaijan and a long-­term resident of Kazakhstan, she said that she



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has always considered herself an Eastern w ­ oman. In Nadezhda’s case, being Eastern was a result of living in Muslim or Eastern regions all her life and being married to a non-­Russian man (even though her husband was an Armenian and a Christian by background). She cited the naming of her son as an example of her proud deference to the males in her ­family. When I was pregnant and when my oldest son was born, t­ here ­weren’t any discussions on what name to give him. My father-­in-­law’s name is Misha, my brother-­in-­law is named Misha, so my son was named Misha also!48 Moreover, when my son had his son, my grand­son was named Misha as well! I did not ask any questions, and it just sort of happened. Then, you know, I am an Eastern w ­ oman based on my upbringing. I ­don’t argue ­either with the elders or with my husband. If he, so to speak, is right, I re­spect him. Of course, I have my own opinion, but, nonetheless, to please the elders who also expect this kind of attention, let him be named a­ fter my brother-­in-­law—­Misha.49 Anastasia Martsevich, half Rus­sian and half Kazakh, also used the term Eastern ­woman to contrast her Kazakh m ­ other with the Rus­sian w ­ omen she knew. (Anastasia grew up in Moscow, in a largely Rus­sian cultural environment.) “Once I got older, I noticed that my mom, like an Eastern ­woman, obeyed and ‘caved in’ to my ­father. I am confident that not ­every Rus­sian ­woman, being intelligent and willing, would yield to a man simply ­because she is devoted and married to him.”50 For many of the ­women I interviewed, behaving like an Eastern ­woman was a positive aspiration, a sign that they w ­ ere serious about their marriage to an Eastern man. Larisa Niyazova, (b.1966), a Rus­sian ­woman living in Kazakhstan with her Kazakh husband, recalled that she did her best to behave like a submissive Kazakh bride when she was married in 1987. “At that moment, as expected, I submitted to my husband immediately ­after the wedding. I mean, in the first few years when we lived together, I completely confided in him; I obeyed him, I submitted, as a Kazakh daughter-­in-­law is expected to do. That is, she becomes a full member of the ­family and submits to the authority of the in-­laws and the husband. So, for me t­ here ­were no clashes, questions, or misunderstandings. I tried to act honorably.”51 Talgat Akilov’s Rus­sian wife Marina made a similar effort to fulfill local gender expectations in the face of strong opposition from her ­future husband’s ­family. (They married in the late 1980s.) The ­family was concerned that she would alienate Talgat from his relatives, but “Marina’s relationship to my relatives de­cided every­thing,” Talgat recalled. His older ­brother, who had strongly opposed the marriage at first, ­later apologized, saying, “I re­spect Marina not

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just as a sister-­in-­law, but b­ ecause she comes to the village and wears a head­ scarf, greets every­one like a Kazakh w ­ oman, and if something needs to be done, she changes her clothes and does every­thing . . . ​she never says ‘oh no, I ­won’t do that.’ She is always in the vanguard.” Talgat continued, “It turns out that we are the best of all the relatives, and my ­father always praises Marina. B ­ ecause she observes our traditions. She ­didn’t become a Muslim, but she re­spects and observes our traditions.”52 In Tajikistan, where ­there was a history of female seclusion and f­amily honor was closely linked to ­women’s be­hav­ior (in par­tic­u­lar their chastity before marriage), some Rus­sian wives went to ­g reat lengths to prove themselves worthy of their husbands. The Eastern w ­ oman was chaste and modest, not sexually loose as Rus­sian ­women ­were assumed to be. Tatiana Soliboyeva, a Rus­sian w ­ oman born in Tajikistan in 1953, fell in love with a young Tajik man from a high-­ranking KGB ­family within the republic. Her f­ uture in-­laws, despite their high positions within the Soviet system, w ­ ere strongly opposed to their son’s marriage to a Rus­sian ­woman. Tatiana tried hard to prove herself a modest and virtuous bride, even displaying the physical proof of her virginity to her in-­laws a­ fter the wedding night. “Well, we had our wedding night. . . . ​ We had dated for three years, but we kept each other at a distance. I ­didn’t know how our relationship would end, and in the past ­these ­things ­were stricter—­not so much ­today. Then he called and said: ‘Have my mom come ­here.’ . . . ​They came and we showed them, well, the bedsheet to assure them that every­thing was honest and proper. She was certainly very surprised, and my parents w ­ ere surprised as well.”53 Nadezhda Konstaniants similarly emphasized her purity before marriage. “In so far as admirers, I had several, but they w ­ ere just admirers. When I tell you that I got married at the age of twenty-­three, I also tell you that at twenty-­ three I became a w ­ oman, and my first man was my husband, and [before that] I was regarded simply as a girl. Why do I now say admirers? B ­ ecause they 54 ­were strictly admirers, friends; I never slept with any of them.” Some intermarried ­women referred to the Eastern ­woman concept even though they rejected or resented it. When Elena Julchieva (b. 1947) married a Kazakh man, Ahmet, in the 1960s and moved to Kazakhstan, she recalled chafing at the expectation that she—­a modern, educated young ­woman—­would silently wait upon her husband’s guests: “I had to learn to cook their national dish—­beshbarmak.55 I had to learn how to properly serve tea, the manner in which they drink it, and not how I would drink it. Then, sit quietly next to the teakettle and not say a word, with my eyes lowered. And for me, a very chatty person! I not only graduated from school, attended a university, and worked. I was also an ardent communist and an ardent member of the Komsomol.”56



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“Maria Iskanderova” (b. 1960), child of a mixed Russian-­Azerbaijani marriage who grew up in Kazakhstan, also rejected the Eastern w ­ oman label. She recalled that her ­mother was disturbed by the treatment of w ­ omen when they visited her f­ ather’s relatives in the Caucasus. In the Russified environment of northern Kazakhstan, far from Maria’s f­ather’s relatives, her m ­ other did not face the expectation that she would behave like an Eastern w ­ oman. In Azerbaijan, however, Maria recalled, “My ­mother somehow ­didn’t like it. . . . ​Particularly, she d­ idn’t like that the p­ eople’s mentality, in general, is dif­fer­ent in the Caucasus. Well, specifically the attitudes ­toward ­women. . . . ​I mean, a man and a ­woman are completely dif­fer­ent notions ­there. Yes, and a ­woman ­there, in terms of equality of rights, has no rights whatsoever! [laughs] . . . ​ Meaning: ‘­Woman, be quiet! That’s it. Man ­will speak!’ [laughter]. She was completely unaccustomed to this.”57 Maria was also put off by the treatment of w ­ omen and young ­people in her ­father’s homeland. When she visited the Caucasus with her ­father, she recalled, “I became completely frazzled psychologically a­fter two weeks. I hated every­thing. Every­thing annoyed me [laughs]. ‘This is forbidden, that’s forbidden, it’s forbidden to speak, you m ­ ustn’t talk to your elders that way!’ [laughs].” Maria, an out­spoken and direct person, was especially annoyed by the expectation that she would behave deferentially and modestly ­because she was a girl. “I d­ idn’t understand why exactly I was supposed to keep quiet. I am not saying they have to accept [my opinion], but they should at least listen to it! I ­don’t need more than that. But even expressing it was considered indecent. I was supposed to sit and be s­ ilent, modestly lower my eyes and flutter them, like this [she demonstrates].” Maria resembled her f­ ather physically and thus found herself being ste­reo­ typed as an Eastern ­woman ­because of her Azerbaijani surname and appearance. When an Uzbek coworker in Kazakhstan expressed surprise at her emancipated way of thinking, Maria asked him: “ ‘Are you surprised that an Eastern ­woman reasons in this way?’ He said: ‘Yes.’ I responded: ‘Who told you that I am an Eastern ­woman?’ I mean, he looked at my Eastern facial features and assumed that I grew up in that Eastern culture and that I think a man must be in charge, put on a pedestal. ‘Man is in charge. W ­ oman must be ­silent!’  ”58 Clothing was an impor­tant signifier of the Eastern ­woman. For ­women in Tajikistan, though the heavy veil was no longer de rigeur as it had been in some regions before the Soviet era (mainly in urban areas and among the privileged rural elite), a characteristically Tajik way of dressing was an impor­tant sign of modesty and submission to local gender norms.59 ­Women ­were expected to cover their legs with ezor (traditional trousers) beneath a long-­sleeved, flowing

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Tajik dress and to cover their heads with a scarf. European-­style clothing was considered immodest and inappropriate, particularly in rural areas.60 Even if a young ­woman generally wore Eu­ro­pean clothing, her husband might ask her to don Tajik clothing for visits to his ­family, concerned about provoking negative gossip among the neighbors. Natalia Mirzorahimova (b.1951), a Russian-­speaking Russian-­Chinese-­Egyptian mixed w ­ oman formerly married to a Tajik, recalled clashing with her husband over Tajik dress: “The only t­ hing that he wanted me to do was to wear the national dress, to wear trousers, and to wear a head­scarf as well. When we had to drive to a village . . . ​for the sake of re­spect I sat in the car and put on the clothes. He liked that a lot. I told him: ‘You married me the way I am, without long sleeves and trousers. And now you want to cover me; it’s not ­going to work.’ This was a big issue for us.”61 Not just wives but also d­ aughters in mixed families sometimes chafed at the restrictions on their freedom to dress as they pleased. Lesia Karatayeva (b. 1971) recalled that her Kazakh f­ ather strictly regulated her appearance when she was a girl. “I was not allowed to get a haircut; I had long braided hair. I was not allowed to pierce my ears, use makeup or wear high heels.”62 Ra’no Nazarova (b. 1956), half Tajik and half Rus­sian, recalled: “My dad was very traditional; he ­didn’t allow me to hang out with boys; he supervised what I was wearing. He would force me to wear trousers, national dresses, and a tubeteika (traditional cap), and my mom braided my hair.”63

Mixed Marriages: More Equitable? Soviet scholars claimed that mixed marriages enjoyed greater gender equality and shared decision making than monoethnic ­unions among Central Asians. Sociologists pointed to the supposedly more equitable division of ­labor in mixed families as evidence that t­hese families w ­ ere more modern, more “Soviet”—­that is more similar to the Rus­sian norm—­than traditional Central Asian families. Yet such domestic equity was far from the norm even in the major cities of Rus­sia, where social scientists since the Khrushchev era had argued that w ­ omen had formal equality but not de facto equality. The “double burden,” in which w ­ omen w ­ ere expected to work full time outside the home and perform all the domestic l­abor within it was a well-­known fact of Soviet life.64 Central Asia, then, was not unique in its gendered division of ­labor. A study published in 1983 revealed that Rus­sian married men had much more time than married w ­ omen for pursuing hobbies, socializing with friends, and reading.65 ­Women’s domestic tasks, including childcare, cooking, shopping, ­house­cleaning, and laundry, took three to five hours a day on top of their



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paid employment. The shortages of goods in stores and lack of labor-­saving equipment such as washing machines and kitchen appliances (and, in the countryside, the lack of r­ unning ­water and central heating) meant that all t­hese tasks ­were almost unimaginably labor-­intensive.66 This situation was partly due to the state’s ambivalence about creating a genuine transformation in ­women’s daily lives. The idealistic dreams of communal kitchens and nurseries of the early Soviet era had given way to complacency about the state of gender relations. Brezhnev-­era officials and scholars—­and p­ eople more generally—­saw the gender-­based division of ­labor as innate since ­women ­were supposed to be naturally domestic and nurturing.67 The increasingly essentialist approach to nationality beginning in the 1960s was accompanied by an increasing emphasis on reinforcing traditional sex roles. This, too, was a departure from early Leninist rhe­toric, which had emphasized the equality of the sexes and the need to transform w ­ omen’s roles to make them fully contributing members of society.68 Just as ethnographers ­were identifying the supposedly indelible traits of certain ethnic groups, social scientists in the Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras increasingly emphasized ­women’s naturally nurturing and innately domestic qualities.69 Even ­those researchers who lamented the double burden of work and home for Soviet ­women never questioned the assumption that ­women w ­ ere solely responsible for the domestic sphere. They simply took for granted that t­ here w ­ ere fundamental psychological differences between men and w ­ omen. ­Women w ­ ere supposed to be tender and emotional, while men w ­ ere expected to be strong and self-­reliant. Education experts advised parents to cultivate gender-­typical be­hav­ior in their ­children.70 The increasingly essentialist ideas about both ethnicity and gender ­were related to the growing emphasis on ge­ne­tics and the biological determinants of be­hav­ior in the late USSR.71 Yet helping w ­ omen with their heavy domestic burden came to seem vitally impor­tant in a context of economic stagnation and falling birth rates; ­there was a “non-­ antagonistic conflict,” scholars noted, between ­women’s roles in production and reproduction. ­People’s be­hav­ior and attitudes would have to change in order for true equality to be achieved.72 In a 1977 speech, Brezhnev remarked that Soviet men w ­ ere indebted to ­women for all their self-­sacrificing work: “We have still done far from every­thing to ease the double burden.”73 Did the lives of mixed c­ ouples in Central Asia feature the classic Soviet double burden for w ­ omen, or did they actually manage to achieve a more equitable division of l­abor, as Soviet ethnographers maintained? H ­ ere the oral history evidence is mixed. Some members of mixed families in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan recalled a strict gender-­based division of ­labor within their families, with f­ athers as breadwinners and decision-­makers and m ­ others in charge

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of the home. T ­ hese ­women did not experience the double burden b­ ecause they did not work outside the home; they experienced a more traditional, patriarchal ­family. Such families challenged the notion that mixed families ­were somehow more modern than monoethnic families. Other respondents recalled more creative and equitable divisions of domestic l­abor, especially when the wife and m ­ other worked outside the home. Ra’no Nazarova recalled a traditional division of ­labor in her mixed Russian-­ Tajik ­family. Her Rus­sian ­mother was not even allowed to do the shopping outside of the home. “Well, my parents worked all day long; my m ­ other did all the domestic work and my ­father was the breadwinner. My mom never went to a bazaar, my dad made all the purchases.”74 Timur Sergazinov (b. 1976) recalled a similarly strict delineation of roles between his Rus­sian ­mother and Kazakh ­father: “The bound­aries w ­ ere clearly set in our ­family. Dad was in charge in general. M ­ other was in charge of the h ­ ouse­hold. Of course, in the end Dad had the final say in ­every ­matter. My mom’s main occupation was the kitchen, cooking, washing, and cleaning. Order in the h ­ ouse, cleanliness and comfort—­that was her occupation. As far as taking care of the kids . . . ​ we lived with grandma and grandpa, so, in general, it was their concern to take care of the c­ hildren.”75 Marina Abdrahmanova (b. 1957), half Kazakh and half Rus­sian, also reported a traditional division of l­abor in which her f­ ather made the decisions, while her m ­ other was in charge of the h ­ ouse­hold. “According to our customs, ­women perform this kind of work. . . . ​Yes, that was the case in our f­ amily as well. It was always like that. I remember it very well; we had a cult of masculinity, so to speak. My mom would always yield; it was part of her personality. She was not a leader. That’s why all the questions and prob­lems ­were solved by our ­father. . . . ​Every­thing related to the ­family affairs was his prob­lem, including providing for the ­family, financial m ­ atters and other stuff.”76 Some interview subjects in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan reported strong cultural prohibitions on men ­doing ­house­hold work, even declaring it unthinkable that a man would cook or clean. “Arhat Isayev,” a half-­Chechen, half Ukrainian young man who grew up in Kazakhstan, described a f­ amily life run according to a strict gendered division of l­abor. “My f­ ather did the man’s work, but the ­woman’s work was done by the girls. . . . ​It was not for us to approach the stove and cook a meal. Men would cook only in an exceptional case. . . . ​ It’s in the order of ­things for ­women to cook meals.”77 ­Because of cultural norms against men ­doing “­women’s work,” men who did help their wives sometimes tried to conceal this from neighbors and relatives. Nadezhda’s husband usually helped around the h ­ ouse but ­stopped when his Armenian parents came to visit.



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When my husband’s parents came to our h ­ ouse and started to live with us, my husband was not allowed to clean and cook! . . . ​God forbid! ­These tasks must be done only by a w ­ oman! And he would sit with his dad and play backgammon. I had to bring tea for them and stuff like that. . . . ​I ­didn’t like it, and I felt drained. I worked eight hours a day, and ­after work I came home to cook dinner, while my father-­in-­law and mother-­in-­law ­were staying at our h ­ ouse. I c­ ouldn’t show that I was in a bad mood, or that I had a headache, or that I wanted to raise hell with my husband [laughs]!78 Maira Ahmetova, born into an educated Kazakh ­family, recalls that her f­ ather sometimes helped with the shopping, but her ­mother was ashamed to let o ­ thers see her husband carry­ing groceries home: “­Others ­shouldn’t see it, ­because they ­will not understand it. It’s not acceptable, especially in Kazakh society. . . . ​I remember when he would call home and then buy bread, and my mom would tell me, ‘Go and take the bread from your f­ ather. He s­ houldn’t be carry­ing a loaf of bread in his hands.’ ”79 ­Later, when Maira married a Rus­sian man, her m ­ other was shocked by his willingness to cook and do other h ­ ouse­hold chores. “You know, when we had just got married my mom came for a visit. And he began to bring out dinner plates. And my mom scolded me: ‘What are you d­ oing?!’ I said [to my husband]: ‘You know what, it’s better if you just sit, or she w ­ on’t understand.’ She reproved me in Kazakh: ‘Shame on you! He is a man, he ­shouldn’t.’ ”80 The expectation that ­women bore complete responsibility for domestic tasks was extremely burdensome, not only for ­women in Central Asia but for all Soviet w ­ omen. Their load was sometimes eased by the presence of grandparents who w ­ ere available to watch the c­ hildren. If t­ here ­were no grandparents or extended ­family around to help, a young working ­mother’s burden could be heavy indeed. Nadezhda Konstaniants described this eloquently. A ­ fter her ­family migrated from Baku to Kazakhstan, they had no help from relatives. With a husband who frequently traveled for work, Nadezhda was often alone with the c­ hildren. We came ­here and realized that we d­ on’t have anyone. Then the ­children ­were born. . . . ​­Here the neighbors are very unlike the ones we had back ­there. ­There, we could leave c­ hildren with the neighbors and go to do grocery shopping, go to the barbershop or visit a doctor . . . ​and my husband was a he­li­cop­ter pi­lot, so he frequently traveled for work! He ­wasn’t home for fifteen straight days sometimes! And I had to take care of the kids. Moreover, it was physically hard and the stores ­were virtually empty! I had to wait in line in order to buy milk with an infant

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in my arms; forty degrees below zero Celsius, but I had to go outside to buy this milk! [laughs]81 In contrast to such tales of female hardship, some ­women in mixed families recall a very dif­fer­ent marital dynamic. Particularly in cases where both husband and wife worked outside the home, ­there was often a more equitable division of domestic l­ abor. ­These families, perhaps, w ­ ere taking advantage of their liminal status to create versions of ­family life that ­were neither typically Rus­sian nor entirely Asian. It is also pos­si­ble that men and ­women who ­were unconventional enough to marry across ethnic lines ­were more likely to transgress accepted gender norms. In this sense, Soviet ethnographers may have been at least partially correct when they viewed t­ hese families as more “modern.” Maria Hamidova (b. 1936), a Rus­sian ­woman who married a Tajik in the mid-1950s, recalled a husband who did not observe the traditional gender division of ­labor. “Well, if I started cleaning, he would help me with vacuuming; he would go to the bazaar and he also cooked. I had my share and he helped; we both worked.”82 Susanna Morozova (b. 1973), whose Armenian ­father and Ukrainian m ­ other married in the 1960s, also described a f­ amily with a more equitable division of l­abor. Well, for us every­thing was based on equality, so to speak; as they used to say in the Soviet Union, “in deeds, not just words.” B ­ ecause, for instance, I remember that my ­father used to bathe me, cook kasha, and also tell bedtime stories. And, in general, my dad played a big role in my formative years as a person. He is a very expressive and emotional person; he paid a lot of attention to me and my ­brother. I think that he actually tried to distribute his workload throughout the day so that his wife would have f­ ree time during the day to do h ­ ouse­work and grocery shopping and then relax in the eve­ning, and he would take care of the kids and cook dinner sometimes. This meant that my mom and dad had this division of ­labor. Sometimes, it seemed that my dad was actually ­doing more work. All the female neighbors w ­ ere jealous of my mom, and they would say, “It’s not easy to find a husband like this”—­ handsome, smart, and hardworking, and he even takes care of the kids and does every­thing with his own hands in the h ­ ouse! My dad did all the repairs in the ­house. . . . ​You can say he is an ideal man!83 Susanna also recalled that her parents shared decision-­making power within the ­family. “My mom made all the financial decisions. But decisions regarding where to send the kids to study, which school to choose, t­ hose decisions w ­ ere



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made by dad, of course.” (The “of course” may have been ­because her ­father was an academic and hence particularly knowledgeable about education.)84 Muborak Oshurova (b. 1953), a w ­ idow of Uzbek origin, also enjoyed a marriage with more equitable distribution of responsibilities. She and her Tajik husband fulfilled the Soviet ideal of gender equality: “My husband helped in every­thing. We ­didn’t have differences. . . . ​Whoever could do a task did it, if he is not busy at work then h ­ e’ll cook; if he is at work, then I w ­ ill cook. That’s the kind of f­ amily we had.” She went on, “At that time, if a ­woman stayed at home, she would take care of kids, clean the h ­ ouse, and prepare a delicious meal for her husband. But in a ­family like ours, where I worked and he worked, we did every­thing together. That’s how our f­ amily was. But other families w ­ ere more traditional.”85 A few members of mixed families recalled a domestic life that went beyond equality, in which the ­woman was in charge. Such ­women conformed to the local ste­reo­type of the strong, bossy Rus­sian ­woman who dominated her husband and f­amily. The existence of such families, however rare, may have helped to perpetuate the anx­i­eties of ­those Central Asians who opposed intermarriage. Rustam Iskandarov (b. 1955), son of a Rus­sian ­mother and Tajik ­father, recalled that his ­mother was a very forceful and ambitious ­woman who imposed Rus­sian values on her ­family. “We had a purely Eu­ro­pean, Rus­sian culture. . . . ​My ­mother is a strong w ­ oman. My m ­ other was—­and thank God, she is still alive—­a doctor. She was head doctor of a tuberculosis hospital for more than 40 years. . . . ​She helped to build it. And my ­father was a historian, a doctor of science. But apparently my ­mother was stronger, b­ ecause my ­father in princi­ple never insisted or pushed through any kind of national customs. So our ­family was exclusively a Eu­ro­pean one.”86 Maria Iskanderova recalled that her Rus­sian ­mother was in charge, which did not seem to bother Maria’s Azerbaijani ­father: “I have to say that my mom had a rather strong personality. . . . ​Somehow she de­cided every­thing in the f­amily, she had the right to the deciding vote. My ­father was such a mild person and he . . . ​well, then, how should I put it? It all depends on the mentality and on the conditions of ­family life.”87

Intermarriages of Muslim ­Women Throughout this chapter the examples have been mostly from marriages uniting a Muslim or Asian man to a Eu­ro­pean ­woman. It was rare throughout the entire Soviet period for Muslim Central Asian ­women to marry Rus­sian or other Eu­ro­pean men.88 It was historically much more acceptable for Muslim

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men to marry outside the faith than Muslim w ­ omen, and in the early Soviet de­cades it remained almost unheard of for Muslim w ­ omen to marry non-­ 89 Muslims. Both men and ­women found it hard to go against their families, but for w ­ omen it was even more difficult. Their families kept them u ­ nder closer supervision so that they had few opportunities to get to know unrelated men. Thus, Kazakh or Tajik w ­ omen who married Rus­sian men in the early Soviet period tended to be unusually unconstrained by the norms of their own socie­ties. Some ­were musicians, dancers, or actresses who ­were already perceived as loose w ­ omen. ­Others had been raised in orphanages or boarding schools and w ­ ere therefore detached from local cultural traditions and not subject to the control of an extended ­family.90 Often ­these w ­ omen lacked ­fathers or other authority figures who might have prevented the marriage. When such marriages became slightly more common starting in the 1960s, the w ­ omen involved ­were usually urban and extremely Russified, often to the point that they felt unable to fulfill expected gender roles and therefore questioned their ability to attract their own (i.e., Central Asian) men. Even so, Muslim ­women who announced their intention to marry interethnically sometimes encountered furious opposition from their own families or ­those of their intended husbands. “Aliya Ahmetova,” a ­woman of mixed Kazakh-­Tatar background, married a Rus­sian man in the 1970s. As a university student in Moscow in the late 1970s, she found it difficult to make friends with her Kazakh compatriots, who did not perceive her as one of them. “Many Kazakh guys who w ­ ere interested in me. . . . ​Ultimately t­ hings ended very quickly ­because they felt that I was actually not a Kazakh. By mentality, by psy­chol­ogy.” Her m ­ other questioned the wisdom of Aliya’s marriage: she herself had had an unsuccessful interethnic marriage (a Russified Tatar, she had married a Kazakh) and warned Aliya that it might be difficult. Yet ­because a Cuban and a Pole had wooed Alia when she was a student in Moscow, her ­mother was actually relieved to see her marrying a Soviet Rus­sian and not a foreign citizen. The one who was most strongly opposed to the ­union was Aliya’s ­future husband’s grand­mother, who went so far as to make insulting comments about the young w ­ oman. (She was apparently from a generation that had not yet fully internalized Soviet internationalism.) “Overall, they reacted well. But his grand­mother d­ idn’t accept me. . . . ​She told my ­mother, ‘such beautiful Rus­sian girls are throwing themselves at my grand­son . . . ​and your short, dark,’ I d­ on’t know what e­ lse she called me, ‘he picked her!’ ”91 The racist implication that beautiful Rus­sian girls would be more desirable for her grand­son than short, dark Kazakh girls was clear to Aliya. Her husband’s parents never accepted her, and when Aliya and



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her husband divorced seven years l­ ater, her former in-­laws cut off contact both with Aliya and with their only grand­daughter. Madina Nahipova, a Kazakh w ­ oman born in 1964 in the southern Kazakhstani village of Abai, married a Korean man near the end of the Soviet period. She came from a f­amily of six girls and one boy. Madina had studied at the pedagogical institute in Tashkent, though she did not work as a teacher. She met her husband through mutual acquaintances. She recalled the response of her f­ amily when they de­cided to marry: “Negative, of course! Every­one was opposed. ‘What’s this? How can you marry a Korean? ‘Are you crazy or what?’ But I said, ‘It’s my choice,’ and I married him.”92 ­Later, however, her ­family grew to love her husband, particularly when he proved ­adept at adapting to Kazakh customs, even to the point of symbolically kidnapping her according to Kazakh wedding tradition. Asked how her Korean fiancé got the idea to do all this, Madina explained that he had observed Kazakh culture and learned how to do it himself. “He de­cided, since I am marrying a Kazakh w ­ oman, I have to do every­thing the Kazakh way.” Her f­amily soon accepted her husband. “He is just a very kindhearted person, very humane. They saw his positive qualities and understood that this is our kind of person.” Meanwhile, her husband’s ­family welcomed her without any reservations. She had been a ­little worried, wondering, “How ­will I live in a Korean ­family? What ­will it be like for me? How w ­ ill they receive me? But ­there was no prob­lem, they accepted me normally, with such kindness. And ­after that I also became like one of them.”93 “Saltanat Tleubayeva,” a Kazakh w ­ oman who married a Rus­sian in the late 1980s, recalled being stunned by the vehemence of her ­father’s opposition to the proposed marriage. Her f­ ather, a lifelong Communist Party activist who had many friends of other nationalities, drew the line when it came to the marriage of his own d­ aughter. Saltanat attributed the early breakup of her marriage in part to ­family opposition.94 Kazakh and Tajik ­women who intermarried sometimes said that they ­were attracted to their husbands partly ­because they ­were so dif­fer­ent from the ste­ reo­typical Eastern men. The corollary of the submissive Eastern w ­ oman was the Eastern man—­a strong, domineering, ­family breadwinner and decision-­ maker whose dignity would be undermined if he ­were to be seen ­doing ­women’s work. Maira Ahmetova appreciated her Rus­sian husband Sergei for the ways in which he differed from the Kazakh model of manhood. Maira grew up in a Russified Kazakh ­family in what was then the capital of Soviet Kazakhstan, Almaty. Her parents w ­ ere leading members of the Soviet intelligent­sia. Her ­father, an orphan whose parents had died in the famine of the 1930s, was the editor of an impor­tant Kazakh-­language periodical. Like

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many educated Kazakhs of her generation, Maira grew up speaking only Rus­ sian. She excelled in one of Almaty’s Russian-­language schools and went to study at Moscow State University. Sadly, her f­ ather died of a ruptured appendix while she was just finishing high school. All ­these ­factors—­her Russified background, her ac­cep­tance by a university in Moscow, and her f­ather’s untimely death—­combined to produce a situation in which it was pos­si­ble for her to meet and marry a Rus­sian man. (She admitted that she prob­ably would not have dared to bring home a Rus­sian bridegroom had her ­father been alive.) Though she found her ­f uture husband to be ordinary-­looking and unprepossessing at first, she was taken with his Eu­ro­pean manner of courtship. “You know, he courted me so romantically. He was dif­fer­ent from our guys. He might climb a tree to get me a bouquet of lilacs. You know, this amazed me so much! . . . ​It was all somehow very lyrical, romantic . . . ​and then I went to listen to the nightingales with him . . . ​and nature! I fell in love with him in the springtime, when the spring blossoming began. I started looking at him differently. He always showed me nature. We would walk and converse.”95 She contrasted this romantic idyll with her relations with young Kazakh men. “Our guys, you know, they treat you more like a friend . . . ​­there is no romanticism. Very ­little romanticism. . . . ​They go around in a group . . . ​our guys . . . ​they always came in groups and we ­were always in groups. ­There was never any intimacy!” Had she married a Kazakh man, Maira thought she knew what would have awaited her: “For us, a man is kind of domineering and authoritative. A ­woman is more servile. . . . ​We must serve whoever comes into our ­house without sitting down. That’s how it is.” Yet Sergei not only waited on her, he knew his way around the kitchen, in contrast to Kazakh men for whom the proscription on cooking was virtually absolute. “He could walk into the kitchen and quickly cook dinner and then serve it by candlelight or something like that. Yes, how he would court me; he would always feed me very well. He would buy something unusual . . . ​or make some kind of salad. It was so strange for me. When we [Kazakhs] would meet fraternally, mainly the girls cooked meals. . . . ​But he would do it himself—­run around, serve, and then tell me: ‘have a seat.’ He still does it in our home.”96 This willingness to help with domestic m ­ atters continued ­after they ­were married and had ­children: He would wake up early in the morning and run to a milk kitchen. . . . ​ He ­really helped me a lot. And, in general! He would bring our child to me when I was breastfeeding it. He would swaddle our baby when I got tired—he would wake up in the ­middle of the night and swaddle and clean the baby as I looked on. . . . ​Yes, he helped me a lot with the kids. Every­thing. He took them to nursery school and ­later picked them



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up. . . . ​In general, we ­don’t have a prob­lem with him sitting around and ­doing nothing. I mean, we have an equitable marriage. Not a single Kazakh would be able to do it. [laughs] Even her m ­ other, who initially scolded Maira for allowing her husband to help around the ­house, eventually came to appreciate Sergei as a ­family trea­ sure. “Now she allows it. Now, she understands every­thing. She says, ‘He is so dear to us. Oh, take care of Sergei.’ She is very old now. ‘He is so dear to us!’ ”97 It is noteworthy that Maira viewed Rus­sian men as romantic, sincere, and helpful around the ­house, while in Rus­sia they w ­ ere being lambasted as loutish, hard-­drinking layabouts who never lifted a fin­ger at home. In gender as well as ethnic stereotyping, context is every­thing. In Tajikistan, the kind of highly Russified and Sovietized w ­ omen who might intermarry w ­ ere much rarer than in Kazakhstan. Sixty-­four ­percent of Kazakhstan’s Kazakhs ­were fluent in Rus­sian at the end of the Soviet era; many Kazakhs in urban areas had attended Russian-­language schools and had only a rudimentary knowledge of Kazakh.98 This level of Russification was unknown in Tajikistan. Bahriniso Abdurahmonova (b. 1953) is an example of the kind of aty­pi­cal Muslim ­woman who married interethnically in Tajikistan. A highly in­de­pen­dent w ­ oman of mixed Uzbek, Kyrgyz, and Tajik background, she has been married interethnically twice, once to a Pole and once to a Lezgian (a Muslim nationality of the Caucasus). The fact that she met one of her ­f uture husbands while rock climbing suggests the degree of her nonconformity. Even so, she recalled that her parents w ­ ere not happy about e­ ither marriage. “They nearly passed out. My mom kept saying, Listen, t­ here are five million Tajiks, seven million Uzbeks, what, you ­couldn’t find one to marry?” Her first marriage ended in divorce, though she got along well with her husband’s ­family. “His ­mother loved me very much. Even when she was d­ ying, she wanted only me . . . ​­because I was the only one who could get along with her. We shared a birthday.” ­After her failed marriage to a non-­Central Asian, her ­mother thought she would have learned her lesson. Yet Bahriniso proceeded to choose a Lezgian (Lezgians are a small Muslim ­people of the North Caucasus) as her second husband. Like Maira in Kazakhstan, she appreciated the ways in which non-­ Central Asian men differed from the local men. She recalled, “I said no, I c­ an’t marry one of ours. With them [non-­Tajiks] it’s in­ter­est­ing. You know, t­ hey’re romantic, they are dif­fer­ent, and they court you differently. Nicely. Even now, I see how they [Tajik families] live, and I say I have it much better.”99 “Mukarram,” a Tajik ­woman who married a Rus­sian man in 1987, was also typical of Central Asian ­women who marry interethnically, in that she was

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completely Russified and disconnected from mainstream Tajik culture. Her ­brother and s­ ister also married Rus­sians. Both her parents ­were orphans, which helps to explain the f­ amily’s detachment from Tajik social networks. (­Children who grew up in Soviet orphanages often learned only Rus­sian and identified strongly with being Soviet. As one alumnus of a Soviet orphanage in Kazakhstan told me, “The Soviet state was my ­father.”) Mukarram recalled, “We ­were the only Tajik ­family in the place where we lived. . . . ​Our entire surroundings, my ­whole surroundings w ­ ere only Rus­sian.” Mukarram did not speak Tajik, which obviously made it harder to make contact with Tajiks. “Our parents spoke Rus­sian with us. We barely spoke Tajik. Actually, not barely—we ­didn’t speak Tajik at all.” Mukarram grew up unable even to imagine marrying a Tajik. “­Because I socialized only with Rus­sian speakers, never with local nationals, we ­didn’t intersect. And I think my understanding, worldview, and opinions ­were such that I simply c­ ouldn’t envision myself married to a Tajik. I c­ ouldn’t imagine it at all.” Mukarram knew that she was a Tajik but wished she could call herself Rus­sian. “I always felt like a Rus­sian.”100 Her husband was a Rus­sian trolleybus driver, whom she met when she was a passenger on his route. His parents w ­ ere accepting of the marriage; hers w ­ ere not so thrilled, but they knew better than to try to force her. “We went out for almost a year and then de­cided that we should get married. My dad, of course, and even my mom w ­ ere somehow not very happy, they hoped that I would marry a Tajik a­ fter all. But they understood that the way we grew up, they raised us in such a way that in such an environment . . . ​it seems to me that my parents understood that it would not work to forcibly marry me off. ­There w ­ ould’ve been such a protest!”101 The fact that she felt able to reject her parents’ suggestions also shows that Mukarram was not a typical Tajik ­woman. In general, she noted, “on the Rus­sian side they reacted absolutely normally [to such marriages], maybe they ­were just surprised. . . . ​But on the Tajik side—­ well, most likely, no, they did not approve.” Similarly, Gulmira Abdusamatova (b. 1954) recalled that her parents pragmatically accepted the marriage of her ­sister to a Rus­sian, even though they ­were not pleased. Gulmira’s parents w ­ ere both Tatars from a working-­class background. My older ­sister married a Rus­sian. He was stationed ­here with the army. Such a tall guy with blue eyes. My s­ ister is also so beautiful, she looks like an Ossetian. I d­ on’t look at all like her—­I look like my younger ­sister, but the older one is completely dif­fer­ent. And so she de­cided to marry a Rus­ sian, and my ­mother said to her, “You are not marrying a Rus­sian. You ­don’t understand. Their God is dif­fer­ent, they are Orthodox,” but my



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s­ ister said “no.” My dad was also against it in the beginning. She said, “If you refuse, I’ll leave home and marry him anyway.” That’s how it’s ­going to be, Mama thought, and she realized, “Why should I lose my relationship with my d­ aughter?” And so they had the wedding.102 The stories offered ­here should not obscure the fact that the vast majority of Central Asian ­women did not even consider marrying Rus­sian men, nor would their parents have accepted such marriages. From the Soviet state’s perspective, choosing a spouse in Soviet Central Asia was not just a personal or f­ amily decision; it was something more—­a tangible symbol of the friendship of p­ eoples and a step t­ oward modernity and gender equality. For the families involved, however, marriage was a deeply personal choice. ­Needless to say, none of my respondents claimed to have chosen their spouse in order to promote gender equality or bring modernity to Central Asia. Nevertheless, ideas and expectations relating to gender weighed heavi­ly on many mixed c­ ouples. The official view of mixed c­ ouples as modern avatars of gender equality was not accurate, though t­ here certainly w ­ ere ­couples in which one or both partners transgressed gender norms. Overall, Soviet ideas about the emancipation of ­women from burdensome gender ste­reo­types had failed to completely penetrate Central Asia. Even in Soviet Rus­sia, the penetration of ­these ideas was woefully incomplete. The double burden on w ­ omen remained heavy, and increasingly essentialist views of ethnicity ­were matched by essentialism on gender roles. ­These two forms of stereotyping came together in the notion of the Eastern ­woman; that self-­sacrificing and demure creature many Rus­sian and other non-­Muslim ­women took as their ideal when they married into Central Asian families. In daily negotiations over the rights and responsibilities of ­family members, presenting oneself as a true Eastern ­woman was, for many w ­ omen in mixed families, the ultimate goal.

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Dilemmas of Identity and Belonging In general, my parents ­were very happy together, a happy ­couple! They lived for love; that is, they loved each other very much. But I think life is very hard for the ­children of such marriages. —­Sazhida Dmitrieva (2010)

Sazhida Dmitrieva, born in 1959 to a Russian-­ Tatar ­couple in northern Kazakhstan, viewed mixed marriage with ambivalence. Her Tatar f­ ather and Rus­sian ­mother, having fallen in love and married across ethnic lines in the early 1950s, rather thoughtlessly—in her view—­ created prob­lems for their f­uture ­children. Sazhida grew up estranged from relatives on the Rus­sian side, who disapproved of her parents’ marriage; hated her “foreign-­sounding” Tatar name, a source of embarrassment at the Russian-­ language school she attended; suffered from confusion about her ethnic identity; and ultimately faced a dilemma, in the post-­Soviet era, over where to bury her parents, who w ­ ere of dif­fer­ent faiths but had asked to be buried together.1 Did mixed ­children in the Soviet Union ­really pay the price for their parents’ nonconformity? If so, what did this mean in the Soviet context, where the state officially welcomed such ­couples as living manifestations of the friendship of ­peoples and ­bearers of Soviet modernity? With the Soviet state and broader society generally supportive of mixed marriages, mixed c­ hildren did not face official segregation or widespread social ostracism as they might have done in other countries. They lived normal lives within Soviet multiethnic society and ­were celebrated as the most genuinely “Soviet” of all Soviet citizens. Yet the prob­lems described by Sazhida ­were real. This chapter focuses on the adult ­children of mixed marriages in Soviet Central Asia. For the most part, ­these ­were individuals born between the 1950s 11 6

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and the 1980s whose parents had crossed—or believed that they had crossed—­ significant cultural and identity bound­aries in order to form a f­amily. ­These mixed individuals had experiences that ­were, not surprisingly, rather mixed. The c­ hildren of Soviet mixed marriages w ­ ere unquestionably better off than their counter­parts in many other parts of the world. The child of a mixed African-­American and white c­ ouple in the United States who married in the 1950s, the same de­cade as Sazhida’s parents, would have faced severe discrimination in employment, housing, and education. (That is, assuming the f­ amily lived in one of the states where interracial marriage was not outlawed.) Because of the rigid one-­drop rule of racial classification, the child would have been considered African-­American regardless of his or her feelings. The child’s white parent would have been ostracized by relatives, in many cases cut off for life; indeed, interracial marriage was long considered a form of “social death” for whites.2 Mixed ­children in the Soviet Union, by contrast, w ­ ere not isolated or stigmatized. They led normal lives as ordinary Soviet citizens and ­were f­ ree, within certain limits, to choose their own nationality. Some even felt that being mixed was advantageous since they enjoyed broader horizons and greater freedom to maneuver between the demands and norms of two (or more) nationalities. Often, they took pride in serving as a bridge between two cultures and a living embodiment of Soviet internationalism. They relished their good relationships with friends and relatives of many nationalities. Knowing that official ideology celebrated their very existence was also a source of satisfaction for mixed individuals. Yet being mixed was not always easy or comfortable. Despite the widespread public ac­cep­tance of such u ­ nions in princi­ple, many families privately opposed ethnic intermarriage for their own ­children. Even if parents eventually accepted the ­couple, as most did, the conflict could leave lingering resentments and emotional distance in ­ family relationships. Mixed ­ children occasionally faced prejudice at school and in the neighborhood. When they grew up, they w ­ ere sometimes rejected as marriage partners in f­ avor of “pure-­ blooded” ­people. The prob­lem that stymied virtually all ethnically mixed individuals, however, was the need to reconcile their multiple and complex identities with the Soviet requirement that each citizen possess a single official nationality. While the official Soviet attitude ­toward mixed marriages was celebratory, the Soviet nationality system placed the offspring of ­these ­unions in a difficult position. Each Soviet citizen had his or her nationality permanently inscribed in an identity document or passport. The range of pos­si­ble identities was defined by the Soviet classification system, which had been elaborated in the early de­cades of the USSR’s existence by Soviet ethnographers and bureaucrats.3 A person of mixed background had to choose ­either the

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­ other’s or the f­ ather’s nationality upon receipt of identity documents at the m age of sixteen. This declaration of identity was a formal pro­cess in which the young person went alone to the government office, made his or her choice, and received the passport.4 ­There was no officially recognized mixed identity, nor was it pos­si­ble to declare more than one nationality. Declaring one’s nationality to be “Soviet” was not an option, ­either.5 Mixed ­people in Soviet Central Asia thus embodied the tension between the national and the Soviet. Living on the margins of two (and sometimes more) ethnic groups, not identifying fully with e­ ither, ­these individuals w ­ ere the natu­ral representatives of a broader “Soviet” identity and ­were celebrated as such by many Soviet officials and scholars. Yet it was not easy for them to escape from the tyranny of the Soviet system of ethnic classification. Both the challenges and the advantages experienced by racially and ethnically mixed ­people in the Soviet Union ­were similar to ­those that have been described by their counter­parts in North Amer­i­ca, Latin Amer­i­ca, and Eu­rope. On the one hand, “Falling outside dominant racialized categories; facing distrust and suspicion from both sides of their ­family; being profoundly and hurtfully misrecognized by ­others; enduring the ‘what are you?’ question”; on the other hand, “enjoying the potential for multiple allegiances and identities.”6 Mixed p­ eople in the Soviet Union had diverse ways of resolving their identity dilemmas, depending on their own temperament, their f­ amily situation, and the environment in which they lived. Some veered sharply in the direction of one parent’s culture at the expense of the other. This solved the identity prob­lem in a sense, yet it felt like a repudiation of one parent—or a part of themselves. ­Others rejected a strong identification with ­either parent’s nationality and identified most strongly with the common Rus­sian/Soviet culture. T ­ hese individuals yearned for a broader identity that would transcend nationality—­a Soviet identity. Yet the consolidation of a Soviet identity in the USSR was consistently undermined in practice by the commitment to ethnically conceived nationality, and Sovietness was often conflated with Russianness—­increasingly, a closed category based on descent or blood. Although the partners in mixed ­couples frequently recalled combining ele­ ments from both cultures and traditions in their f­ amily lives, the offspring of such marriages rarely seemed to entertain the idea that they could be si­mul­ ta­neously Kazakh and Rus­sian, Korean and Ukrainian, Armenian and Tatar.7 The hybrid or border identity claimed by many racially mixed p­ eople in the West was largely absent. However, a few Soviet citizens did claim an embryonic métis or mixed identity and expressed a preference for associating with—­ and marrying—­others like themselves.

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In his work on the Soviet census, David Abramson argues that “­people had to be convinced of the objective real­ity of national identity; yet that hard real­ ity could only be convincing when framed in subjective terms—as an individual’s ‘natu­ral’ response to a census query.”8 Oral history interviews suggest that Soviet citizens generally accepted as entirely natu­ral the premise that ­every person should have just one official nationality. Ordinary Soviet ­people, among them the participants in and offspring of mixed marriages, had internalized this view of nationality as unitary and immutable. Yet for mixed ­people, passport nationality was just the starting point for examining the question of identification. Was official nationality meaningful to ­these Soviet citizens? If it failed to correspond to their subjective feelings of identity, to what extent did this disturb them? Did the choice of passport nationality have anything to do with how the mixed child actually lived?

Choosing a Nationality in Soviet Central Asia In the Brezhnev era, Soviet social scientists devoted a g­ reat deal of attention to analyzing and explaining the choice of passport identity on the part of mixed ­children.9 They ­were especially interested in learning ­whether mixed marriages ­were leading to the assimilation of smaller groups into larger groups, as ethnos theory predicted. They noted, for example, that mixed c­ hildren generally chose ­either the Rus­sian nationality or the titular nationality of the republic in which they lived, thus leading to the growth of the Rus­sian and titular population at the expense of smaller nationalities and t­ hose living outside their home republics.10 This was viewed as a positive sign of national consolidation and integration. Some Soviet scholars did acknowledge that passport nationality did not always correspond to “real national orientation.”11 Specifically, they recognized that the child of a mixed marriage “may have a self-­consciousness that does not coincide with what is written in the passport.”12 However, Soviet scholars rarely questioned the princi­ple that ­every individual, including t­ hose who w ­ ere mixed, needed to choose and possess a single identity in order to be a well-­adjusted member of society. This choice, like the existence of nationality itself, was something natu­ral and unquestioned. Compelled to choose one official nationality, on what basis did mixed p­ eople do so? In my interviews with former Soviet citizens in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, several ­factors stand out. First, mixed teen­agers on their way to the passport office w ­ ere generally most concerned about pleasing one or both parents. For c­ hildren with Central Asian ­fathers, this often took the form of feeling

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obligated to take the ­father’s nationality, regardless of their internal feelings. They feared parental or societal disapproval if they did other­wise. Second, ­there was a strong feeling that one’s publicly declared nationality should match one’s external appearance and name. Feelings of shame and embarrassment could result if this was not the case. Sometimes t­ here w ­ ere also pragmatic reasons for the choice of a par­tic­u­lar nationality—­the desire to belong to the titular nation of one’s republic of residence or to avoid taking a stigmatized identity. Parents themselves sometimes encouraged identification for pragmatic reasons, believing that they ­were acting in their child’s best interest. Overall, respondents gave the impression that official nationality mattered a ­g reat deal to p­ eople, though not necessarily for the reasons we might imagine. For example, ensuring that subjective identification corresponded to one’s official nationality was generally not of paramount importance in making this choice. As a result, many respondents described a painful mismatch between official and subjectively experienced identity. Often, individuals officially belonged to a nation with which they had l­ittle real connection, linguistically or culturally—­a source of social awkwardness and psychological discomfort that followed them throughout their lives.13 In a society in which every­one was assumed to have a single nationality, mixed ­children learned early on that they fell outside the norm. ­Whether they perceived this as positive or negative depended to a large extent on the attitudes of their parents and their own childhood experiences. For the purposes of the census, c­ hildren ­were assigned their ­mother’s nationality ­until the age of sixteen. Nevertheless, parents early on began explaining to young ­children— in the simplest of terms—­what their mixed background meant. “Ruslan Isaev,” (b. 1972), whose ­father was Russian-­Ukrainian and whose ­mother was Kazakh, recalled getting a very basic explanation of his mixed heritage as a young child. When he asked his ­mother what his nationality was, “She explained to me very clearly that ‘Your mom is this, your dad is that, and so you are half this, and half that.’ Very concise and clear. That’s how she explained it. And ‘At sixteen you can choose, register as this or that.’ So it was very scientific, very mathematical the way she explained every­thing.”14 Ruslan’s parents ­were both scientists, which may explain the mathematical precision of the explanation. Yet this kind of fractional accounting of a child’s ethnic background was typical in the life histories of mixed p­ eople in the Soviet Union. Klara Usmanova (b. 1953), a mixed Russian-­Uzbek ­woman married to a Tajik, described her young ­daughter’s amusing attempts to make sense of her complex background: “When she was ­little, they used to ask her ­because they said she looks like a Tajik, though I w ­ ouldn’t say she looks exactly like a Tajik. So, when they asked

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her about her nationality, she would say, ‘I’m half Rus­sian, half Tajik, and half Uzbek, did I say it right, Mama?’ And I said, right [laughs]. She was maybe four or five years old.”15 The notion that the blood of ­human beings can be divided into fractions was not unique to the Soviet Union, of course, but follows from the way genealogy and heredity are conceptualized. The message this sends to the mixed child, is though, is not necessarily a positive one. In the United States, Laurie Mengel has written, “The most common designation imposed on mixed-­race ­people of all ancestries is the inference that they are fragmented beings.” Words such as “mulatto,” “mixed blood,” and “half-­breed,” she notes, “perpetuate notions of blood division that can be quantified in fractional terms, and, in a race conscious society, serve to reinforce the ideology that the mixed-­race individual is somehow less than a ­whole person.”16 In a nationality-­conscious society like the Soviet Union, similarly, the mixed person could easily receive the impression that she lacked a quality possessed by all well-­adjusted Soviet citizens. With this in mind, many parents began training their c­ hildren early on that one part of their ethnic heritage was more impor­tant than the other(s). Talgat Akilov (b. 1966) was one of thirteen c­ hildren born to a rural Kazakh f­ amily, of whom seven survived to adulthood. The only member of his ­family with a higher education, Talgat married a Rus­sian w ­ oman in the 1980s. ­Because the ­family lived in a conservative Kazakh environment in southern Kazakhstan, their young son Ilyas clearly identified more with his Kazakh side. Talgat recalled: “In his childhood our neighbors w ­ ere mainly Kazakhs, and so somewhere they ­were making fun of Rus­sian kids. And he came and told me about this, that ‘I was teasing and saying stuff about Rus­sians.’ And I told him, ‘Ilyaska, look, your ­mother is Rus­sian.’ ” While trying to instill in his son re­spect for his m ­ other’s ethnic heritage, Talgat also explained that in Kazakh culture, even if a child is mixed, it takes the nationality of the ­father. “In our culture, if the f­ ather is Kazakh, the child is considered a Kazakh. That’s how it is.”17 In adolescence, nationality became more of an issue, both b­ ecause of the psychological need to define one’s identity at this age and ­because of the bureaucratic requirement of fixing one’s nationality officially at age sixteen. Instead of one-­half this and one-­quarter that, the mixed child became—at least in the eyes of the state—100 ­percent Kazakh, Rus­sian, or Tajik. Studies of passport identity choice among Soviet teen­agers suggest that ­children of mixed Central Asian titular nationality/Eu­ro­pean marriages usually took the nationality of their Central Asian parent, since the vast majority of such marriages involved a Eu­ro­ pean ­woman and a Central Asian man. ­Children of non-­titular background with one Rus­sian parent usually took Rus­sian nationality.18 For mixed c­ hildren whose

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parents ­were neither Central Asian nor Rus­sian, patterns of identification w ­ ere more complex and less predictable. Of course, statistics on identity choice tell us nothing about the pro­cess of making the decision, and this is where the recollections of mixed p­ eople themselves can be revealing. In declaring their official or passport identity, multiethnic individuals in the Soviet Union ostensibly had a choice between the ­father’s and the ­mother’s nationality. For many mixed ­children in Central Asia, however, ­there was no real freedom of choice. They selected their official nationality on the basis of community expectations and external criteria, with their subjective feelings playing ­little or no role in the pro­cess. ­Because of the patrilineal norms of Central Asian communities, in which nationality and status ­were determined by one’s ­father, mixed individuals generally chose the f­ather’s nationality. Respondents frequently mentioned the need to declare their ­father’s nationality in order to show re­spect for and avoid offense to their f­ athers. Marina Abdrahmanova (b. 1957), an architect of mixed Russian-­K azakh parentage living in Almaty, recalled that taking their f­ ather’s Kazakh nationality came almost automatically to her and her s­ isters: “It’s generally accepted among us that nationality comes from the ­father. So the question ­didn’t even arise.”19 In Tajikistan, similarly, Jamila Rahimova, born in 1953 to a Rus­sian m ­ other and Tajik ­father, felt she had no choice but to declare herself a Tajik. “Well, I’m a Tajik ­because of my dad, out of re­spect for my dad. Mom always told me, you have to re­spect your ­father, take only his last name and his nationality.” Sazhida Dmitrieva recalled: “For us it ­wasn’t even a question. Our mom brought us up with the idea that our ­father is in charge, and ­because he is in charge then our nationality should be in line with his. It was never even a question for me. I chose to be a Tatar and that’s it.”20 Often it was the Rus­sian ­mother who urged her ­children not to “insult” their ­father by failing to take his nationality. Larisa Mamadzohirova (b. 1958), half Rus­sian and half Tajik, recalled: “Well, yes, at sixteen you get your passport. So when the topic of nationality came up, Mama immediately said, d­ on’t insult your f­ ather—­register yourselves as Tajiks. My older s­ ister, she’s two years older than me, when she got her passport, she wrote that she was Tajik. And I also wrote Tajik so that Papa would not be offended.” Yet this show of re­ spect was largely symbolic. Their Tajik f­ather socialized primarily with Rus­ sians and even had a Rus­sian nickname: “It turned out that we lived among Rus­sians, and socialized with them, and I can tell you that all the neighbors called Papa ‘­Uncle Vasia’ at first and ­later ‘­Uncle Vasik.’ ”21 Symbolic or not, the assumption that c­ hildren of Muslim f­athers should take the ­father’s nationality was so strong that mixed individuals who chose other­wise faced social opprobrium. Bahriniso Abdurahmonova, born in 1953 in

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Leninabad (now Khujand), Tajikistan, has a complex ethnic background. Her ­father was Uzbek, while her m ­ other came from a mixed Uzbek-­Kyrgyz-­Tajik ­family. She felt strongly that she needed to maintain her f­ ather’s Uzbek nationality, even at a cost to her ­future ­career in the Tajik republic. “In the 1970s, when I had graduated from the institute, p­ eople suggested that I change my nationality and write that I am a Tajik. [They said] that I would move ahead and get offered higher positions. I d­ idn’t do this. You know, this is the nation of my f­ ather; I ­can’t betray it.”22 In cases of divorce or an absent f­ ather, the child might take the Rus­sian ­mother’s nationality, but not without some pangs of conscience. “Liudmila Davydova” (b. 1954), a w ­ idow born and raised in Kazakhstan, a­ dopted her ­mother’s Rus­sian nationality b­ ecause her Ingush f­ather was absent for most of her childhood. She recalled that she often encountered raised eyebrows when she revealed her name and nationality. Since her maiden name and patronymic w ­ ere obviously Ingush (or at least Muslim), p­ eople questioned her official registration as a Rus­sian.23 In less traditional families, pleasing the parents sometimes meant that siblings took dif­fer­ent official nationalities, ensuring that mom and dad each would have a child of their own nationality. The parents of Lesia Karatayeva, a mixed Russian-­K azakh ­woman, suggested that she register as Kazakh since her older ­brother Sasha had already registered as a Rus­sian. “This way,” she was told, “you ­children w ­ on’t offend e­ ither your m ­ other or your ­father.”24 “Aigerim Semenova” (b. 1952), a government official of mixed Kazakh-­Russian parentage, recalled a similar division of nationalities within the f­ amily: “When I got my passport, I declared myself a Kazakh. And my b­ rother, when he got his passport, wrote Rus­sian . . . ​he said, ‘It’s enough that my s­ ister . . . ​is a Kazakh.’ And Papa, he also d­ idn’t react to this in any way. He said, ‘Well, it’s your choice, what­ever you want.’ ”25 A few mixed c­ hildren, perhaps ­because of the nature of their relationship with their parents, ­were able to exercise freer choice when deciding on their nationality. Svetlana Vizer, born in the mid-1950s to a Tatar ­father and Rus­ sian m ­ other, almost unthinkingly declared herself a Rus­sian when she went at sixteen to obtain her passport. She had been raised in a Rus­sian cultural environment and could not imagine claiming a nationality with which she had no linguistic or cultural affinity. Her Tatar f­ ather was the one who had adapted himself to his wife’s Rus­sian ­family. “I was supposed to fill out some forms. And they said to me, ‘Your ­father’s Tatar and your ­mother’s Rus­sian. And which nationality are you ­going to take?’ I had scarcely arrived ­there, was filling something out and suddenly: which nationality are you taking? I said, ‘Well, Rus­ sian, I guess.’ ‘Are you r­ eally sure?’ I said, ‘Well, Rus­sian, of course!’ So they

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wrote down Rus­sian.” Her ­father, not at all the authoritarian type, g­ ently suggested that she might want to take his nationality, but he did not insist. He said, “Why did you choose Rus­sian?” I said, “Well, what ­else could I choose? think about it!” He said, “Maybe Tatar?” and I said, “What kind of Tatar am I? I ­don’t even know the language. Think about it! How can I be Tatar? And I d­ on’t know the customs.” At sixteen I already spoke so impertinently to my ­father. Of course, perhaps this is unacceptable, but it was permitted in our f­amily . . . ​and he said, “Yes, but maybe you’ll nevertheless reconsider and change your decision?” I asked my ­mother, “Mama, what do you think?” She said, “You do what you think best. If you believe y­ ou’re a Rus­sian, then y­ ou’re a Rus­sian. If you want to be a Tatar, then go ahead and write that ­you’re a Tatar.” And I said, “How can I write that, I already have it in all my documents. I filled out that form. And why ­didn’t we discuss this beforehand?” They somehow ­didn’t think about this, or ­else it was a sensitive question for them.26 Thus, Svetlana—­whose full name at the time was Svetlana Ahmetshakurovna Abdulghanieva—­remained officially Rus­sian, despite her Tatar patronymic and last name. She was one of the lucky few mixed ­children for whom subjective feelings of identity and passport nationality more or less coincided. Neither of her parents pushed her to take a par­tic­u­lar nationality, so she chose according to her own feelings. Yet she recalled that the failure of her name, nationality, and appearance to match occasionally caused confusion. “I was rarely identified immediately as a Tatar, although t­here are quite a few fair Tatars. Even now my hair is not that dark, but at seventeen it was completely blonde . . . ​and ­because of my last name they w ­ ere always looking for a dark-­eyed, dark-­haired girl. And then they would be surprised: ‘So that’s you, is it? Oh, all right.’ ”27 Along with the mandate to take the f­ ather’s nationality, mixed families took for granted that it was impor­tant for a person’s official nationality to somehow match up with external indicators such as name and phenotype. Ideally, one’s first and last names, patronymic, appearance, and nationality would all match. If a person “looked Asian,” for example, it would be odd for him or her to claim to be a Rus­sian. (This emphasis on matching name, nationality, and phenotype was one of the ways in which racial thinking manifested itself in the lives of mixed p­ eople.) Similarly, with a name, patronymic, and last name that ­were all Slavic it would be odd to claim Armenian or Kazakh nationality. Thus, Erzhan Baiburin (b. 1959), a Kazakh man married to a Rus­sian ­woman, pointed out that his ­daughters ­really had no choice but to register as Kazakhs; “You see, they have my last name. And Asian first names. It prob­ably w ­ ouldn’t 28 have made sense for them to do other­wise.”

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Elena Julchieva (b. 1947) had been married to a Kazakh man for forty-­five years at the time of our interview. She recalled that her ­daughter Gulnara, born when her parents ­were studying in Leningrad, wanted to register as Rus­sian at sixteen. But Elena dissuaded her, arguing that her triple-­barreled Kazakh name and Kazakh ­father made this a poor choice: “Well, I gave her a l­ ittle time to think about it, Then I said, ‘Honey, look: you’ll go to get your passport, and ­there it’s written—­Julchieva, Gulnara Ahmedova. So? Even though you ­were born in Leningrad, in any case we a­ ren’t ­going to live t­ here. Maybe you’ll get married and go away . . . ​to Rus­sia. But even so, look . . . ​somehow it ­doesn’t fit. Especially since your ­father’s a Kazakh.’ I said, ‘Think about it!’ So, in the end she wrote that she is a Kazakh.”29 Yet “looking Asian” and declaring an Asian nationality did not necessarily mean one identified with being Asian. “Nadia Kim,” a mixed Ukrainian-­Korean ­woman and Kazakhstan resident, considered herself more Ukrainian than Korean, having spent much of her childhood in Ukraine with her grand­mother. Yet she declared Korean nationality for her passport. According to her m ­ other, Nadia hesitated to call herself Ukrainian ­because of her physical appearance. “I know that Nadia said that she is Korean . . . ​­because Nadia said to me, ‘Mama, how can I write that I’m Ukrainian when I look like this? What kind of Ukrainian am I?’ When I told her, in princi­ple you can choose, she said, ‘Mama, are you kidding me, or what? How am I ­going to choose? How can I be Ukrainian when I look Korean?’ ”30 Pragmatic considerations also influenced the choice of official nationality. Mixed c­ hildren sometimes w ­ ere urged by their parents to avoid choosing a nationality that could potentially expose them to persecution (especially groups such as Germans, Koreans, Chechens, and Ingush that had faced Stalin-­era deportations). Susanna Morozova, a w ­ oman of mixed Ukrainian-­Armenian heritage, recalled that when she was a child in the 1970s, “It seemed to me then that nationality was impor­tant. It could even affect your ­whole f­ uture life . . . ​I had a German girlfriend, but she wrote that she was Rus­sian, a Korean girlfriend, from a mixed marriage, she also registered as a Rus­sian. Back then it was typical that if you had the possibility you would write that you ­were Rus­sian.”31 Ronald Suny has written of a “national hierarchization,” in which titular nationalities within their own republics and Rus­sians in the Soviet Union as a ­whole enjoyed special status. Nationalities outside their own republic or without a republic at all ­were lowest in the hierarchy.32 Although it was generally desirable to be a Rus­sian, respondents recalled that it was also beneficial to belong to the titular nationality since other groups might be disadvantaged in jobs or higher education. Thus, Aigerim Semenova identified with her ­father’s Kazakh nationality from an early age, despite having been born in Rus­sia.

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“When I got my passport, I wrote ‘Kazakh,’ ” she recalled. Her parents left the choice up to her. “But I always thought that I would live and work in Kazakhstan, so prob­ably, I need to be a Kazakh.”33 Fatima Satyboldinova (b. 1951), a Kazakh ­woman married to a Tatar, insisted that her ­children register as Kazakhs, violating the cardinal rule that Muslim c­ hildren should take their f­ ather’s nationality. “My husband, of course, wanted the c­ hildren to register as Tatars. But I insisted: let them be Kazakhs.” Asked why, she responded, “­Because ­after all we live in Kazakhstan. P ­ eople of other nationalities c­ an’t always accomplish what they want.”34 Jamila Rahimova and her siblings got similar advice from her Tajik ­father. “My dad said, ‘You live in Tajikistan. If you are thinking about your ­f uture, you need to be Tajiks.’ ”35 Worst off in the hierarchy of nationalities w ­ ere ­those who lacked a national republic of their own. “Kamal Ibrayev,” an ethnic Uyghur and lifelong resident of Kazakhstan, married a Rus­sian ­woman in 1973. He advised his ­children not to take his nationality b­ ecause Uyghurs lacked the status and advantages of a territorially based nationality. “I’m a Uyghur by nationality, I write myself down as Uyghur everywhere. My c­ hildren also are registered as Uyghurs. Why they did this, I d­ on’t know. Their ­mother is Rus­sian, and I told them ‘Register as Rus­sians,’ but they said no. I told them, ‘You have neither a homeland nor a flag.’ ”36 In this case, the imperative to take the f­ ather’s nationality conflicted with what might have made the most sense from a practical point of view. ­Because nationality was so often chosen on the basis of external criteria—­ parents’ preferences, belief in the patrilineal f­amily structure, external appearance, name, or pragmatic considerations—­there was frequently a lack of correspondence between official nationality and subjective identification. In many cases, mixed ­children felt ­little affinity with the nationality of their Central Asian or Muslim f­ athers. The fact that in mixed Russian-­Central Asian families it was often the Rus­sian ­mothers—­and sometimes grand­mothers—­who spent the most time with their ­children, speaking Rus­sian to them and telling them Rus­ sian fairy tales and nursery rhymes, also heightened the contrast with the ­father’s “official” nationality. Timur Sergazinov (b. 1976), son of a Kazakh ­father and Rus­sian m ­ other, officially registered as Kazakh at sixteen. Nevertheless, he and his three ­sisters always identified more with the maternal side of his ­family heritage. “We all, since we are Russian-­speaking, our internal cultural specificity was formed by that. . . . ​ We still feel more like Rus­sians, no ­matter what.”37 Tatiana Soliboyeva (b. 1953), a Rus­sian ­woman married to a Tajik in Tajikistan, noted that her ­children ­were officially registered as Tajiks. “Yet the only ­thing Tajik about them is that we had [the boys] circumcised, and gave them national [Tajik] names, and the fact that their ­father is a Tajik. Other­wise, every­thing about them is Rus­sian.”38

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For some offspring of interethnic marriages, ­these prob­lems went beyond a mismatch between official nationality and subjective identity to an a­ ctual feeling of alienation from one parent’s culture. Liudmila Davydova was uncomfortable when her ­family visited the North Caucasus: “Oh, you know, we lived ­there half a year, and I d­ idn’t like it t­ here.” Her relatives accepted her immediately as one of their own, but “They tried to compel me, by force, to love their nation and recognize all of their traditions.” Her ­father’s relatives apparently assumed that her Ingush blood would automatically translate into an affinity for all ­things Ingush, even though she had had ­little exposure to her ­father’s culture while growing up in Kazakhstan.39 Susanna Morozova (b. 1973), half Armenian and half Ukrainian, de­cided early in life that she did not want to marry a man from the Caucasus, despite her love for her gentle, witty Armenian ­father. She freely admits that she was afraid of such men, who would sometimes approach her ­because of her Armenian appearance. “In general, I was always certain that I would marry a Rus­sian man. I d­ idn’t want to marry a Caucasian, a representative of a Caucasus nationality, I was actually kind of afraid of them. Even though my own ­father was an Armenian, if I saw a man of Caucasian nationality on the street, I would cross to the other side. They would even yell something at me in their own language. I was terribly afraid and would try to avoid them. I wanted to be married to a Rus­sian.”40 Susanna’s vivid account of being “terribly afraid” and “crossing to the other side of the street” when she saw a man of her f­ ather’s Armenian background might be an extreme case of alienation from one’s official nationality, yet ­these sorts of sentiments w ­ ere not uncommon. A mismatch between subjective identity and official nationality was a common experience for the offspring of mixed marriages, as was an inability to relate to one’s official nationality. What was the impact of t­ hese experiences on the lives of ethnically mixed p­ eople in Soviet Central Asia?

Feeling Marginal in Soviet Central Asia A closer look at the lives of two ethnically mixed w ­ omen in Kazakhstan may help us to answer this question. One of them, “Aliya,” had trou­ble defining a useable identity at all, while the other, “Maria,” suffered from a lack of external validation for the nationality with which she most identified. “Aliya Ahmetova” was born in Kazakhstan in 1958 to a mixed Kazakh-­Tatar ­couple and ­later married a Rus­sian man. For Aliya, growing up ethnically mixed was a negative experience. She had trou­ble finding her place in the world and explic­itly blames

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her prob­lems on a lack of a clear ethnic identity. The common multiethnic experiences of “falling outside dominant racialized categories” and “being profoundly and hurtfully misrecognized by o ­ thers” echo through Aliya’s life history.41 Aliya’s m ­ other was a Russified Tatar originally from the Volga region, whose parents had suffered in the Stalinist repressions of the 1930s. In the late 1950s, while studying in Moscow, Aliya’s m ­ other found herself ­under investigation by the KGB as a child of enemies of the p­ eople. She fled to Kazakhstan, believing that she could hide among the masses of p­ eople moving t­ here as part of the virgin lands movement. In the village where she settled, she became a teacher at the local school. Eventually she married a Kazakh village boy, five years younger, who had been her pupil. Aliya, one of two d­ aughters, was born in a village in the Karaganda oblast and spent her early childhood living with her Kazakh grand­mother. Aliya’s views of ethnicity and identity w ­ ere ­shaped by her childhood experiences and the troubled relationship between her parents. Early on, she developed negative feelings about the Kazakh part of her background. Having spent her early childhood in a Kazakh village, she did not speak any Rus­sian when she began attending first grade at a Russian-­language school. The other ­children mocked her for speaking Rus­sian with a Kazakh accent, giving rise, she said, to a lifelong dislike of all t­ hings Kazakh.42 She was also influenced by the be­hav­ior of her ­mother, who considered Tatars superior to Kazakhs and often denigrated her husband in front of their two ­daughters. “I remember, in general, that she was very . . . ​very condescending. . . . ​She came, like a ray of light, projector of enlightenment, and picked up this ­little Kazakh boy . . . ​raised him, washed him, put him in clean clothes. I remember in my childhood, that’s how she talked about him to her girlfriends . . . ​cleaned him up, taught him, set him on his feet. . . . ​It was as if she created him as a person, as though she considered the Kazakhs to be an unworthy nation.”43 Aliya believes that her ­mother’s dismissive attitude ­toward Kazakhs poisoned the marriage and affected the ­children’s views of Kazakhs. The marriage was precarious, and the ­couple lived separately for a time; they would have divorced w ­ ere it not for pressure from party officials to stay together. Aliya’s ­mother was a Communist Party member who held responsible positions and was expected to set a good example. “One fine day,” Aliya recalled, “she was called in by the party and they said, ­either give up your party card and get divorced, or get back together with your husband and live as a ­family.” Aliya noted that the Communist Party did not approve of divorce among party members in general, but it was considered particularly bad form for mixed

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c­ ouples. “They w ­ ere forming the Soviet person and, of course, let’s just say they ­were prob­ably not indifferent to ­whether a mixed ­couple stayed together or not.” Aliya’s alienation from her f­ ather’s nationality strained her social life as she grew older. Her ­mother, despite her disdain for Kazakhs and poor relationship with her husband, had raised her to believe that Muslims always take their ­father’s identity, so Aliya registered as a Kazakh in her Soviet passport at sixteen. As she recalled, “This w ­ asn’t even discussed in our ­family, who I want to be, a Tatar, or a Kazakh.” Yet her official nationality did not correspond to her internal feelings. What made someone a real Kazakh? For Aliya, it meant familiarity with certain behavioral norms, ways of socializing with ­people, knowledge of certain traditions, and for girls especially, the ability to offer Kazakh-­style hospitality and food at social gatherings. She had not learned any of this in her ­family, which was exclusively Soviet and communist and did not celebrate Muslim holidays. “­People expect certain be­hav­ior from a Kazakh girl. Then this expectation is not justified. And the other person ­either loses interest or becomes aggressive.” Aliya saw being Kazakh as a kind of per­for­mance, an external demonstration of traits and be­hav­iors intrinsically belonging to a certain ethnic group. “A certain nationality, ­after all, has certain characteristics. We somehow determine, ‘­You’re a Kazakh, y­ ou’re Rus­sian, ­you’re a Greek, ­you’re German,’ and so on. . . . ​This is connected specifically with your individual culture, how you pre­sent yourself, how you identify yourself to the surrounding world. And if you ­can’t distinguish yourself from other nationalities, how w ­ ill other ­people do so?”44 Culturally Rus­sian, Aliya did not identify with being ­either Kazakh or Tatar, yet could not claim Rus­sian identity ­because of her “Asian” descent and looks. She met and married her husband “Igor,” an ethnic Rus­sian who was born and raised in Almaty, in 1981, soon a­ fter graduating from an institute in Moscow and being sent to work in Almaty. Aliya’s m ­ other was opposed to the match, reminding Aliya that she herself had been unhappily married across ethnic lines. She urged Aliya to think seriously before making the same ­mistake. Aliya responded by pointing out her own dilemma as a mixed person; no ­matter whom she married, she would be entering a mixed marriage. “Who should I marry, Mom? I’m not a Kazakh, not a Rus­sian . . . ​then who?” Unfortunately, Aliya’s marriage to a Rus­sian did not solve her identity prob­lems. On the contrary, she had chosen a man who was prejudiced against Kazakhs and referred to them routinely in derogatory terms. Despite her alienation from all ­things Kazakh, Aliya was offended by his attitude. Convinced that she had suffered b­ ecause of her ambiguous identity, Aliya was determined to make sure that her d­ aughter “Nina” (b. 1981) avoided such

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prob­lems. Though divorced and without contact with her former husband and his relatives, Aliya tried to forestall identity confusion in her ­daughter—­a mixture of Tatar, Kazakh, and Rus­sian backgrounds—by instilling in her an exclusive sense of Rus­sian nationality. This, however, created distance between her ­daughter and Aliya’s Tatar and Kazakh relatives—­the only ­people who might have formed an extended ­family for the girl. Aliya recalled that her ­daughter would introduce herself to ­people by saying, “I’m ‘Nina.’ I’m Rus­ sian.”45 Not surprisingly, given her insistence on her Rus­sian identity, young Nina grew up not particularly close to her ­mother’s side of the ­family. Moreover, like her ­mother, Nina developed a negative attitude ­toward her Kazakh heritage. In raising her ­daughter solely as a Russian—­without actually being Rus­sian herself—­Aliya was encouraging her ­daughter to repeat her own experience of being unable to perform the national culture that was supposedly her birthright. Her ­daughter, Aliya de­cided, would have no such confusion about her nationality. For Aliya, her own lack of a clear national identity was due to her mixed blood, not to other aspects of her background that might have played a role (for example, her ­mother’s early loss of her parents—­and with them her Tatar identity—­because of Stalinist repression). In line with the increasingly primordial views in Soviet discourse of the time, Aliya regarded nationality as something singular, essential, and inherent in the individual. If Aliya’s story shows the difficulties facing a mixed person who strug­gles with the lack of a clearly defined nationality, “Maria’s” story shows the difficulty of having a subjective identity that is not externally validated. “Maria Iskanderova” (b. 1960), half Azerbaijani and half Rus­sian, did not identify with her Azerbaijani side despite having had a warm relationship with her ­father. She grew up in northern Kazakhstan, speaking Rus­sian and identifying with Rus­sian culture. As she says, “I’m Rus­sian. I simply ­don’t know anything e­ lse.” Her ­father’s attempts to acquaint her with the Azerbaijani language and culture through half-­hearted language lessons and visits to relatives in his home republic ­were not very successful. She read some works of Azerbaijani lit­er­a­ture— in Rus­sian translation—­but found them uninspiring. Her f­amily even lived in Azerbaijan for a year during her childhood, but neither she nor her Rus­sian ­mother felt comfortable ­there. “­There is an absolutely dif­fer­ent culture ­there, and if ­you’re not used to it, it’s hard. For me, too. You know, Oriental ­music, on the one hand, it’s in­ter­est­ing, curious, but, on the other hand, it’s alien to me and quickly becomes tedious. ­There is nothing familiar, and you begin to get bored.”46 Yet Maria resembled her ­father physically, and she bore his patronymic and last name. This discrepancy between external markers of nationality and her subjective feelings of identity brought unwelcome comments from strangers.

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“I r­ eally got sick of the attention that was always directed t­ oward me in par­ tic­ul­ar. I look like my ­father. I ­don’t resemble my ­mother at all. And so every­ body would go: ‘Oh! Is that your mom? Oh! But you d­ on’t look like a Rus­sian! And who’s your f­ ather? And how? And what?’ and so forth [laughs]. Somehow ­these questions ­were not very pleasant.” In addition to facing intrusive questions, Maria encountered the assumption, based on her name and appearance, that she would speak broken or accented Rus­sian: “My ­brother had it easier. He looked like both our dad and our mom. He’s a ­little dark, of course, but he has blue eyes. And he looked more like a Rus­sian. The only t­ hing was, he had black hair. But t­ here are some Rus­sians like that. So p­ eople ­didn’t react to him with the same curiosity as they did to me . . . ​like, I would start speaking and ‘Oh! You speak without an accent! What nationality are you?’ [laughs] Well, for goodness sake, why should I speak with an accent?” Maria’s childhood experiences—­the unwelcome attention, the awkward questions—­are familiar aspects of the life histories of mixed-­r ace p­ eople in other contexts. The hurtful misrecognition of Maria as a non-­Russian-­speaking foreigner is reminiscent of t­ hose second or third generation Asian-­Americans who are told, with surprise, that they speak En­glish very well. Maria noted resignedly that she could never have declared her nationality to be Rus­sian, despite her internal conviction that this was her true identity, because it would have made her a laughing stock: “I had thought about this and de­cided that registering Rus­sian nationality in my passport, with my external appearance, would be ridicu­lous. Who would believe it? ‘Is this a joke?’ ”47 Why would it have been ridicu­lous or a joke for Maria to declare herself a Rus­sian? True, she had an Azerbaijani patronymic and last name, and she looked more Azerbaijani than Rus­sian. Yet Maria’s use of such strong words suggests a power­ful emotion b­ ehind her statements. A ­ fter all, she was half Rus­ sian, and within the Soviet nationality system entitled to claim Rus­sian identity. Her fear of ridicule suggests that she did not feel entitled, despite her maternal blood, to claim Rus­sian identity—­a prize that ­others would see as not rightfully belonging to her. A common trope in early twentieth-­century Western lit­er­a­ture on racially mixed p­ eople suggested that they had a strong desire to mimic Eu­ro­pe­ans and attempt to “pass” for white. In the interwar period, the American writer Gertrude Marvin Williams wrote disdainfully about the mixed-­ blood Anglo-­ Indians in South Asia, who wore Eu­ro­pean clothes, preferred to socialize with British p­ eople, and would “speak of ­England as ‘home’ though they may never have been t­here.” She, like many o ­ thers, found it absurd and pathetic that ­people of mixed heritage would try to “pass themselves off ” as white.48 In the Soviet Union, ­there was no one-­drop rule or expectation that only someone of

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“pure” ancestry could claim Rus­sian identity. In fact, this had been far from the case in multiethnic imperial Rus­sia, where ­people of many backgrounds had come together to make the Rus­sian nation. A well-­known ditty emphasized the conglomerate, hybrid nature of the Rus­sian ­people. “Papa turok, Mama grek—­a ia russkii chelovek” (Papa is a Turk, Mama is a Greek—­and I’m a Rus­ sian).49 Yet Maria’s experience suggests that Rus­sianness, too, had come to be associated with a certain phenotype and descent. In the racialized socie­ties of the West, studies have shown that mixed ­people are influenced, in their feelings of identity, by their perceptions of how o ­ thers see them.50 In Kazakhstan, similarly, Maria found it difficult to claim an identity that was not validated by society. Recalling a film she had once seen about a Black man who had been raised in Rus­sia, she eloquently expressed the discomfort of mixed individuals whose name and external appearance do not match their cultural affinities. Maria strongly identified with this man and his dilemma—­that the Rus­sian culture with which he identified would not accept him as one of its own. “I remember I felt something so familiar, I had a feeling like ‘My God! How difficult for him to live!’ . . . ​How I understood him. How must it be for him? That is, he belongs to this culture and d­ oesn’t know any other, and yet p­ eople expect that he’s ­going to pull a banana out of his pocket, start to peel it, and bang on a tambourine.51 This vivid image shows the extent to which national culture in the late Soviet Union had come to be seen as something innate. In the land where Alexander Pushkin, one-­eighth African, is hailed as the greatest national poet, Maria believed that a Rus­sian of African descent would be viewed by his compatriots through the lens of the most heinous of ste­reo­types. (In fact, several of my respondents described Africans as occupying the bottom rung of the global racial hierarchy, showing how common such views w ­ ere in the late USSR despite the official discourse of anti-­racism).52 In this worldview, an individual’s cultural identity was no longer malleable, learned, or even a ­matter of choice, as Soviet scholars and officials had insisted it was in the 1920s and 1930s.

Transcending Nationality: Soviet and Métis Identities The Soviet nationality system, designed to match each Soviet citizen up with a nationality and corresponding language and territory, was problematic for mixed ­people in the Soviet Union. As we have seen, identifying with multiple nationalities or with none at all ­were not realistic options. Yet not all mixed ­people suffered from the confusion and frustration described by “Aliya” and

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“Maria.” In an effort to avoid being forced into a single identity box, some offspring of mixed ­couples reached for a supra-­ethnic identity that would transcend nationality. For many of them, what felt most natu­ral and au­then­tic was to claim a Soviet identity. In the Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras, Soviet officialdom predicted with new conviction and urgency the emergence of a single Soviet ­people.53 Yet Soviet citizens ­were not allowed to name “Soviet” as their nationality on identity documents or the census. Nevertheless, many members of mixed families in Tajikistan and Kazakhstan report that they strongly identified with the Soviet ­people and fervently believed in the concept of the friendship of ­peoples. For mixed p­ eople, identifying as Soviet placed them in the po­liti­cal and social vanguard; instead of being marginal, incomplete h ­ uman beings lacking a nationality, they ­were special. Svetlana Vizer declared herself to be Rus­sian at age sixteen in defiance of convention, but she would have preferred another choice. “Though I was only sixteen, I thought to myself, well, if only ­there ­were a nationality called ‘Soviet.’ No, ­really, I ­didn’t have such a firm identification, so as to say that I was a Rus­sian, raised in Rus­sian culture.”54 Liudmila Davydova agreed that if it had been pos­si­ble to write “Soviet” in one’s passport, she and many ­others would have done so.55 Susanna Morozova did not grow up speaking Armenian and felt l­ittle connection to that nation: “No, of course, I ­don’t feel like an Armenian; ­there is nothing Armenian in me except perhaps in my external appearance. I r­ eally feel like a ‘Soviet person.’ ”56 Lesia Karatayeva declared of her Kazakh f­ ather and Rus­sian ­mother: “I ­wouldn’t call it a mixed marriage. They ­were both Soviet ­people.”57 Of course, it was not only mixed ­people who identified with being Soviet. A supra-­ethnic identification with the Soviet state was something widely diffused among certain segments of Soviet society, particularly among ­those who ­were urban and highly educated. Yet mixed ­people could be forgiven for having the impression that they, above ­others, ­were truly, uniquely Soviet ­people. Jamila Rahimova recalls having felt this way in her youth. “I ­really felt that I am a Soviet person, from a marriage of a Tajik with a Russian—­for me, that was a Soviet person. Truly Soviet, this was r­ eally the embodiment of Soviet.”58 Rustam Iskandarov (b. 1955), also the product of a Tajik-­Russian marriage, said, “No, absolutely not,” when asked if he ever felt out of place as a mixed person. He explained, “You know, in Soviet days ­there was a tendency to say that a new community was appearing, the “Soviet person.” He elaborated, “Every­thing, the socio-­economic conditions, the ideology ­were in a certain sense directed ­toward forming this kind of person, for whom nationality was not impor­tant. The main t­ hing was devotion to the country, to the state. . . . ​ Every­thing was ­really directed ­toward forming the kind of person who ­didn’t

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say, I’m Tajik or Uzbek and so forth. He was simply a citizen of the Soviet Union.”59 Dilbar Khojayeva (b. 1961) also understood, growing up in Tajikistan with both Tajik and Tatar ancestry, that a mixed person was the quin­tes­sen­tial Soviet person. At school, a teacher singled her out in class ­because of her mixed heritage. At the time, they w ­ ere learning about the ethnos in scientific communism class. “And suddenly,” Dilbar recalled, the instructor declared, “ ‘Dilbar Khojayeva is a representative of the Soviet ­people!’ I stood up—we had ­these mass lectures, and our instructor was named Svetlana Litvinova. She said, ‘Our Dilbar is a representative of the Soviet ­people.’ ”60 ­There is no way of knowing what percentage of the population would have chosen Soviet for their census or passport nationality had they been given the option.61 We might get a sense of this by looking at Yugo­slavia, where it was pos­si­ble to select Yugo­slav as one’s nationality in the censuses of 1961, 1971, and 1981. Only a small percentage of the population selected this option, ranging from 1.7 ­percent in 1960 to 5.4 ­percent in 1981. Yet t­ hose who did so w ­ ere concentrated in certain parts of the population: c­ hildren of mixed marriages, younger ­people, urban residents, Communist Party members, and members of minority nationalities within each republic.62 In the Soviet Union, it may have been more difficult than in Yugo­slavia to separate a supra-­ethnic identity from that of the dominant nation. As some scholars have pointed out, “Soviet” identity overlapped considerably with Rus­sianness, in that ­those who identified strongly with being Soviet also tended to be attached to a common Rus­sian language along with its lit­er­a­ture, historical traditions, and popu­lar culture.63 In the Brezhnev era, scholars and party officials placed an increasing emphasis on the spread of Rus­sian language knowledge as evidence that a common Soviet culture was emerging. Particularly for members of mixed families who did not belong to either the titular nationality or the Rus­sian nation, claiming Soviet identity was a way of being Rus­sian when an ethnic Rus­sian background was lacking. The conflation of Soviet and Rus­sian frequently emerges in interviews with mixed respondents in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. In the words of Irina Klimenko (b. 1981), a mixed Russian-­Armenian ­woman raised in southern Kazakhstan, “In my childhood . . . ​I never thought about who was from which nation—­for me every­one was the same . . . ​I had the feeling that every­body was Rus­sian. I ­don’t know why . . . ​though, when I think about it, what kind of Rus­sians w ­ ere they ­really? This one was a Kazakh, the other a Tatar! And yet it seemed that they w ­ ere all Rus­sians!”64 ­These “Russians”—­who ­were actually Kazakhs and Tatars—­were Russian-­ speaking p­ eople who all participated in a common Soviet culture. Rustam Is-

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kandarov saw the same kind of Rus­sian world within the circles of his acquaintance in Tajikistan: “It was a completely dif­fer­ent time. Back then, Tajikistan was completely Russified. . . . ​­There was the Rus­sian school, number four, you may know it. It was considered the best school in the city, so we automatically went t­ here . . . ​In our apartment building t­ here was a mixture. . . . ​ Where we lived, ­there was a majority of Rus­sians. Rus­sians and Jews ­were ­there, and some Tajiks. But ­those Tajiks ­were Russified. They also spoke Rus­ sian, so we ­didn’t have any prob­lems with them.”65 Tajikistan as a ­whole was not completely Russified, of course, but the circles within which Rustam moved may well have been. When mixed offspring—­ like Rustam—­officially took the nationality of their non-­Russian ­father, as we have seen, they nevertheless often identified more strongly with the m ­ other’s culture. Even ­those without a Rus­sian parent and therefore with no possibility of officially claiming Rus­sian identity could feel the pull of Rus­sianness. Ilhom Boboyev (b. 1957), a Tajik man married to a Tatar w ­ oman, recalled that their f­ amily culture was neither Tatar nor Tajik, but Soviet. But, he explained, “ ‘Soviet’ ­really meant ‘Rus­sian.’ ” “Soviet culture could not be based on anything other than Rus­sian culture,” he said, since “the land of the Soviets was a Rus­sian land.”66 In Kazakhstan, a mixed Armenian-­Ukrainian or Korean-­German ­family almost always spoke Rus­sian at home. Susanna, a mixed Armenian-­Ukrainian respondent from Kazakhstan, at one point in her childhood told her m ­ other that she felt Rus­sian: “And she said, ‘how can you possibly be Rus­sian?’ I told her, well, I speak perfect Rus­sian; I got an ‘A’ in Rus­sian class [laughs]. And she said, ‘No, honey, you have to know your roots, where ­you’re from.’ ” P ­ eople like Susanna understood Rus­sianness as arising out of language and culture, not ethnicity. In Susanna’s words: “I felt like a Rus­sian, I wanted to be Rus­sian . . . ​ ­because I loved Rus­sian lit­er­at­ ure, and felt a close connection above all to Rus­ sian culture.” She went on, “Although I lived in Kazakhstan and was content with this, I felt that Moscow was my own capital, that Rus­sians are my own ­people. And by ‘Rus­sians,’ I meant every­body who spoke Rus­sian . . . ​not ­those who have Rus­sian roots and are blond-­haired and blue-­eyed, but specifically ­those who speak the same language as I do. They are all Rus­sians for me.”67 Yet it was not pos­si­ble for Susanna to make the leap from belonging to a Russian-­speaking Soviet community to claiming a Rus­sian nationality. If even half-­Russian Maria Iskanderova felt uncomfortable claiming Rus­sian identity, how could someone without a Rus­sian parent claim to be Rus­sian? Susanna continued: “I simply c­ an’t bring myself to call myself Rus­sian. I am Rus­sian speaking, that’s how I identify myself. I am a Rus­sian speaking métisse . . . ​I ­don’t feel in myself any one nationality, any strongly expressed nationality.”68

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Susanna, like Maria, perceived being Rus­sian as a ­matter of descent or “blood” and not something she was entitled to claim. For t­ hose seeking to escape the tyranny of Soviet nationality classification, attempts to transcend nationality by claiming a Soviet identity ­were just one way of solving the identity prob­lem. A few mixed ­people sought another way out of the nationality trap by claiming and taking pride in an embryonic “mixed” identity. Susanna was one of t­ hose who reveled in a diverse background: “In my childhood I perceived myself as a trilingual, trinational girl. I  ­really liked this b­ ecause I was the only one. Armenian, Ukrainian, and Russian—­and at the same time living in Kazakhstan!”69 ­Those whose backgrounds combined Central Asian and Eu­ro­pean nationalities argued that they had greater personal freedom than ­those who ­were purely Central Asian. This was particularly true for mixed w ­ omen, who ­were less subject to the restrictions of a patriarchal society. Nargiza Nazarova (b. 1979), an ethnically mixed ­woman from Tajikistan, shared this attitude. “I think I found it to be an advantage. I stood out, I’m mixed, I liked it.” With her mixture of Uzbek, Tatar, Tajik, and Rus­sian ancestry, she thinks that she felt positive about being mixed “maybe b­ ecause I had more freedom.”70 She recalled that her ­mother encouraged her to go out with boys and find her own husband. Purely Tajik girls, by contrast, w ­ ere expected to stay home and let their parents do the matchmaking; ­going out with young men was unacceptable be­hav­ior. Rustam Iskandarov stressed the relative freedom of mixed p­ eople to choose their marriage partner: While traditional Tajiks, he noted, had to abide by the wishes of their relatives and ­were often expected to marry within their clan, sometimes even a close relative, “We had more freedom. ­People like me, they ­were freer in the choice of their life partner. We ­didn’t have such strict limitations.” He explained, “In our case, maybe it was partly that we always spoke Rus­sian at home in the ­family, had Rus­sian culture, and so on.” Also, his appearance was not very Tajik, “and that’s why t­ here ­wasn’t any pressure on me to marry one of our own.”71 Another advantage to being mixed was the opportunity to act as a bridge between dif­fer­ent ethnic communities. Some respondents maintained that mixed ­people ­were more tolerant, less nationalistic, and more understanding of dif­fer­ent points of view. Dilbar Khojayeva’s comment was typical: “When they insult Tajiks, I’m for Tajiks. When they say something about Rus­sians, I can speak up for the Rus­sians.”72 Yet this feeling of in-­betweenness could be perceived in a negative way as well. T ­ here w ­ ere ­those who saw mainly disadvantages in being mixed: prejudice from pure-­bloods and a feeling of not belonging anywhere. Jamila Rahimova said, “You d­ on’t feel like a Tajik among

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Tajiks, and you ­don’t feel like a Rus­sian when y­ ou’re among Rus­sians.”73 Ra’no Nazarova (b. 1956) recalled, “According to my passport, I’m a Tajik. But I always felt like a métisse, ­because among Tajiks I felt like a Rus­sian, and among Rus­sians like a Tajik.”74 Liudmila Davydova joked that a mixed person is a “traitor” to both sides. “I can laugh at Rus­sians. It’s forgivable for me—my ­mother is Rus­sian, and I lived for many years among Rus­sians. But when other nationalities start to insult them, I stand up for them. B ­ ecause I also know that they have positive qualities. The same with p­ eople from the Caucasus. . . . ​We make fun, and sometimes we tell jokes. But when ­people start saying ­really bad ­things, I also start sticking up for them. Once someone said to me: ­people like you, half-­bloods, should be killed—­you’re traitors! [laughs].”75 The double-­edged sword of multiple belonging described by respondents in Central Asia would be familiar to mixed-­race and ethnically mixed ­people everywhere. Some enjoy the ability to move and forth between two cultures, while ­others lament that they are not full members of the ethnic communities of ­either of their parents. Interviews with biracial ­people in the United States and the United Kingdom reveal a similar ambivalence. Like their counter­ parts in Soviet Central Asia, they may not feel fully accepted by e­ ither of their parents’ ethnic communities. As a US w ­ oman of Korean-­Scottish ancestry said, “I feel that both sides of the f­amily seem to regard me as a member of the opposite race.’ ” One scholar has referred to this as the “dual silencing” of racially and ethnically mixed ­people.76 A particularly painful aspect of social rejection in Central Asia was the difficulty some mixed ­people experienced in finding a marriage partner. Especially in Tajikistan, where “ethnic purity” was prized (which is rather ironic, since prior to the Soviet creation of national republics in 1925 the idea of a Tajik was not well defined), some “pure-­blooded” Tajiks did not want their ­children to marry an individual of mixed background.77 Ra’no Nazarova experienced this rejection personally: “I remember once I was ­going out with a Tajik guy, we liked each other, and he wanted to marry me, but his m ­ other was categorically opposed. She said, ’I ­will never agree to your marrying her.’ And I told him, ‘Then go find yourself a Tajik girl.’ A ­ fter that, I understood that I have to find someone like me, someone mixed.”78 As a result of such prejudice, and also in the hope of finding a life partner with similar life experiences and worldview, some mixed p­ eople in Soviet Central Asia de­cided to seek other mixed ­people as marriage partners. Larisa Mamadzohirova (b. 1958), half Rus­sian, half Tajik, recalled that her ­future husband wooed her precisely ­because he was also mixed—in his case, half Tatar, half Tajik.

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We met when we both worked for the Torgmash factory. He learned that I was mixed and started courting me. B ­ ecause I ­didn’t look like a mixed girl, every­one thought that I was Rus­sian. When he found out that I am an Usmanova [a Tajik surname], that’s when he started trying to date me. You know, my name is Larisa and every­one thought that I was Rus­sian. My ­sister and I, somehow it turned out that we ­don’t look like our ­father’s side and so every­one thought that we ­were Russian—­ even though in our passports we are both Tajiks.79 ­ ere we return to the question posed by Sazhida Dmitrieva at the beginH ning of this chapter. Did mixed ­children pay the price for their parents’ decision to marry across ethnic lines? Sazhida is not the only respondent to think so. Lola Tuychiboyeva (b. 1964), d­ aughter of a Tajik-­Russian c­ ouple, believes her parents erred in marrying across ethnic lines: I somehow d­ idn’t approve of this marriage [laughs]. It’s not my business, but look, I’m not purely Tajik and not Rus­sian. It was unpleasant for me that I was mixed. I was always, as they say, a “bulldog mixed with a rhinoceros” [laughs]. Even when I have a conflict with my husband, it’s, ‘Well, you ­don’t understand, ­you’re a bulldog with a rhinoceros, ­you’re not Tajik and not Rus­sian.’ Well, ­today I have reconciled myself to this but in my youth . . . ​I felt that it was better to be ­either Rus­sian or Tajik.80 Similarly, Aliya Ahmetova is “categorically against interethnic marriage.” She has concluded that “ethnically mixed marriage, in and of itself, is very destructive, ­because you have two energies, two positive energies, and they collide, and they necessarily destroy something.”81 Even Susanna Morozova, who spoke of her childhood pride in being a “trinational girl,” thinks mixed marriage is problematic. For a small child, Susanna argued, having a mixed background can be enriching. “But when [the child] leaves the h ­ ouse and goes to preschool, school, h ­ e’ll have to decide the question ‘who is he’? Who is he by nationality? Who is he by religion? Then h ­ e’ll start to have prob­lems.” Susanna herself has long strug­gled to define her identity. “Up u ­ ntil now I’ve been suffering and asking myself, ‘Who am I r­ eally? Armenian or Ukrainian? Rus­sian or Kazakh?’ ”82 Jean Toomer, a mixed-­race US author often identified with the Harlem Re­nais­ sance, was known for his vocal rejection of racial categories; he frequently spoke about the rise of a new race in the United States and called himself an “American, neither White nor Black.” Yet scholars have shown that the author

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was conflicted about his identity and for much of his life sought to pass as white. Despite his rejection of the binary racial categories of the segregated United States, Toomer found that it was impossible in practice to be just an American, neither white nor Black.83 Unlike the United States, the Soviet state was generally supportive of ethnic mixing and intermarriage. Yet mixed ­people in the USSR still found it difficult to be simply Soviet, not belonging to any par­tic­u­lar nationality. Nationality categories ­were deeply entrenched and became more so as time went on. The idea that e­ very Soviet citizen had to have a single national identity went unchallenged. The “Soviet p­ eople,” whose imminent appearance was discussed so extensively on a theoretical level and believed in by many ordinary Soviet citizens, was not available as an official identity category. Oral history evidence suggests that mixed ­people in the Soviet Union faced many of the same challenges as their counter­parts in other parts of the world. Like multiracial and multiethnic p­ eople everywhere, they enjoyed “multiple allegiances and identities,” yet they ­were constrained by the need to choose one “official” nationality, as well as by the deep-­rooted emphasis on the importance of nationality within the Soviet system. Falling outside or between accepted identity categories, Soviet offspring of mixed marriages w ­ ere not always sure how to define themselves. Studies of mixed p­ eople in the United States have shown that they, like their Soviet counter­parts described in this chapter, have tried vari­ous ways of solving their identity dilemmas. Some identify with the race of just one of the parents; some claim a hybrid identity, belonging to neither race, or both; some claim a supra-­racial or “transcendent” identity, refusing to accept any sort of racial designation.84 Intermarried and mixed ­people had a g­ reat deal to lose from the failure to create a meaningful Soviet identity since they identified most closely with the USSR and ­were less attached—­almost by definition—­than other Soviet citizens to a single national identity. In some cases, mixed ­people would have liked to identify as Rus­sian ­because of their attachment to the Rus­sian language and culture, even if they ­were not Rus­sian by blood. Yet Rus­sian, like other nationalities, had become an ethnic or descent-­based category; only t­ hose with at least one officially Rus­sian parent could claim Rus­sian identity on their passports, and even they did not always feel comfortable d­ oing so. Even if nationality had not become race, Soviet thinking about nationality had become racialized.

C h a p te r 6

Naming Mixed C ­ hildren

When Rustam Iskandarov’s son was born in 1984, Rustam, a man of mixed Tajik and Rus­sian descent living in Tajikistan, thought carefully about what to name him. It was impor­tant that the child’s first name match the other parts of his name, Rustam explained. A Rus­sian first name would not go well with a Tajik patronymic and surname, and the wrong first name could cause lifelong social prob­lems for the boy. Ultimately, Rustam and his wife (a ­woman of mixed Tajik-­Tatar descent) chose the name Timur for their son. Rustam explained their reasoning: My main concern was to make sure that he would have an easier life. ­Because, for example, his patronymic is Rustamovich, and his last name is Iskandarov. All right, let’s say I ­were to give him the name Vasilii, for instance, how does Vasilii Rustamovich sound?1 That’s why I picked a neutral name like Timur. Timur is a common name ­here and in Rus­sia. So, Timur Rustamovich is a synthesis and a more agreeable combination.2 Rustam’s story illustrates the challenges faced by ethnically mixed c­ ouples in Soviet Central Asia as they chose names for their c­ hildren. In e­ very society, personal names signal individual identity and reflect community values, while also serving as “power­f ul determinants of inclusion and exclusion.”3 In multiethnic socie­ties, a first name can be an impor­tant signal of the f­ uture identity and community the parents envision for their child. Bestowing a name, 14 0

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moreover, is a low-­cost yet clear way of declaring one’s desired ethnic affiliation. Unlike acquiring a new language or adopting new customs, which require a certain investment of time and energy, naming is easy and ­free.4 For mixed families, however, this decision was far from clear cut; should the child have a name from the ­mother’s culture or the ­father’s? From both or from neither? What if the parents themselves ­were ethnically mixed, as in Rustam’s case? Among mixed families in Central Asia, ­whether a child was given a Turkic or Persian name, a Muslim name of Arabic origin, a Rus­sian name, or some other sort of name revealed something of the parents’ preferences and allegiances. Yet mixed families ­were signaling more than just ethnic and religious identity in the names they chose for their ­children. In this chapter, I investigate the pro­cess of choosing names for ­children in Soviet-­era mixed families, in order to gain insight into the motivations for bestowing par­tic­u­lar names and the experiences of the ­people who bear t­ hese names. Oral history is virtually the only source available for understanding how the pro­cess of naming worked in the past, since few p­ eople document their reasons for this decision. The pro­cess of choosing a name for a child, moreover, is so fraught with significance that it is often indelibly stamped in the memory of the parents, making it a particularly fruitful area of inquiry for the oral historian.5 ­Every society has a set of assumptions related to names and naming, which are usually so taken for granted that they go unquestioned and unacknowledged. ­These might include the belief that ­every individual must have a last name (still not universal and a relatively recent development in many places); that a personal name must have an obvious meaning (Mongolia, Southern Africa); that a name must be unique to the individual (Mongolia); that the first name must identify the individual’s gender (Germany); that one part of the name must show the identity of the f­ ather (Iceland, Rus­sia); or that last names may not be used as first names (Poland).6 In the Soviet Union, dominated by Russophone naming traditions, a fundamental assumption was that e­ very individual would have a three-­part name including first name, patronymic, and surname. Families in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan had to conform to this general requirement, like all Soviet citizens, but they also developed their own distinctive ideas and beliefs about naming. In Central Asia, where the extended f­amily retained its significance in the lives of most young families, a newborn child’s name was thought to be the business not just of the parents but also of the grandparents and other relatives. For mixed ­couples, even more than for ordinary monoethnic c­ ouples, the challenge was to choose a name that would satisfy—or at least not antagonize—­ both sides of the f­amily, which might have very dif­fer­ent notions about acceptable names. A second assumption in Soviet Central Asia was that all parts

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of the child’s name should be in harmony with each other and with the child’s external appearance—­a belief that I call “name matching.” Many parents believed that a child with “Asian” physical features should not bear a Rus­sian name like Svetlana or Nikita, whereas a blond, blue-­eyed child should not answer to Talgat or Shuhrat. All of my interviewees also considered it impor­tant that the given name should match the child’s patronymic and surname. This belief seems to have been virtually universal, yet in practical terms it was much more of a concern for mixed families than for monoethnic families, among whom ethnically harmonious names emerged as a ­matter of course. Parents considered it unacceptable to have a nonmatching first name and patronymic combination such as Nikolai Muradovich or Suhrob Alexandrovich (Rus­sian/Turkic in the first case, Tajik/Rus­sian in the second), or to have a name and patronymic that did not match the surname. A final assumption, which emerged in the last Soviet de­cades, especially in Kazakhstan, was that mixed ­children should have first names that sounded “neutral” or “international”—in other words, names that did not signal an obvious ethnic affiliation. This would allow the ­children to avoid the prob­lems associated with having the wrong sort of name and would ease their entry into a variety of social contexts. (In Tajikistan, where mixed families ­were less common, parents more frequently chose names of a specific ethnicity so that their ­children would fit into that part of society.) Thus, evidence from Kazakhstan and Tajikistan suggests that the names mixed families gave their c­ hildren could signal a variety of t­ hings: an identification with a par­tic­u­lar ethnic or religious group; a desire to preserve ­family harmony; a wish that a child’s physical appearance, identity, and name should be in accord; and, in some cases, a desire to supersede ethnicity and associate one’s child with a supra-­ethnic or universal identity.

Names and Naming in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan Naming in Soviet Central Asia was a mix of local and Russophone traditions. The diverse ethnic groups living in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan had dif­fer­ent repertoires of names and naming customs. The lines between Eu­ro­pe­ans and indigenous Central Asians ­were the most clearly defined; ­whether you w ­ ere Vladimir or Jumabai, Oksana or Zamira instantly marked the broad group to which you belonged. Even among culturally and religiously close groups (Rus­ sians and Ukrainians, Kazakhs and Uzbeks), ­children might have dif­fer­ent variants of the same name (Mikhail and Mykhailo, Temir and Timur), thereby signaling the child’s precise ethnic affiliation. Historically, many first or given

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names ­were closely linked to religious identity. Most Eu­ro­pean names, including ­those commonly used by Rus­sians, ­were derived from the names of Christian saints and religious figures (Ivan, Piotr, Pavel, Maria, Tatiana, Olga). Among Central Asians, many popu­lar names had a religious connotation deriving from the impor­tant historical figures of Islam (Muhammad, Hussein, Fatima) or from the attributes of God, such as Rashid (noble), Khalida (eternal), or Abdulkarim (servant of the Generous One).7 However, ­there w ­ ere significant regional and ethnic differences in naming traditions. Among ethnic Kazakhs, an infant’s name was traditionally bestowed by the grand­father or another esteemed elder. Kazakhs had a very large repertoire of names, which included Muslim names of Arabic origin as well as a number of names with specific meanings in the Kazakh language. Such names might refer to an aspect of the child’s appearance, a desired attribute of the child, or a historical or literary figure. A name might also be based on an event or place linked to the time of the child’s birth (Zhumabai—­for a child born on Friday) or on an animal or natu­ral phenomenon (Arystan—­lion, Sholpan—­ morning star). Girls w ­ ere often named ­after beautiful ­things such as silk (Zhibek), precious metals or gems (Altyn—­gold, Marzhan—­pearl), or flowers (Raushan—­rose). Some names expressed a wish of the parents or grandparents; for example, if the ­family longed for a son ­after the birth of several ­daughters, the last ­daughter might be called Ulbolsyn—­let it be a boy. Sometimes unappealing names w ­ ere given so that evil spirits would not be attracted to the child—­Eleusiz (unremarkable), Ultarak (loner), Itkul (dog’s slave).8 Kazakh-­language names almost always had a literal meaning, unlike Eu­ro­pean names, which tend to be “arbitrary signifiers.”9 In Tajikistan, the ­father and (sometimes) his parents ­were responsible for naming the child. Muslim names of Arabic derivation w ­ ere popu­lar, as ­were names that w ­ ere derived from Persian or Arabic ethno-­linguistic roots without being specifically religious; Habiba (beloved), Farhod (happiness), Zarina (golden), Shuhrat (fame). While the literal meaning of a name seems not to have been a major f­ actor in name choice among ethnic Tajiks, a name might in certain instances express a wish of the parents. ­After the deaths of several ­children in a ­family, for example, a child might be named Istad (let him stay).10 In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Central Asians ­under Rus­sian rule ­adopted certain ele­ments of the Rus­sian naming system. E ­ very individual in Rus­sia had a tripartite name made up of a first or given name, a patronymic derived from the ­father’s name, and a last or ­family name. In the Rus­sian empire and l­ater the Soviet Union, this tripartite system of naming spread to other ­peoples who had not originally used it, so that ultimately ­every Soviet citizen’s identity document had a first name, patronymic, and surname. The

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concept of a patronymic was known among Central Asians before Rus­sian rule. In many parts of Central Asia (as in Eu­rope before surnames became common), a person’s second name had traditionally been his or her f­ather’s name. Among Turkic p­ eoples, the suffix -­oglu (son of ) or -­qizi (­daughter of ) was sometimes added to the second name, making it essentially the equivalent of the Rus­sian patronymic. The Soviet system required Russifying the patronymic and adding a third ele­ment, the ­family name. This might be the name of a more distant ancestor or founder of the lineage, often with the Rus­sian suffix -ov or -ev added (e.g., Aliyev, Babajanov, Nazarbayev). The mandatory use of patronymics meant that Soviet citizens did not have the option of choosing a ­middle name or second personal name, since both last name and patronymic ­were predetermined. Mixed c­ ouples, therefore, could not decide to split the difference by choosing a first name from the f­ ather’s language and a m ­ iddle name from the m ­ other’s language (or vice versa), in a nod to each side of the child’s background.11 In the Russophone world, the first name was the only opportunity for the parents to express their vision of the child’s identity. Another impor­tant aspect of the naming culture in Rus­sia was the use of diminutives. Friends and relatives rarely called each other by their full first names (Anna, Alexander) but instead used one of the well-­established diminutives of that name (Ania, Anechka, or Aniuta for Anna; Sasha, Sashen’ka, or Shura for Alexander). The choice of diminutive depended on the closeness of the relationship, the age of the person being addressed, and other ­factors. Nicknames also exist in other cultures—in En­glish, for example, Bob is used for Robert, Kate or Kathy for Katherine—­but they are not as highly developed or as essential to everyday life as in Rus­sia. In the Soviet period, this practice had spread to Rus­sian speakers in Central Asia, so that Russian-­style diminutives ­were created for Kazakh, Uzbek, and Tajik names: Gulnara became Gulia and Timur became Timurchik. An appealing diminutive was thus a ­factor in choosing a name in the Russian-­speaking cultural sphere. While the tripartite name structure was mandated as an aspect of bureaucratic standardization, the Soviet state, for all its interventionism in other areas of life, did not attempt to force or impose specific names or types of names on its population. Indigenous Central Asians ­were not compelled or even encouraged to take Rus­sian names. This stands in sharp contrast to the many modern states that have required their citizens to take (or discard) certain names, e­ ither in an attempt to Eu­ro­pe­anize or “civilize” colonized p­ eoples, to assimilate minorities into the majority population, or to exclude stigmatized groups from the national body politic. The Turkish state, for example, forced Kurds to take Turkish names as part of a policy of denying a separate Kurdish ethnic identity. In the most infamous example of using names to stigma-

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tize a par­tic­ul­ar group, Nazi Germany compelled German Jews to add the designated Jewish names Israel and Sara to their names to set them apart from “Aryan” Germans. Even demo­cratic states such as postwar West Germany and France have maintained lists of acceptable first names from which parents must draw.12 Names can also be a vehicle for voluntary assimilation or self-­segregation for ethnic minorities and majorities alike.13 In the early twentieth-­century United States, white Southerners chose names that ­were not in use among African-­Americans to set themselves apart; ­later, ­under the influence of the Black Power movement in the 1960s, African-­Americans began choosing distinctive names that set them apart from whites.14 Names, in ­these cases, symbolized a desire for racial distinctiveness and social separation. In the United States, despite pessimistic prognoses on the po­liti­cal right about the assimilability of immigrants from Asia and Latin Amer­i­ca, both Asian and Latino immigrants have shifted to En­glish names for their ­children at a surprisingly rapid pace.15 Thus, a 1995 study found that Stephanie, Jessica, Jennifer, and Kimberly ­were more common names for newborn d­ aughters than Maria among immigrant Hispanics in Los Angeles, suggesting a “strong and early trend t­ oward assimilation.”16 Studies in Eu­rope and North Amer­i­ca have found that ­people are far less likely to cross religious bound­aries than other barriers in giving first names. Thus, ­there is very ­little overlap between the names given by Turkish immigrant families in Germany and the names given by native Germans, while immigrants from Christian backgrounds such as Yugo­slavia or Rus­sia are more likely to give their ­children names that are also familiar to Germans (versions of John, Paul, Michael, Maria, ­etc.).17 The same was true in Rus­sia and Central Asia. In the Soviet period, first names continued for the most part to be strong indicators of ethnicity and belonging in Central Asia. Ordinarily, ­people did not cross significant ethnic and religious bound­aries in naming their ­children. No m ­ atter how linguistically Russified they were, ethnically homogeneous Kazakh or Tajik ­couples rarely gave their child a Rus­sian name. (For a culturally Russified Central Asian ­family, naming a child was one of the few ways they had to demonstrate their commitment to their ethnic identity.) Nor would a Rus­sian ­family give their child a Kazakh or Tajik name, no ­matter how long they had lived in Central Asia. Nevertheless, the strict cultural bound­aries surrounding naming practices began to blur in the Soviet era. Families in Central Asia sometimes named a child ­after a beloved relative or friend, a favorite singer or actress, the doctor or midwife who delivered the child, or even a po­liti­cal figure. For example, the Tajik journalist Dilbar Khojayeva bore the patronymic Arkadievna, not

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b­ ecause her f­ ather was Rus­sian, but b­ ecause her Tajik grand­father, a devoted communist, had a close friend named Arkadii, and the two pledged to name their ­children a­ fter each other.18 Beginning in the 1920s, idealistic communists of all nationalities gave their ­children names with revolutionary meaning, such as Vladlen (for Vladimir Lenin), Ninel (Lenin spelled backward) Stalina, and Oktiabrina (­after the October Revolution). Sazhida Dmitrieva’s Tatar f­ather was named Avror, ­after the famous cruiser Avrora, which played a crucial role in the October revolution in Petrograd. Thus, she received the intriguing name and patronymic combination of Sazhida Avrorovna.19 ­Children of vari­ous ethnicities w ­ ere given the names of popu­lar foreign figures such as Indira (Gandhi) and Rosa (Luxemburg). Tamara Novikova (b. 1943 in Tajikistan, mixed Tatar-­Ukrainian) and her Ossetian husband had three d­ aughters; Madina, named a­ fter Tamara’s ­mother; Fatima, named for her other grand­mother; and Angela, named a­ fter Angela Davis, the African-­American radical who was a revered figure in the Soviet Union in the late 1960s and early 1970s.20 Kazakhs would sometimes give a child a foreign name to protect it from the evil eye.21 The evil eye is a curse that is believed to originate in a malevolent look, often rooted in envy. The person who is a victim of the evil eye may be unlucky or even become ill and die. Belief in the evil eye was widely prevalent in Central Asia, as in many cultures of the M ­ iddle East and the Mediterranean. Drawing attention to a child’s beauty or other attractive qualities was thought to attract the evil eye. “Irina Abdulayeva,” who married a Kazakh man in 1987, recalled that her mother-­in-­law had been given a Rus­sian name, Katia, as a form of super­natural protection. Irina explained. “Why? B ­ ecause she was, how should I say it, the last remaining child in the ­family. All their ­children died. And, do you remember—­there’s a Kazakh custom of giving a child a foreign name; from a foreign p­ eople. Then, supposedly, all illnesses w ­ ill pass the child by. And, truly, she was the only child left who survived. She was called simply Katia, not Ekaterina.”22 When Irina became pregnant, her husband “Kairat” said that if the child ­were a girl he wanted to give her his m ­ other’s name. Irina gave birth to a ­daughter in 1988, who was duly named Katia; unlike her husband’s ­mother, however, she was given not just the diminutive but the full name Ekaterina.23

Names and Mixed Families in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan For mixed families, the social context in Soviet Central Asia changed over time, and the way they dealt with the competing demands of several cultures shifted

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accordingly. Naming practices w ­ ere transformed as well. In the early postwar years, for the Rus­sian and other Eu­ro­pean ­women who married Central Asians, naming c­hildren was part of their adaptation to local cultural expectations. When the f­ather was Muslim, the c­ hildren most often w ­ ere given Muslim or Central Asian names to go with their ­father’s last name and patronymic. Rus­sian wives often unquestioningly agreed to the Tajik, Uzbek, Kazakh, or Tatar names suggested by their husbands or in-­laws. In some cases, they even proposed such names themselves. Maria Saliyeva (b. 1934) recalls that she never questioned her husband’s choice of Tajik names for their c­ hildren. “I’ll tell you right now. My son Ruslan was born in 1956. I got married in 1955, and I gave birth in 1956. My ­daughter Dilbar was born in 1959; another ­daughter—­Gulandom or Gulia—­ was born in 1961, and Zulfia was born in 1966. He gave every­one Tajik names. He registered the names while I was in the hospital.”24 Maria’s account does not tell us who exactly came up with t­ hese names (was it her husband himself ? or her parents-­in-­law?), but it reveals a distinctly non-­ Russian way of choosing a name; the m ­ other, who gave birth to the child, was not even involved in the discussions. Ruslan, interestingly, is not exactly a Tajik name; it became common in Rus­sia ­because of Pushkin’s epic poem “Ruslan and Liudmila,” though it is actually of Turkic origin (a Rus­sian version of the Turkic name Arslan, meaning “lion.”) It is used widely throughout Rus­ sia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. Maria joked that she had wanted to name her first d­ aughter Liudmila, also a­ fter Pushkin’s poem, but that name was apparently too Rus­sian for her in-­laws. Maria Hamidova’s (b. 1936) ­children, now middle-­aged adults, are named Ra’no, Karim, and Mavluda. Though she and her Tajik husband spoke Rus­ sian at home, they agreed that Tajik names made the most sense for their ­family. ­Here the issue of name harmony seems to have been the deciding ­factor. Maria explained, “Why pick Rus­sian names when the last name and the patronymic are Tajik? I think it’s more con­ve­nient that way. And now all of my grand­sons and grand­daughters have Tajik names. For instance, my oldest grand­daughter’s name is Tahmina, and the youn­gest is Negina.”25 In Kazakhstan, Sazhida Dmitrieva’s m ­ other, a Rus­sian ­woman who married a Tatar in the 1950s, insisted on a Tatar name for her ­daughter. Sazhida (b. 1959) was named ­after the Tatar midwife who delivered her. “When I was born, of course, the first question in such a ­family was the name. Should it be Rus­sian or Tatar? And Mama, of course, she was always a proponent of—­well, it was like this for w ­ omen of that era—­since she had married a Tatar, then that was it—­she was on his side.”26 Irina Domulojonova, a Rus­sian w ­ oman raised in Tajikistan by an Uzbek stepfather, recalled that her parents gave Uzbek and Tajik names to all her younger b­ rothers and ­sisters. Irina and her

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­ other moved to Tajikistan in 1967, when she was in first grade, a­ fter her m ­mother married an Uzbek man. “All my b­ rothers and ­sisters have Tajik names. So, that’s why I had a very relaxed attitude about this.” Her siblings w ­ ere named Rustam, Nodira, Alisher, Ra’no, Matluba, Khadia, and Akmal.27 Tatiana Soliboyeva (b. 1953) agreed to the Tajik name her husband proposed for their first child in the early 1970s. ­After that, her other four ­children also received Tajik names. Her failure even to express an opinion about the name of the baby she just delivered would seem unusual to most Rus­sian ­women: “Well, of course, when I had my baby, he was not t­ here; he was studying at the time. He called me, asking: ‘What should we name the child?’; I said: ‘Well, I ­don’t know, what­ever you say.’ So we named the baby Shuhrat. . . . ​Then, I had a second child, and we named her Zarina. I thought, well, since we gave the first child a Tajik name, let the rest of the kids have Tajik names as well. . . . ​ And so we lived together for twenty years and have five c­ hildren: Shuhrat, Zarina, Alisher, Zamira, and Sherzod.”28 Along with the nature of the name to be given went the impor­tant question of who had the right to give the name. Among both Kazakhs and Tajiks, grandparents and other elder relatives expected to have a say in the naming of ­children. T ­ hese customs sometimes came into conflict with a Rus­sian spouse’s conviction that the parents o ­ ught to be the ones naming the child and that the ­mother who bore the child should have some say in the ­matter. By the ­middle of the twentieth c­ entury, Rus­sians had abandoned, to a much greater extent than Central Asians, both the patriarchal ­family and the sense of obligation to the extended f­ amily. The nuclear f­ amily was more autonomous. Central Asian relatives, however, ­were likely to express their opinion if they did not approve of a name. If the young c­ ouple did not pay attention to the wishes of the parents, the in-­laws might be offended or alienated by the name chosen. When “Saltanat Tleubayeva” (b. 1970), a Kazakh w ­ oman, gave birth to a son, Saltanat’s ­mother proposed the Muslim name Adil (honest or just). Saltanat recalled that her Rus­sian husband, Sasha, did not object to this intervention on the part of her ­family: Sasha and I w ­ ere thinking about a name while I was still in the hospital, and that’s when my mom heard about it. And when she heard that we ­were discussing pos­si­ble names, she said that ­we’ll name the child Adil. It’s a Kazakh name—­justice. “­We’ll name him Adil; ­he’ll be a just person,” she said. I mean, Sasha and I ­couldn’t even protest. I even forgot what Sasha and I had proposed for a name b­ ecause my parents ­were in charge. I was twenty-­one at the time, though Sasha was twenty-­five. But Mom had the final word; she was in charge. That was it.

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Saltanat recalled being thankful that Sasha did not protest, though as a grown man he could have insisted on his own prerogatives as head of the new ­family. “You know, particularly in our environment—in a Kazakh environment the first child is named by the grandparents. It’s a tradition, and Sasha d­ idn’t even resist. He was a very accommodating person.”29 Talgat Akilov (b. 1966), who had married his Rus­sian wife Marina over the objections of his ­father and elder ­brother, recalled that the birth of their son was an opportunity to show his ­father that he still respected his parents’ wishes. His ­father did not suggest a name, as a grand­father usually would, pointing out that Talgat had married without paternal approval so he was, in a sense, on his own. However, Talgat chose a Muslim name, Ilyas, that he knew would please his parents.30 “I named my son, with the permission of my ­father. For us, as you know, the firstborn child is named by the grandparents. I think that deep down, my f­ ather did not approve of my marriage to a ­woman of a dif­ fer­ent nationality. . . . ​That’s why I chose the name myself. Perhaps they thought that since I have a Rus­sian wife, and it is popularly believed that Rus­ sian wives are bossy, she would influence my decision. So when I named our son Ilyas, they w ­ ere quite happy.”31 Had he and Marina chosen a Rus­sian name for their son, it would have fanned the flames of the existing conflict and confirmed his parents’ belief that Rus­sian ­women ­were excessively domineering within the f­ amily. When the young parents did not heed the wishes of the in-­laws, it could cause bad feelings. Larisa Mamadzohirova (b. 1958), a mixed Russian-­Tajik ­woman, named her first child Natasha (a diminutive of the Rus­sian name Natalia). Her in-­laws, a mixed Tajik-­Tatar ­couple, ­were upset. “I told [my husband] immediately that since I have a Rus­sian name, then my ­children ­will also have Rus­sian names, and he ­shouldn’t take offense at this and his parents ­shouldn’t be offended. Well, when Natasha was born, we gave her a Rus­sian name—­Natasha. My husband’s parents took offense at me. They wanted to give her a Tatar name b­ ecause all of their c­ hildren have Tatar names: Dinara, Gulnara, Dilover, Ibraam. . . . ​It turns out, they got offended.”32 Larisa Niyazova (b. 1966), a Rus­sian ­woman who married a Kazakh in the southern Kazakhstani city of Shymkent in 1987, clashed with her in-­laws over who was entitled to name her first child. Larisa insisted on the classically Rus­sian name Tatiana for her d­ aughter, though her mother-­in-­law proposed a Kazakh name that came to her in a dream. L ­ ater, Larisa gained more insight into her husband’s cultural background and learned to compromise. Larisa recalled: “My ­daughter’s name is Tatiana. She was my first child. . . . ​[When I was pregnant with her], my husband’s ­mother had a dream in which her grand­father came to visit her and brought with him a baby camel—­a white baby camel. The Kazakhs

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have a custom: if a person has a vision of someone bringing a baby camel or a lamb, then a w ­ oman is ­either pregnant or should expect to receive a pre­sent.”33 When her mother-­in-­law told Larisa about the dream, Larisa confessed that she was pregnant. Thrilled that her dream had come true, Larisa’s mother-­in-­ law proposed naming the baby Akbota, a Kazakh name meaning “white baby camel.”34 She was no doubt assuming that Larisa and her husband would follow the tradition of allowing the grandparents to name the first grand­child. When I gave birth, she came to the hospital and declared: “You’ll name your d­ aughter Akbota.” . . . ​I was young and hot-­tempered; I responded: “What’s this?! Akbota?! No! My husband and I already agreed to name her Tatiana.” We selected the name b­ ecause she was born in January, right before St. Tatiana’s Day.35 I said: “We w ­ ill name her Tatiana to ensure the protection of the saints.” In fact, my husband selected that name, not me. I agreed and said: “All right, Tatiana it is.” Larisa urged her husband to act quickly to thwart his m ­ other’s plan: “ ‘Make sure to register her birth with the name Tatiana before your parents do it with Akbota.’ I felt as if I w ­ ere boiling inside; what’s this? This is my child! (laughter) ­These are some kind of egotistical maternal feelings. I was almost consumed by t­ hese emotions, engulfed by them. . . . ​I said: ‘This is my child! They ­were able to name their own kids what­ever they wanted! Why should I allow my child to be named by them?’ ” Once she had cooled down a bit and heard her in-­laws’ explanation of why they chose the name Akbota, Larisa agreed to a compromise in which the baby would be known by two names. “I said: ‘I’m not against it; you can call her Akbota, but in her birth certificate let’s keep Tatiana. I mean, when she visits you, you can call her Akbota and, with time, she ­will stop objecting to it, and I ­won’t object e­ ither. I’ll know that she has two names: a name given to her by your saints and a name given to her by our saints.’ I mean, h ­ ere we have a clash of two cultures and religions—­their saints and somebody e­ lse’s saints.” By the time her son was born, Larisa had learned to be a bit more diplomatic. “­After a few years, I realized that perhaps I was not entirely right.” She and her husband chose the child’s name but tried to choose one that would be agreeable to both sides. They chose the name Timur. “I was trying to avoid conflict of the two cultures. . . . ​I thought that since I had already stood my ground and insisted on the name for my ­daughter, I ­didn’t want to have the same situation for my son. The name Timur is a common one for Kazakhs and is frequently encountered among Rus­sians. That’s why I proposed: ‘Let’s pick a name that w ­ on’t insult ­either side.’ I mean, to pick a name that would be somewhat neutral. So, we agreed on this name.”36

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Larisa’s experience speaks to the importance of a child’s name as a symbol of the relationships within the mixed f­ amily. As she came to understand better the values and traditions of her in-­laws, Larisa became willing to meet them halfway on the name of her second child.

The Two-­Name Solution As Larisa’s story shows, mixed ­children would sometimes have both Rus­sian and Turkic or Tajik names to reflect their dual heritage and please both sides of the f­amily. Usually, one was the official name, and the other was used informally. In Tajikistan, Vera Rahimova’s (b. 1924) d­ aughter was Liudmila according to her birth certificate, but the ­family called her by the Tajik name Marhamat.37 Lidia Evdakimova’s (b. 1927) d­ aughter was officially named Zoya (a Rus­sian name corresponding to the Greek name Zoë, meaning “life”). However, her Tajik friends called her Ra’no, a common Tajik name. “We recorded her name as Zoya. She was Zoya for us. And when she was getting her passport, all of her friends who are Tajik kept calling her Ra’no, Ra’no, but I recorded her as Zoya.” When Zoya herself married a Muslim man, she officially changed her name to Ra’no. “She went to a civil registry office and changed her name ­because Zoya Abdurahmonova Mahmudova ­didn’t ­really go together.”38 Lidia’s recollections again reflect the concern with name matching since Zoya is a Rus­sian name and the patronymic and surname are Tajik. Even Central Asians without mixed heritage sometimes ­adopted Rus­sian names to ease socialization in a multiethnic land where Rus­sian was the lingua franca.39 In the view of “Maira Ahmetova” (b. 1953), a Kazakh ­woman married to a Rus­sian, the adoption of Rus­sian names was symptomatic of an “inferiority complex” felt by Kazakhs in the Soviet period. “Back then p­ eople ­were given Rus­sian names all the time. I mean, I have two Kazakh relatives from a village. Oh my God, they ­don’t even speak Rus­sian. They ­were given Rus­sian names, though: Roza and Liuba.”40 Muborak Oshurova (b. 1953), an ethnically Uzbek w ­ oman and long-­term resident of Tajikistan, explained that she always went by a Rus­sian name: The Rus­sians in school called me Liuba; they c­ ouldn’t pronounce Muborak. My neighbors called me that, and even my mom called me that also. I got so used to every­one calling me Liuba, to the point that it just continued. In my class, I was called Liuba; I ­don’t know why. Evidently, at that time Muborak was a hard name. . . . ​I have been Liuba for forty years now. Some ­people, t­ hose who know me well, call me Muborak.41

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“Aliya Ahmetova” (b. 1958), a mixed Kazakh-­Tatar w ­ oman, went for many years by the Rus­sian name Alla rather than by her real and more mellifluous Arabic/Muslim name.42 “I was given the name Aliya at birth. But since my birth, no one actually called me Aliya. . . . ​Well, I was Alla for a very long time. I d­ on’t remember when I actually started calling myself Aliya. Perhaps, it was closer to when I went to the university.” For many years, Aliya did not even know what her real name was. She recalled, “I was surprised when we went to get my passport. My mom brought out my birth certificate. I opened it, and ­there it was written: ‘Aliya’! I ­didn’t even know that my name was Aliya.” Svetlana Vizer’s ­father, a Tatar married to a Rus­sian ­woman in Kazakhstan, tried to make his very long Tatar name more palatable to Rus­sian speakers. His full name, Ahmetshakur Abdulghanievich Abdulghaniev, was admittedly a mouthful. According to Svetlana: “He r­ eally liked to shorten his name. He thought that Ahmetshakur Abdulghanievich was very long. I ­don’t know, perhaps, he was embarrassed by the name? . . . ​That’s why he would always introduce himself as ‘Shakur Ganievich,’ and when it was time to renew his passport, he even managed to change his name . . . ​from ‘Ahmetshakur Abdulghanievich’ to ‘Shakur Ganievich.’ ”43 Among Rus­sians he went by Shura or Sasha, both common diminutives for Alexander. Her ­mother’s ­family and their friends never called him by his Tatar name; they all called him Sasha. Only his Tatar relatives called him Shakur.44 Like Aliya, Svetlana did not know her true full name ­until she saw her birth certificate as a teenager. “When I was in school, I was actually absolutely sure that my patronymic was ‘Aleksandrovna’; my mom called my dad Sasha. Only ­later, when I grew up and got my passport, did I see my birth certificate. U ­ ntil that moment I was uninterested in it. I was actually totally amazed that, in actuality, I am not Aleksandrovna but Ahmetshakurovna.” For mixed c­ hildren needing to navigate two cultural and linguistic worlds, using dif­fer­ent names in dif­fer­ent contexts was a reasonable solution.

The Nuclear ­Family and “International” Names By the early 1960s, the environment for mixed families and their c­ hildren was changing. As the urban, Russian-­speaking local elite grew ever larger, it was no longer automatically assumed that a mixed f­amily in Kazakhstan or Tajikistan would belong to the Central Asian cultural context. At the same time, mixed families w ­ ere changing the way they named their c­ hildren. In Soviet Central Asia, as in other modernizing socie­ties, parents ­were beginning to move away from traditional naming patterns stressing community affiliation and kinship

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ties t­ oward an era of individualized choice centered in the nuclear ­family.45 Not only the pro­cess of naming but also the types of names chosen changed as parents sought to capture more fully their c­ hildren’s complex identities. Instead of choosing an obviously Muslim name or one strongly associated with a par­tic­ul­ar ethnicity, some mixed ­couples in the ­later Soviet de­cades sought names that w ­ ere “neutral” or “international.” This phenomenon was most apparent in Kazakhstan, where many cities w ­ ere multiethnic and had high levels of ethnic interaction. What was an international name in the context of Soviet Central Asia? Conversations with mixed ­couples make clear that they did not have in mind names associated with revolutionary communist internationalism, which their parents or grandparents might have favored. Instead, they chose names derived from a variety of origins—­Western Eu­ro­pean, Turkic, Arabic, Greek—­that ­were not strongly identified with ­either parent’s ethnicity. The best names for mixed ­children, t­ hese families believed, ­were ­those that allowed the child to feel comfortable in two or more cultures. It was better to have such a name than to have an ethnic name that did not correspond to one’s appearance or that identified a child as belonging to only one ethnic group. International names also helped to avoid conflict with in-­laws, who might object to a strongly ethnic name from the other side of the ­family.46 Timur Sergazinov, born into a mixed Russian-­K azakh f­ amily in 1976, recalled that his parents, who married in 1964, sought to avoid typically Kazakh and Rus­sian names. “My oldest s­ ister is Elina; it’s neither a Kazakh nor Rus­ sian name; it’s an international name. The second is Aida—­it’s an Egyptian name, I think. Some sort of an Eastern name, but not Kazakh.”47 In general, he noted, it was better for parents to do the naming “­because grand­mothers and grand­fathers would give truly horrendous names.” (Horrendous, in his telling, meant old-­fashioned and too obviously Kazakh.) This was also true of the extended f­ amily, who might propose names not suitable for a mixed child. As an example, Timur cited the controversy that arose around his third ­sister’s name. When this ­little girl was born, Timur’s ­father asked his older ­sister—­the child’s aunt—to name her. But the aunt suggested a name that was unmistakably Turkic and typically Kazakh. A ­ fter the first two girls in the f­amily had received international names, she clearly thought it was time for a change. “ ‘Let’s give her a purely Kazakh name—­Gulbarshin,’ she said.” Timur’s Rus­ sian ­mother was horrified by this suggestion. “My mom immediately began crying, ‘What’s wrong with you? What kind of a name is Gulbarshin?’ [laughs]. She [the elder s­ ister] said: ‘What­ever you want, well, at least, let’s name her Anara.’ So we gave her a Kazakh name. That’s the story.” Though common among Kazakhs, Anara is easier on the Rus­sian ear and simpler for non-­Kazakhs to pronounce; thus, it sounds more international.48 In other words, it is not

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strongly ethnically marked, though Kazakhs would recognize it as a genuine Kazakh name. Timur’s name falls into the same category as Anara and is worth discussing at greater length, since it is one of the most common boy’s names among mixed families in Kazakhstan. Timur is a Turkic name (Timur in Uzbek, Temir in Kazakh) that has also been common among Rus­sians since World War II. It means “iron” in Turkic languages and was also the name of the ­great medieval Mongol ruler and conqueror Timur, known in En­glish as Tamarlane (Timurlenk or Timur the Lame).49 The name’s spread among Rus­sians is prob­ably due to the tremendous popularity of a short novel by the writer Arkadii Gaidar, Timur and His Squad, which was published in 1940 and also made into a movie.50 The story tells of a group of young Soviet boys, led by Timur, who set out to do good deeds secretly in their community. The book and film resulted in a mass movement of Soviet kids trying to emulate Timur and was taught in Rus­sian schools well into the post-­Soviet period. As a name that was popu­lar in Central Asia and Rus­sia and easy to pronounce in both languages, Timur became very common among mixed families in Soviet Kazakhstan. Ruslan and Rustam ­were also common in such families for similar reasons; the names are easy to pronounce in Turkic, Persian, and Rus­sian linguistic contexts and Ruslan, in par­tic­ u­lar, has Rus­sian literary associations. (The fact that Rustam sounds similar to the popu­lar name Ruslan may help explain its popularity in Russian-­speaking mixed families.)51 Timur is an example of a name to which dif­fer­ent families attribute dif­fer­ ent meanings. Maira Ahmetova named her son Timur at the suggestion of her ­mother. Her ­mother chose the name b­ ecause of its association with strength. Maira recalled, “She said, ‘Timur is a good name. H ­ e’ll be strong.’ Iron is ‘temir’ in Kazakh. In Kazakh—­Temir, and Timur is more like Uzbek. . . . ​ Well, he is like that, an iron boy. And we called him Timurchik. In short, well, I think it’s a good name. Even my ­sister wanted to name her son Timur.”52 Another f­amily chose Timur ­because of the association of the name with lameness. Larisa Niyazova recalled that their son was born with two club feet; when researching names, they discovered this association and de­cided that the name Timur would be a good fit. For ­these mixed families, as for many in Kazakhstan, finding a name with a meaning appropriate for the child was impor­tant. For girls, too, ­there w ­ ere certain names that sounded international and w ­ ere popu­lar with mixed families. Maira Ahmetova and her Rus­sian husband gave their ­daughter a name, Kamilla, that worked in multiple contexts. Kamilla is a Muslim name originally from Arabic (usually transliterated as Kamila, meaning perfect or complete), which was well known to Kazakhs but coincidentally sounded similar to the Latin-­derived Eu­ro­pean names Camille and

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Camilla. Asked w ­ hether she and her husband had deliberately chosen a name that could be both Eu­ro­pean and Kazakh, Maira responded affirmatively. “Well, yes. Purposely. And, I just like the name Kamilla. I d­ on’t know, I just like it; that’s all t­ here’s to it! That’s why I picked this name for her—­K amilla. And she is happy that it’s not a Kazakh name, but a more Eu­ro­pean one.” Maira added that they spelled the name with a double l to make it seem more French and distinguish it from the Arabic and Rus­sian versions. Lesia Karatayeva (b. 1971), a mixed Russian-­K azakh ­woman who married a Rus­sian, also chose a name for her ­daughter that worked in both Kazakh and Rus­sian cultures. Originally, Lesia wanted to name the child Maria (diminutive Masha) ­after her Rus­sian grand­mother. The name Maria, a common Rus­sian female name, is also common in Muslim cultures (as Maryam).53 However, Lesia changed her mind for what might be considered superstitious reasons. “I mean, Maria is an international name, for every­one. Kazakhs also have the name Maryam. But then, suddenly, I thought that among my relatives and acquaintances it was rare that a person named Maria had a truly easy life. This name, a­ fter all, leaves a kind of a mark. I ­don’t know; I was simply afraid!”54 Lesia de­cided instead to name her ­daughter Daria, the diminutive of which is Dasha. (The fact that this rhymed with Masha may have increased the appeal of the name for her.) Initially, Lesia viewed this as a quintessentially Rus­sian name—­she laughingly recalled thinking that Dasha sounded like a quaint Rus­ sian peasant girl wearing a head­scarf. But l­ ater Lesia discovered that the name also had a distinguished pedigree in Central Asia. “Only a­ fter I named her Dasha did I read somewhere that it’s actually a Persian name derived from the name of King Darius. And that it means ‘warrior’!” Just as Maira’s son Timur turned out to be an “iron boy,” Lesia’s d­ aughter also fulfilled the promise of her name. “Yes, if a name does leave a mark, then my d­ aughter is surely a true warrior. . . . ​She is very combative, very proud.”55 In addition to the belief that mixed ­children should have neutral or international names, many families believed that the first name should correspond to other external indicators of a person’s identity. Ideally, a child’s given name should match his or her external appearance, official nationality, patronymic and last names. Maira explained that it would be awkward for a child who looked Kazakh to have a classically Rus­sian name: “Well, ­because the kids ­don’t look Rus­sian. They have, so to speak . . . ​Kazakh blood, which ­after all, dominates, just like African blood. They ­will look awkward if you name them something like that.” Marina Abdrahmanova, a mixed Kazakh and Rus­sian ­woman married to a Kazakh man, tried to give her ­daughters names based in part on what they looked like as newborns. Her eldest d­ aughter bears the Kazakh name Asel, which means “honey.” “We tried to pick a name based on looks. For example,

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when my oldest d­ aughter was born, she looked more like a Kazakh. And we ­were offered a list of names; we looked through the directory to find the one that would be appropriate. And we settled on this name.”56 Marina noted that Asel, while common among Kazakhs, is not purely a Kazakh name—it is used by other Turkic ­peoples as well. She went on, “Our younger ­daughter was born not looking like a Kazakh. And so we picked a neutral name—­not purely Kazakh and not purely Rus­sian. We named her Aya.”57 In Marina’s natal ­family, incidentally, the first two d­ aughters received Kazakh names, while the third and fourth both got Rus­sian names. Marina explained that her parents had agreed that her m ­ other would name the girls and her ­father would name the boys—­but then along came four ­daughters and no sons. Her ­mother named the first child, her f­ ather the second, and they came to a mutual agreement on naming the third and fourth d­ aughters. This was a creative, yet fundamentally modern, way of solving the naming prob­lem. The ­mother and f­ ather had equal rights to bestow names, and the extended f­ amily was not involved.58 Erzhan Baiburin (b. 1959), a Kazakh man married to a Rus­sian ­woman, recalled that he and his wife also sought to find international names for their three ­daughters. His account reveals a pro­cess of naming that would be recognizable to modern parents anywhere. “Every­thing was de­cided through a pro­cess of discussion. I picked a name, she picked one as well, and we also consulted with our parents a ­little. But in the end, we made our own decisions.” Erzhan explained the rationale ­behind the specific names they chose. “In princi­ple, the names we picked w ­ ere international, I would say. The oldest d­ aughter’s name is Dariya. You can say it in Rus­sian, ‘Daria.’ . . . ​Dariya is an Ira­nian name. Well, it’s more of an Eastern name, of course. The second girl is Saniya, h ­ ere also, as you can see, the name is both one and the other. I mean, you can prob­ably call her Alexandra, Sasha. The third is Malika, also the same. All the names are like that.”59 Erzhan and his wife had tried to give names that w ­ ere not specifically Kazakh or Rus­sian but easily understandable in both Rus­sian and Kazakh social contexts. All three names tended t­oward the Eastern (Kazakh or Muslim) side of the f­ amily but w ­ ere easily understandable to—­and pronounceable by—­Russians. In the first two cases, the names lent themselves to having Rus­sian diminutives made of them—­Dasha, Sasha, Sanya—­something potentially impor­tant to the Rus­sian grandparents.60 “Katia Nikolaeva,” (b. 1971), a Rus­sian ­woman married to a mixed Russian-­ Kazakh man, agreed that all parts of a child’s name should match. ­Because of this consideration, she and her husband Timur avoided giving purely Rus­sian names to their two d­ aughters, even though she loved ­these names.

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I had the following names in mind: Nastia, Masha, Ania. That is, I like Rus­sian names, but they ­don’t go well with the last name and patronymic.61 We figured the names should sound good. We ­were choosing names for a long time. We would take a book—­Directory of Girls’ Names—­ and would read every­thing, paging through it and considering many options. Then, we agreed that “Milana Timurovna” and “Bella Timurovna” sound quite beautiful. It turned out that Milana, in princi­ple, is a Slavic name, and Bella—­“Belle” is actually Latin. Katia said that she and her husband wanted to avoid creating an inadvertently amusing contrast between the first and last names. “So that we w ­ ouldn’t have Masha, let’s say, Serikbaeva, as happens in real life. It gets hilarious!”62 Parents’ concern with getting the name right made sense, given that a name could have a big impact on an individual’s life. Mixed ­children strongly disliked having a first name that did not adequately express their internal feelings of identity and ethnic belonging. If a child had an unsuitable name—­one that did not match the child’s appearance or sense of subjective identity—he or she sometimes was mocked, or simply felt awkward or embarrassed. This might be a child who “looked Asian” but had a Rus­sian name, or a child who spoke perfect Rus­sian but had a Kazakh or Tajik name and was therefore treated as a foreigner by other Rus­sian speakers. The wrong name could also expose a child to unrealistic expectations or discrimination. Several respondents reported feeling ashamed of their obviously non-­Russian names in the Russian-­dominated urban environment of the late Soviet period. Susanna, half Ukrainian and half Armenian, did not like ­either her given name (Susanna) or her Armenian surname (Aiyvazian). Both ­were unusual in the Russian-­speaking context of Northern Kazakhstan, where she lived. She recalled, “My last name was Aiyvazian, and what they ­didn’t call me! I was called Aiyvazov, and Avasyan, and Avanesyan, and all kinds of other names. This, of course, both­ered my vulnerable child’s soul ­every time it happened and I felt ashamed and was reserved, each time drawing in my head like an ostrich and thinking: ‘Lord, why was I not named Olga? Why not Lena? Why did you name me like that?’ ”63 Susanna cited Lena and Olga—­ordinary Rus­sian girls’ names— as the names she wished she had instead of her own. It was the failure to conform to a Rus­sian norm that both­ered her. She went on, “The prob­lem was that I never liked my first or last name. ­Because they are not very easy to pronounce and often, when they called roll in class, my teachers and classmates pronounced my name wrong.” As a child, Susanna dreamed of changing her name to something more typically Rus­sian.

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On the one hand, I kind of liked the fact that I was Armenian, that I was so unusual, and that t­ here was only one such child in my class and only two of us in our apartment complex. On the other hand, and this was prob­ably just a case of adolescent socialization, I wanted to be like every­one e­ lse, all ­those girls named Iulia or Lena, say, Ivanova . . . ​this was my dream. When I hinted to my parents that I wanted to register myself as a Rus­sian when I received my identity documents and perhaps even change my unusual name, my ­father was incensed.64 Again, her use of the last name Ivanova, the equivalent in Rus­sian of Smith or Johnson, shows just how desperately Susanna wanted to be just like every­ one ­else. Sazhida Dmitrieva, child of a Tatar f­ ather and a Rus­sian ­mother, also strug­ gled to come to terms with her unusual first name. She recalled, “in the depths of my soul it was difficult for me to live with this name. All around ­there ­were Lenas, Katias, Svetas, Olias, and t­ here I was with this name.65 I was even, to be honest, ashamed of my name for a very long time. Only with the years do you understand that it is better to be unique than to be one of many with the same name.”66 Not only was Sazhida a Tatar name, but an uncommon one, even among Tatars. “It seemed that my name was nowhere to be found . . . ​this name in general! If other Muslim names like Kamila, Gulsum ­were all around me, my name was not ­there, and in general I ­didn’t meet anyone with such a name except for the midwife who helped deliver me. She was my mom’s acquaintance and when she [my ­mother] was giving birth, she helped with the delivery, so my mom named me in her honor, in the Tatar manner.” Rus­sian speakers found Sazhida’s name hard to pronounce and even to recall. Whenever I would meet someone, virtually no one could remember it. My husband remembered my name only ­after several tries! He ­couldn’t remember it on the first try! [laughs] . . . ​My grandma used to say: “You have a very beautiful name! Once you travel to our relatives in the Urals, you ­will see just how common your name is!” And ­after I finished eighth grade, I was sent to visit my ­father’s relatives for the entire summer break, t­here in Bashkiria. ­There ­were many villages that I visited. When I returned, I told my grandma: “I only met one Sazhida ­there, and she was eighty years old!”67 Discomfort with a name could go the other way as well. Anastasia Martsevich, an ethnically mixed young ­woman who grew up in Moscow, argued that

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someone who is obviously part Kazakh should not have a classically Rus­sian name like her own. Half Kazakh and half Rus­sian, she felt uncomfortable having the name Anastasia (one of the names of the last tsar’s d­ aughters, no less), with Nastia as the diminutive, when she was visibly not fully Rus­sian. Her Rus­sian ­father insisted on this name, which had been his grand­mother’s, though her Kazakh m ­ other would have preferred a more international name. Anastasia wished she had been named something neutral like Dina or Dana—­ “easier on the ear and simpler for interethnic interaction.” Such a name also would have gone better with her looks. “Nastia, Nastia,” she commented, “­Because of my appearance, in Kazakhstan every­one says, ‘you must be making that up!’ ”68 The feelings of mixed individuals in Soviet Central Asia about their names are in many re­spects similar to t­ hose of their counter­parts elsewhere. A study of mixed families in the United Kingdom found that c­ hildren sometimes faced ridicule or racism if their names differed too much from the En­glish norm. One Moroccan f­ather of half-­English ­children recalled that his c­ hildren disliked their Muslim names. “Their names, that’s all they told me, ‘Oh, ­people ­can’t pronounce our names,’ or ‘Why was I called Inaya, no one knows the name Inaya.’ That’s what they say.” As in Central Asia, some c­ hildren used dif­ fer­ent names depending on the context, such as the youngster who went by Kevin with his En­glish relatives and Kareem with his South Asian relatives.69 Families in multiethnic socie­ties express their values and identities in part through the names they give their c­ hildren. In Soviet Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, a newborn child’s name had to conform to several key criteria: it had to satisfy both sets of in-­laws (or at least not anger them), fit the child’s external appearance, have a pleasing sound, and blend well with the child’s patronymic and last name. It was more challenging for mixed families than for ordinary monoethnic families to find a first name that met all t­ hese criteria. Mixed families in Central Asia found several ways of solving the naming prob­lem. They could give the child a name from one parent’s side, assuming that the child would grow up to identify with that par­tic­u­lar ethnic culture. They could let the child use dif­fer­ent names in dif­fer­ent social and ethnic contexts, answering to Tatiana when with the Rus­sian grandparents and Akbota when with the Kazakh extended f­amily. Or they could identify a name that was neutral or international, allowing the child to move between cultures without being hampered by an unsuitable name. Many mixed families, especially in Kazakhstan, gravitated ­toward such international names, which they viewed as transcending ethnicity and more successfully capturing their c­ hildren’s multifaceted identities. In the sphere of naming, as in other areas of Soviet life, mixed families appeared

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to be playing their designated role as the vanguard of the Soviet friendship of ­peoples. Just as bestowing an ethnic name was an easy way of declaring an ethnic identity, choosing a name that was neutral, international, and not associated with a specific ethnic group spoke to a belief in a ­future in which one’s ­children would be able to move beyond ethnicity and be simply “Soviet.”

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Mixed Families and the Rus­sian Language Based on my experience, I concluded that kids learn to speak their ­mother’s language. Since my grandma and mom, who brought us up, spoke Rus­sian . . . ​we spoke Rus­sian. And then, in general, it was a time when . . . ​ the Rus­sian language was ­adopted as the common language, the language of national communication, so of course ­people ­were mainly trying to speak Rus­sian. —­Marina Abdrahmanova (2010)

The linguistic situation described by Marina, one of four ­daughters of a Kazakh ­father and Rus­sian ­mother, was typical of mixed families from the 1960s on. The tendency of such families to use Rus­sian as their primary language was one of the characteristics that caused them to be portrayed in glowing terms as the most Soviet of all Soviet families.1 In the late Soviet period, the spread of Rus­sian language fa­cil­i­ty among non-­Russians was a sign that the long-­awaited rapprochement and merging of Soviet nations was beginning to occur. In the linguistic sphere as in so many ­others, mixed families ­were believed to be in the vanguard of Soviet society. The Soviet regime never explic­itly pursued linguistic Russification. The policy of korenizatsiia, or nativization, first formulated in the 1920s, insisted on the importance of indigenous languages for all Soviet nationalities.2 Yet ­there ­were strong incentives for ­people to acquire Russian-­language proficiency in non-­Russian republics, and the promotion of Rus­sian as the Soviet lingua franca had intensified over time. The stated goal was not to compel the exclusive use of Rus­sian among Soviet citizens; instead, the Soviet state officially promoted bilingualism in non-­Russian republics, meaning that p­ eople would speak both their native language and Rus­sian. Bilingual p­ eople ­were said to be more educated, more cultured, and less religious than ­those who spoke only their native language (assuming it was not Rus­sian).3 In other words, bilingual

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p­ eople ­were the ideal Soviet citizens, just like ethnically mixed p­ eople, and ­there was a g­ reat deal of overlap between ­these two groups. ­There is nothing particularly unusual about the multiethnic Soviet state’s promotion of Rus­sian as a common language. W ­ hether in colonial empires or immigrant socie­ties, a metropolitan lingua franca has been the norm for multiethnic states in the modern world. In colonial contexts, ambitious elites often learned the metropolitan language voluntarily—­English in India, French in North Africa and the Levant. In immigrant socie­ties such as the United States, linguistic assimilation has been virtually universal within three generations. What was unusual in the Soviet case was the simultaneous promotion of titular languages in the non-­Russian republics, which created conflicting linguistic imperatives for non-­Russians and for mixed families. Examining the language usage of mixed families is illuminating b­ ecause ­these families ­were often forced to make choices that most ethnically homogeneous families did not face. Which language would husband and wife speak to each other? How would they communicate with the in-­laws on both sides? And, perhaps most importantly, which languages would the c­ hildren speak at home and at school? Conversations with members of mixed families provide evidence of the ­family and societal dynamics ­behind language choices, as well as the subjective feelings and values ­behind ­these decisions.4 The life narratives of ­these individuals help us to understand how and why many mixed and elite families shifted their language use and became predominantly Rus­sian speaking—­and why some did not. As Marina’s recollection above makes clear, ­there was a gendered aspect to language usage in mixed families. The use of Rus­sian was especially common among ­those mixed families with one Russian-­speaking parent, and in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, throughout the Soviet period, that parent was almost always a ­woman. Russian-­speaking ­mothers played a large role, as primary caregivers, in imparting their language and identity to their offspring. Paradoxically, interviews suggest that it was often the Central Asian and other non-­Russian f­athers who pushed linguistic Russification hardest, while Russian-­speaking wives w ­ ere sometimes the strongest advocates of the indigenous language. This may have been ­because ­fathers knew—­often from their own experiences—­that excellent Russian-­language skills ­were essential to their ­children’s f­ uture professional success. ­Mothers, on the other hand, may have been more concerned with keeping up relationships with grandparents and extended ­family. In the accounts of their ­children, Central Asian (as well as Tatar, Azerbaijani, and Armenian) ­fathers often failed quite spectacularly to teach their ­children their own languages. Even if they claimed to want their ­children to speak the language, their efforts ­were minimal and ineffectual. Most made it clear that an excellent knowledge of Rus­

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sian was of paramount importance. Thus, a paradox: f­athers expected their offspring to take their official nationality in their passports but did not r­ eally care ­whether the ­children knew their “native language.” The result was a frequent discrepancy between official and subjective nationality among mixed individuals and a disconnect between native tongue and national identity. C ­ hildren ­adopted their ­fathers’ official nationality but identified more with the culture and language of their ­mothers.

The Evolution of Soviet Language Policies The language choices of mixed families must be understood within the context of evolving Soviet language policies and a changing linguistic environment over the years. In the 1920s and early 1930s, all Soviet languages, however small the population using them, w ­ ere supposed to be developed equally. Soviet linguists helped indigenous elites standardize and, in some cases, devise writing systems for their languages. Native-­language schools ­were required wherever ­there ­were at least twenty-­five ­children of that nationality. Textbooks, newspapers, and other books came out in dozens of dif­fer­ent languages.5 In 1937– 1938, more than seventy languages ­were used as means of instruction in Soviet schools.6 Beginning in the period of high Stalinism, however, the state increasingly emphasized Rus­sian. On March 13, 1938, a decree was issued mandating the study of Rus­sian in all Soviet schools, which established strict standards designed to ensure that all students w ­ ere competent in Rus­sian by the time they entered secondary school. The teaching of “minor” languages, especially ­those of autonomous republics and regions, began to be phased out.7 All languages ­were still equal, but Rus­sian was officially made the language of “interethnic communication” and promoted as a lingua franca in education and administration a­ fter World War II. The languages of Central Asia, meanwhile, w ­ ere required to shift from the recently a­ dopted Latin alphabet to the Cyrillic script by 1940.8 In 1958–1959, Khrushchev’s education reforms further encouraged the study of Rus­sian by making the titular language voluntary in Russian-­language schools outside Rus­sia and allowing non-­Russian parents to choose the language in which their child would be schooled. (Previously, all ­children w ­ ere required to be educated in their native tongue.) Many non-­Russian parents chose Rus­sian schools, seeking to expand the opportunities for their ­children. Local-­language schools ­were considered to be of poorer quality and their gradu­ates ­were ­limited in their choice of higher education institutions and

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fields of study.9 In the late 1960s and 1970s, the Brezhnev regime further stressed Rus­sian as the basis for supra-­national identity in the USSR. Rus­sian was called a “national trea­sure” and the “language of socialism.” A decree of October 1978 called for improvements in the teaching of Rus­sian, including more time devoted to Russian-­language instruction of vari­ous subjects in non-­ Russian schools.10 ­There ­were protests against the increasing emphasis on Rus­sian in some republics, most notably in the Caucasus and the Baltics, but ­there is ­little evidence of such sentiments in Central Asia prior to the Gorbachev era.11 The knowledge and use of Rus­sian spread rapidly in Central Asia in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, according to official census figures.12 In Kazakhstan, the dominance of Rus­sian was particularly striking, partly due to the more long-­ standing Rus­sian presence in Kazakhstan and the larger ethnic Rus­sian population. In Kazakhstan, ethnic Kazakhs made up only 39.7 ­percent of the population in 1989, while Rus­sians made up 37.8 ­percent, with smaller minorities of Ukrainians, Belorus­sians, and Germans.13 In Kazakhstan’s cities, the proportion of native Kazakhs was even lower. Rus­sians in 1989 ­were 50.8 ­percent of the urban population and Kazakhs only 27 ­percent.14 The cities ­were overwhelmingly Russian-­speaking spaces.15 According to the 1989 census, 64.2 ­percent of Kazakhs w ­ ere fluent in Rus­ sian.16 Fully 40 ­percent of Kazakhs did not speak Kazakh, even though the overwhelming majority reported that Kazakh was their native language.17 (One has to be cautious about interpreting statements about “native language” in the USSR. For many respondents, the term seemed to mean something like “language of my ancestors,” rather than “the language I actually speak.”18) Fewer than one ­percent of Rus­sians living in Kazakhstan ever mastered Kazakh.19 Russian-­speaking Kazakhs w ­ ere the urban elite—­highly educated, cosmopolitan, and with good jobs, while Kazakh came to be seen as a backward tongue associated with rural, conservative, and religious ­people.20 Many Kazakhs spoke some Kazakh but could not read or write it; fewer than half of urban Kazakhs w ­ ere literate in Kazakh. The Kazakh population came to be divided into “real Kazakhs,” sometimes known as nagiz-­K azakhs (­those who lived in the countryside, spoke Kazakh as their primary language, and followed what they believed to be a traditional way of life) and urban Kazakhs, who mainly used Rus­sian and lived a more Soviet lifestyle. The derogatory term “shala-­K azakh,” which means semi-­or half-­K azakh, came to refer to any Kazakh who was linguistically and culturally Russified. According to Kazakh author Jumabai Jakupov: “The rapid russification of the shala-­K azakhs was facilitated by the effectiveness of the Soviet system of higher education. For the shala-­Kazakh, the Kazakh language seemed unnecessary. The shala-­Kazakh

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knows his/her language but on a very ­limited, everyday level, or ­else does not know it at all.”21 The situation in Tajikistan was somewhat dif­fer­ent. The Tajik republic had a much smaller Rus­sian population, and the largest ethnic minority was Uzbek, not Rus­sian. (In 1989, Tajiks made up 62.3 ­percent of the population, Uzbeks nearly 25 ­percent, and Rus­sians only 3.2 ­percent.) The Rus­sian language was not as dominant in Tajikistan as it was in Kazakhstan. In Tajikistan, the 1989 census showed that 66.6 ­percent of the overall population knew Tajik, and only 36.3 ­percent knew Russian—­quite low compared with the 83 ­percent who knew Rus­sian in Kazakhstan.22 Yet in Tajikistan, too, Soviet rule had resulted in the emergence of a Russian-­speaking indigenous elite. 30.5 ­percent of Tajiks overall reported that they w ­ ere fluent in Rus­sian.23 In Tajikistan, as in Kazakhstan, linguistic assimilation rarely went in the other direction; only 3 ­percent of Rus­sians in Tajikistan claimed to know the titular language of the republic.24 The differences in language use between Kazakhstan and Tajikistan w ­ ere qualitative as well as quantitative. In Tajikistan, as in most non-­Russian regions of the USSR, p­ eople generally learned Rus­sian as a second language for practical and professional purposes while retaining their native language—be it Tajik or Uzbek—as primary. (This is what David Laitin, drawing on the work of Brian Silver, has called “unassimilated bilingualism.”) In Kazakhstan, large numbers of ethnic Kazakhs had ­adopted Rus­sian as their first language while retaining only a ­limited fa­cil­i­ty in their native Kazakh (“assimilated bilingualism,” in social science parlance). Rapid urbanization, demographic change, and high levels of interethnic contact ­were key ­factors in the rise of assimilated bilingualism in Kazakhstan.25 The relationship between language and ethnic identity in Central Asia differed from the relationship that prevailed in Rus­sia, and it varied by republic and ethnic group. Language was not historically a crucial component of identity in the region, where the ethnolinguistic conception of nationality was a Eu­ro­pean idea imported by the Bolsheviks.26 Soviet policy itself had made language into an essential part of nationality, in which territory, language, and ethnic descent w ­ ere all supposed to coincide. Moreover, the meaning of language was not the same everywhere in Central Asia. Among formerly nomadic ­peoples such as the Kazakhs and Turkmen, among whom identity had been based on genealogical descent and a way of life rooted in nomadic custom, language was of lesser importance. Thus, in Soviet Kazakhstan, many ethnic Kazakhs who spoke only Rus­sian nevertheless considered themselves fully Kazakh b­ ecause of their ancestry. For them, the Soviet context produced a disconnect between language and national identity, a “nationality without

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language.” In the settled regions that became Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, by contrast, the population had been to a large extent mixed and bilingual in Turkic and Persian before 1917. Most p­ eople would have defined their identity in terms of religion, kinship group, or region, rather than by ethnolinguistic criteria. It was the Soviet rulers who used “native language” as the primary way of distinguishing between what they understood to be dif­fer­ent ethnic groups or nationalities. Tajiks ­were said to be native speakers of Tajik, a language similar to Persian or Farsi, while Uzbeks ­were said to be speakers of Uzbek, a Turkic language. As this understanding of ethnicity became internalized by local ­people, language became an impor­tant aspect of identifying as a Tajik or Uzbek.27

Mixed Families and the Rus­sian Language In the early postwar period, linguistic Russification had not yet progressed very far in Central Asia. Soviet ethnographers reported that many Rus­sian and other Eu­ro­pean ­women who married Central Asian men in the 1940s and 1950s settled in their husbands’ home villages and learned to speak the local language well. Some adapted so completely to the local culture that they “forgot how to speak Rus­sian,” according to Abramzon. “Most Rus­sian ­women learn the local language very well and not only speak it fluently, but even use the intonation specific to that language, interjections, use local proverbs, e­ tc. Often it is almost impossible to distinguish the Rus­sian ­woman from ­women of the local nationality by her language.”28 Soviet scholars had a dif­fer­ent story to tell about intermarriages that took place in l­ater de­cades. Ethnographers working in the Brezhnev era reported that the everyday language in mixed Central Asian-­European families was most often Rus­sian.29 Based on interviews, it is pos­si­ble to trace a pattern of language change across three generations characteristic of mixed families in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. In broad terms, the Central Asian (or Tatar or Azerbaijani) grandparents spoke primarily or exclusively the native language; their offspring spoke both Rus­sian and the native language; and their grandchildren—­the third generation—­spoke only Rus­sian. Mixed families w ­ ere the leading exponents of this three-­generation pattern, but they ­were not the only ones. Elite and educated families of the indigenous nationality exemplified it as well, especially in Kazakhstan and in urban areas of both republics.30 ­There was a close and mutually reinforcing connection between linguistic Russification and ethnic mixing. Mixed families w ­ ere more likely to speak Rus­sian as their primary language, and ­those who grew up speaking only Rus­sian ­were, in turn, more likely to inter-

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marry. In the words of one nationality specialist, the spread of the Rus­sian language “allows the strengthening of interethnic mutual influence in the realm of everyday life and culture and the growth of the number of interethnic marriages.”31 Thus, mixed marriages w ­ ere both a cause and an effect of the spread of bilingualism. Schools and education policy ­were crucial to ­these changes in language usage, which applied mainly to urban dwellers and educated elites. ­Children of the second generation (following the education reforms of the late 1930s) and even more so, the third (following the reforms of the late 1950s) spoke Rus­sian at school and with their peers in the neighborhood.32 Thus, the local language degraded to a “kitchen” language only used for certain ­limited purposes, such as speaking to grandparents. Kazakh and Tajik became associated with the realm of domestic intimacy, while Rus­sian was the language of schooling and professional development. Literacy in the native language became unimportant. Observers noted that parents commonly addressed the ­children in the native language, and the c­ hildren would respond in Russian—­a pattern similar to that found among immigrant families in the United States and France.33 Timur Sergazinov’s f­ amily provides a good example of this three-­generation pattern of change. Born in 1976, Timur is the child of a mixed marriage between a Rus­sian ­woman and a Kazakh man. Timur’s Kazakh grandparents, who lived in a village near Öskemen, spoke mainly Kazakh. His grand­father had fought in the Red Army in World War II and spoke some Rus­sian; his grand­mother, with less exposure to Rus­sians, hardly spoke the language at all. Timur’s ­father, born in the 1940s, grew up speaking Kazakh with his parents; however, he studied in a Russian-­language school and became a schoolteacher. In 1964 he met Galina, a Rus­sian ­woman who was also studying to become a teacher at a training program in Tselinograd (then a center of the “virgin lands” movement, t­oday the capital city of Nur-­Sultan). They fell in love and married ­after just three months. The c­ ouple had four c­ hildren, of whom Timur was the youn­gest and the only son. Timur noted that ­there was social pressure on his parents to use only Rus­ sian in the public sphere. Although his ­father spoke Kazakh well, Timur said, “This was at the time of the Soviet Union, where the Rus­sian language played a dominant role. Kazakh simply ­wasn’t welcomed anywhere. My ­father even told me that back then, when he worked for the Party, several Kazakhs worked ­there, and if the Kazakhs gathered and started to speak in their own language, every­one said ‘Hey, how come y­ ou’re not speaking Rus­sian, speak Rus­sian, we ­don’t understand.’ So they ­couldn’t even gather separately to speak Kazakh. It was somehow suppressed.”34 At home, too, the f­ amily spoke Rus­sian. Timur and his s­ isters not only went to Rus­sian schools but spoke exclusively Rus­sian

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with their parents and each other. This made communication with his grandparents difficult when they visited them in their village. “My apashka (grand­ mother) d­ idn’t even speak Rus­sian well. She knew Rus­sian as well as I know Kazakh.” Timur downplayed the importance of being able to communicate with his grandparents in a common language. “I’ll tell you what: I understood only one t­ hing—­that they w ­ ere speaking the words of love, they simply loved me, the precise meaning of their words was unimportant to me.” Timur noted that his f­ amily’s linguistic experiences w ­ ere typical of his city in northeastern Kazakhstan. “­Here, you know, all Kazakhs living in the city speak Rus­sian very well. Back then Rus­sian language was the language of international communication. The Soviet authorities had set this objective. And they fulfilled this objective, especially in Kazakhstan.”35 Svetlana Vizer, an Almaty resident and ­daughter of a mixed Tatar-­Russian ­couple, also described a three-­generation pattern of linguistic change. Her ­father, Ahmetshakur Abdulghaniev (b. 1926), had grown up in Semipalatinsk, in eastern Kazakhstan, speaking Tatar, and also learned to speak Kazakh (a related Turkic language) and Rus­sian fluently. His own parents hardly spoke Rus­sian at all, which made it difficult for Svetlana to communicate with them. “My grandma could speak Rus­sian, but very poorly. She c­ ouldn’t write in Rus­ sian and spoke with a heavy accent. When I would visit, we would kind of speak in monosyllables. We ­didn’t converse very much. My ­father would always speak with her in Tatar. My aunts would speak in Tatar with her as well.” Her ­father spoke Tatar fluently into adulthood. “And why ­wouldn’t he speak Tatar well, since he always spoke in Tatar at home with his own ­mother? She may have teased him a ­little, [saying] something like: ‘­you’re starting to forget the language,’ and so forth.”36 Nevertheless, a­ fter marrying Natasha in 1951—­a ­woman whose parents ­were originally from Ukraine but considered themselves Russians—­Shakur became primarily a Rus­sian speaker. Natasha’s grand­father’s ­family had been repressed as kulaks in 1931 and sent into Siberian exile. ­After the f­amily was rehabilitated in 1935, they moved south to Almaty (then known as Alma Ata), in Kazakhstan. Natasha, born in 1927, met Shakur in Alma Ata a­ fter he was sent ­there for work in 1947. A ­ fter they married, the c­ ouple lived with Natasha’s ­family, and they always spoke Rus­sian at home. Svetlana, born in the mid1950s, grew up speaking only Rus­sian.37 Marina Abdrahmanova (b. 1957) told a similar tale of generational change. Half Kazakh and half Rus­sian, Marina recalled that her Kazakh grandparents communicated with their ­children solely in Kazakh. Her f­ ather learned Rus­ sian relatively late in life, when he went to Moscow to study ­after World War II. “When my dad arrived in Moscow, he ­didn’t know any Rus­sian at all. That is,

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he learned Rus­sian primarily while living in Moscow.” Marina noted that he spoke Rus­sian with an accent at first but ultimately learned the language well. “As far as I can remember during my life, he spoke Rus­sian quite well, almost without an accent. And he could write very correctly. In fact, he could write better than many of his Rus­sian colleagues.” Her parents married in 1953, and Marina and her s­ isters, the third generation, grew up speaking l­ittle or no Kazakh. Rus­sian was their first and only language.38 Of course, it was not only mixed families who failed to retain the native language. In Kazakhstan, even many ethnic Kazakhs of the generation schooled ­after the 1950s spoke exclusively Rus­sian. Their parents, too, pushed them ­toward the metropolitan language. “Maira Ahmetova,” a Kazakh ­woman from Almaty, recalled: “Schooling was completely in the Rus­sian language. . . . ​ Lessons in Kazakh w ­ ere not mandatory. It was voluntary, and in real­ity we learned Kazakh very poorly, by the end of school we hardly knew it at all. Even though in my ­family, my parents knew Kazakh and spoke Kazakh with each other. Yet they always tried to speak Rus­sian with us.” Maira’s ­family, though not a mixed f­amily, also underwent a three-­generation transition from being primarily Kazakh speakers to being primarily Rus­sian speakers. Her grandparents spoke only Kazakh, though they understood some Rus­sian. Her parents spoke both languages but considered Kazakh to be their first language. Maira and her ­sister learned Rus­sian as their first language, and she ultimately married a Rus­sian man. Maira said that she has some grasp of conversational Kazakh but cannot read and write. Ironically, both her parents ­were prominent cultural figures who made a living from the Kazakh language. Her ­father was the editor-­in-­chief of a Kazakh-­language newspaper. Yet they did ­little to ensure that their c­ hildren also knew Kazakh.39 In Tajikistan, Kamoliddin Urunboyev (b. 1964, Uzbek, married to a partly Ukrainian ­woman) grew up in a multiethnic environment with a complicated linguistic situation. Nevertheless, Rus­sian came to predominate within three generations in his f­amily as well. His parents spoke mainly Uzbek, but their neighborhood was full of Rus­sians and Germans, so the Rus­sian language predominated. Though they spoke Uzbek with their parents, Kamoliddin and his ­brothers became Rus­sian speakers. Their education was all in Rus­sian, and he and his b­ rothers spoke among themselves only in Rus­sian. “We spoke Uzbek with them. We ­didn’t know Uzbek that well, though. . . . ​I now know Uzbek up to 30 ­percent. Bahriddin and Jamol [his siblings] speak Uzbek approximately on the same level as me. We understand the most impor­tant ­things; we can say enough to sell or buy t­ hings at a bazaar, but not enough to carry a conversation.” Kamoliddin married a Russian-­speaking ­woman, and they speak only Rus­sian with their ­children.40

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The families described ­here represent not just change over generations but also the changing social and cultural context of the Soviet Union over the de­ cades. Between the 1930s and the 1980s, Rus­sian became ever more vital as a lingua franca, and a multiethnic, largely urban stratum of Russian-­speaking ­people emerged in ­every republic.

­Mothers, F­ athers, and the ­Mother Tongue If mixed families ­were vehicles of linguistic Russification, much of this was due to the Rus­sian ­mothers. As Timur Sergazinov explained, b­ ecause his ­mother was Rus­sian, he and his s­ isters never learned Kazakh. “Aside from every­thing ­else, my mom is Rus­sian. Every­thing somehow stems from the ­mother. Conversely, if my ­father ­were Rus­sian and my ­mother Kazakh, then prob­ably we would have known Kazakh better. ­After all, your mom raises you and talks to you from infancy.”41 Mixed ­children often felt regret about not knowing their f­ ather’s language or about knowing it poorly. Marina Abdrahmanova, whose f­ ather was Kazakh, said: “Now I even feel a ­little guilty about not knowing my dad’s language. But then again, I somehow justify myself b­ ecause ­there ­really ­wasn’t any opportunity back then to study the language. My ­father was the only one who spoke this language. That is, no one ­else could speak it but him. He himself ­didn’t have anyone to speak with.”42 “Liudmila Davydova” (b. 1954) also felt some regret at not having learned her Ingush ­father’s language, though in her case, t­ here r­ eally was l­ ittle opportunity to do so. Her ­father left the ­family when she was a young child and returned to the Caucasus, and she was raised in Kazakhstan by her Rus­sian ­mother. “I d­ on’t know the language . . . ​I lived t­ here for half a year and [I picked up a few words] on the domestic level . . . ​bread, knife, ­etc. . . . ​words like that. My grandma, on my dad’s side, ­didn’t speak any Rus­sian at all. And I, of course, ­didn’t speak Ingush.”43 Tajikistan was much less Russified than Kazakhstan, yet Tajik ­fathers in mixed marriages ­were similarly inclined to speak Rus­sian with their ­children. Natalia Volkova, a mixed Russian-­Tajik w ­ oman born in 1956 in Leninabad (now Khujand), is an example. Her ­father spoke Tajik very well; he knew Uzbek and some Kyrgyz; “He was a polyglot, an amazing person.” But he spoke only Rus­sian with his two ­daughters. “Larisa and I regret that we know the Tajik language so poorly. I forgot what I used to know twenty years ago. . . . ​ Well, Galia, our second cousin, lived in the Tajik district of Razak, and she spoke Tajik quite well; my ­sister and I ­were envious. We lived in a Rus­sian

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environment, every­one who lived on our street was Rus­sian and every­one in school was Rus­sian.” ­Fathers in mixed families in both Kazakhstan and Tajikistan generally failed to teach their native language to their own ­children. Sometimes it was clear that they had no interest in passing along the language; in other cases, the ­fathers would have liked their ­children to know the language but ­didn’t know how to achieve this. Several interviewees discussed the feeble efforts of their ­fathers to pass along non-­Russian languages to their offspring, mainly involving half-­hearted language lessons when the c­ hildren ­were older and had expressed an interest. It seems not to have occurred to most of the f­ athers that the easiest way to teach ­children a language is simply to speak that language with them when they are very young. “Maria Iskanderova,” d­ aughter of a Rus­sian ­mother and Azerbaijani f­ ather who grew up in northern Kazakhstan, remembered a Russian-­dominated upbringing. “They [my parents] spoke Rus­sian and so did we, naturally. We attended a Rus­sian kindergarten from the age of one, we went to school, and we read Rus­sian books; that’s why we spoke strictly in Rus­sian.” Maria recalled that she asked her ­father to teach her Azerbaijani when she was younger: “But somehow the lessons in this subject never went very far. My ­father did not speak Rus­sian so well and d­ idn’t r­ eally have any pedagogical knowledge, in order to explain ­things to me. . . . ​Let’s say I asked him about some words or which grammatical case or something like that. . . . ​He would tell me, but I ­couldn’t understand the logic of it. I ­really tried, learned some words, but then somehow we dropped the w ­ hole ­thing.”44 Lesia Karatayeva (b. 1971), half Rus­ sian and half Kazakh, also grew up speaking Rus­sian at home. As in so many cases, her f­ ather spoke his native language well but chose to speak Rus­sian with his ­family. Lesia spent her early childhood in Rus­sia, which also contributed to her failure to learn Kazakh. Her ­father, she noted, was completely bilingual in Rus­sian and Kazakh. “He speaks both languages beautifully . . . ​but we always spoke Rus­sian at home . . . ​due to the fact that we spoke Rus­sian at home and that we ­didn’t live in Kazakhstan . . . ​I d­ idn’t master the language.” Her Kazakh cousins, too, even though they grew up in Kazakhstan, “They speak more in Rus­sian. It’s more of a Russian-­speaking space.”45 Marina Abdrahmanova’s f­ ather, a Kazakh married to a Rus­sian ­woman, showed ­little interest in his ­children knowing Kazakh. “Well, in princi­ple, he enrolled us in a Rus­sian school. . . . ​I mean, back then, knowing the Kazakh language was not a big necessity, since all of the documentation was in the Rus­sian language. All of us attended a Rus­sian school, and he was not against it. And then, evidently, another ­factor was that he was very busy at work.

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Therefore, our mom was primarily in charge of raising the kids.”46 Svetlana Vizer recalled that her Tatar ­father, though he spoke Tatar well, never ­really tried to teach her the language. “I asked him to teach me several times; a­ fter all, I am Tatar. He would start d­ oing something. He would write down some words on a piece of paper. But ­these words ­were usually isolated attempts, they ­didn’t amount to anything. ‘­There, I wrote some words!’ [laughs]” A ­ fter all, she noted, he was not an educator and c­ ouldn’t ­really have been expected to teach her.47 Larisa Mamadzohirova, born in 1958 in Khujand to a mixed Russian-­Tajik ­couple, recalled speaking only Rus­sian at home. “­Because our neighbors ­were Rus­sian, we chiefly interacted with other Rus­sians. We attended a Rus­sian school.” The situation was worsened by the fact that her Tajik relatives did not acknowledge Larisa and her ­family when the ­children ­were small, having opposed her ­father’s choice of a Rus­sian bride. So, she recalled, “we ­didn’t socialize with them, we ­didn’t learn the language.” Her ­father, though, was unconcerned. “My dad always used to say, whenever my Mom told him to teach us the Tajik language, ‘They ­will learn it on their own.’ My mom would say: ‘How ­will they learn? They d­ on’t have any interaction; all of our neighbors are Rus­sian.’ ­Until, let’s say, 1974–1975 we lived only among Rus­sians. That’s why we ­didn’t have anyone to speak Tajik with.” Their ­father would occasionally speak a few words of Tajik to his ­children, but it was not enough. “Well, my dad would tell us: ‘bring me a knife,’ or ‘bring a watermelon’ in Tajik. We understood most of it, but we ­didn’t have any ­actual conversation. We mainly spoke Rus­sian.”48 Bahriniso Abdurahmonova, a mixed Tajik-­Kirgiz-­ Uzbek w ­ oman born in 1953, recalled that her ­father also pushed the ­family to speak Rus­sian at home instead of Uzbek and Tajik. The reason, she explained, had to do with the educational system. Her f­ather was aware of the importance of Rus­sian schooling even though he himself, an orphan, had only completed fourth grade in an Uzbek school. He a­ dopted a drastic strategy to make sure his c­ hildren knew Rus­sian adequately, actually forbidding the use of Tajik and Uzbek. “­Because at that time a question was raised—­which school should we attend? It turned out that our knowledge of Rus­sian was very poor. Our f­ ather forbade speaking any other language except Rus­sian. So that’s how we learned Rus­sian.”49 How did this situation come about? Why did t­ hese c­ hildren of Kazakh, Uzbek, Tajik, Tatar, and Azeri ­fathers fail to learn their ­father’s native languages, even when it was the titular language of the republic in which they ­were living? Why ­were the ­fathers more interested in making sure their ­children knew Rus­sian well? Parental ambitions for their ­children played a big role in such decisions. Several respondents reported that their parents w ­ ere afraid the

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c­ hildren would ­later suffer in Soviet society if they did not speak perfect, unaccented Rus­sian. This was far more impor­tant to their f­uture than their knowledge of the native language. Asked why her parents always spoke with their c­ hildren in Rus­sian, Maira Ahmetova answered: “­Because they themselves knew Rus­sian poorly, and at that time it was prestigious to know Rus­sian. And their dream was that we would have a good command of Rus­sian. They thought that we would know Kazakh in any case, but that ­didn’t turn out to be true. It turned out that we spoke Rus­sian well, and Rus­sian became like our native language. We hardly know Kazakh.”50 Maira recalled that her parents ­were embarrassed by their own poor Rus­sian and did not want their kids to have this prob­lem. She said of her ­father, “He spoke Kazakh very well. But he always wanted his kids to know the Rus­sian language, b­ ecause he spoke Rus­sian with a slight accent.” “Ruslan Isayev” (b. 1972), son of a mixed Ukrainian/Rus­sian ­mother and a Kazakh ­father, recalled similar sentiments on the part of his parents: “They always spoke only in Rus­sian . . . ​I was, of course, surprised and asked why they never spoke with me in another language, but my f­ ather said, we thought it w ­ asn’t necessary, we w ­ ere afraid that you would speak Rus­sian with an accent and so forth.”51 As the comments of Ruslan and ­others suggest, it was not enough to have a functional or even an excellent knowledge of Rus­sian; parents wanted their ­children to speak it perfectly, without an accent. Clearly, they believed that their ­children would go further in Soviet society if they ­were perceived as Rus­sian native speakers rather than as Central Asians who had learned Rus­sian as a second language. Research in other contexts suggests that t­ hese parents ­were correct in their assumptions. In the United States, for example, studies have shown that ­people who speak En­glish with a foreign accent are considered less trustworthy and are less likely to be hired or promoted.52 The favoring of Rus­sian by ­fathers was due to the overwhelming prestige and practical importance of the all-­union “language of interethnic communication.” Despite the official rhe­toric about the importance of the national language in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, in real­ity the indigenous language was frequently treated as a second-­rate or “backward” tongue by Rus­sian speakers. The promotion of Russian-­native bilingualism resulted in the degradation and marginalization of native languages, especially among educated ­people. Native-­language schools w ­ ere located mainly in rural areas and associated with backwardness and a poor-­quality education. Anyone with aspirations for educational or ­career success pushed their c­ hildren ­toward Rus­sian. Lop-­sided bilingualism was usually the result, in which Central Asians learned Rus­sian but few Rus­sians or other non-­Central Asians both­ered to learn Kazakh or Tajik.53

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Rus­sian Schools and the Urban Environment Even without a push from their f­athers, many mixed c­ hildren would have ended up as Rus­sian speakers. The original idea of Leninist nationality policy was that e­ very child would be educated in his or her native language. Over time, however, and particularly ­after the Khrushchev education reforms of the 1950s, more and more native parents sent their c­ hildren to Russian-­language schools. ­Because most institutions of higher education and prestigious ­career opportunities required a good knowledge of Rus­sian, ambitious parents ­were ready to turn their backs on their native languages. Yet even t­ hose parents who valued the native language often had ­little choice but to send their c­ hildren to Rus­sian schools. In Kazakhstan, ­there was an extreme shortage of Kazakh-­language schools ­after the 1950s, especially in urban areas. According to 1988 figures, the majority of schools in both urban and rural areas ­were Rus­sian language (52.4 ­percent versus 31.9 ­percent Kazakh). In urban areas, the proportion was 72.7 ­percent Rus­sian and 11.3 ­percent Kazakh. The remaining schools ­were mixed, offering instruction in both languages.54 In Almaty, the capital of Soviet Kazakhstan, ­there w ­ ere four boarding schools for rural Kazakh c­ hildren in the 1960s, but not a single regular Kazakh-­language school for city students.55 By 1982, 70 ­percent of pupils in Kazakhstan of all ethnicities w ­ ere studying in Russian-­language 56 schools. This had a devastating effect on the overall level of Kazakh-­language proficiency among the generation born in the 1950s and ­later. Erzhan Baiburin (b. 1959), a Kazakh man married to a Rus­sian ­woman, described the impact that his schooling had on his language usage. He was transformed from a completely Kazakh-­speaking child to an exclusively Russian-­speaking adult—­a transformation completed in a single generation. He grew up speaking Kazakh at home with his parents, but he attended Rus­ sian schools b­ ecause ­there ­were no Kazakh schools in his native city of Öskemen, in northeastern Kazakhstan. “Well, at the beginning I heard primarily Kazakh speech. But at the kindergarten and school, I re­oriented myself to the Rus­sian language ­because the kindergarten and school ­were Rus­sian speaking. And since that time, I basically communicate in Rus­sian all the time.” Erzhan recalled that he first lost his ability to use Kazakh actively, and eventually even the ability to understand his first language: “My [Kazakh] language, it turned out, was erased starting from the level of kindergarten. It lingered at the subconscious level for a long time b­ ecause while I was studying at school, I could easily understand what my parents and relatives w ­ ere talking about. But then, of course, the language was left by the wayside ­because I was studying and working primarily in a Russian-­speaking environment.”

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The fact that he and his siblings w ­ ere primarily Russian-­speaking caused the entire f­amily to change their language patterns. “Well, at the beginning [my ­family spoke] mostly in Kazakh, and then it became mixed. And since the kids spoke primarily Rus­sian, accordingly, t­ here was more in Rus­sian.”57 Lesia Karatayeva, born in 1971 of mixed Rus­sian and Kazakh parentage, grew up speaking Rus­sian at home. Before she started school, her f­amily lived in vari­ous other republics b­ ecause her ­father was a professional military man. ­After they settled in Kazakhstan when she was seven or eight years old, Lesia attended exclusively Rus­sian schools. “Well, I c­ an’t even remember ­there being any Kazakh-­speaking schools during that period. I mean . . . ​it was the second half of the 1970s. Perhaps t­here w ­ ere some, but in the first place I d­ idn’t even think about this, and secondly, it w ­ ouldn’t have occurred to anyone to send me to a Kazakh-­speaking school ­because I d­ idn’t speak the language at all.”58 Fatima Satyboldinova (b. 1951), a Kazakh w ­ oman who married a Tatar, spoke mainly Kazakh at home as a child. Her education was also mainly in Kazakh. As one of the few members of mixed families I interviewed who did not attend Rus­sian schools, Fatima provided an example of the educational and professional costs this could have. Fatima’s parents sent her to a Kazakh school largely for practical reasons. “Up to the second grade, I attended a Rus­sian school. . . . ​In Semipalatinsk we had severe winter frosts. So my ­father took me and enrolled me in a Kazakh school. Other­wise, I would have had to walk very far to attend school. So, I started the third grade in a Kazakh school.59 Though her spoken Rus­sian was good, Fatima found studying at a Rus­sian institution of higher education to be challenging ­because of her Kazakh-­language educational background. She was simply not as capable of reading and absorbing Russian-­language materials as the other students. “Prob­lems did occur . . . ​well, in po­liti­cal economy and philosophy I had to read [every­thing] at least twice. The first time, I would simply read through it, but the second time I had to understand the meaning. This was ­really difficult for me!” ­Later, when she married a Tatar man, the two of them spoke mainly in the “official language of interethnic communication.” “Well, he and I basically spoke in Rus­sian. You know, sometimes in Rus­sian and other times in Kazakh a l­ittle. He spoke Kazakh well. But with my mother-­in-­law, well, his mom, I ­couldn’t; for a long time, I c­ ouldn’t understand some of her words.” Though Kazakh and Tatar are related Turkic languages, she found Tatar hard to understand. “You can understand some t­hings, but the words that are purely Tatar, t­hose are difficult to understand.” Seeking to spare her own c­ hildren the educational prob­lems she had experienced due to her poor Rus­sian, Fatima and her husband de­cided to send their d­ aughter and son, born in 1974 and 1982, to Rus­sian schools. “Both of the kids speak Rus­sian. They graduated from a Rus­sian school, a­ fter all.”60

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In Tajikistan, the Rus­sian language had not made inroads to the same degree as in Kazakhstan. Nevertheless, the shift to Rus­sian as a first language did occur in mixed and elite Tajik families who socialized and studied in a multiethnic environment. H ­ ere, too, the school played a crucial role. For “Mukarram,” a Tajik w ­ oman who married a Rus­sian in the late 1980s, a Russian-­language environment and schools made her a Rus­sian speaker. She studied in a Rus­sian class in school and lived in an environment where Rus­sian speakers predominated. “In general, we w ­ ere surrounded by Rus­sians. We w ­ ere the only Tajik ­family in the place where we lived . . . ​and all of our surroundings and my surroundings ­were exclusively Rus­sian.” As a result, they spoke only Rus­sian at home. “Our parents spoke Rus­sian with us. We almost d­ idn’t know Tajik at all.” She corrected herself. “Not ‘almost’—we ­really d­ idn’t know Tajik at all.”61 Ma’suda Sattorova (b. 1938), an Uzbek w ­ oman, and her Tajik husband ended up using Rus­sian at home ­because they led the nomadic life of a military officer’s ­family. She herself had attended a Tajik-­language school in Dushanbe, along with all eight of her siblings. They had spoken Uzbek and Tajik, as well as Rus­sian, at home. But with her own husband and ­children, Rus­sian came to predominate. “It just so happened that I communicated with my kids mostly in Rus­sian. ­Because . . . ​well, how can I say it? My oldest child was born in Dushanbe; the third one was born in Almaty.” She explained, “My husband is in the military, so we traveled from city to city. So all the ­children ­were born in dif­fer­ent cities.” ­Because of their travels, her three ­children of necessity attended Russian-­language schools. “My son graduated from the sixth grade in a school attached to the embassy in Kabul, Af­ghan­i­stan. My ­daughter, a­ fter graduating from the third grade, started to attend a Rus­sian class, and the youn­ gest child we also enrolled . . . ​in a Rus­sian school ­here [in Tajikistan].”62 Ilhom Boboyev (b. 1957) and his wife Elmira, a mixed Tajik-­Tatar ­couple, spoke only Rus­sian at home, with each other and their ­children. They sent their kids to Rus­sian schools. They accepted that this was just the way it was in the Soviet Union. ­There was no question about the education of the ­children, Ilhom recalled; it would be “definitely a Rus­sian school. It w ­ asn’t even a question for me. It was a matter-­of-­course decision. We ­didn’t even trou­ble ourselves; we never questioned it.”63 Lutfiya Boboyeva, born in 1956 in Isfara, Tajikistan, is half Tajik, half Bashkir, and the w ­ idow of an Azerbaijani-­Russian man. She went to Rus­sian schools. She explained how the Rus­sian language came to dominate in her life. Her ­father grew up in Samarkand, where the population was mixed Uzbek and Tajik, so he learned Uzbek along with his native Tajik. Her parents spoke Uzbek together (Bashkir being a Turkic language and thus relatively close to Uzbek). Despite the predominance of Turkic languages and Tajik in her par-

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ents’ background, Lutfiya went to a Rus­sian kindergarten and school. “We spoke in Rus­sian language and grew up among Rus­sian kids. Primarily, ­those kids ­were of Rus­sian national origin. Then, I attended a Rus­sian school.” She had an international group of friends for whom the common language was Rus­ sian. “We lived near Tajiks, Tatars, and Rus­sians. We lived together amicably. We socialized. I had several friends: Roza Gafurova—­a Tatar, Ira Bakurova—­a Rus­sian . . . ​­there ­were many Rus­sian families who came ­here to Isfara from Rus­sia.”64 She explained how her parents de­cided on a Rus­sian school for their ­children: “Rus­sian was regarded as prestigious back then . . . ​and so was studying in a Rus­sian school. And the c­ hildren of high-­ranking officials graduated from Rus­sian schools.” She has no regrets about her education. “I experienced life through Rus­sian language. I am happy I did.” She feels it gave her a broader outlook and access to a larger world of lit­er­a­ture and culture.65 A generational shift similar to that in Kazakhstan could be seen in respondents who reported that they spoke Tajik or Uzbek with their parents but Rus­ sian with their friends and siblings. Mirzosharif Ruziev (b. 1971), a Tajik man married to a Rus­sian w ­ oman, recalled. “I spoke Tajik with my parents and used Rus­sian with my ­brothers, ­because we studied in a Rus­sian school. We had only one school h ­ ere, a Rus­sian one. ­Because of that, every­one h ­ ere speaks Rus­sian exceptionally well. . . . ​­There ­were no Tajik schools, but we had Tajik language lessons.” This has carried over into his own marriage, where “From the very beginning and to this day we only spoke in Rus­sian.”66 Ra’no Nazarova (b. 1956), d­ aughter of a Tajik f­ ather and Rus­sian m ­ other, married a man whose background is a mixture of Tatar and Uzbek. Ra’no and her husband both grew up in bilingual or multilingual families. She spoke Rus­ sian with her m ­ other and Tajik with her f­ ather and grand­mother. She and her siblings went to a Rus­sian school. Her husband’s ­family spoke mainly Uzbek at home, along with some Tajik and Rus­sian. Her husband and his four siblings all went to dif­fer­ent schools; two to a Rus­sian school, two to an Uzbek school, and one to a Tajik school. Despite all this linguistic diversity, Ra’no recalled that the appeal of Rus­sian was very strong. “Well, at that time—­during the Soviet period, every­one spoke Rus­sian, of course; both Tajiks and Rus­sians did. Rus­sians ­didn’t study the Tajik language, no m ­ atter how interested in it they may have been. Why? B ­ ecause Tajiks wanted to master the Rus­sian language. That’s why in Soviet times, as far as I know, they would even ask ­people to speak with them more in Rus­sian, so that they could master Rus­sian.”67 Ra’no went on, “Every­one wanted to study the Rus­sian language . . . ​the civilization, every­thing was in the Rus­sian language.” Living in this environment, she and her husband ended up speaking mainly Rus­sian at home, and they sent their kids to Rus­sian schools. “We spoke with our c­ hildren both in

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Tajik, and in Rus­sian, but mainly in Rus­sian.” As a result, Ra’no recalled, “My ­children became Russified. My son ­didn’t know any Tajik at all; he attended a Rus­sian school. When we begin speaking in Tajik, he responds in short fragments. He spoke and still speaks mainly in Rus­sian.” Their ­family’s experience was by no means unusual among educated ­people in Soviet Tajikistan, she noted. “Every­thing was in Rus­sian, and t­ here ­were mostly Rus­sian classes in schools with very few Tajik classes. . . . ​When the USSR existed, many p­ eople even started to forget Tajik. T ­ here are some professors who have Tajik last names but they ­don’t know Tajik; his own language and he ­doesn’t know it.”68 The mere fact that Ra’no expressed surprise at this shows the differences between Tajikistan and Kazakhstan; in Kazakhstan, t­ here w ­ ere many professors with Kazakh last names who did not know Kazakh. Ra’no’s d­ aughter Nargiza Nazarova (b. 1979) recalled that her parents made an effort to speak Tajik with the c­ hildren. But they spoke Rus­sian with each other and sent their kids to Rus­sian schools, so Rus­sian came to dominate. “Our parents conversed with and addressed my b­ rother and me in Tajik. But they themselves spoke with each other in Rus­sian, for some reason. If ­there ­were any serious topics for conversation, ­those ­were discussed only in Rus­sian. Only everyday ­matters ­were discussed in Tajik.”69 This naturally led the ­children to conclude that Rus­sian was the more impor­tant language. Other aspects of their f­amily life also pushed Nargiza and her b­ rother t­ oward becoming monolingual Rus­sian speakers. “We spent most of the time in our childhood with our Rus­sian grandma. That’s why we spoke Rus­sian constantly. Tajik was a ­little difficult for me. I could understand every­thing, but I d­ idn’t speak it.”70 Among mixed families of smaller ethnic minorities, ­those with neither a Rus­ sian parent nor a parent from the titular nationality of the republic, the use of Rus­sian was taken for granted. Members of the Armenian, Tatar, Korean, and German minorities in Central Asia tended to speak Rus­sian as their first language. In Kazakhstan, for example, 99.3 ­percent of ethnic Germans, 97.7 ­percent of Koreans, 96.9 ­percent of Tatars, 94.1 ­percent of Chechens and 86 ­percent of Azerbaijanis reported that they spoke Rus­sian.71 Mixed families that included members of t­hese nationalities naturally used Rus­sian as well. Susanna Morozova, whose ­mother was Ukrainian and ­father Armenian, grew up in northern Kazakhstan speaking mainly Rus­sian. Her story vividly conveys how it is that mixed families came to use only Rus­sian, especially if they lived in a republic that was not the homeland of ­either parent. Susanna’s ­mother knew Ukrainian well, but her f­ ather’s ­family was primarily Russian-­speaking. Well, my mom, of course, knew Ukrainian quite well. For about ten years ­after we moved ­here, we went to Ukraine practically ­every summer. I

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mean, one year we would travel to the Caucasus, the next year to Ukraine. Our parents would take us ­there so that, as the saying goes, we would know our roots. I ­didn’t learn to speak Armenian, aside from learning a few words h ­ ere and t­ here, ­because all of my dad’s relatives spoke Rus­sian and their ­brothers and ­sisters live in Altai [an area in Rus­sia near the Kazakh border]; they forgot their language, spoke Armenian very poorly, and ­couldn’t write it at all. However, in Ukraine, I could speak Ukrainian very fluently during my childhood. Despite their efforts to keep up contact with the parents’ two home republics ­after settling in Kazakhstan, Rus­sian came to dominate within Susanna’s ­family. “­Later, though, we ­stopped traveling. It became financially very difficult. And that was it. Our mom does not read in Ukrainian anymore, although she does keep some Ukrainian books. When my dad receives a phone call from his ­brothers in Armenia, the only t­ hing he can say in Armenian is ‘hello.’ Rus­ sian became the m ­ other tongue in our ­family.”72 Valentina Geiger (b. 1955), an ethnic German ­woman living in southern Kazakhstan, says that her f­amily became primarily Russian-­speaking partly ­because of the stigmatization of German in the postwar years. During her childhood, “We spoke in Rus­sian. My parents rarely spoke German at home, rarely ­because at that time it was regarded. . . . ​You can say they w ­ ere afraid. They w ­ ere afraid to speak it. When my grandma would come and visit, then every­one would speak German. We spoke German while my grandma was staying with us, and when she would leave, every­one would con­ve­niently forget it.” Valentina attended a Rus­sian school. “­There ­weren’t any other schools, only Rus­sian; neither Kazakh nor German schools.” Like many ­people in Kazakhstan, Valentina had to find a way to construct an ethnic identification without language. “We spoke Rus­sian for the most part but observed German traditions. That’s how it was for us. And, of course, our w ­ hole life we considered ourselves Germans.” She has been married to a Tatar man since 1977.73 “Kamal Ibrayev,” an ethnic Uyghur living in Almaty, reported that he grew up knowing Uyghur only on a conversational level. They spoke Rus­sian in his ­family. He is married to a Rus­sian ­woman. “I even think in the Rus­sian language, although I am Uyghur. I know the Uyghur language, I speak it. I can even say a few words in Kazakh. That is, I know my languages on the everyday level. Of course, I ­don’t know the literary language. I think many ­people ­don’t.”74 The accounts of individuals like Valentina and Kamal raise the question of what exactly nationality means to p­ eople who d­ on’t live in a community with ­others of their nationality and ­don’t speak their native language. Is it exclusively descent-­based? Does it mean being able to make apple strudel,

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if one is German, or sing Uyghur folk songs, if one is Uyghur? Does it just refer to the official nationality inscribed in one’s passport? In a sense, nationality for ­these Soviet citizens seems to have become primarily symbolic, detached from a broader ethnic culture or community.75 In both Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, the titular language was supposed to be taught as a second language in Rus­sian schools. My interviewees unanimously reported, however, that the local language had low status as a subject, was not always offered, and when taught at all was taught badly and not taken seriously by students.76 “Aigerim Semenova” (b. 1952) explained why she, half Kazakh and half Rus­sian, living in Kazakhstan, had never learned the Kazakh language. “I ­don’t know it at all. Well, such was my upbringing. In school they taught it very poorly. ­There w ­ asn’t any methodology for studying the language, and then, the Kazakhs themselves w ­ ere very proud of knowing Rus­sian.”77 Although Kazakh was offered as a second language at her school in the 1960s and early 1970s, Marina Abdrahmanova did not study it. “In our school the Kazakh-­language courses ­were only for Kazakhs who ­didn’t study En­glish,” she explained.78 Sazhida Dmitrieva recalled that the Kazakh instruction in her school was of very low quality. “­There ­were Kazakh language lessons. They ­didn’t do anything good for me. I ­can’t say that I learned anything from them.”79 “Aliya Ahmetova” recalled: “We ­didn’t have any instruction in the Kazakh language at the institutions of higher education at all.”80 When ­children did learn to speak the local (or any non-­Russian) language it was usually b­ ecause one or both of the parents w ­ ere very committed to this, despite the prevailing currents. It was sometimes the Rus­sian ­mother who insisted on the indigenous language. Sazhida’s m ­ other was the one pushing hardest to keep the Tatar language and culture alive in their f­amily. “In our ­house, well, I spoke Rus­sian with my mom, but with my grand­father and grand­mother I spoke Tatar. By the way, the main proponent of this was my ­mother. She always strictly punished—­well, not punished—­but said, ‘­Don’t you dare speak Rus­sian to your grandparents. Speak in their language!’ In other words, my Rus­sian mama demanded that I speak with them in Tatar.”81 Sazhida was unusual in being able to speak Tatar as well as she did; many Tatars in Kazakhstan spoke only Rus­sian. “My late Tatar grandma was always proud that, although in the families where both husband and wife ­were Tatar, their kids often d­ idn’t know the Tatar language, ­here my ­sister and I knew Tatar! Grandma was very proud of this, especially when someone would come to visit us from the Ural region itself or from somewhere e­ lse.” Despite her grand­ mother’s pride and her ­mother’s emphasis on Tatar, Sazhida and her ­sister spoke Rus­sian with each other. “Always. And Rus­sian with friends too, due to the surroundings. Well, even our parents, the Tatar families lived in a friendly and close-­

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knit community, the parents socialized with each other and spoke in Tatar all the time, but we already spoke in Rus­sian.” Again, school was the decisive ­factor. “Even the Tatar kids spoke in Rus­sian, we all spoke Rus­sian, ­because our school was Rus­sian.”82 “Saltanat Tleubayeva” ’s life and educational history similarly demonstrated that a determined parent could c­ ounter, at least to some extent, the impact of an overwhelmingly Russian-­speaking environment and Rus­sian schools. Only if one of the parents made a huge point of insisting on speaking the native language ­were ­children able to retain it. Even so, such ­children usually had a good knowledge of the spoken language but l­ittle acquaintance with the literary language. Saltanat’s parents ­were both ethnic Kazakhs. Her ­mother was fully bilingual in Kazakh and Rus­sian, having attended a boarding school for Kazakh-­speaking c­ hildren in the republican capital, Almaty. “She learned to speak Rus­sian in her childhood. At some point she started studying in Rus­ sian and l­ ater in Kazakh. And l­ ater she studied at a college of communication in Almaty, but this time in Rus­sian. ­These two languages for her are both just like native; that is, she knows both Rus­sian and Kazakh literary languages.”83 Saltanat’s ­father was also bilingual, but for him Kazakh was native and he learned Rus­sian as a second language. Her f­ather was nine when his ­family moved to Öskemen, then a predominantly Rus­sian city known as Ust-­ Kamenogorsk. He attended a Rus­sian school and learned to speak Rus­sian well. “For my dad, Rus­sian is like a literary language, something that he learned in school; Rus­sian came from his education.” Her f­amily spoke Kazakh at home, partly ­because one of their grand­mothers lived with them and did not speak Rus­sian. Yet Saltanat, born in 1970, recalled that her formal education was entirely in Rus­sian, starting from kindergarten. Her parents had ­little choice: “We simply ­didn’t have any Kazakh kindergartens at that time, and ­there ­were only two Kazakh-­speaking schools. That’s why beginning with kindergarten, since we d­ idn’t have any Kazakh-­speaking ones, I was sent to a Rus­sian kindergarten. And that’s when I learned my first Rus­sian words; that is, I started speaking Rus­sian. And the school, higher education, university, institute, every­thing I finished was in the Rus­sian language.”84 She recalled that the only two Kazakh-­language schools in Öskemen ­were boarding schools for ­children from rural areas whose parents ­couldn’t send them to the local schools. “That’s why my education was entirely Rus­sian, and, so to speak, Rus­sian became my ­mother tongue, in terms of culture and in terms of education.” Nevertheless, Saltanat and her two s­ isters retained their Kazakh-­language skills b­ ecause they w ­ ere valued by at least one of their parents. “In our f­amily, when we ­were growing up, our dad would call on us to speak Kazakh whenever he heard us speak Rus­sian, so that grandma could

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understand us. He demanded that we speak Kazakh in the f­amily to make sure that we remembered our language and w ­ ouldn’t forget it.” As a result of her ­father’s efforts, Saltanat still speaks Kazakh well. “Even though it was on a colloquial level, not at the level of sophisticated language, the foundation was established from early childhood. I am very grateful to my ­father in this regard ­because I learned the language in this way.”85 In Tajikistan, Mavjuda Rahimova (b. 1949) recalled that her ­father required his ­children to speak their native language at home. As a result, they knew Tajik better than many of their peers. Born into an elite Tajik ­family, her ­father was a prominent official and her ­brother became a leading cardiologist. She and her two ­brothers and ­sisters all studied at a highly regarded Russian-­ language school. Many of its gradu­ates went on to study in Moscow and Leningrad, the educational holy grail of that time. Asked why they went to a Rus­sian school, Mavjuda said: “Well, I ­don’t know, [kids] ­were sent to Rus­sian schools at that time.” “It was more prestigious in ­those years,” she explained. Yet her ­father, a busy man and a high official, made an effort to ensure that they did not forget Tajik. When we would return from school, and even from university, we would normally talk in Rus­sian among ourselves; our mom permitted it, but our dad did not. . . . ​Well, I can tell you right now, my dad was a very respected person. He was a well-­known person in the republic, he held a number of leadership positions and left a big legacy. He would frequently say: ‘So ­you’re speaking in Rus­sian right now; you attended university, chatted at school with friends, with girlfriends, but now that ­you’re at home, please speak in your native language so that you ­won’t forget it.’ So, in this way, we all learned to speak Tajik well.86 ­Fathers like Saltanat’s and Mavjuda’s, who made a concerted effort to ensure that their c­ hildren retained the native language, ­were the exception. As we have seen, most f­athers in educated families w ­ ere content to see their ­children adopt Rus­sian as their primary language. T ­ here ­were clearly compelling reasons why ­these families pressed their ­children to concentrate on Rus­ sian. Yet ­there was an obvious downside to the shift to Rus­sian: a devaluing of indigenous languages and cultures and corresponding feelings of inferiority among ­those who w ­ ere Russian-­speaking but not ethnic Rus­sians. The native language was marginalized; it became a “kitchen language,” the language of grandparents and old ­people, a language for everyday use but not for serious topics. Since language was considered essential to identity in the Soviet Union, this created an internal conflict for some Rus­sian speakers who ­were not ethnically Rus­sian.

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Aliya Ahmetova, half Kazakh and half Tatar, always had mixed feelings about the Kazakh language, which she traced back to disagreements about language between her parents. She recalled that her ­father wanted her to know Kazakh, while her highly Russified Tatar m ­ other d­ idn’t think it impor­tant. “You know, at first my dad wanted us to. He would get very upset. He tried to reprimand me, educate me . . . ​well, Lord, what could I possibly understand!? And my mom, she stubbornly resisted.87 Despite having spoken perfect Kazakh ­until the age of five a­ fter living in a village with her grand­mother, Aliya quickly forgot Kazakh once she started Russian-­language school. As she grew older, she began to feel uncomfortable around ­people who ­were speaking Kazakh, fearing that they ­were laughing at her. “­Later, when we moved to Kyzyl-­Orda, knowledge of the Kazakh language became more necessary. Our relatives started to visit. My dad or­ga­nized vari­ous domestic cele­brations. But I ­couldn’t understand them very well . . . ​well, we would sit around and chat . . . ​apparently, they ­were saying something about me and laughing. I can clearly remember them laughing.” Aliya l­ ater felt some regret about not knowing Kazakh. “I could have learned the Kazakh language, in princi­ple, b­ ecause every­one around me spoke it. But I ­couldn’t learn it—­I had some kind of psychological barrier.” By the time she was a teenager, it was too late. T ­ here was no decent Kazakh-­language instruction in the Rus­sian schools, she recalled. “And t­ here ­were practically only Rus­ sian schools except for one small school or, as far as I remember, or half of a large Rus­sian school where instruction in the Kazakh language was available.” (This would have been between 1965 and 1975, when Aliya was in school.) Even in Kyzyl-­Orda, in western Kazakhstan, where the population was overwhelmingly Kazakh and every­one spoke Kazakh, ­little was published in the Kazakh language and ­there ­were hardly any Kazakh schools. She recalled her ­father being angry about this dismissive attitude t­ oward the Kazakh language. Ironically, she noted, “when I got older, around fourteen, my mom suddenly started saying: ‘What a shame that you ­don’t know Kazakh.’ ”88 This marginalization of the native language produced intense negative feelings in some ­children and adolescents. The word shame came up frequently when respondents discussed their feelings ­toward their own, non-­Russian language and culture. Maira Ahmetova recalled feeling ashamed of the Kazakh language and culture as a child in the 1960s. “We ­didn’t know how to sing Kazakh songs. . . . ​Once a composer came to our class. He came from the Kazakh school . . . ​and he tried to teach us a song in Kazakh language. And you know, [­there was] so much laughter. . . . ​We sang this song, but every­one was embarrassed. The Rus­sians ­didn’t want to sing it at all.” Maira now sees this as a national inferiority complex that afflicted many ethnic Kazakhs. She adds: “Some

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even wanted to completely erase their nationality. They considered themselves Rus­sians.”89 Yet a perfect knowledge of Rus­sian, normally a source of pride, could also be a source of shame in certain circumstances. Though language and nationality had been separated in ­people’s minds to some extent, especially in Kazakhstan, ­there w ­ ere still lingering feelings that to claim Kazakh nationality, one should ideally know the language. Moreover, every­one knew that speaking Rus­sian perfectly did not make one a Rus­sian. Saltanat recalled an incident on a train when she was traveling as a teenager with her younger ­sister between Minsk and Moscow. The two girls w ­ ere sharing a compartment with two military men, a common occurrence at the time when Soviet train compartments w ­ ere shared with strangers. One of them was older, e­ ither a major or col­o­nel, and the second was younger. We got to know each other; the train compartments w ­ ere not divided into strictly male or female sections. We traveled together and started talking. We started getting ready to sleep in the eve­ning; we stepped out of the compartment for a moment, and I overheard them talk. The younger man said: “They speak Rus­sian so well, without any accent. I won­der where t­hey’re from?” The older officer, the col­o­nel, said: “They could only be from Kazakhstan; only Kazakhs speak Rus­sian so well and without an accent.”90 Saltanat was shocked by ­these words. It had never occurred to her to think it odd that she and her ­sister spoke Rus­sian without an accent—it was her native language. I ­will remember this observation for the rest of my life; it was shocking for me. How is it that only we [Kazakhs] can speak Rus­sian without an accent? That is, they compared us to Tajiks, Uzbeks, Kirgiz—­all of them speak with an accent. Even though we have Mongoloid [Asian] facial features we speak Rus­sian clearly, with no accent whatsoever. Well, let me tell you, my education, starting from kindergarten, school, and university, all of it was in the Rus­sian language. Of course I speak Rus­sian without an accent! If I speak on the phone, no one would ever know that I am Kazakh. I explain myself in proper and literary Rus­sian. Saltanat was upset not only at being taken for a foreigner whose Rus­sian language skills ­were surprising but also at the implication that Kazakhs had exchanged their native language for Rus­sian. This implied a kind of fakery or inauthenticity. “Frankly speaking, it left a somewhat negative impression, in the sense that we Kazakhs ­can’t explain ourselves in our own native tongue as

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well as we do in Rus­sian, without any accent. Indeed, t­ here was Russification. We spoke Rus­sian better, even speaking Kazakh with an accent. We spoke Rus­ sian very well and that, to be honest, left a negative undertone.”91 The prob­lem with being Kazakh and speaking perfect Rus­sian was that one would never be mistaken for an ethnic Rus­sian or fully accepted as such; ­because of her Kazakh name and phenotype, Saltanat understood that she would always be a foreigner to Rus­sians. As David Laitin has written, “A Ukrainian who spoke Rus­sian may not have been considered a complete outsider, but a Kazakh who spoke perfect Rus­sian continued to face residual prejudice and suspicion as a pos­si­ble fifth columnist.”92 Thus, speaking perfect Rus­sian and being able to pass for Rus­sian on the phone, for Saltanat, was a bit like “talking white” for some African-­Americans; it did not change her fundamental identity, and it raised doubts—­even in her own mind—­about her authenticity as a Kazakh.93 Once again, the attempt to make Rus­sian into an all-­Soviet lingua franca that was not ethnically inflected found­ered on the increasingly primordial view of nationality in the USSR, in which Rus­sian nationality, too, was linked to descent. The shift to Rus­sian as a first language among mixed families in Central Asia, ­whether it took place over three generations or within a single lifetime, often resulted in a discrepancy between official or passport identity and subjective identification among the offspring of t­ hese marriages. Mixed c­ hildren with non-­Russian ­fathers ­were strongly encouraged to take their f­ ather’s nationality, but they more often identified with the language and culture of their ­mother’s ­family. Central Asia was full of mixed c­ hildren who w ­ ere Tajik, Kazakh, Uzbek, Azeri, or Tatar “by passport” but felt more like Rus­sians. A by-­ product of this was the strange phenomenon in which some Soviet citizens claimed as their native tongue a language they did not actually speak. For families in which neither parent was Rus­sian, the prob­lem was even more vexing. In an immigrant society such as the United States, linguistic assimilation is an impor­tant step ­toward becoming part of the mainstream and—­often—­ losing touch with one’s ethnic identity. A person who speaks unaccented American En­glish is generally accepted as an American, even if his or her name is Korean, Pakistani, or Rus­sian. En­glish is not solely—or even primarily—­the language of ­people whose ancestors hail from ­England. (This is generally true even though ­there are, of course, racists and xenophobes who would not accept ­these individuals as full-­fledged Americans.) In the Soviet Union, this formula did not work; Rus­sian was not only the “language of interethnic communication” but also the language of a par­tic­u­lar ethnos, and even ­those who spoke perfect, unaccented Rus­sian ­were not necessarily considered Rus­sians. It was impossible to

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assimilate into the Rus­sian mainstream if your parents ­were Kazakh, Tatar, Korean, German, Armenian, or Ingush—­but not Rus­sian. Language was a crucial component of nationality, in the Soviet view. Soviet ethnographers and linguists had gone to a g­ reat deal of effort, in the 1920s and 1930s, to categorize ­people by ethnicity, largely along linguistic lines, and to standardize and promote indigenous languages and schools. Yet by the late Soviet period the increasing importance of the Rus­sian language was severing the link between nationality and language for many Soviet citizens. While the Soviet state hoped through promoting bilingualism to make it pos­si­ble for Soviet citizens to be si­mul­ta­neously Soviet and national, the primordial view of nationality made this ever more difficult.

C h a p te r 8

Intermarriage ­after the Soviet Collapse

In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed and all the Central Asian republics became in­de­pen­dent states. Proletarian internationalism gave way to ethnonationalism in each of the former Soviet republics. With the rejection of communist ideology and the promotion of national identities as the primary basis for state power in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, the context for ethnic mixing changed significantly. Many of the tensions within the Soviet proj­ect ­were seemingly resolved by the collapse of communism. The tension between ethnic nationalism and a supra-­ethnic Soviet identity was resolved in f­ avor of the former, as new nation-­states took the stage. The fascination with ge­ne­tics that began to manifest itself in the late Soviet period emerged as a full-­blown obsession with ge­ne­tic purity and preserving the national “gene pool” in many post-­Soviet republics. The tension between state feminism and gender essentialism was resolved in ­favor of the latter, with a new emphasis on tradition in marital and ­family relationships. This was particularly true in Central Asia, where Soviet-­mandated roles for ­women had never been fully accepted. Taken together, t­ hese developments made life more difficult for existing mixed families and for young ­couples considering marriage across ethnic lines. The trajectories of the two republics have diverged sharply in the post-­Soviet era, as Tajikistan has made a more radical break with the Soviet past than Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan has experienced a surge of ethnic Kazakh consciousness 187

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as the population has become more heavi­ly Kazakh—­a demographic shift related to the emigration of many ethnic Rus­sians and members of other minorities, a high birth rate among ethnic Kazakhs, and state policy encouraging ethnic Kazakhs in other countries to “return” to Kazakhstan.1 Yet the country remains ethnically diverse, with Kazakhs making up 68 ­percent of the population and a Rus­sian minority of 19.3 ­percent. Uzbeks, Ukrainians, Tatars, Uyghurs, Germans, and ­others make up the remainder of the population. The post-­Soviet government has sought to promote a civic “Kazakhstani” identity to ensure the peaceful coexistence of its multiethnic population.2 (“Kazakhstani” is a civic identity referring to the state while “Kazakh” refers to the ethnic group; thus, one can be Kazakhstani without being ethnically Kazakh.) Tajikistan has ­adopted a more ethnonationalist orientation than Kazakhstan, in part ­because of a dif­fer­ent demographic situation. A brutal civil war fought between 1992 and 1997 led to the flight of much of the non-­Tajik population (mainly Rus­sians and other Rus­sian speakers), leaving a state that is significantly more ethnically homogenous (84.3  ­percent Tajik) than con­temporary Kazakhstan. The largest minority is Uzbek (almost 14 ­percent), and Rus­sians and other nationalities make up only around 2 ­percent of the population.3 In both Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, f­actors in addition to demographic change have transformed the environment for mixed ­couples and families. With the resurgence of religious belief and practice in the post-­Soviet era, religious identity plays a growing role in marriage decisions, even among formerly atheist and communist elites. Language has also become more of a stumbling block to intermarriage; the two states now promote Kazakh and Tajik, respectively, as their national languages. Use of Rus­sian as a lingua franca has declined somewhat in Kazakhstan, though it is still used widely, while knowledge of Rus­sian has fallen off sharply in Tajikistan. In both countries, a new emphasis on traditionalism in marriage and ­family relations as part of the ethnonationalist and religious revival (a trend some scholars have dubbed “re-­traditionalization”) has made intermarriage more problematic. This is especially the case in Tajikistan, where not just arranged marriage but also marriage within the extended f­amily or lineage, and even first-­cousin marriage, is valorized. Marital endogamy and cousin marriage have been particularly fraught topics in post-­Soviet Tajikistan, where a 2010 report suggested that ­every third marriage in Tajikistan takes place between relatives.4 Families often marry their ­children to relatives in an effort to bolster the well-­ being of the clan by keeping property and relationships within the extended ­family. Even though such marriages are popu­lar, they remain controversial, with one study claiming that more than 20 ­percent of birth defects are due to “inbreeding.”5



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In both countries, moreover, internal divisions such as subethnic identities, regional differences, and rural-­urban differences have become more salient. ­There has been a revival of genealogical awareness in Kazakh society, with Kazakhs taking renewed pride in tracing their descent and advertising their tribal membership. Nongenealogical divisions include ­those between rural and urban Kazakhs, often described as the difference between “nagiz” or “au­then­ tic” Kazakhs and “shala” or “asphalt” Kazakhs (­those who have lost the Kazakh language and way of life).6 The situation in Kazakhstan has been further complicated by the arrival of a number of ethnic Kazakh mi­grants from other countries, mainly China and Mongolia.7 Tajikistan, too, has experienced a surge in the importance of subethnic identities, including regional identities and status hierarchies based on descent.8 The anthropologist Sophie Roche has described the continuing significance of social status groups in marriage decisions in Khujand, Tajikistan, with the elite groups known as tura unwilling to intermarry with lower-­status Tajiks.9 ­These subethnic identities never dis­ appeared, but they operated below the radar in Soviet times. Several respondents in Tajikistan noted that “intermarriage” now refers most often to marriage among p­ eople from dif­fer­ent status and social groups, not dif­fer­ent nationalities. At the same time, new forms of intermarriage have appeared as the Central Asian countries have become more open to the outside world. One sign of the globalization of the past two de­cades is that citizens of Kazakhstan and Tajikistan may—­and sometimes do—­intermarry not just with other former Soviet nationalities but also with citizens of foreign countries such as Turks, Afghans, Ira­ni­ans, Chinese, Americans, and Western Eu­ro­pe­ans. (Rus­sians, too, now qualify as foreigners if they are not citizens of one of the Central Asian republics.) Another change is that more Muslim w ­ omen are intermarrying, not just across ethnic lines but even across national bound­aries, as the number of marriages to citizens of foreign countries grows. This is a striking change from both the pre-­Soviet and Soviet periods, when t­ hose Central Asians who intermarried ­were overwhelmingly male and marriages to foreign citizens exceedingly rare. The Soviet view of mixed marriage as a u ­ nion between individuals of two Soviet-­defined nationalities is no longer sufficient, if it ever was.

New Attitudes t­ oward Ethnic Mixing Along with t­ hese social and po­liti­cal changes have come new attitudes ­toward ethnic mixing in both countries. Kazakhstan retains more of the Soviet past

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in attitudes ­toward the value of multiethnicity, and the state and the scholarly community have remained officially supportive of intermarriage. However, popu­lar opinion does not always align with the state’s priorities, and some nationalistically minded ethnic Kazakhs now openly express negative views of ethnic mixing. In Tajikistan, expressions of hostility ­toward ethnic mixing are widespread among government officials, scholars, and the broader population, for whom “ethnic purity” has become a valued attribute. In Kazakhstan, the state has sought to reconcile Kazakh ethnic nationalism with a Kazakhstani civic identity, with which all citizens can identify. The recently retired president Nursultan Nazarbayev, faced with a mixed population with a large Rus­sian minority, did his best to forestall ethnic conflict by speaking of Kazakhstan as a Eurasian nation with a harmonious multiethnic population, which would act as a bridge between Rus­sia and Asia. He proposed building a single Kazakhstani culture that would unite members of dif­ fer­ent ethnicities and religions.10 For some respondents from mixed families, this Kazakhstani identity has replaced Soviet as a supra-­ethnic identity. In the words of Lesia Karatayeva, a mixed Russian-­K azakh w ­ oman, “I ­can’t say that ethnic identity is most impor­tant for me . . . ​I d­ on’t think of myself as a Kazakh, living ­here in Kazakhstan. And when I travel abroad, I ­really ­can’t say that I feel Kazakh, you know? But Kazakhstani. Kazakhstani, that’s my identity. Yes. And perhaps to an even larger degree an Almaty resident. I identify more with the residents of this city than with an ethnic group.”11 For mixed individuals and families and for ­those who are neither Rus­sian nor Kazakh, Kazakhstani is virtually the only supra-­ethnic category with which they can fully identify, now that Soviet is no longer an option. Yet ­there is skepticism about, and even opposition to, this Kazakhstani civic identity within some circles in Kazakhstan. “Ruslan Isayev” (b. 1972), a mixed Kazakh-­Ukrainian man, argued that Kazakhstani identity is still in an incipient stage. Soviet identity was much stronger in its day than Kazakhstani is ­today. “I would not say that it ­doesn’t exist at all, but it’s weak. . . . ​For example, when a Kazakh soccer team is playing, then both Kazakhs and Rus­sians chant, ‘Kazakhstan! Kazakhstan!’ Well, in princi­ple, it’s a good t­ hing, but, honestly speaking, I ­don’t fully believe in it, ­because . . . ​well, ­because I remember the Soviet Union. I remember that the Soviet identity was much stronger.”12 Kazakhstani identity is, Ruslan said, “rather an abstraction.” While state propaganda has powerfully put forward this Kazakhstani civic identity, “The fact of the m ­ atter is that up to two-­thirds of Kazakhs actively reject this. Unequivocally reject it. They ­don’t want it ­because every­thing that’s Kazakhstani also means the Rus­sian language. But ‘Kazakh’—is strictly Kazakh.”13 As a



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supra-­ethnic category with a close connection to the Rus­sian language, Kazakhstani is the successor to Soviet identity.14 Nikolai Hon, an ethnic Korean man married to a mixed Russian-­Korean ­woman, summed up the identity prob­lems faced by many non-­K azakhs in post-­Soviet Kazakhstan: “In the 1970s, I felt part of the Soviet p­ eople. Now I am actually closer to Rus­sia. Although I feel—­I fear—­that they would not accept me ­there.”15 Hon’s comment reflects the poignant situation of a man who is linguistically and culturally Rus­sian (as are most Soviet Koreans) yet unlikely to be accepted as a Rus­sian in Rus­sia ­because of his physical appearance and name. The transformation of “Rus­sian” into a closed category based on ethnic descent has accelerated since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Ruslan’s skepticism about Kazakhstani identity is borne out by events in Kazakhstan as well as by public opinion evidence. An attempt by the Kazakh president in 2009 to pass a “national unity doctrine” through the Assembly of ­Peoples of Kazakhstan (a body of presidentially appointed delegates representing dif­fer­ent ethnic groups) provoked re­sis­tance from Kazakh nationalists and other opposition groups. The document envisioned Kazakhstan as a multiethnic state in which all citizens would primarily have a civic identity as Kazakhstanis. Kazakh nationalist groups saw it as an assault on the primacy of ethnic Kazakhs within their own country and as proof that minorities get preferential treatment in Kazakhstan. They proposed revisions that would recognize Kazakhs as the primary or state-­forming nation of Kazakhstan. Nationalist groups also proposed making Kazakh the de facto state language and the lingua franca for all ethnic groups in Kazakhstan. The document that was ultimately ­adopted in 2010 was a compromise and took some of the nationalist criticisms into account, stating that Kazakhs should be “a consolidating center of unification of the nation.”16 A poll conducted in May 2011 found Kazakhstanis generally positive about ethnic relations within their country, though not quite as enthusiastic as their president. Fifty-­six ­percent of respondents said that interethnic relations in their area w ­ ere friendly, while 20 ­percent said that t­here was no interaction between ethnic groups, and 11 ­percent saw hidden tensions. Only 8 ­percent supported the idea that Kazakhstan should be a state just for ethnic Kazakhs, while 28 ­percent said that Kazakhs should be the central or “state-­forming ethnic group.” Fifty-­eight ­percent agreed with the president that Kazakhstan should be a unified state of all its citizens—in other words, a civic nation.17 ­These shifting understandings of state and nation are reflected in views ­toward ethnic mixing. Despite changes in the po­liti­cal and social context, ethnic mixing continues to be publicly celebrated in in­de­pen­dent Kazakhstan in

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ways reminiscent of the Soviet era. Officials and scholars still argue that mixing is a cultural boon for society as well as biologically beneficial. Billboards and magazine advertisements, as well as social media sites, commonly depict smiling multiethnic ­couples and families.18 Yet just as ­there ­were tensions between Soviet identity and ethnic primordialism before 1991, the current Kazakhstani state’s promotion of a civic identity coexists uneasily with con­temporary Kazakh nationalism. Intermarriage is highly contested in public discourse. Negative views of ethnic mixing are expressed both privately and publicly, especially within Kazakh-­speaking circles. The cele­bration of multiethnicity competes with a primordial view of the ethnos that also dates back to the Soviet era. Mixed ­couples and families are particularly affected by ­these tensions. A positive view of mixed marriages harkening back to the Soviet era can be found in a variety of publications in in­de­pen­dent Kazakhstan. In a 2011 interview, for example, pediatrician Tatiana Troegubova offered a strong endorsement of the benefits of mixed marriages. She declared that ­children of racially mixed marriages ­were the healthiest and strongest: “The issue is that related p­ eoples have a similar gene pool, and for getting a quality genotype it is necessary to have origins that are as diverse as pos­si­ble. Thus, ideally the healthiest c­ hildren come not just from interethnic but from interracial marriages.” In arguing against the value of “ge­ne­tic purity,” Troegubova pointed to vari­ous Hollywood stars of mixed ethnicity whom she considered to be perfect ­ human specimens: Harrison Ford (Irish-­ Jewish), Halle Berry (Afro-­ British), and Keanu Reeves (a bit of every­thing). Even Elvis Presley, she noted, had Cherokee blood. Psychologically, the doctor maintained, such c­ hildren are perfectly normal. Growing up mixed is harmful only if the ­family is alienated from one parent’s culture, or if the status of the parents is unequal. Such prob­ lems are rare in Kazakhstan, she claimed, where ­there is mutual re­spect between ethnic groups.19 So far this sounds very much like the Soviet discourse of intermarriage, in which all ethnicities ­were equal and mixed ­people in the vanguard of society. The emphasis on genes and the biological benefits of ethnic mixing is also familiar. The major difference from the Soviet era, however, is that more negative assessments of ethnic mixing may be—­and are—­expressed ­today in Kazakhstan. Such views may have existed but could not be openly expressed in Soviet days, at least not in print. Negative perspectives on intermarriage are especially common in the Kazakh-­language press. For example, in a 2018 article titled, “Why Is Mixed Marriage Dangerous?,” the Kazakh commentator Askhat Kasenghali argued that mixed marriage in Kazakhstan was originally a legacy of Rus­sian colonialism, when Rus­sian men took Kazakh ­women by force, and was ­later promoted by the Soviets as a way to forcibly assimilate



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small nations. A “normal person,” Kasenghali wrote, ­can’t love a person of another nationality. He went on to raise the perennial concern expressed by opponents of intermarriage the world over—­that the c­ hildren ­will grow up confused. “Let’s answer t­hese questions: If a Kazakh girl (or guy) marries a Rus­sian or Korean or o ­ thers, and forms a f­amily, ­will the c­ hildren born be Christian or Muslim? ­Will they go to the mosque and pray five times a day, or go to the church and cross themselves? W ­ ill they prefer the language of Abai, or ­will they love Pushkin more? ­Will they re­spect Peter or glorify Abylai? It’s very hard to say.”20 Another Kazakh commentator, Umit Jumadilova, expressed similar views. High rates of mixed marriage are nothing to be proud of, she declared in a 2017 essay titled “Is Mixed Marriage Stable?” Kazakh girls, she claimed, consider Kazakh guys to be lazy and egotistical and dream of marrying a foreign man, yet their c­ hildren ­will grow up unfamiliar with Kazakh culture. She, too, emphasized the inevitable confusion of mixed ­children. “How ­will the child of two nationalities grow up? Which language w ­ ill it speak? Which religion ­will it adopt?” Jumadilova argued that it is the parents’ job to explain the dangers of mixed marriage to their sons and d­ aughters, concluding, “­There is a proverb that says, ‘Getting married is easy, but becoming a ­family is difficult.’ Becoming a f­ amily with another nationality is even more difficult.”21 Positive portrayals of mixed ­couples and families in the media have aroused opposition in some parts of Kazakh society, particularly when they involve Kazakh ­women. Several Kazakh parliamentary deputies have denounced advertisements and films that show Kazakh ­women romantically involved with non-­Kazakh men. One deputy, Bekbolat Tleukhan, expressed disgust at ads showing Kazakh ­women “in the arms of men of Eu­ro­pean nationality.” The romantic comedy Ironiia Liubvi (Irony of Love), a joint Russian-­Kazakh production, came u ­ nder attack from Kazakh nationalists shortly ­after its 2010 release. In this film, a young Kazakh ­woman, Asel, leaves her oil magnate Kazakh fiancé for Ivan, an impoverished Rus­sian botanist. Parliamentary deputy Nurtai Sabilyanov declared that the film “made a mockery of national feeling” and demanded that the Kazakhstani government stop funding such productions.22 In interviews, members of mixed ­couples and families noted with dismay the prevalence of such negative attitudes ­toward intermarriage in post-­Soviet Kazakhstan. Marina Abdrahmanova (b. 1957), d­ aughter of a Kazakh ­father and a Rus­sian m ­ other, noted a new emphasis on ethnic purity among some segments of society, particularly “social and nationalist organ­izations.” She commented, “They ­don’t discuss marriage per se, but the purity of the nation—­yes. It does happen. Especially if you read nongovernmental newspapers and publications, this question is often raised t­ here.”23 Ruslan Isayev observed that

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many ethnic Kazakhs are against mixed marriage. “If it’s a Kazakh ­woman, then [Kazakhs are] against it. Categorically against it. If it’s a man, then by and large they are also against it ­because in our daily real­ity the ­children ­wouldn’t be Kazakh anyway. As a rule.”24 Ruslan was referring to the belief that ­children of a Rus­sian m ­ other ­will grow up to be Rus­sian by language, culture, and sentiment, even if they are officially registered as Kazakhs according to their ­father’s nationality. Valentina Geiger, a German ­woman married to a Tatar, noted that the opposition to mixed marriage has to do with the increased emphasis on nationality in the post-­Soviet period. “Right now, first of all, many families ­don’t want mixed marriages, neither in Kazakh, nor in Rus­sian, nor in German families.” Asked why, she explained, “Well, b­ ecause ­there is this national division that is ongoing. Before, as I already said, we ­didn’t have anything like that, ­there w ­ asn’t a division of any kind—­that ­you’re Kazakh, ­you’re Rus­sian, and ­you’re Uzbek! We ­were all ­children of the Union! But now nationality stands at the forefront for every­one.”25 “Maira Ahmetova” (b. 1953) agreed that attitudes t­ oward ethnic mixing have changed. “It seems to me that it has changed a ­little, of course. Nowadays, ­after all . . . ​well, friendship is still friendship, it still exists. However, every­one is gravitating to their own. Each nation gives priority and benefit to its own.”26 Nikolai Hon noted that relations among dif­fer­ent ethnic groups are more distant now. “In my purely personal opinion, [a pro­cess] of self-­isolation is happening.” Whereas the students he teaches used to be more “internationally minded,” he notices them huddling together in groups by nationality.27 “Kuralai Zhemsekbayeva” (b. 1973), a Kazakh ­woman married to a Korean man, agreed that t­ hings have become more difficult for mixed families in the post-­ Soviet period. “It was just easier back then, it seems. ­There was one language then, with no clear national divisions, no specific religious holidays; every­thing was unified, so to speak. . . . ​­Today, every­one wants to return to their roots, revive their traditions; it seems to me that it complicates the relationship in mixed families.”28 Several respondents also noted that the younger generation in post-­Soviet Kazakhstan has much more awareness of ethnicity and feels freer to express prejudice against o ­ thers. Kuralai, a teacher, sees dif­fer­ent attitudes among her own students from what she experienced growing up as a Soviet child. Though she went to school with a diverse group of ­children, no one placed any emphasis on nationality. “I cannot recall someone telling me, ‘­You’re Kazakh’— we would never say that. But now, I hear this in school frequently. . . . ​They ­don’t say it to me, rather the c­ hildren say it to each other among themselves: ‘­You’re slant-­eyed,’ ‘­you’re Korean,’ ‘­you’re Kazakh’ ”!29



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Irina Klimenko (b. 1981), a Russian-­Armenian w ­ oman and also a teacher, described the social ostracism of an ethnically mixed child in the school in which she worked in southern Kazakhstan. Her school was ethnically diverse: “Even in a Russian-­language class, t­ here are primarily Uzbeks, Kurds, and Kazakhs.” And yet, she said, “­There was a boy in my class who had a Rus­sian ­mother and Kazakh ­father. . . . ​His appearance was one hundred ­percent Kazakh; you ­wouldn’t be able to say that ­there was something Rus­sian.” Nevertheless, this boy was referred to as a “half-­breed” and neither Kazakhs nor Rus­ sians would socialize with him.30 If in Kazakhstan the picture is mixed, in Tajikistan t­ here has been more overt hostility to mixed marriages, both on the state and the popu­lar level. The post-­Soviet Tajik state has sought to unify a divided population by emphasizing the ostensibly ancient roots and cultural superiority of the Tajik nation.31 Nationalists object to mixed marriage ­because it allegedly sullies the purity of this nation, while families often object to intermarriage ­because it may bring about a weakening of kinship ties. Moreover, love matches initiated by young ­people violate the princi­ple of marriages arranged by the ­family.32 Changes in the nature of mixed marriage have contributed to ­these negative sentiments. Intermarriage between dif­fer­ent Soviet-­defined nationalities within Tajikistan has become less common as the population has become more homogeneous, while marriages to foreign citizens have been on the rise. Mixed marriages of Tajik ­women, especially to non-­Muslims, have aroused what one scholar called a “moral panic” in Tajik society.33 In 2011, the Tajik parliament confirmed changes in the ­family law, making it harder for foreigners to marry Tajiks. The vice-­minister of justice claimed that the frequent ill-­treatment of Tajik citizens in t­ hese marriages was the motivation for the new law. Foreigners who wish to marry a Tajik citizen have to sign a formal marriage contract, must live at least one year on the territory of Tajikistan (even if they meet their f­ uture spouse outside the country), and must provide the spouse with a home registered in his or her name.34 Critics of the mea­sure have argued that marriages to foreigners are taking place partly due to a gender imbalance in society related to l­abor migration. (Between six hundred thousand and one million Tajiks are working outside the country, mostly men and almost all of them in Rus­sia.35) Requiring foreigners to live in Tajikistan for a year and buy a home ­there before marrying a Tajik citizen, ­these critics noted, is unreasonable.36 A related development in marriage practices has been the growth of polygyny in Tajikistan since 1991. Though still officially banned, as it was ­under Soviet rule, c­ ouples get around the law by simply failing to register the second (or third) marriage officially. A recent survey estimated that one in ten Tajik men has more than one wife.37 Among l­abor mi­grants, a common

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arrangement is to have a Rus­sian wife in Rus­sia and a Tajik wife back home in Tajikistan.38 Some Tajik po­liti­cal and cultural leaders have explic­itly declared their opposition to mixed marriage. A deputy of the lower ­house of the Tajik parliament, Saodat Amirshoeva, declared in an interview that she opposed the marriage of Tajik ­women to “unbelievers”—­namely, citizens of other nations such as Rus­sians, Chinese, and o ­ thers. Such marriages destroy the gene pool 39 of the nation, she said. Her statement made an in­ter­est­ing conflation of ge­ ne­tics and religion, reminiscent of the Soviet-­era link between religion, culture, and nationality. Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, meeting with a group of young p­ eople, also urged the young w ­ omen to marry Tajiks. Similarly, the well-­known Tajik national historian Rahim Masov has expressed a desire to see limitations on international mixed marriages.40 ­Because of Tajikistan’s recent history of civil war vio­lence, members of mixed families who remain t­ here express concern not just about pos­si­ble prejudice and discrimination, as in Kazakhstan, but about the physical safety of their families. Ekaterina Ruzieva, a Rus­sian ­woman married to a Tajik, said, “If the Rus­sians w ­ ill be driven out of h ­ ere, what w ­ ill I do? My kids are mixed. It concerns me. Sometimes, I lie awake at night and think what if that ­were to happen someday.”41 “Dilbar,” a Tatar w ­ oman married to a Tajik since 1959, expressed similar fears for the ­future. During the civil war, she saw slogans calling for Rus­sians and Tatars to leave the country. “And my husband said: ‘Dusya, ­don’t you worry. I have so many ­children, they ­will have to drive me out too, and I w ­ on’t leave them.’ I said: ‘I w ­ ill be kicked out of h ­ ere.’ ‘No, no, this ­shouldn’t happen, wherever you ­will go, I ­will leave with you.’ He said exactly that.”42 Some mixed ­couples and individuals have pushed back against the attacks on ethnic mixing, stressing the advantages conferred by a mixed background. Bahriniso Abdurahmonova, a mixed Tajik-­Kirgiz-­Uzbek w ­ oman (b. 1953), twice married interethnically, reveled in the diverse background she has bequeathed to her only son Farhod: “[When] my son asks, ‘Mama? What’s my nationality?’ I say, you know, Farhod, first of all y­ ou’re an inhabitant of the earth. Second, nobody ­else has a nationality like yours. I call him a ‘Caspian.’ ­There’s no such nation—­I’m inventing a new nation for you [laughs]. He has four grandparents, each of a dif­fer­ent nationality.”43 Dilbar Khojayeva (b. 1961), a journalist of mixed Tajik and Tatar descent, recalls that she always felt pride in her mixed heritage and continues to do so: At college I always gained from having a combination of two cultures. And even now, living in Moscow, if I’m walking along and I hear Uzbek



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or Tajik speech I think my goodness, how well I understand every­thing. I’m so much richer than all ­these ­people around me. Although they may be so satisfied, satisfied with themselves, but I’m ­really excited that I know this [Rus­sian culture] and can compare it with Asian cultures. . . . ​ I have a prob­lem of choice. I’m a happy person, I’m so glad that I have so many nationalities, so many dif­fer­ent types of blood.44 In Tajikistan, grassroots opposition to the demonization of mixed families has arisen on social media. On the Facebook group “I love Khujand,” a thread from November 15, 2018 bore the heading, “The beauty of mixed blood. Photo­g raphs of ­children of parents of dif­fer­ent nationalities.” In nearly one hundred posts in both Tajik and Rus­sian languages, p­ eople showed off photos of their ethnically mixed ­children and praised the mixed ­children of ­others. In one post, captioned “My sweet ­little métisse,” a ­mother noted that her young ­daughter was a mixture of four dif­fer­ent kinds of blood: Tajik, Uzbek, Arab, and Ira­nian. When an interloper to the group made negative comments about intermarriage and put forward the outrageous claim that 80 ­percent of all crimes are committed by individuals of mixed ethnicity, he was roundly condemned by the members of the group for his “medieval” and “nonsensical” attitudes.45 In both Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, negative attitudes extend to the rejection of mixed p­ eople as potential marriage partners; some ­people appear to prefer “pure” Kazakhs and Tajiks as spouses. “Irina Abdulayeva” (b. 1966), a Rus­sian ­woman married to a Kazakh, noted that her d­ aughter Katia had faced prejudice as a potential bride. “My close girlfriend, my classmate, you can say she raised Katia together with me. She’s Kazakh. She accepts Katia and cares for her. Well, she’s a very close friend of mine. She accepts our ethnically mixed ­family. But when her son became interested in Katia . . . ​I ­didn’t hear it from her but from someone ­else. She said: ‘No, Timur. Katia is a good girl, but you need a Kazakh wife.’ ”46 ­These friends, she noted, consider Katia to be Rus­ sian despite her half-­K azakh background. “Daria Kim,” a Ukrainian ­woman married to a Korean man, had a similar tale to tell. She noted that her two ­daughters always had friends of vari­ous nationalities, without making distinctions among them. Her d­ aughter Ania’s best friend was a Kazakh girl named Saule. Nevertheless, she went on, My ­daughter Ania—my youn­gest d­ aughter—is dating a boy; he treats her very well. The boy is Rus­sian, but just by looking at Ania it’s clear that she’s not Rus­sian. And so, this Pasha, they used to have such a loving relationship, and now . . . ​perhaps his parents d­ on’t want him to marry her ­because she’s not Rus­sian. And I think that we w ­ ill have more prob­lems

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­ ere. It’s all coming down to the fact that if she ­were a Rus­sian ­woman, h then his parents would have allowed him to marry her.47 ­Because of the rise of vocal opposition to mixed marriage in both Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, some ­children of mixed marriage express the view that their parents prob­ably would not have married if they had met t­ oday. “Arhat Isayev” (b. 1991), a man of mixed Chechen-­Russian parentage, declared, “Yes, I think that they would not have gotten married. ­Because now Chechens marry other Chechens, and Rus­sians marry Rus­sians. Well, I say this b­ ecause I think that’s how it’s supposed to be.”48 As a young man who grew up a­ fter the collapse of the Soviet Union, Arhat is expressing the sentiments more common to his generation. Timur Sergazinov, whose ­father is Kazakh and ­mother is Rus­sian, said that his f­ ather had urged him to marry a Kazakh w ­ oman—­even though Timur himself is half-­Russian. “­These are the times nowadays. I would tell him: ‘you married a Rus­sian ­woman, the times w ­ ere dif­fer­ent back then, does that mean it was a [marriage of ] con­ve­nience?’ He says: ‘Back then ­there ­were simply no Kazakh ­women.’ ”49 Timur’s f­ather did not mean this literally, of course, but may have meant that t­ here w ­ ere not as many educated, modern, urban-­dwelling Kazakh ­women to choose from as t­ here are t­ oday. The reasons for his f­ ather’s change of heart have to do in part with the changed linguistic situation in Kazakhstan. Timur explained: “­After all, it’s all about the language. If a wife is Kazakh, then a child ­will learn its first words from the ­mother. If the ­mother speaks Kazakh, then the child ­will speak Kazakh, and it ­will be easy for the child to live in this society.”50 Timur’s ­father, despite having married a Rus­sian ­woman, has also become a proponent of Kazakh ethnic purity. Timur recalled, “He also said that we should preserve Kazakh blood. He w ­ asn’t like that during the Soviet time. ­After the 1990s, an ethnic Kazakh trait started to dominate in him, that one needs to know one’s blood.” In this, Timur’s f­ ather is sailing with the prevailing winds. Paradoxically, despite the national revival and hardening of ethnic attitudes, some respondents in Kazakhstan believe that the situation is more favorable for mixed c­ ouples ­today. In the post-­Soviet era, young p­ eople have greater freedom to travel and more access to information. They are exposed to a variety of ideas. Many of them have open-­minded attitudes about whom they should marry. Susanna attributes this in part to Kazakhstan’s official policy of multiethnicity. “I surveyed my students, and for them the most impor­tant ­thing, praise God, is the kind of a person they find and not his or her nationality. And then, our president proclaimed that soon we can expect the formation



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of a new Eurasian nation, that the ­people w ­ ill be mixed from Kazakhstan’s two main ethnic groups and that t­ here w ­ ill be two or three languages in e­ very ­family and community.”51 Mixed ­people like Susanna especially appreciate the Kazakhstani state’s Eurasianist policy. Timur Sergazinov (b. 1976), who is of mixed Kazakh-­Russian parentage, agreed, noting that the greater equality among nations in the post-­ Soviet period has made intermarriage less problematic than the de facto dominance of Rus­sian in Soviet times. “­There are a lot more mixed marriages now,” he said (erroneously), and t­ hings are easier, “­Because, first of all, t­ here are no ideologies. ­There is no concept of an older and younger ­brother. . . . ​ ­There’s more equality now.”52 Erzhan Baiburin, a Kazakh man married to a Rus­ sian ­woman, noted the paradox that despite the rise of ethnic and national exclusivity, the greater openness and mobility of Kazakhstani society t­oday make intermarriage a possibility even for ­those who would seem to welcome it least. “Now, let’s take my relatives, for instance, who back then, perhaps, would have been strongly against marriages between p­ eople of dif­fer­ent nationalities. . . . ​ Perhaps at that time they would have reacted a l­ittle inadequately. And now, well, I see their ­children also, you know, in vari­ous marriages [laughs]. My cousin is in the Netherlands now. She’s married, yes [to a Dutchman]. And my ­uncle, who is an adherent of tradition, one could say he is closer to the nagiz Kazakhs, and his ­daughter is married to a Rus­sian man.”53 How do we explain this apparent paradox, that t­ here seems to be greater overt opposition to mixed marriage in Central Asia, yet some respondents, particularly in Kazakhstan, believe that intermarriage has in certain re­spects become easier? T ­ here are complex trends at the root of ­these sentiments.

New Trends in Intermarriage Although intermarriage rates as a w ­ hole appear to have declined in both Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, the profile of the mixed c­ ouple has changed. More Central Asian ­women are intermarrying compared to the Soviet period, when it was overwhelmingly men who did so, and ­there are more marriages to foreigners or noncitizens. Both of t­ hese trends have been controversial and have led to much public discussion about mixed c­ ouples and families. Reliable data on mixed marriage in the Soviet era w ­ ere scarce. Post-­Soviet Kazakhstan, in contrast to its Soviet pre­de­ces­sor, does track marriage rates by nationality. The available data on interethnic marriage in post-­Soviet Kazakhstan suggest a continuous drop in the proportion of such marriages since the

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collapse of the USSR. From a high of 23.9 ­percent in 1989, the percentage of interethnic families in Kazakhstan has declined to 16.2 ­percent.54 This is in large part due to the drop in the percentage of Rus­sians and the rise in the proportion of Kazakhs within the population, since Rus­sians intermarry at higher rates than Kazakhs. Between 1989 and 2016, the Rus­sian share of the population in Kazakhstan decreased from 37.4 ­percent to 21.5 ­percent, while the Kazakh share increased from 40.1 to 65.5 ­percent.55 The nationalities most likely to intermarry in post-­Soviet Kazakhstan are Rus­sians, Ukrainians, Belorus­sians, Germans, and Tatars.56 Nevertheless, the Kazakhstani state seems to be continuing the Soviet pattern of overstating the rates of intermarriage for po­liti­cal reasons. (This may explain why so many ­people are convinced that mixed marriage is on the rise.) In 2014, the Assembly of ­Peoples of Kazakhstan initiated a study of mixed families. The results, published in 2015, ­were framed in a way reminiscent of Soviet times.57 The study purported to show that the drop in mixed marriages ­after the Soviet collapse had been temporary, and that mixed marriages ­were again on the rise in the 2000s. The data, however, ­were somewhat misleading. For example, the study cited an increase in the absolute numbers of mixed marriages from 25,552 to 26,647 between 2009 and 2012 as evidence that mixed marriage was once again on the rise. Of course, depending on the total number of marriages in t­ hose years, this could signify a declining rate of intermarriage.58 The study also noted that Kazakhs and Rus­sians w ­ ere the groups with the highest absolute numbers of mixed marriages. Since Kazakhs and Rus­sians are by far the largest ethnic groups in Kazakhstan, this tells us ­little about the rates of intermarriage. Karaganda sociologist Angela Injigolian, in an article on the results of this study, attributed the allegedly high rates of mixed marriage in in­de­pen­dent Kazakhstan to the continuing influence of the Soviet past on ­people’s consciousness, the ethnic diversity of the country, the low level of religiosity, and the high level of ethnic tolerance among the country’s main ethnic groups. In this study, the Assembly of ­Peoples has sought to give the impression that mixed marriage is again on the rise in Kazakhstan, while countering the arguments of p­ eople who stress the prob­lems, risks, and difficulties of interethnic marriage.59 One well-­documented change is that Kazakh ­women are marrying interethnically at higher rates than in the past. In Soviet times, Kazakh men, like all Central Asian Muslim men, intermarried much more often than their female counter­parts. In the post-­Soviet period this has been changing rapidly. In 1999, 8.4 ­percent of Kazakh ­women married someone from another nationality, while ten years ­later the proportion had nearly doubled, to 16.4 ­percent.60



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What are the reasons for this change? Pos­si­ble ­factors may be the high level of educational attainment and mobility among Kazakh ­women and the increasing interest of Rus­sian men in marrying a Kazakh ­woman in order to gain access to Kazakh social networks.61 Another noteworthy trend is the rising number of Kazakhs, including ­women, who are marrying foreign citizens. T ­ hese include citizens of other former Soviet republics as well as non-­Soviet countries. The civil registry office of Almaty district reports that the most common foreign marriage partners for Kazakhs are citizens of Turkey and Uzbekistan.62 Kazakhs also marry Afghans, Africans, Indians, Eu­ro­pe­ans, Chinese, and Americans. Some Kazakhstanis view t­hese foreign marriages with a jaded eye, regarding them as a pragmatic strategy rather than one motivated by love. Ruslan Isayev commented that some Kazakh ­women are determined to marry only a Rus­sian or a foreigner. To ­these ­women, Rus­sian men seem “more cultured, intelligent, more democratically-­minded in domestic life, ­family life, and such.” Ruslan added, “I personally know some Kazakh ­women who say: “I ­won’t marry a Kazakh man.”63 “Maria Iskanderova” sees marriages to foreigners as a pragmatic choice, one not necessarily based on love or mutual feeling as would have been the case in the Soviet era. Many w ­ omen, she claimed, are simply seeking a more comfortable life by moving overseas. “Like some kind of an agreement. Not emotional, but purely a business-­like agreement, I would say. I give you something, you give me something.” She added, “I completely d­ on’t like the change in the attitude. It’s, s­ hall we say, kind of practical. It became kind of like a commercial proj­ect. Yes. Namely, to break out and go overseas, to secure one’s ­f uture or something.”64 It is almost impossible to obtain reliable data about mixed marriage in post-­ Soviet Tajikistan, since Tajikistan’s statistical agencies do not track interethnic marriages on a nationwide level. The l­imited evidence available suggests that Tajikistan, for all its differences from Kazakhstan in the post-­Soviet era, has experienced some of the same new trends. Between 1989 and 1995, 340,000 Rus­sians and other Slavs left Tajikistan.65 By 2000, Rus­sians constituted only about 1 ­percent of the population, while ethnic Tajiks ­were 79.9 ­percent.66 Uzbeks ­were still the largest minority, though their proportion had decreased from 23.5 ­percent to 15.3 ­percent.67 Many mixed families also left in the 1990s, particularly t­ hose who ­were highly Russified, fleeing civil war vio­lence or simply fearing discrimination and mistreatment.68 Given the virtual disappearance of the Rus­sian population, it is likely that mixed marriages overall have declined. In Tajikistan, too, marriages to foreigners

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are now much more a topic of conversation than marriages to members of other former Soviet ethnicities within Tajikistan (though Rus­sians living in Rus­sia have now also become foreigners, in contrast to Soviet times). Such marriages are especially controversial when Tajik w ­ omen are involved.69 Sometimes the foreign marital partners are non-­Muslims such as Eu­ro­pe­ans and Americans, though more often Tajik ­women marry Muslim men from Turkey, Af­ghan­i­stan, and Iran. While the numbers of Tajik w ­ omen intermarrying remain small, according to one scholar, “the geographic and cultural territory of potential bridegrooms is widening.” For con­temporary Tajik ­women seeking to marry non-­Muslim foreigners, opposition from f­amily is the norm. One ­woman who married a foreign citizen reported, “I had to lie, to tell my mom that my fiancé’s ­father was Muslim, although he is 100 ­percent Eu­ro­pe­an.”70 Tajik ­women ­today, particularly t­hose who live in urban areas, are more socially and physically mobile than their pre­de­ces­sors of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. They have greater freedom of choice, partly due to pro­cesses of globalization and the transformation of po­liti­cal and economic structures. They have more contact with ­people of other nationalities and cultures through international nongovernmental and other organ­izations. Some Tajik w ­ omen have studied abroad through vari­ous official exchange programs. ­Labor migration has also changed the lives of both men and ­women. The massive migration of Tajik men has left many Tajik w ­ omen with a diminished chance of finding a decent marriage partner of their own ethnicity.71 Interviews conducted by Sofia Kasymova, a Dushanbe-­based sociologist and specialist in gender studies, suggest that some Tajik ­women do consciously seek a foreign spouse; in other words, it is part of a pragmatic strategy in eco­ nom­ically straitened times. Modern Tajik parents are often resigned to mixed marriage ­because they see few other marriage opportunities for their ­daughters. (This is especially true if the d­ aughters are “too old” by Tajik standards—­that is, in their late twenties—or divorced single ­mothers.) Marriage to a foreigner can be a means of economic survival, especially for w ­ omen from poor families, w ­ idows, and divorcées. ­These marriages involve a kind of status exchange, in which the bride trades her beauty and youth for the wealth and/or citizenship of the groom. (Even though ­these ­women may be considered old by Tajik standards, they are often desirably youthful by Western standards and are marrying men who are even older.) The pragmatic basis of t­ hese marriages is evident in the fact that many Tajik ­women prefer to go to Eu­rope, not to an “uncivilized” country. One w ­ oman commented, “Of course, the fact that he is from Eu­rope played a role, I definitely would not have gone to Africa. But a civilized country, why not live ­there, if someone invites me?”72



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The New Role of Language and Religion The significance of language and religion has changed for mixed families in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan in the post-­Soviet period. During the Soviet era, as we have seen, t­ hese ­were areas of difference and negotiation between members of mixed families. However, given the existence of Rus­sian as a lingua franca and the constraints on religious expression, the potential of ­these issues as conflict generators was l­imited. Most mixed families spoke Rus­sian, and most practiced religion in a largely symbolic way, if at all. In post-­Soviet nationalizing states, both language and religion have become hot-­button topics, and mixed families are, as usual, on the front lines. In Soviet Kazakhstan, the Rus­sian language had greater prestige and offered greater opportunities than Kazakh; thus, parents ­were concerned that their ­children could not succeed in society without a perfect knowledge of Rus­sian. As we saw in the previous chapter, many Kazakh parents w ­ ere relatively unconcerned with making sure that their ­children spoke Kazakh.73 The situation in the post-­Soviet period has been reversed, with greater incentives for Russian-­ speaking Kazakhs to learn Kazakh. The share of students studying in Kazakh schools almost doubled between 1988 and 2007, from around 30 ­percent to nearly 60 ­percent. Growing numbers of Kazakh parents began to send their ­children to Kazakh-­language schools, recognizing that ­there may be greater ­career opportunities for ­those who know Kazakh.74 However, a lack of high-­ quality classes, funding, and time makes it virtually impossible for many Russian-­speaking adults to learn Kazakh. As Marina Abdrahmanova lamented: “It’s easier for me to learn En­glish than Kazakh.” She, her husband, and ­their daughters all speak Rus­sian at home, and she worries that her d­ aughters may be disadvantaged by their lack of fluency in Kazakh in the new Kazakhstan.75 Maira Ahmetova agreed that ­things had become much more difficult for Rus­sian speakers. “It seems to me it’s more difficult b­ ecause the priority in every­thing and everywhere is given to t­ hose ­people who speak the Kazakh language. One is hired for state ser­vice with knowledge of the Kazakh language, and knowledge of Kazakh is in demand everywhere. And if you d­ on’t know it, then ­you’re a liability.”76 For Timur Sergazinov a lack of knowledge of the Kazakh language complicates his identification as Kazakh. Timur explains: “If I could speak [Kazakh], I would feel that I belonged both ­here and ­there. . . . ​Not knowing Kazakh, I’m already not considered ‘one of us’ by the Kazakhs. They called me ‘shala-­K azakh’ . . . ​but even so, I still consider myself a Kazakh.” Speaking of himself and his three older ­sisters, Timur went on: “Overall, I think that, no ­matter how much I love my motherland, if the language question ­were to be

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posed very rigidly, we would prob­ably have to emigrate to Rus­sia. Somewhere like, say, Omsk, cities like that where Kazakhs live, too [laughs].”77 Timur’s comments reveal the somewhat uncomfortable position in which Russified Kazakhs, including t­ hose from mixed families, find themselves in post-­Soviet Kazakhstan. A linguistic strategy aimed at ensuring their professional and social success in the Soviet Union has backfired, making their lives more difficult in this new era. Despite ­these pressures from state and society, the Rus­sian language remains widely used among Kazakhs and in mixed families. Maira Ahmetova commented that while many Kazakhs ­today seem to prefer endogamous marriages, they d­ on’t place a corresponding emphasis on the Kazakh language. “Yes, ­today it’s more prestigious to be in a mononational marriage, but to speak in Rus­sian! And the c­ hildren speak Rus­sian. We have so many acquaintances like that. They speak only Rus­sian, but at the same time they consider themselves Kazakh. Meaning, they d­ on’t identify themselves based on language, but in another way.”78 Maira’s statement affirms that the separation of language from national identity continues to exist in Kazakhstan, despite recent efforts to revive the Kazakh language. The “stickiness” of the Rus­sian language in Kazakhstan accords with the general tendency of linguistic change to occur slowly, even when the cultural context changes. As Stanley Lieberson has written, “Once a language is established as the international language of communication . . . ​ the tongue ­will not automatically dis­appear when the initial conditions that led to its prominence are no longer operational.”79 He had in mind Latin, French, and En­glish, but his argument could just as easily apply to Rus­sian as a lingua franca within the post-­Soviet space. Lieberson also notes that cultural ele­ments (such as language) associated with foreign conquest or colonialism may stay in place even a­ fter the end of foreign rule, if their prestige remains stronger than the negative feelings resulting from the association with foreign compulsion.80 Maira Ahmetova, who sometimes felt ashamed of being Kazakh as a Soviet child, does not see the revival of Kazakh national pride as a bad ­thing. “­Things are not like they used to say before—­a single Soviet p­ eople. Back then we lost ourselves. Now, every­one wants to discover themselves. But not in the sense that hostility has increased. No. They let other p­ eople exist, but every­ one is pulled to their own roots. . . . ​Nowadays ‘Kazakh’ is pronounced with pride.”81 For ethnic Rus­sians and other non-­K azakhs, however, the change is less positive. Valentina Geiger, a ­woman of German ethnicity who speaks mainly Rus­sian, lamented how the social landscape and interethnic relations have changed in post-­Soviet Kazakhstan. As an example, she mentioned that Kazakhs in mixed com­pany would now continue speaking Kazakh in her pres-



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ence, whereas in the Soviet period they would always switch to Rus­sian as a courtesy. “Before, it w ­ asn’t like that. If they knew that you d­ idn’t understand, then they spoke, or at least tried to speak, in Rus­sian to ensure that you w ­ ouldn’t get offended . . . ​so that you ­wouldn’t think someone is speaking ill about you.”82 Nadezhda Konstaniants (b. 1954), an ethnic Rus­sian ­woman who has lived for more than three de­cades in Kazakhstan, finds the official emphasis on the Kazakh language somewhat challenging: “You know, right now I cannot say that I am being oppressed based on my nationality, but nonetheless, in everyday life you still hear about t­ hese ­things. . . . ​Just ­today someone was telling me, they went into the archives to obtain a certificate, they gave it in the Kazakh language and now they need to look for a translator to translate it, ­etc., ­etc. So, some prob­lems do exist.”83 Just like Russian-­speaking Kazakhs, Rus­ sian speakers of other nationalities find it hard to adapt, especially as adults. Nadezhda exclaimed, “Tell me, please, how can you expect my generation to know the Kazakh language?! It’s too late! . . . ​Moreover, an adult is burdened by work, ­family, and other ­things, and then suddenly you need to know Kazakh!” Nevertheless, Nadezhda agrees with the basic princi­ple of elevating the importance of the Kazakh language and believes that Rus­sians should try to learn it. “Well, one needs to make an effort, so to speak, and Rus­sians are guilty on this issue of saying categorically, ‘I ­don’t need it.’ Gentlemen, you need it! If you want to live in Kazakhstan—­it’s needed! You need to re­spect the ­people you live with.”84 The linguistic trajectory of post-­Soviet Tajikistan has been quite dif­fer­ent. ­Those Tajik and mixed families who are linguistically Russified have become quite isolated in comparison with their counter­parts in Kazakhstan. Before 1991, Tajiks had one of the lowest proportions of Rus­sian speakers of all the Soviet nationalities. Rus­sian was common among the urban intelligent­sia and among urban white-­and blue-­collar workers in multiethnic factories and offices, but not among the rural population.85 With a much smaller Rus­sian minority (only about one ­percent) ­after the flight of most non-­Tajiks during the civil war of the 1990s, Russian-­language proficiency began to die out among the younger generation. The strongly ethnonationalist orientation of the post-­ Soviet Tajik state depressed Rus­sian knowledge further. The government promoted the Tajik language, beginning with a 1989 law making Tajik the state language. In post-­Soviet Tajikistan, most Russian-­language schools w ­ ere closed in the years a­ fter in­de­pen­dence. By the 2004–2005 school year, only 2.2 ­percent of schoolchildren ­were studying in Rus­sian, compared with 73.7 ­percent in Tajik and 25.5  ­percent in Uzbek. As of 2008 t­here ­were only three Rus­sian schools still functioning in the country, two of which ­were in Dushanbe.86

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While Uzbeks remained the largest minority in Tajikistan, the number of Uzbek-­language schools also shrank ­after in­de­pen­dence.87 The de-­Russification pro­cess went so far in Tajikistan that some p­ eople became alarmed. Like other post-­Soviet p­ eoples, Tajiks have found that Rus­sian is impor­tant for communicating with the outside world, including with ­people in neighboring Central Asian republics. Moreover, the many Tajik mi­grants traveling to Rus­sia each year create a need for wider knowledge of Rus­sian among the population.88 Efforts to promote the acquisition of En­glish and other world languages have been slow. According to Larisa Mamajahirova, a Russian-­speaking mixed ­woman, “Nowadays, many regret that the Rus­sians left. . . . ​Nowadays, ­there is no communication; kids ­don’t know Rus­sian. Before, our generation knew the Rus­sian language, and now the new generation . . . ​they ­don’t know the Rus­sian language. And before, it was studied, communication was in Rus­ sian, ­there ­were many Rus­sians, but now it’s gone and kids started to completely forget the Rus­sian language.”89 As growing numbers of Tajiks have recognized the economic and employment benefits of knowing Rus­sian, ­there has been an attempt to revive Russian-­language education in Tajikistan. In January 2020, Tajikistan’s parliament approved an agreement to build five new Rus­sian schools, with funds largely provided by the Rus­sian government. Rus­sia, ­eager to keep Tajikistan within the Rus­sian sphere of influence, has also sent teachers and Russian-­language textbooks to Tajikistan.90 Along with the resurgence of indigenous languages, religion has become a more problematic issue for mixed individuals and families in post-­Soviet Central Asia. In the officially atheist Soviet Union, the suppression of religion and the resulting inability of families and communities to practice their faith openly meant that religious identity played less of a role in marriage and child-­rearing decisions. As we saw in chapter 3, many mixed families w ­ ere proud communists and atheists; o ­ thers followed an ecumenical approach, drawing the best from each religion. ­Here, too, the post-­Soviet experience of Kazakhstan has been dif­fer­ent from that of Tajikistan. With the revival of religion in the post-­Soviet era, the issue has taken on new importance for mixed c­ ouples and families in Kazakhstan. ­Because the religious re­nais­sance is still relatively new and many ­people remain largely secular in orientation, ­there is still room for ­children of mixed marriages to experiment with dif­fer­ent religious practices—or to adopt none at all. Nevertheless, mixed ­people sometimes report feeling confused about their religious identity or forced to choose between the religious traditions of their parents. Timur Sergazinov described a conflict with his Kazakh ­father over religion in the post-­Soviet period. As a child he learned about Chris­tian­ity from his maternal grand­mother, a Rus­sian Orthodox Old Believer. Yet in 1991, when Timur was



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fifteen, his f­ather tried to introduce him to Islam: “I was already acquainted with Chris­tian­ity through my grand­mother. . . . ​When I said something about Chris­tian­ity, he said, why are you talking all the time about Chris­tian­ity? I had this conflict with my ­father. I told him that God is one, that any religion is simply a method, a means of communicating with Him. In princi­ple, ­there is no difference. He said, what do you mean no difference, of course ­there’s a difference! ­Either y­ ou’re a Muslim, or you ­aren’t. He has ­these rigid princi­ples on this issue.”91 Interestingly, this f­ ather who insisted on his son’s Muslim identity was a lifelong communist who had never shown any outward evidence of religious belief (such as praying, fasting, or attending mosque ser­vices) in the Soviet era. For Sazhida Dmitrieva (b. 1959), who is of mixed Rus­sian and Tatar (and hence mixed Christian and Muslim) parentage, the post-­Soviet religious revival has also been problematic. “I consider myself a child of the Soviet Union, and nationality w ­ asn’t so impor­tant for us, and religion d­ idn’t play any role at all. But now it seems more complicated to me in this re­spect, that ­people have become more religious,” Sazhida explained. “My grand­mother was religious, the Tatar ­women used to gather and pray, celebrate all the Muslim holidays. This did take place, but we c­ hildren ­were not raised religiously or taught about religion. Somehow it ­wasn’t accepted back then. Now it has become fash­ion­ able, and so it’s become very difficult for me to define myself. I am ­really suffering from a split personality ­because of this issue!” ­Because of her own confusion, Sazhida now believes that interfaith marriages should be avoided.92 Susanna Morozova (b. 1973), who has christened her ­children in the Rus­ sian Orthodox faith, also said that she would try to steer them away from interfaith marriages. She believes that such u ­ nions are simply too difficult for all concerned: The husband is Kazakh, the wife Rus­sian, and every­one has to make some compromises, concessions. They raise the c­ hildren: should we speak this language or that? Sometimes ­there are conflicts with the husband’s or wife’s relatives; “why are you speaking more in Rus­sian at home? Why ­ don’t you speak Kazakh? Why did you christen the ­children? Why ­didn’t you take them to the mosque?” Although I’m not very religious, I still think this is impor­tant for the f­uture—­that the ­f uture husband and wife speak in one language and ­were raised in one faith. Assuming, of course, that they are religious believers.93 Susanna’s views, all too common t­ oday, would not have been expressed in the same way in the Soviet period. Kuralai Zhemsekbayeva agreed that the religious revival has made t­hings much more difficult for mixed families. In

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the Soviet period, she noted, “Conflicts did not arise b­ ecause, perhaps, every­ one was an atheist. That’s what I think. ­Because religious holidays, in par­tic­ u­lar, harden the bound­aries between nations.” Since she is married to a non-­Muslim, Kuralai commented, some Kazakhs view her as a turncoat and even question her right to continue practicing Islam. “Or, as one person told me: ‘Since you left, ­don’t you dare to observe it now!’ ” She explained, “Well, I left—­I married a representative of another nationality and religion, so I must do as he does. [Living] in his ­house constitutes a desecration of my traditions, so to speak. ‘You ­shouldn’t read the Qur­an at home! ­Don’t do that!’ It seems to me now ­things have become more difficult.”94 Larisa Niyazova (b. 1966), a Rus­sian ­woman married to a Kazakh man, does not want to be forced to choose a religion, though her background is Christian: “I still ­haven’t been baptized, but I was told on one occasion that I must necessarily be baptized. But I say: ‘My husband is Kazakh, he is a Muslim, how can I go and be baptized right now? I ­will find myself between the two religions.’ ” She and her ­family prefer to continue taking rituals and practices from each faith.95 “Aigerim Semenova” (b. 1952), half Rus­sian and half Kazakh, has been similarly unable to decide on a par­tic­u­lar faith. Choosing one, she said, would feel like a betrayal of part of her f­ amily. “My dad was buried in accordance with the Muslim customs. And my mom also wanted to be buried in accordance with the Muslim customs ­because she loved dad dearly and asked while she was still alive to be buried near him.” However, her parents ­were not religious in any meaningful sense, and she herself remains uncommitted to a par­tic­u­lar belief system. “In general, they ­were deeply po­liti­cal ­people. I mean, they are both interred in a Muslim cemetery. And their oldest son embraced Chris­tian­ity. He lies ­here, buried in a Christian cemetery. So, that’s why I must give my due to each of the religions. My loved ones had de­cided that way. I am still contemplating it myself. I ­haven’t been baptized, and I am not a Muslim.”96 The religious landscape of Tajikistan is rather dif­fer­ent. The numerical predominance of Muslims is far greater, especially since the emigration of many non-­Muslims ­after 1991. The majority of the population identifies as Muslim (around 90 ­percent Sunni and between 5–6 ­percent Shia, including a small population of Ismailis in the Pamir Mountains.)97 ­There has been an Islamic resurgence among the Tajik and Uzbek populations. While Islam has in many re­spects returned to its prominent place in public life, Tajikistan, like other post-­Soviet Central Asian states, has been wary of expressions of religion that threaten to escape state control.98 The government has tried to prevent fundamentalism from taking hold through mea­sures such as banning headscarves



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and veils and discouraging Muslim names of Arabic origin in f­ avor of ethnically Tajik names.99 Nevertheless, Tajikistan remains overwhelmingly Muslim, and it is harder ­there for families to draw from two religions equally, or for ­children of mixed families to choose their religion. For t­ hose who remain, it is easier to live as a Muslim. Even so, some mixed families continue to try to express their complex identities in their religious practices. Irina Domulojonova is a Rus­sian ­woman who grew up in a mixed Russian-­ Uzbek ­family in Tajikistan and married a Tajik. With this complicated background, her ­family has navigated between two faiths in post-­Soviet period, with dif­fer­ent members g­ oing in dif­fer­ent directions. “My oldest son—he is 100 ­percent Tajik, no question . . . ​but the youn­gest, he has expressed interest in Chris­tian­ity.” This son received a Bible from his instructor in a martial arts class and continues to read it. “And whenever he has some difficulties, I sometimes notice that he may sit and read it. And he even suggests to me, ‘Mama, when ­things are hard for you, read this part ­here’ and points to it, ‘it ­will help you.’ ”100 Dilbar Khojayeva’s (b. 1961) c­ hildren, by contrast, are leaning more ­toward Islam. “I have a ­daughter and a son. They consider themselves Muslims. I remember my mother-­in-­law came when my ­daughter was fifteen years old, and they went to Rus­sia.” The mother-­in-­law, a former communist, had turned to religion ­after 1991. She tried to take her grand­daughter, Dilbar’s ­daughter, to a Rus­sian Orthodox Church, but the girl considered it inappropriate, as a Muslim, even to set foot in a Christian Church. “She would not go into the church,” Dilbar recalled.101 Lola Tuychiboyeva (b. 1964), whose Rus­sian ­mother married her off Tajik-­ style, says that her own ­family and ­children are “Muslim, but Eu­ro­pean.” Her attitude t­ oward religion changed ­after the collapse of the Soviet Union. “Previously I never thought about it, I was skeptical. But now I started praying namaz [Islamic worship]. . . . ​Somehow when I pray, I feel better. I am often ill, and when I pray my spirit becomes lighter. I found something in this. When I pray, I feel good, and when I d­ on’t pray, I feel bad. . . . ​I ­don’t know, or maybe it’s auto-­suggestion. My older son prays five times a day. He is very religious, but nevertheless his conception is Eu­ro­pe­an. . . . ​Prob­ably it was ­because of looking at him that I started praying [laughs]. But in any case, every­thing with us is Eu­ro­pean, even though we pray namaz.” Lola has found her own way of combining her partly Rus­sian background with life in Muslim Tajikistan.102 Two of Tatiana Soliboyeva’s half-­Tajik ­children converted to Chris­tian­ity, took Christian names, and moved to Rus­sia. Her youn­gest ­daughter had a difficult time at first ­after resettling in Rus­sia but is fi­nally happy with her decision.

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She’s in Moscow, she got her citizenship, it’s been six years now. It was very difficult for her; she was t­here all alone with no relatives; she rented dif­fer­ent apartments, changed one job, and then a second job. But evidently ­there’s a God, and he helped her. She found a good job, and now she has her citizenship. And, you know, she accepted the Rus­ sian faith; she was baptized. She was Zamira and became Zlata. Now, she observes all the fasts and all the religious holidays, she attends church and lights candles, she gave herself to God completely; she is very faithful. She says: “God has helped me.”103 Tatiana’s eldest son Shuhrat, who tragically died as a young man, also converted to Rus­sian Orthodoxy before his death. “My late eldest son also dated a Rus­sian ­woman. One day on the eve of Easter, he also accepted the Rus­sian faith. Someone told me that he betrayed his faith and his destiny, and that ­people like that d­ on’t live long, can you imagine? Someone told me that in church. His name was Shuhrat, but his friends called him Shurik; he was baptized as Alexander. He was baptized in April and passed away in June.”104 Jamila Rahimova, born in 1953 to a mixed Tajik-­Russian c­ ouple, found a dif­fer­ent solution to this prob­lem. She always considered herself a “Soviet” person, an internationalist, and wanted to retain this feeling a­ fter the collapse of the Soviet Union. Thus, she became Bahai in 1998. “When the collapse of the Soviet Union happened, I came to the conclusion that a person needs to be an internationalist no ­matter what, and so then I de­cided to change my faith. For me, for example, as a former communist, I ­couldn’t be a Muslim among Muslims, and among Rus­sian Orthodox . . . ​Rus­sian Orthodox belief I ­don’t understand at all.” She went on, “Although I read the Koran and the Bible, it’s all in­ter­est­ing, but maybe ­because of my education I took the Bahai faith in 1998. It’s a religion that proclaims the unity of races, unity of nations, and in general the entire earth, no m ­ atter where you are, who you are.” Jamila has found a unique way to retain Soviet-­style internationalism in her own life.105 Since 1991, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan have both experienced inward-­looking tendencies that are often lumped together ­under the label of “retraditionalization.” Practices related to gender, marriage, and f­amily have attracted attention from scholars and policy prac­ti­tion­ers as areas in which “tradition” is being revived in post-­Soviet Central Asia. International and feminist organ­ izations have been critical of the reemergence of practices such as polygamy and underage marriage that allegedly push ­women back into an era before Soviet emancipation. Scholars have written about the rise of bride kidnapping in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, best daughter-­in-­law contests in Uzbekistan,



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and other seemingly retrograde practices. In Tajikistan, t­ hese include a valorization of arranged marriage, marriage to cousins and other relatives, and marital endogamy more generally.106 Some scholars have been critical of the idea of retraditionalization, noting that it assumes that tradition is something fixed and unchanging, belonging to an i­magined golden age before the arrival of modernity and colonialism. As Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger have pointed out, traditions are continually being in­ven­ted and reinvented.107 Uncritical ac­cep­tance of the idea of retraditionalization buys into the nationalist understanding of tradition, in which nations imagine themselves as carry­ing forward a glorious past. In Central Asia, Deniz Kandiyoti persuasively rejects the idea of retraditionalization with re­spect to Muslim w ­ omen, arguing that Soviet rule itself bolstered tradition in impor­tant re­spects. Soviet “modernization” in the region was paradoxical, encouraging high fertility and the continuation of a strict gender-­based division of ­labor at home, even as ­women ­were educated and drawn into the public sphere.108 Are the newly negative attitudes ­toward mixed marriage in Central Asia a manifestation of retraditionalization? I would argue that they are not. In fact, ­these attitudes are in a certain sense the continuation and logical culmination of Soviet-­era ideology and policies. The very idea of Tajiks, Uzbeks, Turkmen, and Kazakhs as distinct, ethnolinguistic and territorially based nations that should naturally tend t­ oward endogamy was largely a product of Soviet nationality policy, just as the institutionalization of Soviet nationalities within separate republics was arguably one of the most successful of all Soviet proj­ ects. Iu. V. Bromlei, dean of Soviet ethnographers, was a leading proponent of the idea that the most impor­tant characteristic of the ethnos was its endogamy.109 The ideas of Lev Gumilev, who propagated his mystical view of the ethnos and his opposition to mixed marriage in the Brezhnev era, had many adherents in the Soviet Union and have become even more popu­lar in the post-­Soviet republics, especially Kazakhstan.110 As we saw in previous chapters, the ethnos, which was supposed to have historical and cultural roots, came to be seen in increasingly primordial and even biological ways in the late Soviet era.111 The use of such terms as “pure-­blooded” and “gene pool” in discussing mixed marriages, then, is not part of pre-­Soviet tradition in the region but rather a continuation and extension of the Soviet discourse of ethnicity and nationality. Paradoxically, the state that celebrated intermarriage also nurtured the ideas that would ultimately be used to reject it.

 Conclusion Remembering Soviet Internationalism

Intermarried ­couples in the Soviet Union believed in a f­ uture in which their ­children would be able to move beyond ethnicity. Unfortunately, this f­ uture never arrived for the mixed ­children of Soviet Central Asia, who live in post-­Soviet states that are dominated to varying extents by ethnic nationalism and generally less hospitable to ethnic mixing than their Soviet parents and grandparents could have ­imagined. The growth of biological and racial understandings of identity in the late Soviet period, which was linked to the revival of interest in ge­ne­tics ­after Stalin’s death, contributed significantly to this transformation. Race was not part of the official discourse in the Soviet era, nor did ­people use the word in everyday conversation. Yet it simmered beneath the surface, in the ideas of unofficial thinkers like Lev Gumilev and even embedded in the work of leading Soviet ethnographers. Notions of race had been pre­sent in the early Soviet period and had prob­ably circulated in a covert manner all along. Just ­because the Soviet regime had declared itself anti-­racist and declared the topic of race to be off-­limits did not mean that ideas about inherited traits and ethnic hierarchies had magically dis­ appeared, any more than declaring the Soviet Union an atheist state meant that belief in a supreme being had dis­appeared. On the popu­lar level, racial thinking could be detected in the widely accepted essentialist understandings of nationality based on supposedly innate characteristics. Even the most thoughtful of my Soviet interlocutors some21 2



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times would surprise me by voicing racially inflected ste­reo­types, and many recounted experiences that smacked of racial discrimination, though they did not necessarily understand them that way. Ideas of race ­were also pre­sent in popu­lar notions of ethnic hierarchy; the unquestioned deference paid to all ­things Rus­sian, the discomfort of belonging to a “lesser” nationality when one would ­really rather be Rus­sian, and the outright derision with which some groups, most notably Africans, w ­ ere regarded. That ­these are not post-­Soviet ideas being superimposed on memories of the past is confirmed by Soviet-­era evidence, such as letters from Soviet citizens and recollections of visitors to the Soviet Union. The constraints and considerations imposed by racialized understandings of nationality came up repeatedly in my conversations with mixed c­ ouples and their ­children. ­These considerations intruded into many aspects of their lives, from naming ­children and choosing a passport nationality to selecting a marriage partner. The Soviet citizens with whom I spoke rarely used the term “race” and would have been shocked to hear Soviet society described as racist.1 Moreover, essentialist ideas about innate characteristics based on ancestry coexisted, as we have seen, with a firm belief in the friendship of p­ eoples and Soviet-­style international brotherhood; in the words of my interview subjects, “We ­didn’t think about nationality back then,” “We ­were all internationalists.” Essentialist ideas about gender w ­ ere also on the rise in the late Soviet Union, undermining the long-­standing official emphasis on gender equality and the image of mixed ­couples as avatars of equality. As we saw in chapter four, official Soviet ideas about gender never fully took hold in Central Asia, even among mixed c­ ouples who w ­ ere supposed to be in the vanguard of Soviet modernity. In light of ­these developments, it is not surprising that seemingly backward-­ looking views involving xenophobic nationalism, rejection of feminism, and opposition to mixed marriage have burst onto the scene since 1991 in many former Soviet republics. T ­ hese ideas, which w ­ ere gestating in the de­cades before the collapse, are all linked in support of the nationalizing proj­ects of the Soviet successor states. A return to an i­magined national tradition, a­ fter all, often means reviving—or creating—­customs and practices rooted in patriarchal f­ amily relationships and ideas of national purity. Neither mixed families nor emancipated w ­ omen fit easily into this picture. What, then, happened to the “Soviet ­people”? In retrospect, some doubt that it ever r­ eally existed. When I gave a talk at the Institute of Ethnography and Anthropology at the Rus­sian Acad­emy of Sciences in Moscow in 2010, I mentioned the importance of ethnically mixed families in the creation of the Soviet ­people. Several of my Rus­sian colleagues w ­ ere skeptical. One commented, “no one ­really believed in the Soviet p­ eople—it was just a slogan.”

21 4  Co n c l u si o n

This dismissal of a key tenet of Soviet ideology seems to confirm what anthropologist Alexei Yurchak has written about the rote and repetitive quality of Soviet ideological formulae in the Brezhnev era.2 Western scholars, too, have tended to underplay the significance of Soviet civic identity, even citing the Soviet Union’s inability to create a workable identity as one of the ­factors in its demise.3 Cynicism may have been the norm for elites in Moscow and St. Petersburg in the Brezhnev era, even among scholars and Communist Party officials who knowingly winked (or did so in retrospect) at the ideology they ­were peddling. Yet many ordinary ­people did believe, often fervently, in the “Soviet p­ eople.” This was especially the case, as my interviews show, among members of mixed families in Central Asia. They not only expressed dismay at the disappearance of a common Soviet identity and a sense of displacement in their new, nationally oriented homelands, but in many cases continued to identify strongly with the now-­defunct Soviet internationalist proj­ect. The attempt to create a civic, supra-­ethnic identity in the Soviet Union resonated with many citizens, not just members of mixed families. As Anna Whittington shows, letters written in the Brezhnev era frequently declared allegiance to the idea of the “Soviet p­ eople” and even demanded that ethnic nationality be removed from Soviet passports.4 Yet a Soviet identity was stymied in the end by the emphasis on nationality—an innate, permanent, singular nationality—as the main category of identity for all citizens. For mixed ­people, the requirement that they possess just one nationality was particularly challenging. True, it was pos­si­ble to be both Soviet and national without necessarily feeling a sense of contradiction.5 What was difficult, if not impossible, was being just Soviet. This book has shown both the strengths and the limitations of Soviet identity, by examining the lives of ­those who wanted to claim it as their primary identity but could not. Would it have made any difference to the ultimate outcome of the Soviet multinational experiment if individuals had been permitted to declare “Soviet” as their passport identity? Prob­ably not; a­ fter all, having a “Yugo­slav” category on the census did not save Yugo­slavia. Still, the failure to allow Soviet citizens, even t­ hose of mixed background, to transcend the narrow confines of official nationality must, in retrospect, be viewed as a missed opportunity. When I first began my research for this book, a biracial man was president of the United States. Part of my original motivation in exploring Soviet intermarriage was a sense that my own society was gradually becoming more tolerant of racial and ethnic mixing. (As a participant in a mixed marriage myself, I had a personal interest in this issue.) I was intrigued by the fact that the Soviet Union had celebrated mixed marriages at a time when most Western counties rejected them or tolerated them at best grudgingly. Was the So-



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viet Union’s internationalism and apparent tolerance of diversity and ethnic mixing real, I wondered? Did the experiences of mixed families correspond at all to the happy images portrayed in official publications and films? I have shown in this book that the real­ity did correspond to the ideal, at least to some extent. Despite increasingly essentialist views of ethnicity, many mixed ­couples and ­children of mixed marriages felt comfortable in the Soviet Union and identified with its broad ideology of internationalism. Yet, as I write this conclusion, some post-­Soviet states and their citizens have abandoned antiracism in f­ avor of exclusionary nationalism. Mixed families and even members of ethnic minorities no longer feel as welcome, let alone celebrated, as they did in the Soviet era. History is not linear, and pro­g ress t­ oward equality and inclusiveness is never guaranteed. In the multiethnic countries of a globalized world, the collapse of Soviet identity in ­favor of primordial nationalism may serve as a cautionary tale for us all.

Appendix I

Oral History Methodology

This book is primarily a work of oral history, based on more than eighty interviews conducted in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Rus­sia. My interview subjects w ­ ere partners in mixed marriages or adult offspring of such marriages, and in some cases both. The interviews w ­ ere semi-­ structured and sought to elicit each person’s entire life and ­family history as fully as pos­si­ble. I used a set of questions meant to guide the discussion, but I also allowed plenty of latitude for interviewees to talk freely about their lives and what­ever most concerned them. The length of the interviews ranged from twenty minutes to four hours. I personally conducted most of the interviews in Kazakhstan, sometimes in collaboration with my Kazakh colleague, Dr. Saule Ualiyeva, a specialist on intermarriage in con­temporary Kazakhstan. A few of the Kazakhstan interviews, including all of ­those with respondents in southern Kazakhstan, w ­ ere conducted by Kazakhstan-­based colleagues. The interviews in Tajikistan ­were all conducted by my then doctoral student and research assistant, Dr. Zamira Yusufjonova Abman. We used vari­ous means of identifying potential interview subjects, including placing ads in newspapers and posting flyers at universities. What ultimately worked best was word of mouth and the “snowballing” method, in which an initial group of interview subjects recommended by friends and colleagues referred us to further potential subjects. In both Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, we identified interviewees of varying ages, genders, nationalities, and educational and professional backgrounds. 217

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A P P END I X I

They ­were (or had been, if retired) factory workers, teachers, bus ­drivers, professors, artists, government officials, librarians, and hairdressers. Their birth years ranged from the 1920s to the early 1990s, with the largest number belonging to the postwar generation born in the 1950s. In Kazakhstan, we conducted interviews in three main regions: the Russified northeast (Öskemen), the former capital of Soviet Kazakhstan, Almaty, and the more heavi­ly Kazakh and Kazakh-­speaking south (Shymkent). In Tajikistan, most of the interviews ­were conducted in Khujand and its surrounding areas. We conducted interviews in a variety of settings, depending on the desires and schedules of the ­people we ­were interviewing—­respondents’ homes and workplaces, cafés and restaurants, and once even sitting on a playground swing. Although the interview subjects cannot be said to be representative in a statistical sense, they do represent a variety of perspectives, views, and experiences. The interviews are very diverse in the life stories they tell, yet they also reveal a number of common concerns and experiences shared by mixed ­couples and families in Soviet and post-­Soviet Central Asia. The majority of interviewees consented to have their real names used. A minority asked that I use a pseudonym when writing about them. (I put the pseudonym in quotation marks on first reference to that individual.) The interviews in Kazakhstan ­were all conducted in Rus­sian, while the interviews in Tajikistan w ­ ere conducted in Rus­sian, Tajik, and Uzbek. All interviews ­were recorded on a digital audio device and transcribed, and ­those originally in Tajik and Uzbek ­were translated into Rus­sian. Theorists of oral history have written about the relative positions of interviewer and interviewee and how the relationship between the two affects the interview—­a phenomenon often referred to as “intersubjectivity.”1 It ­matters, for example, w ­ hether the interviewer is a visiting foreign scholar or a local, although how it ­matters is not always obvious. Respondents may take more time to explain local cultural practices to a foreign scholar, while assuming that the local scholar knows the context so that less needs to be explained. Some ­people may be reluctant to speak to a foreign scholar about intimate ­family ­matters, while ­others may feel freer sharing their experiences with an outsider who is detached from the local social and ethnic structure. It also makes a difference ­whether the interviewer and interviewee belong to roughly the same generation and w ­ hether they are of the same gender. (In some settings in Central Asia, it would be difficult even to set up an interview between two p­ eople of dif­fer­ent genders.) I should note ­here that despite our efforts to find equal numbers of men and ­women to interview, the majority (around three-­fourths) of our respondents w ­ ere ­women. I am not sure why this was the case. My entire research

O R A L H I STO R Y METHODOLOGY

219

team was female, and w ­ omen may have been more willing than men to speak to a female researcher. Perhaps w ­ omen ­were generally more willing to speak to a stranger about marriage and f­ amily life. Theorists of oral history have argued that w ­ omen remember and speak about their memories differently from men, on the w ­ hole, using more direct quotes and vivid detail when recalling personal events.2 In addition to the interviews with members of mixed families, I also interviewed a small number of scholars in Moscow and St. Petersburg. ­These ­were mainly ethnographers and sociologists who had written on intermarriage in the Soviet era and had a g­ reat deal of expertise on the subject, which they w ­ ere kind enough to share with me. ­These interviews provided impor­tant context for understanding the scholarly work on intermarriage carried out in the USSR between the 1960s and the 1980s. Several of t­ hese scholars shared documents and notes from their personal archives, for which I am truly grateful.

Appendix II

List of Interviews

Members of Mixed Families Quotation marks around a name denote a pseudonym. Name Marina Abdrahmanova Bahriniso Abdurahmonova “Irina Abdulayeva” Gulmira Abdusamatova “Aliya Ahmetova” “Maira Ahmetova” Talgat Akilov Solehamoh Astanqulova Alla Azizova Erzhan Baiburin “Fatima Belgibayeva” Maria Bender Svetlana Berezovskaia Ilhom Boboyev Elmira Boboyeva Lutfiya Boboyeva

Interview date 4/15/2010 8/2/2011 9/21/2011 8/8/2011 4/14/2010 4/11/2010 10/2012 7/2011 7/2011 9/19/2011 9/10/2011 9/20/2011 9/22/2011 7/2011 7/2011 7/2011

Interview location Almaty, Kazakhstan Karakum, Tajikistan Öskemen, Kazakhstan Khujand, Tajikistan Almaty, Kazakhstan Almaty, Kazakhstan Shymkent, Kazakhstan Khujand, Tajikistan Khujand, Tajikistan Öskemen, Kazakhstan Almaty, Kazakhstan Öskemen, Kazakhstan Öskemen, Kazakhstan Khujand, Tajikistan Khujand, Tajikistan Isfara, Tajikistan 221

22 2

A P P END I X I I

“Liudmila Davydova” “Dilbar” Sazhida Dmitrieva Irina Domulojonova Lidia Evdakimova Valentina Geiger Maria Hamidova Nikolai Hon “Kamal Ibrayev” “Arhat Isayev” “Ruslan Isayev” Rustam Iskandarov “Maria Iskanderova” Elena Julchieva Marina Kamusheva Lesia Karatayeva Dilbar Khojayeva “Daria Kim” “Hyun Kim” Irina Klimenko Nadezhda Konstaniants Ismail Kurbanov Marina Makhsumova Larisa Mamadzohirova Anastasia Martsevich Natalia Mirzorahimova Susanna Morozova “Mukarram” Madina Nahipova “Natasha” Nargiza Nazarova Ra’no Nazarova “Katia Nikolaeva” Larisa Niyazova Tamara Novikova Muborak Oshurova Ada Pavlovna Jamila Rahimova Mavjuda Rahimova Vera Rahimova

4/15/2010 7/2011 4/7/2010 7/2011 8/4/2011 10/2012 8/10/2011 4/5/2010 6/28/2008 10/2012 4/20/2010 7/2011 4/3/2010 9/15/2011 10/23/2010 4/19/2010 7/2011 2/14/2008 12/3/2011 10/2012 4/7/2010 10/2012 10/18/2010 7/2011 6/2010 10/22/2010 4/5/2010 7/2011 10/2012 7/2011 7/2011 10/1/2010 9/20/2011 10/2012 10/25/2010 7/2010 9/8/2011 10/23/2010 10/1/2010 10/23/2010

Almaty, Kazakhstan Khujand, Tajikistan Öskemen, Kazakhstan Khujand, Tajikistan Sughd region, Tajikistan Shymkent, Kazakhstan Khujand, Tajikistan Öskemen, Kazakhstan Almaty, Kazakhstan Shymkent, Kazakhstan Almaty, Kazakhstan Khujand, Tajikistan Öskemen, Kazakhstan Almaty, Kazakhstan Sughd region, Tajikistan Almaty, Kazakhstan Khujand, Tajikistan Öskemen, Kazakhstan Almaty, Kazakhstan Shymkent, Kazakhstan Öskemen, Kazakhstan Shymkent, Kazakhstan Chkalovsk, Tajikistan Khujand, Tajikistan Moscow, Rus­sia Karakum, Tajikistan Öskemen, Kazakhstan Khujand, Tajikistan Shymkent, Kazakhstan Chkalovsk, Tajikistan Khujand, Tajikistan Khujand, Tajikistan Öskemen, Kazakhstan Shymkent, Kazakhstan Khujand, Tajikistan Khujand, Tajikistan Almaty, Kazakhstan. Sughd region, Tajikistan Dushanbe, Tajikistan Sughd region, Tajikistan

L I ST O F I NTE R V I EWS

Mirzosharif Ruziyev Ekaterina Ruziyeva Maria Saliyeva “Azat Sarkenov” Firuza Sattorova Ma’suda Sattorova Fatima Satyboldinova “Aigerim Semenova” Timur Sergazinov Tatiana Soliboyeva Vladimir Soloviev “Zamira Svetlova” “Saltanat Tleubaeva” Alla Tuychiboyeva Lola Tuychiboyeva Sergei Tsoberg Inomjon Umarov Svetlana Umarova Kamoliddin Urunboyev Klara Usmanova Svetlana Vizer Natalia Volkova Abdallah Yusupov “Kuralai Zhemsekbayeva” Khadija Zoidova

10/11/2010 10/11/2010 10/16/2010 9/20/2011 7/2011 7/2011 4/10/2010 9/22/2011 4/5/2010 10/9/2010 4/13/2010 10/2012 4/10/2010 10/6/2010 10/1/2010 9/19/2011 10/1/2010 10/1/2010 7/2010 10/15/2010 4/2010 10/8/2010 9/12/2011 10/2012 7/2011

223

Sughd region, Tajikistan Sughd region, Tajikistan Khujand, Tajikistan Öskemen, Kazakhstan Khujand, Tajikistan Khujand, Tajikistan Almaty, Kazakhstan Öskemen, Kazakhstan Öskemen, Kazakhstan Khujand, Tajikistan Almaty, Kazakhstan Shymkent, Kazakhstan Öskemen, Kazakhstan Khujand, Tajikistan Khujand, Tajikistan Öskemen, Kazakhstan Khujand, Tajikistan Khujand, Tajikistan Khujand, Tajikistan Khujand, Tajikistan Almaty, Kazakhstan Khujand, Tajikistan Almaty, Kazakhstan Shymkent, Kazakhstan Khujand, Tajikistan

Ethnographers and Sociologists Name O. I. Briusina Iu. A. Evstigneev M. N. Guboglo O. B. Naumova V. A. Shnirelman A. A. Susokolov

Interview date 6/9/2010 6/11/2010 6/8/2010 6/7/2010 6/8/2010 6/14/2010

Interview location Moscow, Rus­sia St. Petersburg, Rus­sia Moscow, Rus­sia Moscow, Rus­sia Moscow, Rus­sia Moscow, Rus­sia

N ote s

Introduction

Epigraph: Interview with Marina Abdrahmanova, Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 15, 2010. 1. See, for example, Ronald G. Suny, “The Contradictions of Identity: Being Soviet and National in the USSR and ­After,” in Soviet and Post-­Soviet Identities, ed. Mark Bassin and Catriona Kelly (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 17–36. 2. On the elaboration of nationality categories and their internalization by Central Asians in the early Soviet period, see Francine Hirsch, Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge and the Making of the Soviet Union (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005), chap. 3. 3. Sh. S. Anaklychev, “Rol’ promyshlenykh tsentrov v protsesse sblizheniia natsional’nostei,” Sovetskaia Etnografiia 6 (1964): 30; O. A. Gantskaia and L. N. Terent’eva, “Mezhnatsional’nye braki i ikh rol’ v etnicheskikh protsessakh,” in Sovremennye etnicheskie protsessy v SSSR (Moscow: Nauka, 1975), 463. Soviet scholars significantly downplayed this issue, though survey data from the 1990s indicated continuing high rates of tribal endogamy. Shokhrat Kadyrov, Turkmenistan v XX veke: Probely i problemy (Bergen, Norway: s.n., 1996), 87–88. On social status categories and marriage in Tajikistan, see Sophie Roche, “Maintaining, Dissolving, and Remaking Group Bound­aries through Marriage: The Case of Khujand in the Ferghana Valley,” in Intermarriage from Central Eu­ rope to Central Asia: Mixed Families in the Age of Extremes, ed. Adrienne Edgar and Benjamin Frommer (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2020), 163–199. 4. As David Kertzer and Dominique Arel argue, the official census categories used by states serve to create real­ity; “collective identities are molded through censuses.” See their introduction to Census and Identity: The Politics of Race, Ethnicity and Language in National Censuses, ed. David Kertzer and Dominique Arel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 2. 5. Ronald G. Suny, Revenge of the Past: Nationalism and the Collapse of the Soviet Union (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), 129–130, 154–156. 6. For an example of this argument in the US context, see Rainer Spencer, Challenging Multiracial Identity (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2006). 7. Adeeb Khalid, “Backwardness and the Quest for Civilization: Early Soviet Central Asia in Comparative Perspective,” Slavic Review 65, no. 2 (2006): 231–251; Stephen Kotkin, “Modern Times: The Soviet Union and the Interwar Conjuncture,” Kritika: Explorations in Rus­sian and Eurasian History 2, no. 1 (2001): 111–164. 8. On the Soviet Union as a “maker of nations,” see Suny, Revenge of the Past; Terry Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet 225

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TO PA GE 5

Union, 1923–1939 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991). On the “Soviet p­ eople” and its relationship to nationality, see Maike Lehmann, Eine sowjetische nation: Nationale Sozialismus-­interpretationen in Armenien seit 1945 (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2012); Moritz Florin, Kirgistan und die sowjetische Moderne (Göttingen: V & R Unipresss, 2013); Eren Tasar, Soviet and Muslim: the Institutionalization of Islam in Central Asia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). 9. Before the Soviet Union’s collapse, a few specialists on Soviet nationality policy analyzed intermarriage, using Soviet publications as their main source. T ­ hese include Brian Silver, “Ethnic Intermarriage and Ethnic Consciousness among Soviet Nationalities,” Soviet Studies 30, no. 1 (1978): 107–116; Ethel Dunn and Stephen P. Dunn. “Ethnic Intermarriage as an Indicator of Cultural Convergence in Soviet Central Asia,” in The Nationality Question in Soviet Central Asia, ed. Edward Allworth (New York: Praeger, 1973), 45–58; Rasma Karklins, Ethnic Relations in the USSR: The Perspective from Below (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1986); Wesley Fisher, The Soviet Marriage Market: Mate Se­ lection in Rus­sia and the USSR (New York: Praeger, 1980); Robert Kaiser, The Geography of Nationalism in Rus­sia and the USSR (Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 1994). The po­liti­cal scientist Dmitry Gorenburg revisited the topic in “Rethinking Interethnic Marriage in the Soviet Union,” Post-­Soviet Affairs 22, no. 2 (2006): 145–165, as did several of the authors in Edgar and Frommer, Intermarriage from Central Eu­rope to Central Asia. 10. Examples of this vast lit­er­a­ture include Martha Hodes, ed., Sex, Love, Race: Crossing Bound­aries in North American History (New York: New York University Press, 1999); Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest (New York: Routledge, 1995); Ann Laura Stoler, Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002); France Winddance Twine, A White Side of Black Britain: Interracial Intimacy and Racial Literacy (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010); and Paul Spickard, Mixed Blood: Intermarriage and Ethnic Identity in Twentieth ­Century Amer­i­ca (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989). 11. On early Soviet terminology and conceptualization of nationalities and nations, see Hirsch, Empire of Nations, 42–45, 108–114. 12. I. V. Stalin, Marxism and the National Question (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1936), 5. 13. Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Eu­rope between Hitler and Stalin (New York: Basic Books, 2010), chaps. 10–11. 14. Terry Martin, “Modernization or Neotraditionalism? Ascribed Nationality and Soviet Primordialism,” in Stalinism: New Directions, ed. Sheila Fitzpatrick (New York: Routledge, 2000), 348–67; Marlene Laruelle, “The Concept of Ethnogenesis in Central Asia: Its Po­liti­cal Context and Institutional Mediators, 1940–1950,” Kritika: Explorations in Rus­sian and Eurasian History 9, no. 1 (2008): 169–188. 15. On Lysenkoism and Soviet ge­ne­tics, see V. V. Babkov, The Dawn of H ­ uman Ge­ ne­tics (Cold Spring Harbor: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2013); Loren Graham, Lysenko’s Ghost: Epigenet­ics and Rus­sia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016); Valery Soyfer, Lysenko and the Tragedy of Soviet Science (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1994); Ethan Pollock, Stalin and the Soviet Science Wars (Prince­ ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 2006). 16. On the concept of ethnos, see V. A. Tishkov, Rekviem po etnosu. Issledovaniia po sotsial’noi i kul’turnoi antropologii (Moscow: Nauka, 2003); Iu. V. Bromlei, Etnos i etnografiia (Moscow: Nauka, 1973).

NOTES TO PA GES 6– 10

227

17. One of the first to argue for the presence of racial thinking in the Soviet Union was Eric D. Weitz in “Racial Politics Without the Concept of Race: Reevaluating Soviet Ethnic and National Purges,” Slavic Review 61, no. 1 (2002): 1–29. See also David Rainbow, introduction to Ideologies of Race: Imperial Rus­sia and the Soviet Union in Global Context, ed. David Rainbow (Montreal: McGill-­Queen’s University Press, 2019), 3–26. The role of race and racial thinking in the Soviet Union remains controversial, with ­others continuing to argue that race was not a significant category in Soviet thought. See, for example, Nathaniel Knight, “Vocabularies of Difference: Ethnicity and Race in Late Imperial and Early Soviet Rus­sia,” Kritika: Explorations in Rus­sian and Eurasian History 13, no 3 (2012): 667–683. 18. The region that was once Soviet Central Asia consists of five in­de­pen­dent states: Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan. 19. William Fierman, “Language and Education in Post-­Soviet Kazakhstan: Kazakh-­ Medium Instruction in Urban Schools,” Rus­sian Review 65 ( January 2006): 101; Jumabai Jakupov, Shala Kazakh: Proshloe, Nastoiashchee, Budushchee (Almaty, Kazakhstan: Almaty, 2009), 9–10. 20. Sarah Cameron, The Hungry Steppe: Famine, Vio­lence, and the Making of Soviet Kazakhstan (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018); Robert Kindler, Stalin’s Nomads: Power and Famine in Kazakhstan (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018). 21. Jacob M. Landau and Barbara Kellner-­Heinkele, Politics of Language in the Ex-­Soviet Muslim States (London: Hurst and Com­pany, 2001), 21–22. See also Yulduz Smagulova, “Language Policies of Kazakhization and Their Influence on Language Attitudes and Use,” in Multilingualism in Post-­Soviet Countries, ed. Aneta Pavlenko (Bristol, UK: Multilingual M ­ atters, 2008), 170. 22. It is impor­tant to note that the category “Tajik” was at least in part a product of early Soviet nationality policy, which consolidated several distinct regions and population groups into a single Tajik national republic. See Paul Bergne, The Birth of Tajikistan: National Identity and the Origins of the Republic (London: I. B. Tauris, 2007). 23. Landau and Kellner-­Heinkele, Politics of Language, 14, 33. 24. Ann Morning, “Multiraciality and Census Classification in Global Perspective,” in Global Mixed Race, ed. Rebecca C. King-­O’Riainn et al. (New York: New York University Press, 2014), 6. Some states, including France and Israel, do not classify their populations by ethnic origin. 25. Morning uses the term “ethnicity” as shorthand to refer to all forms of identity conceptualized as “communities of descent.” “Multiraciality and Census Classification,” 4. 26. Katherine Ellinghaus, Taking Assimilation to Heart: Marriages of White ­Women and Indigenous Men in the United States and Australia, 1887–1937 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006), xvi–­xviii; Kate Riddell, “Improving the Maori: Counting the Ideology of Intermarriage,” New Zealand Journal of History 34, no. 1 (2000): 81–85. See also Patricia Grimshaw, “Interracial Marriages and Colonial Regimes in Victoria and Aotearoa/New Zealand,” Frontiers 23, no. 3 (2002): 12–28. 27. On mestizaje, see Marilyn Miller, The Rise and Fall of the Cosmic Race: The Cult of Mestizaje in Latin Amer­ic­ a (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004); see also ­Virginia Q. Tilley, “Mestizaje and the ‘Ethnicization’ of Race in Latin Amer­ic­ a,” in Race and Nation: Ethnic Systems in the Modern World, ed. Paul Spickard (New York: Routledge, 2005), 53–68.

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TO PAGES 10– 13

28. Ann Laura Stoler, Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 76. 29. See Karklins, Ethnic Relations in the USSR; Fisher, Soviet Marriage Market, and Kaiser, Geography of Nationalism. 30. Stalin notoriously purged the organizers of the 1937 census and ordered a new census when he did not like the results. See Hirsch, Empire of Nations, 284–286. 31. Nikolai Botev, “The Ethnic Composition of Families in Rus­sia in 1989: Insights into the Soviet ‘Nationalities Policy,’ ” Population and Development Review 28, no. 4 (2002): 682–683, 685. See also A. A. Susokolov, Mezhnatsional’nye braki v SSSR (Moscow: Mysl’, 1987), 31. 32. Iu. V. Arutiunian and Iu. V. Bromlei, eds., Sotsial’no-­kul’turnyi oblik sovetskikh natsii (Moscow: Nauka, 1986), 153. 33. Susokolov, Mezhnatsional’nye braki v SSSR, 42; Fisher, Soviet Marriage Market, 218. 34. Wesley Fisher has calculated that each of the major Soviet nationalities was overwhelmingly endogamous. He speculated that this was the real reason why more precise data on intermarriage ­were never published. See Soviet Marriage Market, 229. 35. A. V. Kozenko and L. F. Monogarova, “Statisticheskoe izuchnie pokazatelei odnonatsional’noi i smeshanoi brachnosti v Dushanbe,” Sovetskaia etnografiia no. 6 (1971): 116. 36. Iu. V. Bromlei, “Etnograficheskoe izuchenie sovremennykh natsional’nykh protsessov v SSSR,” Sovetskaia etnografiia no. 2 (1983): 9; Hirsch, Empire of Nations, 133–134. 37. Gorenburg, “Rethinking Interethnic Marriage,” 155. 38. On concealment of class origins, see Sheila Fitzpatrick, “Ascribing Class: The Construction of Social Identity in Soviet Rus­sia,” Journal of Modern History 65, no. 4 (1993): 762; Wendy Z. Goldman, Inventing the E­ nemy: Denunciation and Terror in Stalin’s Rus­sia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 55–60. 39. Interview with Ada Pavlovna, Almaty, Kazakhstan, September 8, 2011. See also the published interview with Ada Pavlovna conducted by Karlygash Tokhtybaeva in Golosa ukhodiashchikh pokolenii: Analiz zhenskikh biografii (Almaty, 2002), 124–135. 40. Interview with A. A. Susokolov, Moscow, June 14, 2010. 41. Dissidents such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn conducted interviews on a clandestine basis. See Daria Khobova, Andrei Ivankiev, and Tonia Sharova, “­After Glasnost: Oral History in the Soviet Union,” in International Yearbook of Oral History and Life Stories, vol. 1: Memory and Totalitarianism, ed. Luisa Passerini (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 90. 42. Examples include Jehanne M. Gheith and Katherine R. Jolluck, eds., Gulag Voices: Oral Histories of Soviet Incarceration and Exile (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011); Cathy Frierson and Simeon Vilensky, ­Children of the Gulag (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010), and Anika Walke, Pioneers and Partisans. An Oral History of Nazi Genocide in Belorus­sia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). 43. Among the few works of oral history dealing with everyday and ­family life are Anna Shternsis, When Sonia Met Boris: An Oral History of Jewish Life ­Under Stalin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017); Donald Raleigh, Soviet Baby Boomers: An Oral History of Rus­sia’s Cold War Generation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); and Jeff Sahadeo, Voices from the Soviet Edge: Southern Mi­grants in Moscow and Leningrad (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2019).

NOTES TO PA GES 13– 19

229

44. Daniel Bertaux, Paul Thompson, and Anna Rotkirch, eds., On Living through Soviet Rus­sia (New York: Routledge, 2004), 7; Khobova et al., ­After Glasnost, 89. 45. Gheith and Golluck, Gulag Voices, 8. 46. Irina Sherbakova, “The Gulag in Memory,” in Passerini, International Yearbook of Oral History and Life Stories, 103. 47. Bertaux, On Living, 10. 48. Dalia Leinarte, “Silence in Biographical Accounts and Life Stories: The Ethical Aspects of Interpretation,” in The Soviet Past in the Post-­Socialist Pre­sent: Methodology and Ethics in Rus­sian, Baltic, and Central Eu­ro­pean Oral History and Memory Studies, ed. Melanie Ilic and Dalia Leinarte (New York: Routledge, 2016), 13. 49. Khobova et al., ­After Glasnost, 96. 50. Anna M. Whittington, “Forging Soviet Citizens: Ideology, Identity, and Stability in the Soviet Union, 1930–1991” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2018), 225–238. 51. Khobova et al., ­After Glasnost, 96. 52. Gheith and Jolluck, Gulag Voices, 10 53. On nostalgia for the Soviet period in Central Asia, see Timur Dadabaev, Identity and Memory in Post-­Soviet Central Asia (New York: Routledge, 2016), 96. 54. Naomi Quinn, who conducted interviews about marriage in the United States, similarly found that ­people “seemed ready to be interviewed about it at the drop of a hat, freely, and at length.” “How to Reconstruct Schemas ­People Share, from What They Say,” in Finding Culture in Talk: A Collection of Methods, ed. Naomi Quinn (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 40. 55. The one impor­tant Soviet “nationality” group not represented in my research are Jews; I could not find any intermarried c­ ouples in Kazakhstan or Tajikistan who included a Jewish partner. Although Jews ­were considered a nationality and intermarried at high rates in the Soviet Union, their absence in this book may be due to the fact that the vast majority of Jews left Central Asia ­after 1991. Official statistics from 2012 recorded only thirty-­four Jews left in Tajikistan. B. Mukhammadieva, Natsional’nyi sostav, vladenie iazykami i grazhdanstvo naseleniia respubliki Tadzhikistana (Dushanbe: Agenstvo po statistike pri Prezidente Respubliki Tadzhikistan, 2012), cited in Nikolai Zakharov and Ian Law, Post-­Soviet Racisms (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 155. 1. Intermarriage and Soviet Social Science

Epigraph: L. V. Chuiko, Braki i razvody (Moscow: Statistika, 1975), 69. 1. R. Achylova, “Iz istorii razvitiia mezhnatsional’nykh brakov,” in Problemy sblizheniia sotsialisticheskikh natsii v periode stroitel’stva kommunizma (Frunze: Universitet, Kafedra Philosofii, 1966), 135–136; E. L. Nitoburg, “Cherno-­belye smeshannye braki v SShA,” Sovetskaiia etnografiia 1 (1989): 100–110. On intermarriage bans in the United States, see Peggy Pascoe, “Miscegenation Law, Court Cases, and Ideologies of ‘Race’ in Twentieth C ­ entury Amer­i­ca,” Journal of American History 83, no. 1 (1996), 67; Spickard, Mixed Blood, 279. 2. N. S. Khrushchev was first secretary of the Soviet Communist Party from 1953 to 1964; L. I. Brezhnev led the Soviet Communist Party from 1964 to 1982. 3. Paul Werth, “Empire, Religious Freedom, and the ­Legal Regulation of ‘Mixed’ Marriage in Imperial Rus­sia,” Journal of Modern History 80, no. 2 (2008): 296–331. 4. Thomas Barrett, At the Edge of Empire: The Terek Cossacks and the North Caucasus Frontier, 1700–1860 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999), chap. 7: Yuriy Malikov,

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“Formation of a Borderland Culture: Myths and Realities of Cossack-­K azakh Relations in Northern Kazakhstan in the Eigh­teenth and Nineteenth Centuries” (PhD diss., UC Santa Barbara, 2006), 111–120. 5. Werth, “ ‘Empire, Religious Freedom, and the L ­ egal Regulation of Mixed Marriage,” 316–317. 6. See Marina Mogilner, Homo Imperii: A History of Physical Anthropology in Rus­sia (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2013), 310–327. 7. Suny, Revenge of the Past, 110–112. 8. Terry Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), 6–7. 9. On the evolution of ­these ethnic preferences, see Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire. See also Adrienne Edgar, “Nation-­Making and National Conflict ­under Communism,” in The Oxford Handbook of World Communism, ed. Stephen A. Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 522–541. 10. Martin, Affirmative Action Empire, 449. 11. Hirsch, Empire of Nations, chap. 3. 12. See John Schoeberlein-­Engel, “Identity in Central Asia: Construction and Contention in the Conceptions of ‘Ozbek,’ ‘Tajik,’ ‘Muslim,’ ‘Samarqandi,’ and Other Groups,” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 1994); Adeeb Khalid, The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999). 13. On the 1924–1925 “national delimitation” of Central Asia, see Arne Haugen, The Establishment of National Republics in Central Asia (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); Adrienne Edgar, Tribal Nation: The Making of Soviet Turkmenistan (Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 2004), chap. 2. 14. Mark B. Adams, “The Soviet Nature-­Nurture Debate,” in Science and the Soviet Social Order, ed. Loren R. Graham (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990), 98– 100. See also Mogilner, Homo Imperii, 368; Babkov, Dawn of ­Human Ge­ne­tics, 57–65. 15. Cassandra Cavanaugh, “Backwardness and Biology: Medicine and Power in Rus­ sian and Soviet Central Asia, 1868–1934” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2001); Hirsch, Empire of Nations, 246. 16. Hirsch, Empire of Nations, 235. 17. Naomi Zack, Race and Mixed Race (Philadelphia: T ­ emple University Press, 1994), 122; Robert Young, Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture, and Race (New York: Routledge, 1995), 8–9, 148–149. 18. Hirsch, Empire of Nations, 244. 19. Hirsch, Empire of Nations, 231–232, 238; Cavanaugh, Backwardness and Biology, 328–329, 376–378; Mogilner, Homo Imperii, 368. 20. Hirsch, Empire of Nations, 250–253, 248–249; Adams, “The Nature-­Nurture Debate,” 101–102; Mogilner, Homo Imperii, 369. 21. Hirsch, Empire of Nations, 253–258, 265. 22. Hirsch, Empire of Nations, 256–258, 265, 270. 23. A. I. Iarkho, “Protiv idealisticheskikh tendentsii v rasovedenii SSSR,” Antropologicheskii zhurnal 1–2, no. 1 (1932): 11. See also A. I. Iarkho, “Osnovnye problemy sovetskoi antropologii; ocherednye zadachi sovetskogo rasovedeniia,” Russkii antropologicheskii zhurnal 3 (1934): 3–20. 24. Iarkho, “Protiv idealisticheskikh tendentsii,” 16.

NOTES TO PA GES 22– 26

231

25. V. A. Tishkov, Requiem po etnosu: Issledovaniia po sotsial’no-­kul’turnoi antropologii (Moscow: Nauka, 2003), 22; Yuri Slezkine, Arctic Mirrors: Rus­sia and the Small P­ eoples of the North (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994), 257. On survivals, see Devin DeWeese, “Survival Strategies: Reflections on the Notion of Religious ‘Survivals’ in Soviet Ethnographic Studies of Muslim Religious Life in Central Asia,” in Exploring the Edge of Empire: Soviet Era Anthropology in the Caucasus and Central Asia, ed. Florian Mühlfried and Sergey Sokolovskiy (Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2011), 35–58. 26. “Introduction: Soviet Anthropology at the Empire’s Edge,” in Mühlfried and Sokolovskiy, Exploring the Edge of Empire, 10–11. 27. Sergei Abashin, “Ethnographic Views of Socialist Reforms in Soviet Central Asia: Collective Farm Monographs,” in Mühlfried and Sokolovskiy, Exploring the Edge of Empire, 85–86. 28. Abashin, “Ethnographic Views,” 85–86; Slezkine, Arctic Mirrors, 309–310, 313– 319. For an example of this lit­er­a­ture, see Murshida Bikzhanova, Sem’ia v kolkhozakh Uzbekistana: Na materialakh kolkhozov Namanganskoi oblasti (Tashkent: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk Uzbekskoi SSR, 1959). 29. Gerhard Simon, Nationalism and Policy t­ oward the Nationalities in the Soviet Union (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991), 307–309. 30. On theorizing the Soviet p­ eople ­under Khrushchev and Brezhnev, see Whittington, “Forging Soviet Citizens,” 207–222. 31. N. S. Khrushchev, “Report on the Program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union,” Documents of the 22nd  Congress of the CPSU (New York: Crosscurrents Press, 1961), 2:118. 32. Ustav KPSS (Moscow 1964), 190–191. 33. Jeremy Smith, Red Nations: The Nationalities Experience in and ­after the USSR (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 200–202, 214. The “Soviet ­people” was conceptualized as a unified, civic entity in the mid-1930s, and references to it became common during World War II. Whittington, “Forging Soviet Citizens,” 34–36, chap. 2. 34. S. P. Tolstov, “Sovremennye protsessy natsional’nogo razvitiia narodov SSSR,” Archive of the Institute of Ethnography and Anthropology, Rus­sian Acad­emy of Sciences (IEA RAN), f. 142, op. 2, d. 51, ll. 3, 19. 35. S. M. Abramzon, “Otrazhenie protsessa sblizheniia natsii na semeino-­bytovom uklade narodov Srednei Azii i Kazakhstana,” Sovetskaiia etnografiia 3 (1962): 18–19. 36. Abramzon, “Otrazhenie protsessa,” 33. 37. Abramzon, “Otrazhenie protsessa,” 19–23. 38. Abramzon, “Otrazhenie protsessa,” 28–30, 33. 39. Sh. S. Anaklychev, “Rol’ promyshlenykh tsentrov v protsesse sblizheniia natsional’nostei,” Sovetskaiia etnografiia 6 (1964): 25–36. 40. Achylova, “Iz istorii razvitiia mezhnatsional’nykh brakov,” 135–136. 41. On the revival of ge­ne­tics, see Mark Bassin, The Gumilev Mystique: Biopolitics, Eurasianism, and the Construction of Community in Modern Rus­sia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2016), 30–31. 42. V. A. Iadov, ed., Sotsiologiia v Rossii (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Instituta Sotsiologii RAN, 1998), 31. In lieu of survey research, the party leadership was informed of the “popu­lar mood” in regular reports from the Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del (NKVD), l­ater the Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti (KGB).

23 2 NOTES

TO PAGES 26– 29

43. Iadov, Sotsiologiia v Rossii, 32. 44. Iadov, Sotsiologiia v Rossii, 32–36. One of ­those who visited was Robert Merton, originator of one of the most influential ideas about intermarriage, the notion of status caste exchange, or hypogamy. 45. Interview with S. A. Arutyunov, in Mühlfried and Sokolovskiy, Exploring the Edge of Empire, 122. 46. Iadov, Sotsiologiia v Rossii, 35–37. 47. Frank Furedi, “How Sociology I­ magined Mixed Race,” in Rethinking Mixed Race, ed. David Parker and Miri Song (London: Pluto Press, 2001), 29. 48. Parker and Song, introduction to Rethinking Mixed Race, 3. 49. Furedi, “How Sociology ­Imagined Mixed Race,” 28–29, 33–34, 37–38; Paul Spickard, “The Subject Is Mixed Race: The Boom in Biracial Biography,” in Parker and Song, Rethinking Mixed Race, 78–81. Since the 1970s, scholars have stressed the fluid and socially constructed aspects of mixed-­race identity and argued that social attitudes and structural racism, rather than inherent psychological conflict, cause stress for racially mixed p­ eople. See Maria Root, ed., The Multiracial Experience: Racial Borders as the New Frontier (London: Sage, 1996); J. O. Ifekwinigwe, Scattered Belongings: Cultural Paradoxes of Race, Culture, and Nation (London: Routledge, 1998); Jill Olumide, Raiding the Gene Pool: The Social Construction of Mixed Race (London: Pluto Press, 2002). 50. Interview with A. A. Susokolov, Moscow, June 14, 2010. See Robin Murphy Williams, Strangers Next Door: Ethnic Relations in American Communities (Upper ­Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1964). See also Colin Wark and John F. Galliher, “Emory Bogardus and the Origins of the Social Distance Scale,” American Sociology 38, no. 4 (2007): 383–395. 51. The timing suggests that Soviet scholars borrowed Western methodology rather than coming up with ­these approaches in­de­pen­dently. 52. See Spickard, Mixed Blood, 6–9, 364, for a concise summary of some of the most common lines of research on intermarriage in the West. 53. Among the many examples are A. P. Egurnev, “Mezhnatsional’nye braki i ikh rol’ v sblizhenii natsii i narodnostei SSSR,” Nauchnyi kommunizm 4 (1973): 28–34; O. A. Gantskaia and L.  N. Terent’eva, “Etnograficheskie issledovaniia natsional’nykh protsessov v Pribaltike,” Sovetskaiia etnografiia no. 3 (1965): 5–19; O. A. Gantskaia and L. N. Terent’eva, “Mezhnatsional’nye braki i ikh rol’ v etnicheskikh protsessakh,” in Sovremennye etnicheskie protsessy v SSSR (Moscow: Nauka, 1975); A.  B. Kalyshev, “Mezhnatsional’nye braki v sel’skikh raionakh Kazakhstana,” Sovetskaiia etnografiia no. 3 (1984): 71–77; V. P. Krivonogov, “Mezhetnicheskie braki u Khakasov v sovremennyi period,” Sovetskaiia etnografiia, no. 3 (1980): 73–86; A. I. Ismailov, “Nekotorye aspekty razvitiia mezhnatsional’nykh brakov v SSSR,” Izvestiia Akademii Nauk Kirgizskoi SSR 4 (1972): 86–89; A. E. Ter-­Sarkisiants, “O natsional’nom aspekte brakov v Armianskoi SSR (po materialam ZAGSov),” Sovetskaiia etnografiia 4 (1973), 89–95. 54. E. A. Bagramov, “Natisional’naia problematika prezhde i teper’ (sub”ektivnye zametki), in Akademik Iu. V. Bromlei i otechestvennaia etnologiia, 1960–1990-­e gody, ed. S. Ia. Kozlov (Moscow: Nauka, 2003), 47–48. 55. Bromlei, “Etnograficheskoe izuchenie,” 6; see also Iu. V. Arutiunian and L. M. Drobizheva, “Etnosotsiologiia: Nekotorye itogi i perspektivy,” in Kozlov, Akademik Iu. V. Bromlei, 87–103. 56. Arutiunian’s book Sotsial’noe i natsional’noe was controversial for suggesting that greater interethnic contact does not necessarily lead to interethnic harmony. Sotsial’noe

NOTES TO PA GES 29– 31

233

i natsional’noe: Opyt etnosotsiologicheskikh issledovanii po materialam tatarskoi respubliki (Moscow: Nauka, 1973). See also Tamara Dragadze, “Soviet Ethnography: Structure and Sentiment,” in Mühlfried and Sokolovskiy, Exploring the Edge of Empire, 29; Arutiunian and Drobizheva, “Etnosotsiologiia,” 87–103. 57. L. I. Brezhnev, Report of the CPSU Central Committee to the 24th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Delivered by Leonid Brezhnev, March 10, 1971 (Moscow: Novosti Press Agency, 1971). 58. Simon, Nationalism and Policy ­toward the Nationalities, 310–312. On the elaboration of the Soviet ­people concept, see also Whittington, “Forging Soviet Citizens,” 207–222. 59. Hirsch, Empire of Nations, 313–315. For details on the concept of ethnos, see Iu. V. Bromlei, Etnos i etnografiia (Moscow: Nauka, 1973). See also Mühlfried and Sokolovskiy’s introduction to Exploring the Edge of Empire, 9. 60. Laruelle, “Concept of Ethnogenesis,” 169–188. 61. Tishkov, Rekviem po etnosu, 32, 68–69, 101. 62. S. N. Abashin, Natsionalizm v Srednei Azii: V poiskakh identichnosti (St. Petersburg: Aleteya, 2007), 6. 63. Igor Kuznetsov, “Anthropology at Its Margins: Essentialism and Nationalism in Northwest Caucasian Studies,” in Muhlfried and Sokolovskiy, Exploring the Edge of Empire, 221–222. Émigré anthropologist Anatoly Khazanov recalled Tolstov as arrogant and rude and said that Bromlei was “more liberal and open-­minded, as long as it did not hurt his ­career.” See interview with Khazanov in Mühlfried and Sokolovskii, Exploring the Edge of Empire, 132. 64. D. D. Tumarkin, “Iu. V. Bromlei i zhurnal ‘Sovetskaiia Etnografiia,’ ” in Kozlov, Akademik Bromlei, 212. 65. For perspectives on Bromlei’s tenure, see the essays in Kozlov, Akademik Bromlei. For a dissenting opinion on the degree of freedom enjoyed by ethnographers, see John Schoeberlein, “Heroes of Theory: Central Asian Islam in Postwar Soviet Ethnography,” in Muhlfried and Sokolovskiy, Exploring the Edge of Empire, 59–63. 66. Introduction to Mühlfried and Sokolovskiy, Exploring the Edge of Empire, 12; Susokolov, Mezhnatsional’nye braki v SSSR, 23. 67. Iu. V. Bromlei and I. S. Gurvich, “Sovremennye etnokul’turnye protsessy u narodnostei krainego severa,” in Problemy sovremennogo sotsialnogo razvitiia narodnostei severa, ed. V. I. Boiko et al. (Novosibirsk: Nauka, 1987), 161. The prominent ethnographer Iu. V. Arutiunian argued that the term sblizhenie natsii (rapprochement of nations) had a dual meaning. On the one hand, it meant the equalization of the social and cultural levels of the vari­ous Soviet nations; on the other hand, it referred to the mutual relations between nationalities. Arutiunian, “Sotsial’no-­kulturnye aspekty razvitiia i sblizheniia natsii v SSSR,” Sovetskaiia etnografiia no. 3 (1972): 7. See also Julian Bromlei and Viktor Kozlov, “The Theory of Ethnos and Ethnic Pro­cesses in Soviet Social Science,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 31, no. 3 ( July 1989): 425–438. 68. Iu. V. Bromlei, “Etnos i endogamiia,” Sovetskaiia etnografiia no. 6 (1969): 84–91; see also Iu. V. Bromlei, Ocherki Teorii Etnosa (Moscow: Nauka, 1983), 338–382. 69. Bromlei, “Etnos i endogamiia,” 84–86. 70. Bromlei, “Etnos i endogamiia,” 87. This destruction, in Bromlei’s view, was actually a positive phenomenon leading to greater unity among Soviet p­ eoples. 71. Bromlei, “Etnos i endogamiia,” 86–87.

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TO PAGES 31– 35

72. Dragadze, “Soviet Ethnography,” 29. 73. Bassin, The Gumilev Mystique, 135. 74. Tumarkin, “Iu V. Bromlei,” 214. 75. An account of the discussion was published in Sovetskaiia etnografiia. See “Obsuzhdenie stat’i Iu. V. Bromlei ‘Etnos i Endogamiia,’ ” Sovetskaiia etnografiia no. 3 (1970): 87–88. 76. “Obsuzhdenie stat’i,” 89. 77. “Obsuzhdenie stat’i,” 100–103. 78. “Obsuzhdenie stat’i,” 89–90. 79. “Obsuzhdenie stat’i,” 89. Gumilev was being attacked for the same sin at roughly the same time, based on an article he had published in the Soviet science journal Priroda. See Bassin, The Gumilev Mystique, 174. 80. L. N. Gumilev, Ethnogenesis and the Biosphere (Moscow: Pro­g ress Publishers, 1990); Marlene Laruelle, Rus­sian Eurasianism: An Ideology of Empire (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2008), 54. 81. Bassin, The Gumilev Mystique, 168–169. One of Bromlei’s supporters published an attack on Gumilev’s ideas in 1974 in a major journal. See V. I. Kozlov, “O biologo-­ geograficheskoi kontseptsii etnicheskoi istorii,” Voprosy istorii no. 12 (1974): 72–85. 82. Though Gumilev’s thesis could not be published, readers ­were able to request copies of it at the scientific institute where he deposited it, so many scholars ­were able to read his work before its official publication in 1989. Laruelle, Rus­sian Eurasianism, 54, 79–80. Gumilev has become a revered figure since the collapse of the USSR. 83. Apparently, the similarity was so g­ reat that Gumilev even accused Bromlei of stealing his ideas. Bassin, The Gumilev Mystique, 172. 84. Gumilev’s position was also difficult to characterize, since he denied that the ethnos was in any way racial, though it was a biological organism. Bassin, The Gumilev Mystique, 141. 85. Bassin, The Gumilev Mystique, 32. 86. Gumilev, Ethnogenesis and the Biosphere, 94. 87. Interview with Viktor Shnirelman, Moscow, June 8, 2010; interview with Olga Naumova, Moscow, May 2010. Although Gumilev was officially marginalized, his lectures ­were well attended, and he became known as a “prestigious if scandalous figure in Leningrad academic circles.” Laruelle, Rus­sian Eurasianism, 80. 88. Interview with Olga Naumova. 89. Bassin, The Gumilev Mystique, 180. 90. Tumarkin, “Iu. V. Bromlei.’ ” 91. “Obsuzhdenie stat’i,” 91. 92. Tumarkin, “Iu. V. Bromlei,” 215. 93. Interview with A. A. Susokolov. 94. Interview with Olga Naumova; introduction to Exploring the Edge of Empire, 4, 12–13. 95. Schoeberlein, “Heroes of Theory,” 77. 96. Tumarkin, “Iu. V. Bromlei,” 221. 97. On the development of the ideas and methods of Western anthropology, see Thomas Hyland Eriksen and Finn Silvert Nielsen, A History of Anthropology (London: Pluto Press, 2001).

NOTES TO PA GES 35– 37

235

98. ­These “house­hold books” ­were maintained from the 1930s to the pre­sent, but they are no longer accessible to researchers. Interview with Olga Naumova; interview with Olga Briusina, Moscow, June 9, 2010. 99. Interview with Olga Naumova. 100. For a fascinating description of center-­periphery relations in Soviet ethnography, see Dragadze’s memoir about conducting research in the Brezhnev-­era Soviet Union, “Soviet Ethnography: Structure and Sentiment,” 21–34. The Kozlov quote is on 29. See also interview with Anatoly Khazanov in Mühlfried and Sokolovskiy, Exploring the Edge of Empire, 221–222. 101. Interview with M. N. Guboglo, Moscow, June 8, 2010; interview with Olga Naumova. 102. Interview with Iu. A. Evstigneev, St. Petersburg, Rus­sia, June 11, 2010. 103. Shortly afterward, Mikhail Gorbachev came to power, and she was able to publish her research. Interview with Olga Briusina. 104. E. A. Bagramov recalled facing hostile questions about the Rus­sian settlers in Estonia during a talk he gave ­there in the late 1960s. Bagramov, “Natsional’naia problematika,” 54–55. 105. See T. V. Staniukovich, “Russkoe, ukrainskoe i belorusskoe naselenie,” in Narody Srednei Azii i Kazakhstana, ed. S. P. Tolstov, T. A. Zhdanko, S. M. Abramzon, and N. A. Kislyakov (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1963), vol. 2:662–696. 106. Interview with Olga Briusina. 107. Interview with Olga Briusina. 108. A. A. Suskolov mentioned in our interview that this topic was off-­limits for Soviet social scientists. 109. See the Turkmen novelist Berdy Kerbabaev’s description of Evgeniia Iakovlevna, the Rus­sian wife of Turkmen party leader Gaigysyz Atabayev, in his biographical novel Chudom rozhdennyi: Roman-­khronika, published in Roman-­gazeta no. 2 (624), 1969: 121–123. For a similar account of Uzbek leader Usman Yusupov’s mixed marriage, see Boris Reskov and Gennadii Sedov, Usman Yusupov (Moscow: Molodaia Gvardiia, 1976). Marriage to Rus­sian ­women was also common among Kazakh nationalist leaders in the early twentieth c­ entury. See Dariga Bekbosunova, “Osobennosti mezhnatsional’nykh brakov v Kazakhstane,” Dialog, August 2, 2009, http://­www​.­dialog​.­kz​/­articles​/­kultura​ /­2009​-­08​-­02​/­dariga​-­bekbosunova​-­osobennosti​-­mezhnacionalnyh​-­brakov​-­v​-­kazahstane. This practice has continued in the late Soviet and post-­Soviet eras, when Kazakhstan’s ex-­prime minister Akezhan Kazhegeldin, the prominent Kazakh writer Olzhas Suleimanov, the late president of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, and the late president of Turkmenistan, Saparmurat Niyazov, all have had Rus­sian or other Eu­ro­pean wives. Bhavna Dave, Kazakhstan: Ethnicity, Language, and Power (London: Routledge, 2007), 193. 110. Bagramov, “Natsional’naia problematika,” 47–48. 111. Bagramov, “Natsional’naia problematika,” 50–57. Bagramov became one of ­these con­sul­tants in 1966. 112. Bagramov, “Natsional’naia problematika,” 47–48, 50–51, 56–58. 113. Interview with Olga Naumova. I saw several such reports on the small p­ eoples of the north in the archives of the IEA RAN. 114. See also L. N. Terent’eva, “Nekotorye storony etnicheskikh protsessov v Povolzhe, Priuralie i na evropeiskom severe SSSR,” Sovetskaiia etnografiia no. 6 (1972): 49.

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TO PAGES 38– 45

115. Hirsch, Empire of Nations, chap. 7; Yuri Slezkine, “The USSR as a Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism,” Slavic Review 53, no. 2 (1994): 414–452. 116. Laruelle, “Concept of Ethnogenesis”; Simon, Nationalism and Policy ­toward the Nationalities, 307–310. 117. Bromlei, “Etnograficheskoe izuchenie,” 11. 118. Bromlei, “Etnos i endogamia,” 86. 119. Bromlei, “Etnograficheskoe izuchenie,” 9. ­Whether this was a pro­cess of consolidation or simply recategorization remains a question. 120. Iu. A. Evstigneev, “Natsional’no-­smeshannye braki v Makhachkale,” Sovetskaiia etnografiia, no. 4 (1971): 80. 121. L.  N. Terent’eva, “Opredelenie svoei natsional’noi prinadlezhnosti podrostkami v natsional’no-­smeshannykh sem’iakh,” Sovetskaiia etnografiia no 3 (1969): 29. 122. Terent’eva, “Opredelenie svoei natsional’noi prinadlezhnosti,” 42–44, 50. 123. Ia. P. Vinnikov, “Natsional’nye i etnograficheskie gruppy Srednei Azii po dannym etnicheskoi statistiki,” in Etnicheskie protsessy u natsional’nykh grupp Srednei Azii i Kazakhstana, ed. L. C. Tolstova and R. Sh. Dzharylgasinova (Moscow: Institute of Ethnography and Anthropology, 1980), 22; N. P. Borzykh, “Rasprostrannenost’ mezhnatsional’nykh brakov v respublikakh Srednei Azii i Kazakhstane v 1930-kh godakh,” Sovetskaiia etnografiia no. 4 (1970): 88. 124. Vinnikov, “Natsional’nye i etnograficheskie gruppy,” 22–24, 27–34. 125. Vinnikov, “Natsional’nye i etnograficheskie gruppy,” 25; Kozenko and Monogarova, “Statisticheskoe izuchenie,” 116–118. 126. On the primordialization of identities in the Stalinist era, see Martin, “Modernization or Neo-­Traditionalism?” 127. Schoeberlein-­Engel, “Identity in Central Asia,” 19–21, 56–60. 128. A. A. Susokolov, Natsional’no-­smeshannyie braki i sem’i v SSSR, chast’ 1 (Moscow, 1990), 41. 129. O. B. Naumova, “Natsional’no-­smeshannye sem’i u nemtsev Kazakhstana,” Sovetskaiia Etnografiia no. 6 (1987): 96. 130. Naumova, “Natsional’no-­smeshannye sem’i,” 96–97. 131. E. P. Busygin and G. P. Stoliarova, “Kul’turno-­bytovye protsessy v natsional’no-­ smeshannykh sem’iakh (po materialam issledovanii v sel’skikh raionakh Tatarskoi ASSR),” Sovetskaiia etnografiia 3 (1988): 30–32. 132. Vinnikov, “Natsional’nye i etnograficheskie gruppy,” 37. 2. Falling in Love across Ethnic Lines

1. Interview with Vera Rahimova, Sughd region, Tajikistan, October 23, 2010. 2. Interview with Vera Rahimova. 3. ­Today the city’s name is Almaty, and it has been replaced by Nur-­Sultan (previously Astana) as the capital of Kazakhstan. 4. Interview with “Kamal Ibrayev,” Almaty, Kazakhstan, June 28, 2008. 5. Interview with Talgat Akilov, Shymkent, Kazakhstan, October 2012. 6. Interview with Talgat Akilov. 7. On the gender dimensions of intermarriage in Central Asia, see S. M. Abramzon, “Otrazhenie protsessa sblizheniia natsii na semeino-­bytovom uklade narodov

NOTES TO PA GES 46– 50

237

Srednei Azii i Kazakhstana,” Sovetskaiia etnografiia 3 (1962): 29; Borzykh, “Rasprostrannenost’ mezhnatsional’nykh brakov,” 87–96; A. Kalyshev, “Mezhnatsional’nye braki v sel’skikh raionakh Kazakhstana,” Sovetskaiia etnografiia no. 3 (1984): 73. 8. Nancy Lubin, ­Labour and Nationality in Soviet Central Asia (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1985), 41. 9. On war­time trends, see Rebecca Manley, To the Tashkent Station: Evacuation and Survival in the Soviet Union at War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009); Paul Stronski, Tashkent, Forging a Soviet City, 1930–1966 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010); Charles Shaw, “Making Ivan-­Uzbek: War, Friendship of the ­Peoples, and the Creation of Soviet Uzbekistan, 1941–1945” (PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2015). 10. Roberto Carmack, Kazakhstan in World War II (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2019); Charles Shaw, “Making Ivan-­Uzbek”; see also Charles Shaw, “Soldiers’ Letters to Inobatxon and O’g’ulxon: Gender and Nationality in the Birth of a Soviet Romantic Culture,” Kritika: Explorations in Rus­sian and Eurasian History 17, no. 3 (Summer 2016): 517–552. 11. Elena Zubkova, Rus­sia ­after the War: Hopes, Illusions, Disappointments, 1945–1957 (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1998), 20–21. 12. Zubkova, Rus­sia ­after the War, 40–48. 13. O. I. Briusina, Slaviane v Srednei Azii: Etnicheskie i sotsial’nye protsessy, konets XIX–­ konets XX veka (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo “Vostochnaia Literatura,” Rus­sian Acad­emy of Sciences, 2001), 165. 14. On Tajik w ­ omen’s dress, see L. F. Monogarova and I. Mukhiddinov, Tadzhiki, chast’ 1, Sovremennaia sel’skaia sem’ia tadzhikov (Moscow: Institute of Ethnography and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences, 1992), 207–213. 15. Briusina, Slaviane v Srednei Azii, 165. 16. Interview with Alla Tuychiboyeva, Khujand, Tajikistan, October 6, 2010. 17. Barbara Clements, ­Daughters of Revolution: A History of W ­ omen in the USSR (Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1994). 18. Interview with Lidia Evdakimova, Sughd region, Tajikistan, August 4, 2011. 19. Interview with Lidia Evdakimova. 20. ­Couples ­were sometimes engaged as ­children, and marriage between relatives, including first cousins, was common. Monogarova and Mukhiddinov, Tadzhiki, vol. 1, 113–116. 21. On hierarchies of nations in the USSR, see Ronald G. Suny, “Constructing Primordialism: Old Histories for New Nations,” Journal of Modern History 73, no. 4 (2001): 874. 22. Interview with Maria Saliyeva, Khujand, Tajikistan, October 16, 2010. 23. Interview with Maria Saliyeva. 24. On the significance of this festival, see Pia Koivunen, “Friends, ‘Potential Friends,’ and Enemies: Reimagining Soviet Relations to the First, Second, and Third Worlds at the Moscow 1957 Youth Festival,” in Socialist Internationalism in the Cold War: Exploring the Second World, ed. Patrick Babiracki and Austin Jersild (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 219–247. 25. Interview with Alla Tuychiboyeva. 26. Ironically, young ­couples may have had more physical space for a private life in traditional neighborhoods in Tajikistan, where families lived in single-­story ­houses centered around a courtyard, than in postwar Rus­sian cities, where communal apartments

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TO PAGES 50– 55

­ ere the norm and a ­family might live in a single room. See Paola Messina, Soviet Comw munal Living: An Oral History of the Kommunalka (London: Palgrave, 2011). 27. Interview with Alla Tuychiboyeva. 28. Interview with Sazhida Dmitrieva (neé Valilulina), Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 7, 2010. 29. Interview with Sazhida Dmitrieva. 30. For an analy­sis of Soviet public opinion surveys on this topic, see Wesley Fisher, The Soviet Marriage Market: Mate Se­lection in Rus­sia and the USSR (New York: Praeger, 1980), 205–206; Rasma Karklins, Ethnic Relations in the USSR: The Perspective from Below (London: Allen and Unwin, 1986), 163–165. Subsequent scholarship has questioned the reliability of ­these Soviet-­era surveys. See A. A. Susokolov, “Etnosy pered vyborom,” Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, no. 6 (1988): 3; Mühlfried and Sokolovskiy, Exploring the Edge of Empire, 29. 31. The survey was called “Optimization of sociocultural conditions for the development and rapprochement (integration) of nations” and became known by the initials of the first three words in Rus­sian, OSU. It studied a wide range of ethno-­social pro­cesses, first in Tatarstan (10,000 respondents) and ­later in the five ­union republics of Rus­sia, Estonia, Moldavia, Georgia, and Uzbekistan (a total of 30,000 respondents). Most of the results ­were never published, and the original materials (questionnaires, ­etc.) are not available in the archives. 32. L.M. Drobizheva, “Sotsial’no-­kul’turnye osobennosti lichnosti i natsional’nye ustanovki (po materialam issledovanii v tatarskoi ASSR), Sovietskaiia etnografiia no. 3 (1971): 4–5, 8. 33. Drobizheva, “Sotsial’no-­kul’turnye osobennosti,” 7. 34. Susokolov, “Etnosy pered vyborom,” 33. 35. Susokolov, “Etnosy pered vyborom,” 13–14. See also Fisher, Soviet Marriage Market, 208–210. 36. Drobizheva, “Sotsial’no-­kul’turnye osobennosti,” 14. Drobizheva explains this phenomenon by noting that urbanization and industrialization resulted in a “homogenization” of cultures that was anathema to some national intellectuals. Endogamy, for them, represented a way of retaining their own culture and national uniqueness. 37. Interview with Rustam Iskandarov, Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2011. 38. Interview with Maria Hamidova, Khujand, Tajikistan, August 10, 2011. 39. Interview with Svetlana Vizer, Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 2010. 40. Interview with “Aigerim Semenova,” Öskemen, Kazakhstan, September 22, 2011. 41. See Moshe Lewin, The Gorbachev Phenomenon: A Historical Interpretation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988). 42. Shaw, “Making Ivan-­Uzbek”; Whittington, “Forging Soviet Citizens,” chap. 2. 43. Peter Blitstein, “Nation-­Building or Russification? Obligatory Rus­sian Instruction in the Soviet non-­Russian School, 1938–1953,” in A State of Nations: The Soviet State and Its ­Peoples in the Age of Lenin and Stalin, ed. Ronald G. Suny and Terry D. Martin (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). 44. Interview with “Ruslan Isayev,” Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 20, 2010. 45. Interview with Sazhida Dmitrieva. 46. Interview with “Daria Kim,” Öskemen, Kazakhstan, February 14, 2008.

NOTES TO PA GES 56– 66

239

47. Interview with Tatiana Soliboyeva, Khujand, Tajikistan, October 9, 2010. 48. Interview with Tatiana Soliboyeva. 49. Interview with Tatiana Soliboyeva. 50. Interview with Rustam Iskandarov. 51. Ruvim Fraerman, Dikaia Sobaka Dingo, ili povest’ o pervoi liubvi (Moscow: Detgiz, 1939). 52. Interview with Svetlana Umarova, Khujand, Tajikistan, October 1, 2011. 53. Interview with Svetlana Umarova. 54. Interview with Svetlana Umarova. 55. The Zheltoksan protests took place in December 1986, provoked by Mikhail Gorbachev’s replacement of the ethnic Kazakh leader of the republic’s Communist Party in f­avor of a Rus­sian from outside Kazakhstan. Bhavna Dave, Kazakhstan: Ethnicity, Language, and Power (London: Routledge, 2007), 90–91. 56. Interview with “Irina Abdulayeva,” Öskemen, Kazakhstan, September 21, 2011. 57. Interview with “Irina Abdulayeva.” 58. Interview with Larisa Niyazova, Shymkent, Kazakhstan, October 2012. 59. Interview with Larisa Niyazova. 60. Borzykh, “Rasprostrannenost’ mezhnatsional’nykh brakov,” 91–92. 61. Peter Finke notes that Uzbek-­Tajik mixed marriages have been common for centuries, but that identifying them can be complicated, given the “difficulty in deciding who is an Uzbek and who is a Tajik.” Peter Finke, Variations on Uzbek Identity: Strategic Choices, Cognitive Schemas and Po­liti­cal Constraints in Identification Pro­cesses (New York: Berghahn Books, 2014), 87. 62. On Tajik and Uzbek identities, see Schoeberlein-­Engel, “Identity in Central Asia,” 19–21, 56–60; Khalid, Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform, chap. 6. 63. Kozenko and Monogarova, “Statisticheskoe izuchenie,” 116. 64. Interview with Bahriniso Abdurahmonova, Karakum, Tajikistan, August 2, 2011. 65. Interview with Ma’suda Sattorova, Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2011. 66. Interview with Lutfiya Boboyeva, Isfara, Tajikistan, July 2011. 67. Olga  B. Naumova, “Sovremennye etnokul’turnye protsessy u kazakhov v mnogonatsional’nykh raionakh Kazakhstana” (PhD diss., Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, USSR Acad­emy of Sciences, Moscow, 1991), 184–185. 68. Finke, Variations on Uzbek Identity, 98. 69. Interview with Gulmira Abdusamatova, Khujand, Tajikistan, August 8, 2011. 70. Interview with Gulmira Abdusamatova. 71. Interview with Gulmira Abdusamatova 72. Interview with Ilhom Boboyev, Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2011. 73. Interview with Elmira Boboyeva, Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2011. 74. Interview with Fatima Satyboldinova, Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 10, 2010. 75. Interview with Fatima Satyboldinova. 76. Interview with Fatima Satyboldinova 77. ­Here one might fruitfully compare Rus­sian attitudes with t­ hose in the United States, where 96 ­percent of whites disapproved of interracial marriage in 1958. Renée C. Romano, Race Mixing: Black-­White Marriage in Postwar Amer­i­ca (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003), 2.

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TO PAGES 67– 75

3. Scenes from Happy (and Not So Happy) Mixed Marriages

Epigraphs: Interview with Vera Rahimova, Sughd region, Tajikistan, October 23, 2010; interview with Madina Nahipova, Shymkent, Kazakhstan, October 2012. 1. Interview with Vera Rahimova. 2. Interview with Madina Nahipova. 3. Briusina, Slavianie v Srednei Azii, 164–165. 4. Naumova, “Sovremennye etnokul’turnye protsessy u kazakhov,” 186–188. 5. This prohibition was so deeply ingrained that a Kazakh ­woman would not pronounce the given name of an elder relative even when it coincidentally belonged to a complete stranger. Kh. A. Argynbaev, “The kinship system and customs connected with the ban on pronouncing personal names of elder relatives among the Kazakhs,” in Kinship and Marriage in the Soviet Union, ed. Tamara Dragadze (London: Routledge, 1984), 50–52. 6. Interview with Vera Rahimova. 7. Interview with Maria Saliyeva, Khujand, Tajikistan, October 16, 2010. 8. Interview with Alla Tuychiboyeva, Khujand, Tajikistan, October 6, 2010. 9. The Komsomol was the youth organ­ization of the Soviet Communist Party, tasked with instilling communist princi­ples in young p­ eople between the ages of fourteen and twenty-­eight. 10. Interview with Svetlana Umarova, Khujand, Tajikistan, October 1, 2011. 11. Interview with Svetlana Vizer, Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 2010. 12. Interview with Lidia Evdakimova, Sughd region, Tajikistan, August 4, 2011. 13. Interview with Maria Hamidova, Khujand, Tajikistan, August 10, 2011. 14. Interview with Susanna Morozova, Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 10, 2010. 15. Interview with Nadezhda Konstaniants, Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 7, 2010. 16. Interview with “Maira Ahmetova,” Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 11, 2010. 17. Interview with “Saltanat Tleubayeva,” Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 3, 2010. 18. Founded in 1960 to educate students from developing nations, this institution has been known since 1992 as the ­People’s Friendship University of Rus­sia. 19. Interview with Susanna Morozova. 20. Interview with Nadezhda Konstaniants. 21. Interview with Irina Domulojonova, Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2011. 22. Interview with Ilhom Boboyev, Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2011. 23. Interview with Natalia Volkova, Khujand, Tajikistan, October 8, 2010. 24. Interview with Jamila Rahimova, Sughd region, October 23, 2010. The city of Khujand was formerly called Leninabad. 25. This par­tic­u­lar form of ethnic stereotyping, with its opposition of “Eu­ro­pean” and “national,” was specific to the Soviet Union. Khalid notes that in India and Pakistan, ­people do not feel that they are betraying their nation if they possess modern or “Eu­ro­pean” furniture. Adeeb Khalid, Islam ­after Communism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 100. 26. For a critical look at the discourse of aloha, see Keiko Ohnuma, “Aloha Spirit” and the Cultural Politics of Sentiment as National Belonging,” Con­temporary Pacific 20, no. 2 (2008): 365–394. 27. On Islam as part of cultural and national identity, see Khalid, Islam a­ fter Communism, esp. chap. 4. 28. Fisher, Soviet Marriage Market, 247.

NOTES TO PA GES 75– 83

241

29. Interview with Jamila Rahimova. 30. On Islam in Soviet and post-­Soviet Central Asia, see Khalid, Islam a­ fter Communism; Yaacov Ro’i, Islam in the Soviet Union: From the Second World War to Gorbachev (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000); and Eren Tasar, Soviet and Muslim: The Institutionalization of Islam in Central Asia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). On Islam in Tajikistan, see Kirill Nourzhanov and Christian Bleuer, Tajikistan: A Po­liti­cal and Social History (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 2013), chap. 8. On Islam in rural Kazakhstan, see Bruce Privratsky, Muslim Turkistan: Kazak Religion and Collective Memory (New York: Routledge, 2015). On Rus­sian Orthodoxy and popu­lar religious practice during and ­after World War II, see Ulrike Huhn, Glaube und Eigensinn: Volksfrömmigkeit zwischen orthodoxer Kirche und sowjetischem Staat, 1941–1960 (Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2014). 31. Tasar, Soviet and Muslim, 47–49, 117–122, 152–155. On the impact of the war on Islam, see Jeff Eden, God Save the USSR: Soviet Muslims and the Second World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021). 32. Khalid, Islam ­after Communism, 82. Some scholars have taken issue with Khalid’s argument that Islam became synonymous with “national tradition” in the late Soviet era. See, for example, Eren Tasar, “Man­tra: A Review Essay on Islam in Soviet Central Asia,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 63 (2020): 389–433. 33. Interview with Maria Saliyeva. 34. Interview with “Aigerim Semenova,” Öskemen, Kazakhstan, September 22, 2011. 35. Interview with “Ruslan Isayev,” Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 20, 2010. 36. Interview with Nargiza Nazarova, Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2011. 37. Interview with “Aliya Ahmetova,” Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 14, 2010. 38. Interview with Lesia Karatayeva, Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 19, 2010. 39. Interview with Sazhida Dmitrieva, Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 7, 2010. 40. Interview with Svetlana Vizer. 41. Interview with Larisa Niyazova, Shymkent, Kazakhstan, October 2012. 42. Interview with Sazhida Dmitrieva. 43. Tasar, Soviet and Muslim; see also Moritz Florin, Kirgistan und die sowjetische Moderne (Göttingen: V & R Unipresss, 2013). 44. Interview with “Kuralai Zheksembayeva,” Shymkent, Kazakhstan, October 2012. 45. Interview with “Maira Akhmetova.” 46. Interview with Jamila Rahimova. 47. Interview with “Kamal Ibrayev,” Almaty, Kazakhstan, June 28, 2008. 48. Khalid, Islam ­after Communism, chap. 4. 49. Interview with Elena Julchieva, Almaty, Kazakhstan, September 15, 2011. 50. Interview with Irina Domulojonova, Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2011. 51. Interview with Irina Domulojonova. 52. Interview with Klara Usmanova, Khujand, Tajikistan, October 15, 2010. May 1 was the Day of the International Solidarity of Workers; November 7 was the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. 53. Interview with Larisa Niyazova. 54. Interview with Larisa Niyazova. 55. Interview with “Kamal Ibrayev.”

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TO PAGES 83– 91

56. Interview with Larisa Niyazova. 57. Herbert J. Gans, “Symbolic Ethnicity and Symbolic Religiosity: T ­ owards a Comparison of Ethnic and Religious Acculturation,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 17, no.  4 (1994): 577–592. 58. Gans, “Symbolic Ethnicity and Symbolic Religiosity,” 577, 585. 59. Herbert J. Gans, “Symbolic Ethnicity: The F ­ uture of Ethnic Groups and Cultures in Amer­i­ca,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 2, no. 1 (1979): 1–20. 60. Gans, “Symbolic Ethnicity and Symbolic Religiosity,” 583. 61. Interview with Vera Rahimova. 62. Interview with Ra’no Nazarova, Khujand, Tajikistan, October 1, 2010. 63. Interview with Gulmira Abdusamatova, Khujand, Tajikistan, August 8, 2011. 64. Interview with Irina Domulojonova. 65. Interview with Madina Nahipova. 66. Interview with Marina Makhsumova, Chkalovsk, Tajikistan, October 18, 2010. 67. Interview with Abdallah Yusupov, Almaty, Kazakhstan, September 12, 2011. 68. “Happy families are all alike; e­ very unhappy ­family is unhappy in its own way.” Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (London: Penguin Books, 2000), 1. 69. William Moskoff, “Divorce in the USSR,” Journal of Marriage and ­Family 45, no 2 (1983): 419–425; Wendy Goldman, ­Women, the State, and Revolution; Soviet ­Family Policy and Social Life, 1917–1936 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), chaps. 5 and 8. On divorce in the Khrushchev era, see Deborah A. Field, Private Life and Communist Morality in Khrushchev’s Rus­sia (New York: Peter Lang, 2007), chap. 5. 70. Moskoff, “Divorce in the USSR,” 419; Susokolov, Mezhnatsional’nye braki v SSSR, 109–110. 71. Vladimir Shlapentokh, Love, Marriage, and Friendship in the Soviet Union (New York: Praeger, 1984), 182, 208. 72. Susokolov, Natsional’no-­smeshannye braki, 51. See also Susokolov, Mezhnatsional’nye braki v SSSR, 113–114. Susokolov noted that the divorce rates in Rus­sia and Estonia ­were three times ­those in Georgia and Uzbekistan. Mezhnatsional’nye braki, 109. 73. Interview with Bahriniso Abdurahmonova, Karakum, Tajikistan, August 2, 2011. 74. See chapter 5 for more on Aliya. 75. Interview with “Aliya Ahmetova.” 76. Interview with “Liudmila Davydova,” Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 15, 2010. 77. Interview with “Hyun Kim,” Almaty, Kazakhstan, December 3, 2011. 4. Intermarriage and the “Eastern ­Woman”

1. Interview with Jamila Rahimova, Sughd region, October 23, 2010. 2. Rus­sian ­women ­were just as likely as men—or more so—to intermarry, whereas Central Asian w ­ omen ­were much less likely to do so than their male counter­parts. Abramzon, “Otrazhenie protsessa sblizheniia natsii,” 29. Borzykh, “Rasprostrannenost’ mezhnatsional’nykh brakov,” 87–96. On Kazakh ­women and intermarriage, see Kalyshev, “Mezhnatsional’nye braki,” 73. 3. Interview with Jamila Rahimova. 4. Interview with Alla Tuychiboyeva, Khujand, Tajikistan, October 6, 2010. 5. Interview with Alla Tuychiboyeva.

NOTES TO PA GES 92– 95

243

6. Interview with Lola Tuychiboyeva, Khujand, Tajikistan, October 1, 2010. 7. On the unveiling campaign, see Douglas Northrop, Veiled Empire: Gender and Power in Stalinist Central Asia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003). Gregory Massell argued that the Soviet authorities treated w ­ omen in Central Asia as a “surrogate proletariat” since a genuine proletariat was absent in the region. Gregory Massell, The Surrogate Proletariat: Moslem ­Women and Revolutionary Strategies in Soviet Central Asia, 1919–­1929 (Prince­ton: Prince­ton University Press, 1974). 8. So­cio­log­i­cal surveys found that the Soviet Rus­sians strongly valued romantic love, especially in the more educated parts of society. See Shlapentokh, Love, Marriage, and Friendship, chap. 3. 9. In Tajikistan, moreover, arranged marriages with relatives, including first cousins, ­were still common in the late Soviet era. Colette Harris, Control and Subversion: Gender Relations in Tajikistan (London: Pluto Press, 2004), 100–106; Monogarova and Mukhiddinov, Tajiki, 113–117. 10. Abramzon, “Otrazhenie protsessa sblizheniia natsii,” 29–31. See also Busygin and Stoliarova, “Kul’turno-­bytovye protsessy,” 27–36. For more detail on the Soviet discourse of intermarriage, see Adrienne Edgar, “Marriage, Modernity and the ‘Friendship of Nations’: Interethnic Intimacy in Postwar Soviet Central Asia in Comparative Perspective,” Central Asian Survey 26, no. 4 (December 2007): 581–600. 11. Busygin and Stoliarova, “Kul’turno-­bytovye protsessy,” 30–31. 12. Abramzon, “Otrazhenie protsessa sblizheniia natsii,” 30. 13. Abramzon, “Otrazhenie protsessa sblizheniia natsii,” 30–31. Many of ­these vegetables w ­ ere not commonly eaten by Central Asians before the Soviet era. See Marianne Kamp, “Hunger and Potatoes: The 1933 Famine in Uzbekistan and Changing Foodways,” Kritika: Explorations in Rus­sian and Eurasian History 20, no. 2 (2019): 237–267. 14. Anaklychev, “Rol’ promyshlenykh tsentrov,” 32. 15. Naumova, “Natsional’no-­smeshannye sem’i,” 96–97; Abramzon, “Otrazhenie protsessa sblizheniia natsii,” 29–30. 16. Abramzon, “Otrazhenie protsessa sblizheniia natsii,” 27. 17. Romano, Race Mixing, 54–55 18. The originator of this theory was Robert Merton. See his “Intermarriage and Social Structure,” Psychiatry 4 (1941): 361–734. In fact, empirical research shows that individuals who intermarry tend to seek spouses of similar class and education levels. For a critique of Merton’s model, see Spickard, Mixed Blood, 365–366. 19. Susokolov, Mezhnatsional’nye braki v SSSR, 67, 97–98. 20. Interview with Marina Makhsumova, Chkalovsk, Tajikistan, October 18, 2010. 21. Field, Private Life and Communist Morality, chap. 3; Shlapentokh, Love, Marriage, and Friendship, chap. 2. 22. Shlapentokh, Love, Marriage, and Friendship, 24–32. Nicholas Timasheff, The ­Great Retreat: The Growth and Decline of Communism in Rus­sia (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1946). See also David Hoffmann, “Was T ­ here a ‘­Great Retreat’ from Soviet Socialism? Stalinist Culture Reconsidered,” Kritika: Explorations in Rus­sian and Eurasian History 5, no. 4 (2004): 651–674. 23. Monogarova and Mukhiddinov, Tajiki, 113–116. See also Harris, Control and Subversion, 100–106. On the significance of marriage in Tajik society, see Sophie Roche, “Domesticating Youth: The Youth Bulge in Post-­Civil War Tajikistan” (PhD diss., Martin-­Luther Universität Halle-­Wittenberg, Germany, 2010), chap. 10.

24 4 NOTES

TO PAGES 95– 103

24. Monogarova and Mukhiddinov, Tajiki, 117. 25. Naumova, “Sovremennye etnokul’turnye protsessy,” 111. 26. Naumova, “Sovremennye etnokul’turnye protsessy,” 111. 27. Naumova, “Sovremennye etnokul’turnye protsessy,” 115. 28. A greater degree of contact between men and w ­ omen was characteristic of  historically nomadic p­ eoples such as the Kazakhs and Turkmen, among whom women were not secluded or veiled. See Edgar, Tribal Nation, chap. 5. See also Diana T. Kudaibergenova, “Proj­ect Kelin: Marriage, W ­ omen, and Re-Traditionalization in Post-­Soviet Kazakhstan,” in ­Women of Asia: Globalization, Development, and Gender Equity, ed. Merangiz Najafizadeh and Linda Lindsey (New York: Routledge, 2018), 380–381. 29. Naumova, “Sovremennye etnokul’turnye protsessy,” 115–117. 30. Interview with Marina Makhsumova. 31. Clements, A History of ­Women in Rus­sia, 110. On arranged marriages in Rus­sia, see Liubov Denisova, Rural ­Women in the Soviet Union and Post-­Soviet Rus­sia (New York: Routledge, 2010), chap. 9. Denisova claims, based on research in Rus­sia, that marriages for love are “less stable and satisfactory to partners than marriages for material gain or ­those that ­were advised by parents.” Rural ­Women, 90. 32. RGASPI, f. 62, op. 2, d. 757, ll. 16–18. 33. ­These debates ­were summarized in RGASPI, f. 62, op. 2, d. 757, ll. 16–18. 34. This survey material is discussed in chapter 2 of this book. 35. Interview with “Maira Ahmetova,” Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 11, 2010. 36. Interview with “Maira Ahmetova.” 37. Clements, A History of ­Women in Rus­sia, 73–76. 38. Interview with Lutfiya Boboyeva, Isfara, Tajikistan, July 2011. 39. See Harris, Control and Subversion, chap. 3. 40. Interview with Talgat Akilov, Shymkent, Kazakhstan, October 2012. 41. Interview with “Hyun Kim,” Almaty, Kazakhstan, December 3, 2011. 42. Interview with “Maira Ahmetova.” 43. Interview with Fatima Satyboldinova, Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 10, 2010. 44. Interview with “Hyun Kim.” 45. Clements, A History of ­Women in Rus­sia, 111. 46. Clements, A History of ­Women in Rus­sia, 111. 47. Interview with Sazhida Dmitrieva, Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 7, 2010. 48. Misha is the diminutive of Mikhail, the Rus­sian form of Michael. 49. Interview with Nadezhda Konstaniants, Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 7, 2010. 50. Interview with Anastasia Martsevich, Moscow, Rus­sia, June 2010. 51. Interview with Larisa Niyazova, Shymkent, Kazakhstan, October 2012. 52. Interview with Talgat Akilov. 53. Interview with Tatiana Soliboyeva, Khujand, Tajikistan, October 9, 2010. 54. Interview with Nadezhda Konstaniants. 55. Beshbarmak is a traditional Kazakh dish made of boiled meat and noodles. 56. Interview with Elena Julchieva, Almaty, Kazakhstan, September 15, 2011. 57. Interview with “Maria Iskanderova,” Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 3, 2010. 58. Interview with “Maria Iskanderova.” 59. On ­women’s clothing and changes over time, see Monogarova and Mukhiddinov, Tajiki, 207–213; Harris, Control and Subversion, 86–88.

NOTES TO PA GES 104– 109

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60. Monogarova and Mukhiddinov, Tajiki, 209. Ethnographers have noted that the trousers are comfortable and preserve modesty better than a skirt alone when sitting on the floor. 61. Interview with Natalia Mirzorahimova, Karakum, Tajikistan, October 22, 2010. 62. Interview with Lesia Karatayeva, Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 19, 2010. 63. Interview with Ra’no Nazarova, Khujand, Tajikistan, October 1, 2010. 64. Mary Buckley, ­Women and Ideology in the Soviet Union (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990), 13–15, 144–146. On the double burden in Rus­sia, see also Clements, A History of ­Women in Rus­sia, chaps. 6–7. W ­ omen in rural areas faced a “­triple burden,” working on their private plots in addition to domestic chores and paid work on the collective farm. See Zamira Yusufjonova, “Soviet State Feminism in Muslim Central Asia: Urban and Rural ­Women in Tajikistan, 1924–1982” (PhD diss., UC Santa Barbara, 2015); see also Denisova, Rural ­Women, chap. 16. U ­ nder Stalin it was not pos­ si­ble to discuss such prob­lems ­because the w ­ oman’s question was considered solved. Buckley, ­Women and Ideology, 13. 65. Buckley, ­Women and Ideology, 183. Nor w ­ ere ­these inequities unique to Rus­sia. 66. Buckley, ­Women and Ideology, 144–145 See also Denisova, Rural ­Women, chaps. 16–17. 67. On debates among Rus­sian scholars about sex role ste­reo­types, see Lynne Atwood, The New Soviet Man and W ­ oman: Sex Role Socialization in the USSR (London: Macmillan, 1990). 68. On early Bolshevik policies, see Wendy Goldman, ­Women, the State, and Revolution; Soviet F­ amily Policy and Social Life, 1917–­1936 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 69. Clements, ­Daughters of Revolution, 73–76. 70. Atwood, New Soviet Man and W ­ oman, 120–122, 133–139, 145, 155–156. 71. Atwood, New Soviet Man and W ­ oman, 60–61. Atwood argues that the resurrection of traditional sex roles was a calculated attempt to increase the birth rate in Eu­ ro­pean Rus­sia (New Soviet Man and Woman, 13). 72. Buckley, ­Women and Ideology, 161–164. A non-­antagonistic conflict was a prob­ lem u ­ nder developed socialism that needed to be addressed in order to move forward to communism. 73. Pravda, March 22, 1977. Cited in Buckley, ­Women and Ideology, 182–183. 74. Interview with Ra’no Nazarova. 75. Interview with Timur Sergazinov, Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 5, 2010. 76. Interview with Marina Abdrahmanova, Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 15, 2010. 77. Interview with “Arhat Isayev,” Shymkent, Kazakhstan, October  2012. The anthropologist Collette Harris witnessed an incident in Tajikistan in which a man was helping his wife clean a carpet in a communal courtyard but felt compelled to stop a­ fter other men mocked him for ­doing ­woman’s work. Harris, Control and Subversion, 79–80. 78. Interview with Nadezhda Konstaniants. 79. Interview with “Maira Ahmetova.” 80. Interview with “Maira Ahmetova.” 81. Interview with Nadezhda Konstaniants. 82. Interview with Maria Hamidova, Khujand, Tajikistan, August 10, 2011. 83. Interview with Susanna Morozova, Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 10, 2010. 84. Interview with Susanna Morozova.

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TO PAGES 109– 118

85. Interview with Muborak Oshurova, Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2010. 86. Interview with Rustam Iskandarov, Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2011. 87. Interview with “Maria Iskanderova.” 88. Borzykh, “Rasprostrannenost’ mezhnatsional’nykh brakov,” 87–96. On Kazakh ­women and intermarriage, see Kalyshev, “Mezhnatsional’nye braki,” 73. 89. N. P. Borzykh, “Mezhnatsional’nye braki v SSSR v seredine 1930-kh godov,” Sovetskaia etnografiia no. 3 (1984): 101–112. 90. Sofia Kasymova, “Rasshiriaia granitsy: Mezhetnicheskie i mezhkonfessional’nye braki v post-­sovetskom Tajikistane (na primere brakov Tajikskikh zhenshchin s inostrantsami),” Laboratorium no. 3 (2010): 132–134. 91. Interview with “Aliya Ahmetova,” Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 14, 2010. 92. Interview with Madina Nahipova, Shymkent, Kazakhstan, October 2012. 93. Interview with Madina Nahipova. 94. Interview with “Saltanat Tleubayeva,” Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 3, 2010. 95. Interview with “Maira Ahmetova.” 96. Interview with “Maira Ahmetova.” 97. Interview with “Maira Ahmetova.” 98. Fierman, “Language and Education in Post-­Soviet Kazakhstan,” 101. 99. Interview with Bahriniso Abddurahmonova, Karakum, Tajikistan, August 2, 2011. 100. Interview with “Mukarram,” Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2011. 101. Interview with “Mukarram.” 102. Interview with Gulmira Abdusamatova, Khujand, Tajikistan, August 8, 2011. 5. Dilemmas of Identity and Belonging

Epigraph: Interview with Sazhida Dmitrieva, Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 7, 2010. 1. Interview with Sazhida Dmitrieva. 2. See, for example, Renée C. Romano, Race Mixing: Black-­White Marriage in Postwar Amer­i­ca (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003), 109–110, 143. 3. On the elaboration of categories in the early Soviet period, see Hirsch, Empire of Nations. 4. On the passport pro­cess, see Albert Baiburin, “Rituals of Identity: The Soviet Passport,” in Soviet and Post-­Soviet Identities, ed. Mark Bassin and Catriona Kelly (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 91–109. The P ­ eople’s Republic of China ­adopted a similar method of dealing with the identities of ethnically mixed citizens, with mixed adolescents required to select one parent’s nationality at the age of eigh­ teen. Thomas Mullaney, Coming to Terms with the Nation: Ethnic Classification in Modern China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 123. 5. Many states, including South Africa, Brazil, and other Latin American countries, have permitted or even required citizens to affiliate with a mixed category. The US census at one time included mixed categories indicating fractions of African blood such as mulatto, quadroon, and octaroon. Supra-­ethnic categories have also been pos­si­ble; Yugo­slavia allowed p­ eople to declare themselves Yugo­slav rather than simply Serb or Croat. See Kimberly McClain DaCosta, Making Multiracials: State, ­Family, and Market in the Redrawing of the Color Line (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), 1–2; Melissa Nobles, “Racial Categorization and Censuses,” in Kertzer and Arel, Census and

NOTES TO PA GES 118– 124

247

Identity, 49–53. See also Joel Williamson, New ­People: Miscegenation and Mulattoes in the United States (New York: F ­ ree Press, 1980). For a comparative discussion of racially mixed categories, see Anthony W. Marx, Making Race and Nation: A Comparison of South Africa, the United States, and Brazil (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); see also Ann Morning, “Multiraciality and Census Classification in Global Perspective,” in Rebecca C. King-­O’Riainn et al., Global Mixed Race, 1–15. On Yugo­slavia, see Dusko Sekulic et al., “Who W ­ ere the Yugo­slavs? Failed Sources of a Common Identity in the Former Yugo­slavia,” American So­cio­log­i­cal Review 59, no. 1 (1994): 83–97. 6. Parker and Song, Rethinking Mixed Race, 7. 7. On combining traditions, see chapter 3 of this book. 8. Abramson, “Identity Counts,” 177. 9. See, for example, Evstigneev, “Natsional’no-­smeshannye braki,” 80–85; Naumova, “Natsional’no-­smeshannye sem’i,” 99–100; Busygin and Stoliarova, “Kul’turno-­bytovye protsessy,” 29. 10. Kaiser, Geography of Nationalism, 318–321. 11. V. Kozlov, Natsional’nosti SSSR: Etnograficheskii obzor (Moscow: Finansy i statistika, 1982), 231; Arutiunian and Bromlei, Sotsial’no-­kul’turnyi oblik, 173. 12. Susokolov, Mezhnatsional’nye braki v SSSR, 131. 13. Scholars of racial identity in Western Eu­ro­pean and North American contexts have identified three dif­fer­ent types of identity: internal, expressed, and external or observed. When internally felt or expressed identities are not validated by society, individuals may feel psychological distress. Peter J. Aspinall and Miri Song, Mixed Race Identities (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 21, 80. 14. Interview with “Ruslan Isayev,” Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 20, 2010. 15. Interview with Klara Usmanova, Khujand, Tajikistan, October 15, 2010 16. Laurie Mengel, “­Triples—­The Social Evolution of a Multiracial Pan Ethnicity: An Asian American perspective,” in Parker and Song, Rethinking Mixed Race, 100–101. 17. Interview with Talgat Akilov, Shymkent, Kazakhstan, October 2012. 18. Kaiser, Geography of Nationalism, 318–321. The titular nationality in each Soviet republic was the dominant group for whom the republic was named—­Kazakhs in Kazakhstan, Uzbeks in Uzbekistan, and so forth. 19. Interview with Marina Abdrahmanova, Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 15, 2010. 20. Interview with Jamila Rahimova, Sughd region, Tajikistan, October 23, 2010; interview with Sazhida Dmitrieva. 21. Vasia and Vasik are both diminutive, affectionate forms of the Rus­sian name Vasilii. Interview with Larisa Mamadzohirova, Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2011. 22. Interview with Bahriniso Abdurahmonova, Karakum, Tajikistan, August 2, 2011. 23. Interview with “Liudmila Davydova,” Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 15, 2010. Interestingly, this belief that nationality derives from the ­father coexisted with a belief among many Soviet scholars as that it is the ­mother who imparts more of her language and culture—­and hence her ethnic identity—to the c­ hildren and the f­ amily as a ­whole. (Hence the belief that Rus­sian ­women would modernize Central Asian families and villages.) 24. Interview with Lesia Karatayeva, Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 19, 2010. 25. Interview with “Aigerim Semenova,” Öskemen, Kazakhstan, September 22, 2011.

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TO PAGES 124– 133

26. Interview with Svetlana Vizer, Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 2010. 27. Interview with Svetlana Vizer. 28. Interview with Erzhan Baiburin, Öskemen, Kazakhstan, September 19, 2011. 29. Interview with Elena Julchieva, Almaty, Kazakhstan, September 15, 2011. 30. Interview with “Daria Kim,” Öskemen, Kazakhstan, February 14, 2008. 31. Interview with Susanna Morozova, Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 10, 2010. 32. Suny, “Constructing Primordialism,” 874. 33. Interview with “Aigerim Semenova.” 34. Interview with Fatima Satyboldinova, Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 10, 2010. 35. Interview with Jamila Rahimova. 36. Interview with “Kamal Ibrayev,” Almaty, Kazakhstan, June 28, 2008. 37. Interview with Timur Sergazinov, Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 5, 2010. 38. Interview with Tatiana Soliboyeva, Khujand, Tajikistan, October 9, 2010. 39. Interview with “Liudmila Davydova.” 40. Interview with Susanna Morozova. 41. Parker and Song, Rethinking Mixed Race, 7. 42. Interview with “Aliya Ahmetova,” Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 14, 2010. 43. Interview with “Aliya Ahmetova.” 44. Interview with “Aliya Ahmetova.” 45. Interview with “Aliya Ahmetova.” 46. Interview with “Maria Iskanderova,” Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 3, 2010. 47. Interview with “Maria Iskanderova.” 48. Cited in Furedi, “How Sociology I­ magined ‘Mixed Race,’ ” 37. 49. A slightly dif­fer­ent version of this saying is cited in David Laitin, Identity in Formation: The Russian-­Speaking Populations in the Near Abroad (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), 191. See also Dave, Kazakhstan, 127. 50. Aspinall and Song, Mixed Race Identities, 79–80. 51. Interview with “Maria Iskanderova.” 52. Several respondents told me that they could accept any kind of intermarriage for their ­children except marriage to a person of African descent. Nevertheless, such marriages did take place in the Soviet era and afterward. On Russian-­African marriages, see N. L. Krylova, “Roditeli i deti v smeshannykh russko-­afrikanskikh brakakh,” in N. L. Krylova and N. A. Ksenofentova, eds., Gendernye problemy perekhodnykh obshchestv (Moscow: Institut Afriki, Rossiiskaia Akademii Nauk, 2003) and N. L. Krylova, Afro-­rossiiane: brak, sem’ia, i sud’ba (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2006). On discrimination and attacks against Africans in the 1960s and afterward, see Maxim Matusevich, “Soviet Antiracism and Its Discontents,” in The Cold War Years in Alternative Globalizations: Eastern Eu­rope and the Postcolonial World, ed. James Mark, Artemy M. Kalinovsky, and Steffi Marung (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2017), 239–245, and Julie Hessler, “Death of an African Student in Moscow: Race, Politics, and the Cold War,” Cahiers du Monde russe 47, no. 1/2 (2006), 33–63. On prejudice against Africans in Kazakhstan, see Dave, Kazakhstan, 12. 53. Khrushchev developed the concept at length in a speech at the 22nd Party Congress in 1961, followed by Brezhnev ten years ­later at the 24th Party Congress. The term also appeared prominently in the 1977 Constitution. Simon, Nationalism and Policy ­Toward the Nationalities, 307–312; Whittington, “Forging Soviet Citizens,” 206–210. 54. Interview with Svetlana Vizer. 55. Interview with “Liudmila Davydova.”

NOTES TO PA GES 133– 140

249

56. Interview with Susanna Morozova. 57. Interview with Lesia Karatayeva. 58. Interview with Jamila Rahimova. 59. Interview with Rustam Iskandarov, Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2011. 60. Interview with Dilbar Khojayeva, Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2011. 61. Survey evidence on this question from the Soviet period is lacking. In letters written to the commission responsible for writing a new constitution in the 1960s and 1970s, Soviet citizens from a variety of republics (some from ethnically mixed backgrounds) advocated eliminating ethnicity from Soviet passports and replacing it with a Soviet nationality. T ­ hese letters, collected and analyzed by Anna Whittington, show that at least in some quarters, the discourse of the Soviet p­ eople and commitment to Soviet identity had firm popu­lar support. Whittington, “Forging Soviet Citizens,” 170, 222–238. 62. On Yugo­slavia, see Sekulic et al., “Who ­Were the Yugo­slavs?” 83–97. 63. On the interplay of Rus­sian and Soviet, see Geoffrey Hosking, Rulers and Victims: The Rus­sians in the Soviet Union (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2009), introduction, chap. 3. 64. Interview with Irina Klimenko, Shymkent, Kazakhstan, October 2012. 65. Interview with Rustam Iskandarov. 66. Interview with Ilhom Boboyev, Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2011. 67. Interview with Susanna Morozova. 68. On the category of Rus­sian speakers, see Laitin, Identity in Formation. 69. Interview with Susanna Morozova. 70. Interview with Nargiza Nazarova, Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2011. 71. Interview with Rustam Iskandarov. 72. Interview with Dilbar Khojayeva. 73. Interview with Jamila Rahimova. 74. Interview with Ra’no Nazarova, Khujand, Tajikistan, October 1, 2010. 75. Interview with “Liudmila Davydova.” 76. Mengel, “­Triples,” 107–110. 77. On the differentiation of Uzbeks from Tajiks, see Schoeberlein-­Engel, “Identity in Central Asia” and Khalid, Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform, chap. 6. 78. Interview with Ra’no Nazarova. 79. Interview with Larisa Mamadzohirova. 80. Interview with Lola Tuychiboyeva, Khujand, Tajikistan, October 1, 2010. 81. Interview with “Aliya Ahmetova.” T ­ here is something rather Gumilevian in this statement by Aliya, which would not be surprising given that Gumilev’s ideas have become popu­lar in post-­Soviet Kazakhstan. 82. Interview with Susanna Morozova. 83. Rudolph P. Byrd and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., “Jean Toomer’s Conflicted Racial Identity,” Chronicle Review, February 11, 2011, B5–­B8. 84. Aspinall and Song, Mixed Race Identities, 20. 6. Naming Mixed ­Children

1. Rustam is a Persian name, and Iskandar is the Arabic version of the name Alexander, meaning “defender of the p­ eople.” Vasilii is a common Rus­sian name of Greek origin (Vassilios), which corresponds to Basil in En­glish.

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TO PAGES 140– 145

2. Interview with Rustam Iskandarov, Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2011. 3. Guy Puzey and Laura Kostanski, eds., Names and Naming: ­People, Places, Perceptions, and Power (Bristol, UK: Multilingual M ­ atters, 2016), xiii. 4. Jürgen Gerhards and Silke Hans, “From Hasan to Herbert: Name Giving Patterns of Immigrant Parents Between Acculturation and Ethnic Maintenance,” American Journal of Sociology 114, no. 4 (2009):1103–1104. 5. Much of the social science lit­er­a­ture on names focuses on outcomes (i.e., aggregate data about names, how common they are, and how this changes over time) rather than the pro­cess of naming. 6. Justyna B. Walkowiak, “Personal Names in Language Policy and Planning: Who Plans What Names, for Whom, and How?” in Puzey and Kostanski, Names and Naming, 208. See also Robert K. Herbert, “The Politics of Personal Naming in South Africa,” Names: A Journal of Onomastics 45, no. 1 (1997): 6; Caroline Humphrey, “On Being Named and Not Named: Authority, Persons, and Their Names in Mongolia,” in The Anthropology of Names and Naming, ed. Gabriele vom Bruck and Barbara Bodenhorn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 159. 7. Most of ­these classically Muslim names ­were of Arabic origin. 8. Asma Kalybekova, Narodnaia mudrost’ Kazakhov o vospitanii (Almaty: Baur, 2015), 390–392. 9. Research on naming in Mongolia and in vari­ous African socie­ties has shown that personal names always have a specific and clear meaning and are generally unique to the individual. See Humphrey, “On Being Named and Not Named,” 159; see also Herbert, “The Politics of Personal Naming in South Africa,” 6. 10. S. P. Tolstov et al., eds, Narody Srednei Azii i Kazakhstana (Moscow: Isdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1962), 620–621. Interviewees from Tajikistan mentioned the meaning of names much less often than ­those from Kazakhstan. The anthropologist Jay Dautcher similarly describes the use of names expressing wishes (such as Tursun—­ may he stay) among Uyghurs, in Down a Narrow Road: Identity and Masculinity in a Uyghur Community in Xinjiang China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009), 76. 11. A study of mixed c­ ouples in Britain found that parents would typically give a child several personal names reflecting the dif­fer­ent parts of his or her heritage. Rosalind Edwards and Chamion Caballero, “What’s In a Name? An Exploration of the Significance of Personal Naming of ‘Mixed’ C ­ hildren from Dif­fer­ent Racial, Ethnic, and Faith Backgrounds,” So­cio­log­i­cal Review 56, no. 1 (2008), 55. 12. Gerhards and Hans, “From Hasan to Herbert,” 1103. Other campaigns of forcible renaming for po­liti­cal reasons have included the Finnicization of Swedish surnames in 1906–1907, the Hispanicization of Filipino surnames in 1849, and the Polonization of German surnames in Poland a­ fter World War II. Walkowiak, “Personal Names,” 199–202; Gerhards and Hans, “From Hasan to Herbert,” 1103. See also Michael Walsh, “Introduced Personal Names for Australian Aborigines: Adaptations to an Exotic Anthroponymy,” in Puzey and Kostanski, Names and Naming, 34–36. 13. Gerhards and Hans, “From Hasan to Herbert,” 1103–1104. 14. Andrew S. London and S. Philip Morgan, “Racial Differences in First Names in 1910,” Journal of ­Family History 19, no. 3 (1994): 261–284; Stanley Lieberson, A ­Matter of Taste: How Names, Fashion, and Culture Change (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 200–207. See also Stanley Lieberson and Kelly S. Mikelson, “Distinctive African-­

NOTES TO PA GES 145– 151

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American Names: An Experimental, Historical, and Linguistic Analy­sis of Innovation,” American So­cio­log­i­cal Review 60, no. 6 (1995): 928–946. 15. Lieberson, A ­Matter of Taste, 185–200; Christina A. Sue and Edward E. Telles, “Assimilation and Gender in Naming,” American Journal of Sociology 112, no. 5 (2007): 1410– 1411. Sue and Telles found that d­ aughters of Mexican immigrants ­were more likely to receive Anglo or mainstream names than sons. The reason for this gender difference is not entirely clear. Immigrant parents may worry more about girls being exposed to discrimination, or they may see boys as carry­ing on the f­ amily line and therefore requiring Spanish first names. 16. Sue and Telles, “Assimilation and Gender,” 1396. 17. Gerhards and Hans, “From Hasan to Herbert,” 1116–1117. 18. Interview with Dilbar Khojayeva, Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2011. 19. Interview with Sazhida Dmitrieva, Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 7, 2010. 20. Interview with Tamara Novikova, October 25, 2010, Khujand, Tajikistan. 21. In Egypt and other Muslim countries, ethnographers have reported c­ hildren being given deliberately ugly or meaningless names in order to confuse the evil eye and direct it away from the child. Gary S. Gregg, The ­Middle East: A Cultural Psy­chol­ogy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 161. On the evil eye belief among Uyghurs, see Dautcher, Down a Narrow Road, 87. 22. Katia is a diminutive form of Ekaterina (the Rus­sian form of Catherine). 23. Interview with “Irina Abdulayeva,” Öskemen, Kazakhstan, September  21, 2011. 24. Interview with Maria Saliyeva, Khujand, Tajikistan, October 16, 2010. 25. Interview with Maria Hamidova, Khujand, Tajikistan, August 10, 2011. 26. Interview with Sazhida Dmitrieva. Similarly, the Rus­sian ethnographer Olga Naumova noted that in the ­earlier postwar de­cades, mixed German-­K azakhs got Kazakh names. Naumova, “Natsional’no-­smeshannye sem’i,” 98. 27. Interview with Irina Domulojanova, Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2011. Irina used the words Uzbek and Tajik interchangeably to refer to her siblings’ names, reflecting the fact that ­these are not necessarily Uzbek names but names common among both Uzbeks and Tajiks. 28. Interview with Tatiana Soliboyeva, Khujand, Tajikistan, October 9, 2010. 29. Adil is Arabic in origin. Interview with “Saltanat Tleubayeva,” Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 3, 2010. 30. Ilyas is the Arabic form of Elijah. 31. Interview with Talgat Akilov, Shymkent, Kazakhstan, October 2012. 32. Interview with Larisa Mamadzohirova, Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2011. 33. Interview with Larisa Niyazova, Shymkent, Kazakhstan, October 2012. 34. ­Because of the importance of camels in the Kazakhs’ nomadic history, ­there are several popu­lar names related to the camel: Akbota, Botaköz (eye of the baby camel), and so on. 35. St.  Tatiana’s Day is a Rus­sian Orthodox holiday traditionally observed on January 25. 36. Interview with Larisa Niyazova. 37. Interview with Vera Rahimova, Sughd region, Tajikistan, October 23, 2010 38. Interview with Lidia Evdakimova, Sughd region, Tajikistan, August 4, 2011.

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TO PAGES 151– 156

39. A system of dionymy or dual naming, in which ­people have one official name and another for private use, is common in many cultures. Walkowiak, “Personal Names,” 207. Rus­sians, by contrast, rarely ­adopted Central Asian nicknames. 40. Interview with “Maira Ahmetova,” Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 11, 2010. The adoption of informal names from the dominant culture in order to ease social interaction is not at all unusual in multiethnic socie­ties. See Tae Young Kim, “The Dynamics of Ethnic Name Maintenance and Change: Cases of Korean ESL Immigrants in Toronto,” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 28, no.  2 (2008): 117–133. 41. Interview with Muborak Oshurova, Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2010. Liuba is the diminutive for the Rus­sian name Liubov’, or love. Muborak is a Muslim name of Arabic origin (in Arabic Mubarak), meaning “blessed” or “auspicious.” 42. Interview with “Aliya Ahmetova,” Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 14, 2010. Aliya is an Arabic name meaning “high or exalted.” 43. Interview with Svetlana Vizer, Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 2010. 44. Interview with Svetlana Vizer. 45. On trends in naming in the United States, see Lieberson, A ­Matter of Taste, 34–42, 66–68. At least one scholar sees the roots of this more “individualized, child-­centered naming ” ­going back much e­ arlier in Western socie­ties, to the mid-­eighteenth ­century. See G. L. Main, “Naming ­Children in Early New ­England,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 27, no. 1 (1996): 1–27, cited in Edwards and Caballero, “What’s In a Name,” 42. 46. Olga Naumova found the same tendency to avoid giving mixed Kazakh-­German ­children Kazakh names in the 1980s. She noted that they ­were given Rus­sian or Eastern-­ sounding or international-­sounding names. “Sovremennye etnokul’turnye protsessy u kazakhov,” 186–188. 47. Interview with Timur Sergazinov, Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 5, 2010. 48. Interview with Timur Sergazinov. Anara is originally Persian and means “pomegranate.” 49. Timur became known by the sobriquet “the lame” mainly among his enemies ­because of a wound received in ­battle. 50. Arkadii Gaidar, Timur i ego komanda (Moscow: Detskaia Literatura, 1940). 51. Lieberson has noted that the rise and fall of fashion can be traced for certain sounds in British and American names, such as the “ee” sound ending for girls (Emily, Katie), the “n” ending (Megan, Kevin, Catherine), or the initial “j” ( Jessica, Joshua, Jason, Justin). A ­Matter of Taste, 99–100. Although t­ here has been no similar study in the former Soviet Union, it is likely that the popularity of certain sounds and syllables in names fluctuated according to fashion ­there as well. 52. Interview with “Maira Ahmetova.” 53. Maryam is the Arabic version of the name of Mary, ­mother of Jesus, who also appears in the Koran. 54. Interview with Lesia Karatayeva, Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 19, 2010. 55. Interview with Lesia Karatayeva. 56. Interview with Marina Abdrahmanova, Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 15, 2010. 57. Aya is truly international, recognized as a name in the Arabic, Hebrew, Japa­ nese, Mongolian, and Yoruba languages. 58. Interview with Marina Abdrahmanova.

NOTES TO PA GES 156– 164

253

59. Darya, as discussed e­ arlier, is originally Persian but can take the Rus­sian diminutive Dasha. Saniya and Malika both come from Arabic; Saniya means “brilliant, splendid” and Malika means “queen.” Sania is also a diminutive of the Rus­sian names Alexander and Alexandra. 60. Interview with Erzhan Baiburin, Öskemen, Kazakhstan, September 19, 2011. 61. Nastia is a diminutive of Anastasia, Masha is a diminutive of Maria, and Ania is a diminutive of Anna. 62. Masha is the diminutive of the common Rus­sian name Maria, while Serikbaeva is a common Kazakh surname. Interview with “Katia Nikolaeva,” Öskemen, Kazakhstan, September 20, 2011. 63. Interview with Susanna Morozova, Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 10, 2010. 64. Interview with Susanna Morozova. 65. Lena, Katia, Sveta, and Olia are the diminutives of Elena, Ekaterina, Svetlana, and Olga, respectively. 66. Interview with Sazhida Dmitrieva. 67. Interview with Sazhida Dmitrieva. 68. Nastia is a common diminutive of Anastasia. Interview with Anastasia Martsevich, Moscow, Rus­sia, June 2010. 69. Edwards and Caballero, “What’s In a Name?” 53–54. 7. Mixed Families and the Rus­sian Language

Epigraph: Interview with Marina Abdrahmanova, Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 15, 2010. 1. Vinnikov, “Natsional’nye i etnograficheskie gruppy,” 25–26, 34–36; Arutiunian and Bromlei, Sotsial’no-­kul’turnyi oblik, 166. 2. Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire; Slezkine, “The USSR as a Communal Apartment.” 3. Dave, Kazakhstan, 53; M. N. Guboglo, “Sotsial’no-­etnicheskie posledstviia dvuiazychia,” Sovetskaiia etnografiia no. 2 (1972): 27–28. 4. In many mixed families t­here was no real choice since the only common language was Rus­sian. 5. Slezkine, “The USSR as Communal Apartment”; Michael Smith, Language and Power in the Creation of the USSR, 1917–­1953 (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1998), 42–58; Smith, Red Nations, 90–93. 6. Landau and Kellner-­Heinkele, Politics of Language, 53. 7. Blitstein, “Nation-­Building or Russification?”; Landau and Kellner-­Heinkele, Politics of Language, 54; Smith, Language and Power, 159. 8. Smith, Language and Power, 157–158; Martin, Affirmative Action Empire, chap. 5: Landau and Kellner-­Heineke, Politics of Language, 54–55. 9. Landau and Kellner-­Heinkele, Politics of Language, 55; Smagulova, “Language Policies of Kazakhization,” 170; Blitstein, “Nation-­Building or Russification?” 10. Smith, Red Nations, 221–222. Landau and Kellner Heinkele, Politics of Language, 56–57. Anna Whittington argues that the Soviet state encouraged a view of Rus­sian as a “second native language” for non-­Russians. Whittington, “Forging Soviet Citizens,” 319. 11. Bagramov, “Natisional’naia problematika,” 59; Landau and Kellner Heinkele, Politics of Language, 58; See also Smith, Red Nations, 236.

25 4 NOTES

TO PAGES 164– 167

12. See ­table in Landau and Kellner-­Heinkele, Politics of Language, 56. Statistics on language competence are somewhat questionable ­because the self-­reported language capabilities of respondents may reflect wishful thinking rather than real­ity. 13. Landau and Kellner-­Heinkele, Politics of Language, 21, 22; Smagulova, “Language Policies of Kazakhization,” 170. 14. Fierman, “Language and Education in Post-­Soviet Kazakhstan,” 100. 15. For an excellent discussion of linguistic Russification and demographic change in Kazakhstan, see Dave, Kazakhstan, 50–70. 16. Fierman, “Language and Education in Post-­Soviet Kazakhstan,” 101. 17. Naumova, “Sovremennye etnokul’turnye protsessy u kazakhov,” 150, 160. 18. Dave, Kazakhstan, 52–54. 19. Dave, Kazakhstan, 61. 20. Smagulova, “Language Policies of Kazakhization,” 171. 21. Jakupov, Shala Kazakh, 9–10. 22. Landau and Kellner-­Heinkele, Politics of Language, 59. 23. Fierman, “Language and Education,” 101. 24. Landau and Kellner-­Heinkele, Politics of Language, 27. 25. ­These terms w ­ ere first coined by Brian Silver and w ­ ere ­adopted by David Laitin in his work on language and identity in post-­Soviet states, Identity in Formation, 44. The four stages are parochialism—­knowing only the indigenous language; unassimilated bilingualism, assimilated bilingualism, and full assimilation. The final stage was not pos­si­ble for ethnic Kazakhs, no ­matter how good their Rus­sian, ­because of an increasingly ethnic definition of Rus­sianness. 26. See Edgar, Tribal Nation, introduction. 27. See Schoeberlein, “Identity in Central Asia”; Khalid, The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform, chaps. 6 and 7. 28. Briusina, Slaviane v Srednei Azii, 165; Abramzon, “Otrazhenie protsessa sblizheniia natsii,” 29–30. 29. Naumova, “Natsional’no-­smeshannye sem’i,” 96–97. 30. This three-­generation pattern resembles a well-­known theory of immigrant linguistic assimilation in the United States, according to which the immigrant generation “makes some pro­g ress but remains dominant in their native tongue, the second generation is bilingual, and the third generation speaks En­glish only.” Mary C. ­Waters and Tomás R. Jiménez, “Assessing Immigrant Assimilation: New Empirical and Theoretical Challenges,” Annual Review of Sociology 31 (2005): 110. For more on early theories of immigrant assimilation, see Milton M. Gordon, Assimilation in American Life: The Role of Race, Religion, and National Origins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964). Soviet Central Asians in their home republics ­were obviously not immigrants, but to the extent that some of them lived in completely Russian-­dominated urban environments it was arguably the functional equivalent of migrating to a new country. 31. Vinnikov, “Natsional’nye i etnograficheskie gruppy,” 36. 32. On schools and Russification in Kazakhstan, see Dave, Kazakhstan, 62–68. 33. Richard Alba, “Bright vs. Blurred Bound­aries: Second Generation Assimilation and Exclusion in France, Germany, and the United States,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 28, no. 1 (2005): 36. 34. Interview with Timur Sergazinov, Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 5, 2010. Similarly, Bhavna Dave found that when Kazakhs spoke Kazakh in public, Rus­sians consid-

NOTES TO PA GES 168– 177

255

ered it impolite or worse—­a sign of “tribalism” or “nationalism.” Dave, Kazakhstan, 67–68. 35. Interview with Timur Sergazinov. 36. Interview with Svetlana Vizer, Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 2010. 37. Interview with Svetlana Vizer. 38. Interview with Marina Abdrahmanova. 39. Interview with “Maira Ahmetova,” Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 11, 2010. 40. Interview with Kamoliddin Urunboyev, Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2010. 41. Interview with Timur Sergazinov. 42. Interview with Marina Abdrahmanova 43. Interview with “Liudmila Davydova,” Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 15, 2010. 44. Interview with “Maria Iskanderova,” Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 3, 2010. 45. Interview with Lesia Karatayeva, Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 19, 2010. 46. Interview with Marina Abdrahmanova. 47. Interview with Svetlana Vizer. 48. Interview with Larisa Mamadzohirova, Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2011. 49. Interview with Bahriniso Abdurahmonova, Karakum, Tajikistan, August 2, 2011. 50. Interview with “Maira Ahmetova.” The view that the native language could not be forgotten or would be spoken well no m ­ atter what was common in the late Soviet Union. See Whittington, “Forging Soviet Citizens,” 340–341, for letters from Soviet teachers making this point. 51. Interview with “Ruslan Isayev,” Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 20, 2010. 52. Shiri Lev-­Ari and Boaz Keysar, “Why ­Don’t We Believe Non-­Native Speakers? The Influence of Foreign Accent on Credibility,” Journal of Experimental Social Psy­chol­ ogy 46, no. 6 (2010): 1093–1096; Holly K. Carlson and Monica A. McHenry, “Effect of Accent and Dialect on Employability,” Journal of Employment Counseling 43 (2006): 70–83. Whittington observes that for non-­Russians, speaking proper Rus­sian was considered a sign of patriotism and loyalty to the Soviet state. Whittington, “Forging Soviet Citizens,” 335. 53. Landau and Kellner-­Heinkele, Politics of Language, 52–53. 54. Fierman, “Language and Education,” 105. On the decline of Kazakh-­language schools and the rise of Rus­sian schools between the 1950s and the 1980s, see Dave, Kazakhstan, 62–68. 55. Smagulova, “Language Policies of Kazakhization,” 170. 56. Landau and Kellner-­Heinkele, Politics of Language, 57. 57. Interview with Erzhan Baiburin, Öskemen, Kazakhstan, September 19, 2011. 58. Interview with Lesia Karatayeva. 59. Interview with Fatima Satyboldinova, Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 10, 2010. 60. Interview with Fatima Satyboldinova. 61. Interview with “Mukarram,” Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2011. 62. Interview with Ma’suda Sattorova, Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2011. 63. Interview with Ilhom Boboyev, Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2011. 64. Interview with Lutfiya Boboyeva, Isfara, Tajikistan, July 2011. 65. Interview with Lutfiya Boboyeva. 66. Interview with Mirzosharif Ruziev, Sughd region, Tajikistan, October 11, 2010. 67. Interview with Ra’no Nazarova, Khujand, Tajikistan, October 1, 2010.

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TO PAGES 178– 188

68. Interview with Ra’no Nazarova. 69. Interview with Nargiza Nazarova, Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2011. 70. Interview with Nargiza Nazarova. 71. Sholpan Zharkynbekova and Baurzhan Bokayev, “Global Transformations in Kazakhstani Society and Prob­lems of Ethno-­Linguistic Identification,” in Negotiating Linguistic, Cultural, and Social Identities in the Post-­Soviet World, ed. Susan Smyth and Conny Opitz (Bern: Peter Lang, 2013), 250. 72. Interview with Susanna Morozova, Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 10, 2010. 73. Interview with Valentina Geiger, Shymkent, Kazakhstan, October 2012. 74. Interview with “Kamal Ibrayev,” Almaty, Kazakhstan, June 28, 2008. 75. This resembles what Herbert Gans described as “symbolic ethnicity” in the US context. Gans, “Symbolic Ethnicity and Symbolic Religiosity,” 577–592. See also chapter 3 of this book. 76. Fierman makes the same point in “Language and Education in Post-­Soviet Kazakhstan,” 105. 77. Interview with “Aigerim Semenova,” Öskemen, Kazakhstan, September 22, 2011. 78. Interview with Marina Abdrahmanova. 79. Interview with Sazhida Dmitrieva, Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 7, 2010. 80. Interview with “Aliya Ahmetova,” Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 14, 2010 81. Interview with Sazhida Dmitrieva. 82. Interview with Sazhida Dmitrieva. 83. Interview with “Saltanat Tleubayeva,” Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 3, 2010. 84. Interview with “Saltanat Tleubayeva.” 85. Interview with “Saltanat Tleubayeva.” 86. Interview with Mavjuda Rahimova, Dushanbe, Tajikistan, October 1, 2010. 87. Interview with “Aliya Ahmetova.” 88. Interview with “Aliya Ahmetova.” 89. Interview with “Maira Ahmetova.” 90. Interview with “Saltanat Tleubayeva.” 91. Interview with “Saltanat Tleubayeva.” 92. Laitin, Identity in Formation, 57. 93. On “talking white,” Black En­glish, and identity among African-­Americans, see Devon W. Carbado and Mitu Galati, Acting White: Rethinking Race in “Post-­Racial” Amer­ i­ca (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), chap. 2; see also John Russell Rickford and Russell John Rickford, Spoken Soul: The Story of Black En­glish (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2000), chap. 12. 8. Intermarriage ­after the Soviet Collapse

1. ­These “returnees” from Mongolia, China, and elsewhere are known as Oralmans. See Alexander C. Diener, One Homeland or Two: The Nationalization and Transnationalization of Mongolia’s Kazakhs (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2009); on the emigration of minorities from Kazakhstan, see Diener, One Homeland or Two, 217–218, and Dave, Kazakhstan, 132–133. On the decline of the Rus­sian population relative to the Kazakh population, see Diener, “Imagining Kazakhstani-­stan,” 135. 2. Diener, “Imagining Kazakhstani-­stan,” 132.

NOTES TO PA GES 188– 191

257

3. “Kazakhstan, ­People and Society,” CIA World Factbook, https://­www​.­cia​.­gov​ /­the​-­world​-­factbook​/­countries​/­kazakhstan​/­#people​-­and​-­society; “Tajikistan: ­People and Society,” CIA World Factbook, https://­www​.­cia​.­gov​/­the​-­world​-­factbook​/­countries​ /­tajikistan​/­#people​-­and​-­society. Figures for Kazakhstan are 2019 estimates; figures for Tajikistan are 2014 estimates. 4. Galim Faskhutdinov, “Kazhdyi tretii brak v Tadzhikistane zakliuchaetsia mezhdu rodstvennikami,” Deutsche Welle, November 15, 2010, http://­www​.­dw​.­com​/­ru​/­kazhdyi​ -­tretii​-­brak​-­v​-­Tadzhikistane​-­zakliuchaetsia​-­ mezhdu-­rodstvennikami/a-6225549. This preference is not new. A study in Dushanbe in the early 1980s found that one-­third of Tajik ­women ­were married to cousins. Harris, Control and Subversion, 105. 5. ­Others have claimed that ­these statistics are exaggerated. “Zapret na krovnorodsvennye braki v Tadzhikistane uzhestochat’,” Tengri News, March 27, 2013, https://­ tengrinews​.­kz​/­sng​/­zapret​-­na​-­krovnorodstvennyie​-­braki​-­v​-­tadjikistane​-­ujestochat​ -­230866​/­. See also Farangis Najibullah and Orzu Karim, “In Tajikistan, Too Much Cousin Love Could Be Causing Birth Defects,” Radio F ­ ree Eu­rope/Radio Liberty, March 21, 2015, https://­www​.­rferl​.­org​/­a​/­tajikistan​-­debates​-­keeping​-­marriage​-­outside​ -­the​-­family​/­26913057​.­html. 6. Jakupov, Shala Kazakh, 9–10. 7. On Oralmans and their impact on the cultural and linguistic landscape in Kazakhstan, see Zharkynbekova and Bokayev, “Global Transformations in Kazakhstani Society,” 247–278. On Kazakh migration from Mongolia, see Diener, One Homeland or Two. 8. On the role of regional identities in the Tajik civil war of the 1990s, see Nourzhanov and Bleuer, Tajikistan, chap. 9 and epilogue. 9. Sophie Roche, “Maintaining, Dissolving and Remaking Group Bound­aries through Marriage: The Case of Khujand in the Ferghana Valley,” in Edgar and Frommer, Intermarriage from Central Eu­rope to Central Asia. 10. Golam Mustafa, “The Concept of Eurasia: Kazakhstan’s Eurasian Policy and Its Implications,” Journal of Eurasian Studies 4 (2013): 160–170; Diener, “Imagining Kazakhstani-­stan,” 131–136. 11. Interview with Lesia Karatayeva, Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 19, 2010. 12. Interview with “Ruslan Isayev,” Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 20, 2010. 13. Interview with “Ruslan Isayev.” On the opposition of Kazakh nationalists to “Kazakhstani” identity, see Marlene Laruelle, “Which F ­ uture for National-­Patriots? The Landscape of Kazakh Nationalism,” in Kazakhstan in the Making: Legitimacy, Symbols, and Social Changes, ed. Marlene Laruelle (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016), 166. 14. Similarly, some Rus­sians have a negative attitude ­toward the concept of Rossiia or rossiiskii, referring to the Rus­sian state, which they view as a continuation of a nonethnic Soviet identity. Zakharov, Attaining Whiteness, 12. 15. Interview with Nikolai Hon, Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 5, 2010. 16. Diener, “Imagining Kazakhstani-­stan,” 137–141; Laruelle, “Which F ­ uture,” 160– 163; Joanna Lillis, “Astana Follows Thorny Path t­oward National Unity,” Eurasianet​ .­ com, April  29, 2010, https://­eurasianet​.­org​/­astana​-­follows​-­thorny​-­path​-­toward​ -­national​-­unity. The Assembly of P ­ eoples of Kazakhstan was created by Kazakhstan’s president Nursultan Nazarbayev in 1995 as a consultative body devoted to implementing state policy on nationalities. Diener, “Imagining Kazakhstani-­stan,” 137–138. See also Dave, Kazakhstan, 131–132.

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TO PAGES 191– 196

17. Joanna Lillis, “Kazakhstan: How Deep Does Ethnic Harmony Go?” Eurasianet​ .­com, May 19, 2011, https://­eurasianet​.­org​/­kazakhstan​-­how​-­deep​-­does​-­ethnic​-­harm​ ony​-­go. 18. On March 20, 2013, the Kazakhstani online journal Vox Populi published a photo essay titled “Love without Borders,” featuring interviews with ethnically mixed ­couples (https://­www​.­voxpopuli​.­kz​/­main​/­983​-­lyubov​-­bez​-­granits​.­html). For a reproduction of a billboard advertisement featuring a mixed c­ ouple, see Adrienne Edgar and Saule Ualiyeva, “The ‘Laboratory of ­Peoples’ Friendship’: ­People of Mixed Descent in Kazakhstan from the Soviet Era to the Pre­sent,” in King-­O’Riain et al., Global Mixed Race, 68. 19. Vladislav Shpakov, “Ob”iavliaiu vas muzhem i tokal,” Express K, no. 151 (17266), August 19, 2011, http://­old​.­express​-­k​.­kz​/­show​_­article​.­php​?­art​_­id​=5­ 6732. 20. Askhat Kasenghali, “Aralas neke nege qauipti?” abai.kz, February 12, 2018, https://­abai​.­kz​.­post​/­65949. The author is referring to the Rus­sian tsar Peter the ­Great and the Kazakh khan Abylai (sometimes spelled Ablai). 21. Umit Jumadilova, “Aralas neke bayandy bola ma?” Kazakh gasetteri, December 27, 2017, http://­kazgazeta​.­kz​/­​?­p​=6­ 3332. 22. Ainagul Bekeyeva, “Parlamentarii nedovol’ny moral’nym oblikom kazakhskoi zhenshchiny v kino i reklame,” Zakon.kz, March 31, 2010, https://­www​.­zakon​.­kz​ /­page,1,5,167788​-­parlamentarii​-­nedovolny​-­moralnym​.­html. 23. Interview with Marina Abdrahmanova, Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 15, 2010. 24. Interview with “Ruslan Isayev.” 25. Interview with Valentina Geiger, Shymkent, Kazakhstan, October 2012. 26. Interview with “Maira Ahmetova,” Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 11, 2010. 27. Interview with Nikolai Hon. 28. Interview with “Kuralai Zheksembaeva,” Shymkent, Kazakhstan, October 2012. 29. Interview with “Kuralai Zheksembaeva.” 30. Interview with Irina Klimenko, Shymkent, Kazakhstan, October 2012. 31. Nourzhanov and Bleuer, Tajikistan, 6, 335–336. 32. Sofia Kasymova, “Rasshiriaia granitsy: Mezhetnicheskie i mezhkonfessional’nye braki v post-­sovetskom Tadzhikistane (na primere brakov Tadzhikskikh zhenshchin s inostrantsami),” Laboratorium no. 3 (2010): 126–127. 33. Kasymova, “Rasshiriaia granitsy,” 129. 34. Galim Faskhutdinov, “Zachem v Tadzhikistane vvodiat novye pravila, kasaiushchiesia brakov s inostrantsami,” Deutsche Welle, February  2, 2011, https://­www​.­dw​ .­com​/­r u​/­zachem​-­v​-­Tadzhikistane​-­vvodiat​-­novye​-­pravila​-­k asaiushchiesia​-­brakov​-­s​ -­inostrantsami​/­a​-­14811658​-­0. 35. Hafiz Boboyorov, “Translocal Securityscapes of Tajik L ­ abor Mi­grants and the Families and Communities They Left ­Behind,” in Tajikistan on the Move: Statebuilding and Societal Transformations, ed. Marlene Laruelle (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2018), 227. 36. Faskhutdinov, “Zachem v Tadzhikistane”; see also “Tajikistan Complicates Marriages Between Foreigners, Tajik ­Women,” Radio ­Free Eu­rope/Radio Liberty, January 26, 2011, https://­www​.­rferl​.­org​/­a​/­tajikistan​_­marriage​_­foreigners​_­women​/­2288545​.­html. 37. See Michele Commercio, “ ‘A ­Woman without a Man Is a Kazan without a Lid’: Polygyny in Tajikistan,” in Laruelle, Tajikistan on the Move, 179. 38. Juliette Cleuziou, “ ‘A Second Wife Is Not ­Really a Wife’: Polygyny, Gender Relations, and Economic Realities in Tajikistan,” Central Asian Survey 35, no. 1 (2016):

NOTES TO PA GES 196– 201

259

76–90. A Rus­sian wife provides a pathway to Rus­sian citizenship for many Tajik mi­ grants. See Boboyorov, “Translocal Securityscapes of Tajik L ­ abor Mi­g rants,” 236–237. Polygyny has made a comeback in post-­Soviet Kazakhstan as well. The practice was decriminalized in 1998. See Commercio, “A W ­ oman Without a Man,” 177–178. 39. Firuza Umarzoda, “Osobennosti tadzhikskogo natsionalizma,” Azia Plus, gazeta novogo Tajikistana, July 8, 2013, reprinted on Stanradar​.­com, July 9, 2013, https://­ stanradar​.­com​/­news​/­f ull​/­3469​-­osobennosti​-­tadzhikskogo​-­natsionalizma​.­html. Some scholars argued that the increase in polygyny is related to a gender imbalance caused by ­labor migration and the 1990s civil war. Commercio argues that polygyny was also practiced illicitly in the Soviet era, but that it has become more overt in in­de­ pen­dent Tajikistan. “A W ­ oman without a Man,” 179, 181. See also Harris, Control and Subversion, 111–112. 40. Umarzoda, “Osobennosti tadzhikskogo natsionalizma.” 41. Interview with Ekaterina Ruzieva, Sughd region, Tajikistan, October 11, 2010. 42. Interview with “Dilbar,” Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2010. 43. Interview with Bahriniso Abdurahmonova, Karakum, Tajikistan, August 2, 2011. 44. Interview with Dilbar Khojayeva, Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2011. 45. Thread titled “Krasota smeshannykh krovei. Fotografii detei ot roditelei raznykh natsional’nostei,” Facebook group “Ia liubliu Khujand,” November 15, 2018. 46. Interview with “Irina Abdulayeva,” Öskemen, Kazakhstan, September 21, 2011. 47. Interview with “Daria Kim,” Öskemen, Kazakhstan, February 14, 2008. 48. Interview with “Arhat Isayev,” Shymkent, Kazakhstan, October 2012. 49. Interview with Timur Sergazinov, Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 5, 2010. 50. Interview with Timur Sergazinov. 51. Interview with Susanna Morozova, Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 10, 2010. 52. Interview with Timur Sergazinov. 53. Interview with Erzhan Baiburin, Öskemen, Kazakhstan, September 19, 2011. 54. “Eksperty podschitali kolichestvo mezhetnicheskikh brakov v Kazakhstane,” Respublikanskaia gazeta karavan, March 24, 2014, https://­www​.­nur​.­kz​/­307228​-­eksperty​ -­podschitali​-­kolichestvo​-­mezhetnicheskih​-­brakov​-­v​-­k azahstane​.­html. ­These figures come from Kazakh sociologist and demographer Saule Ualiyeva. 55. Fierman, “Language and Education,” 110. 56. “Eksperty podschitali kolichestvo mezhetnicheskikh brakov.” A total of 712,000 Rus­sians, Ukrainians, and Belorus­sians left Kazakhstan between 1989 and 1995. Landau and Kellner-­Heinkele, Politics of Language, 42. 57. Angela Injigolyan, “Mezhetnicheskie braki v Kazakhstane (po materialiam sotsiologicheskogo issledovaniia),” Diaspory: Nezavisymyi nauchnyi zhurnal, no.  2 (2014): 96–114. 58. Injigolian, “Mezhetnicheskie braki,” 98–100. 59. Injigolian, “Mezhetnicheskie braki, 100–101, 114. 60. “Eksperty podschitali kolichestvo mezhetnicheskikh brakov.” See also Dariga Bekbosunova, “Osobennosti mezhnatsiona’nykh brakov v Kazakhstane,” Dialogue (Kazakhstan), August  2, 2009, http://­www​.­dialog​.­kz​/­articles​/­kultura​/­2009​-­08​-­02​/­dariga​ -­bekbosunova​-­osobennosti​-­mezhnacionalnyh​-­brakov​-­v​-­kazahstane. 61. Dariga Bekbusonova, “Mezhnatsional’nye braki: Pro et contra,” Zona kz, August 24, 2006, https://­online​.­zakon​.­kz​/­Document​/­​?­doc​_­id​=3­ 0066936#pos​=5­ ;​-­91.

26 0 NOTES

TO PAGES 201– 206

62. “Eksperty podschitali kolichestvo mezhetnicheskikh brakov.” 63. Interview with “Ruslan Isaev.” 64. Interview with “Maria Iskanderova,” Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 3, 2010. 65. Landau and Kellner-­Heineke, Politics of Language, 42, 49. 66. Kamoludin Abdullaev and Shahram Akbarzadeh, Historical Dictionary of Tajikistan, 2nd ed. (Plymouth, UK: Scarecrow Press, 2010), 7, 309. 67. Mehrinisso Nagzibekova, “Language and Education Policies in Tajikistan,” in Multilingualism in Post-­Soviet Countries, ed. Aneta Pavlenko (Bristol, UK: Multilingual ­Matters, 2008), 228. The declining population of Uzbeks is due at least in part to Uzbeks redefining themselves as Tajiks for pragmatic purposes. The prevalence of Uzbek-­ Tajik bilingualism and Tajik-­Uzbek mixed marriages ease such identity changes. On fluid identity bound­aries in post-­Soviet Uzbekistan, see Peter Finke, Variations on Uzbek Identity: Strategic Choices, Cognitive Schemas and Po­liti­cal Constraints in Identification Pro­cesses (New York: Berghahn Books, 2014), 51, 89, 93. 68. Kasymova, “Rasshiriaia granitsy,” 131. 69. See Faskhutdinov, “Zachem v Tadzhikistane vvodiat novye pravila.” 70. Kasymova, “Rasshiriaia granitsy,” 127, 140 71. Kasymova, “Rasshiriaia granitsy,” 135–141. 72. Kasymova, “Rasshiriaia granitsy,” 135–43. Zakharov argues that “civilized” was a code word for racial whiteness in the Soviet Union and continues to have this meaning in post-­Soviet Rus­sia. Nikolay Zakharov, Attaining Whiteness: A Study of Race and Racialization in Rus­sia (Uppsala, Sweden: Uppsala University Press, 2013). 73. Juldyz Smagulova argues that between the 1960s and 1980s many Kazakh parents “­adopted Rus­sian as the language of child rearing.” See “The re-­acquisition of Kazakh in Kazakhstan: achievements and challenges,” in Language Change in Central Asia, ed. Elise Ahn and Juldyz Smagulova (Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2016), 94. On the dominance of Rus­sian in Soviet Kazakhstan, see also Dave, Kazakhstan, chap. 3. 74. Smagulova, “The Re-­acquisition of Kazakh in Kazakhstan,” 96; Fierman, “Language and Education,” 106, 111–112. 75. Interview with Marina Abdurahmanova. 76. Interview with “Maria Ahmetova.” 77. Omsk is a Rus­sian city in southern Siberia, close to the Kazakh border. Interview with Timur Sergazinov. 78. Interview with “Maira Ahmetova.” 79. Lieberson, A ­Matter of Taste, 268. 80. Lieberson, A ­Matter of Taste, 271. This may help to explain why ­people throughout the former Soviet Union still use Rus­sian to communicate with each other. 81. Interview with “Maira Ahmetova.” 82. Interview with Valentina Geiger. 83. Interview with Nadezhda Konstaniants, Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 7, 2010. 84. Interview with Nadezhda Konstaniants. 85. Gary C. Fouse, The Languages of the Former Soviet Republics: Their History and Development (Lanham, MD: University Press of Amer­i­ca, 2000), 314; Nagzibekova, “Language and Education Policies in Tajikistan,” 231. 86. Nagzibekova, “Language and Education Policies in Tajikistan,” 229–230. 87. Institute for War and Peace Reporting and Mahasti Dustmurod, “Uzbek-­Language Education Declines in Tajikistan,” Chalkboard, June  12, 2014, http://­chalkboard​.­tol​.­org​

NOTES TO PA GES 206– 213

261

/­uzbek​-­language​-­education​-­declines​-­in​-­tajikistan​/­; Dilshod Rahmonov, “77 shkol na vsiu stranu: Kak uchatsia v Tadzhikistane na uzbekskom iazyke?” Asia Plus, June 13, 2018, https://­asiaplustj​.­info​/­news​/­tajikistan​/­society​/­20180613​/­77​-­shkol​-­na​-­vsyu​-­stranu​-­kak​ -­uchatsya​-­v​-­tadzhikistane​-­na​-­uzbekskom​-­yazike. 88. Nagzibekova, “Language and Education Policies in Tajikistan,” 232. 89. Interview with Larisa Mamadzohirova, Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2011. 90. Farangis Najibullah, “No Shortage of Students as Tajikistan Builds New Rus­ sian Schools,” Radio ­Free Eu­rope/Radio Liberty, January 18, 2020, https://­www​.­rferl​ .­org​/­a​/­tajikistan​-­new​-­russian​-­schools​/­30384557​.­html. 91. Interview with Timur Sergazinov. 92. Interview with Sazhida Dmitrieva, Öskemen, Kazakhstan, April 7, 2010. 93. Interview with Susanna Morozova. 94. Interview with “Kuralai Zhemsekbayeva.” 95. Interview with Larisa Niyazova, Shymkent, Kazakhstan, October 2012. 96. Interview with “Aigerim Semenova,” Öskemen, Kazakhstan, September 22, 2011. 97. World Population Review, Tajikistan population as of August 2019. http://­ worldpopulationreview​.­com​/­countries​/­tajikistan​-­population​/­. 98. Nourzhanov and Bleuer, Tajikistan, chap. 8. 99. David Trilling, “Tajikistan Mulls Ban on Muslim Names,” Eurasianet​.­com, May 5, 2015, https://­eurasianet​.­org​/­tajikistan​-­mulls​-­ban​-­on​-­muslim​-­names. 100. Interview with Irina Domulojonova, Khujand, Tajikistan, July 2011. 101. Interview with Dilbar Khojayeva. 102. Interview with Lola Tuychiboyeva, Khujand, Tajikistan, October 1, 2010. 103. Interview with Tatiana Soliboyeva, Khujand, Tajikistan, October 9, 2010. 104. Interview with Tatiana Soliboyeva. 105. Interview with Jamila Rahimova, Sughd region, Tajikistan, October 23, 2010. 106. See Cynthia Werner, “Bride Abduction in Post-­Soviet Central Asia: Marking a Shift ­towards Patriarchy through Local Discourses of Shame and Tradition,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 15, no. 2 (2009): 314–331; Michele E. Commercio, “The Politics and Economics of ‘Retraditionalization’ in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan,” Post-­Soviet Affairs 31, no.  6 (2015): 529–556; Kudaibergenova, “Proj­ect Kelin,” 379–390. 107. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). 108. Deniz Kandiyoti, “The Politics of Gender and the Soviet Paradox: Neither Colonized, nor Modern?” Central Asian Survey 26, no. 4 (2007): 601–623. 109. Bromlei, “Etnos i endogamiia,” 84–91; see also Bromlei, Ocherki teorii etnosa, 338–382. 110. Laruelle, Rus­sian Eurasianism, 178. Kazakhstan even has a university named ­after Gumilev. 111. Laruelle, “Concept of Ethnogenesis,” 169–188. Conclusion

1. Jeff Sahadeo found Central Asian mi­g rants in Rus­sia similarly reluctant to use the term “race” or admit to racism in Soviet society. See Sahadeo, Voices from the Soviet Edge, chap. 4.

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TO PAGES 214– 219

2. Yurchak argues that Soviet citizens did not take official discourse at face value but treated its utterance as a kind of per­for­mance. Alexei Yurchak, Every­thing Was Forever, ­Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation (Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 2005), 75–76. 3. Whittington, “Forging Soviet Citizens,” 4, 8; Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire, 461. 4. Whittington, “Forging Soviet Citizens,” 225–238. 5. On being si­mul­ta­neously Soviet and national in Central Asia, see Florin, Kirgistan und die sowjetische Moderne; Tasar, Soviet and Muslim. Appendix I

1. Lynn Abrams, Oral History Theory, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2016), 58–63. 2. Selma Leyesdorff, Luisa Passerini, and Paul Thompson, eds., International Yearbook of Oral History and Life Stories, vol. 4, Gender and Memory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 3. The editors note that t­ hese studies have mainly focused on North Amer­i­ca and may not be generalizable to other parts of the world. See also Sherbakova, The Gulag in Memory, 113–114.

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Index

Abdrahmanova, Marina: ­children’s names of, 155–56; on division of ­labor, 106; on early ­family life, 171–72; on education, 180; on ethnic purity campaigns, 193; identity of, 122; on internationalism, 1; on language in interethnic families, 161, 168–69, 170, 203 Abdulayeva, Irina (pseud.), 59–60, 146, 197 Abdulghaniev, Ahmetshakur, 52–53, 70–71 Abdurahmonova, Bahriniso, 61–62, 87, 113, 122–23, 196 Abdusamatova, Gulmira, 62–63, 114–15 Abramson, David, 119 Abramzon, S. M., 24–25, 93, 94, 166 Achylova, R., 25 agricultural collectivization and famine, 7, 13, 46, 111 Ahmedova, Gulnara, 125 Ahmetova, Aliya (pseud.), 77–78, 87–88, 110, 127–30, 138, 152, 183 Ahmetova, Maira (pseud.): ­children’s names of, 154–55; gender norms and, 97, 107, 111–13; on linguistic assimilation, 173; on public perception of ethnic mixing, 72–73, 194, 204; on religion, 79; on Rus­sians, 99 Akilov, Talgat, 43, 98, 101, 121, 149 Amirshoeva, Saodat, 196 Anaklychev, Sh. S., 25 Anthropological Journal, 22 archival rec­ords, 7, 13–14 arranged marriages: agreement to, 96; of interfaith marriages, 64; in Muslim families, 45; in Tajikistan, 49, 90–91, 95, 188, 211, 243n9 Arutiunian, Iu. V., 233n67 Arutiunian, Yuri, 29 assimilation: cultural adaptation, 68–71, 79–84, 89; defined, 30, 37; naming practices and, 143–45, 153, 154–59;

study of, 9–10, 119; Terent’eva on, 38. See also linguistic assimilation; “Soviet ­people,” as nationality Australia, 9, 10 Bagramov, Eduard, 37 Baiburin, Erzhan, 124, 156, 174, 199 Bassin, Mark, 33 bilingualism, 161–62. See also linguistic assimilation birth order, 95 Boboyev, Elmira, 64, 74, 176 Boboyev, Ilhom, 64, 74, 135, 176 Boboyeva, Lutfiya, 62, 98, 176–77 Bolshevik Revolution (1917), 2, 3, 19–20, 75, 78, 241n52 Brezhnev, Leonid, 29 bride kidnapping, 210 Briusina, Olga, 36, 47 Bromlei, Iu. V., 25–26, 28–32, 37–38, 211 camels, 149–50, 251n34 ­children of interethnic marriages: arranged marriages for, 91–92; birth defects and, 188; cele­bration of, 196–97; cultural adaptation of, 70–71, 111–12; ethnic identity of, 6, 8, 116–19, 132–39, 196; ­family responses to, 48–49; list of Hollywood stars, 192; official nationality of, 8, 117–27; religious faith of, 206–10; from unhappy marriages, 88. See also interethnic marriages; naming practices China, 189 Chris­tian­ity. See Rus­sian Orthodox Chris­tian­ity Chuiko, L. V., 17 civil war, 32, 188, 196, 201, 205, 259n39. See also war brides; World War II Clements, Barbara, 100 clothing, 47, 71, 103–4, 245n60 279

28 0 I NDE X

collapse of Soviet Union, 4, 187 Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU): intermarriage and, 58–59, 67; on nationality, 20, 23–24 cultural adaptation, 68–71, 79–84, 89. See also linguistic assimilation; religious faith and marriage Dagestan, 34, 38 Dalekaia Nevesta (musical comedy), 57 Davydova, Liudmila (pseud.), 88, 123, 127, 133, 137 Day of the International Solidarity of Workers, 241n52 De Gobineau, Artur, 21 demographic changes, 187–88. See also nationality diet, Rus­sian influence on, 93 Dikaia Sobaka Dingo (film), 58 dionymy, 252n39 division of ­labor, 104–6. See also gender norms divorce, 86–89, 123 Dmitrieva, Sazhida: ­family of, 50–51, 54–55, 116; on gender norms, 122; identity of, 100; linguistic assimilation of, 180; name of, 147, 158; religion of, 78, 79, 207 Domulojonova, Irina, 73–74, 81–82, 85, 147–48, 209 Dragadze, Tamara, 35 Drobizheva, Leokadia, 29 “Eastern woman,” as term, 100–103, 111, 115. See also gender norms education: in Kazakhstan, 174–75, 203; policy reforms on, 163–64; in Tajikistan, 176–78. See also linguistic assimilation elder ­family members and interfaith marriages, 77–79, 88 endogamy, 31–34, 38, 39, 188, 211, 238n36 Estonia, 2, 38, 43, 235n104, 238n31, 242n72 ethnic identity: biological theories on, 5–6, 18–22; of ­children of interethnic marriages, 6, 8, 116–19; deception of, 12; marginalization of, 127–32; mass deportations due to, 5, 7, 13, 19, 46; official miscategorization of, 12; in post-­Soviet Kazakhstan, 187–88, 190–95, 197–99; in post-­Soviet Tajikistan, 187–88, 195–99; Soviet collapse and, 187–88. See also ethnic identity; naming practices; nationality; social hierarchy

ethnicity, as term, 227n25 ethnic pro­cesses, 23, 25–26, 29, 30–31, 35, 37–38 Ethnogenesis and the Biosphere (Gumilev), 32, 33 ethnography: in 1920s Soviet Union, 21; in 1960–1980s Soviet Union, 10–11, 18; on identity, 2, 5; intermarriage and theory of, 37–41; reinvention of, 22–26 ethnos, as term, 5 “Ethnos and Endogamy” (Bromlei), 31, 38 ethnos theory, 28–34 eugenics, 18, 21–22, 31 evacuations during war, 7, 19, 46, 69 Evdakimova, Lidia, 48, 71–72, 151 evil eye, 146 Evstigneev, Iu. A., 35–36 expressed identity, 247n13. See also ethnic identity external identity, 247n13. See also ethnic identity famine, 7, 13, 46, 111 Fisher, Wesley, 228n34 Gans, Herbert, 83–84 Geiger, Valentina, 194, 204–5 gender equality, 104–9. See also gender norms; ­women’s work gender norms: in clothing, 47, 71, 103–4, 245n60; division of ­labor, 104–6; “Eastern woman” and, 100–103, 111, 115; linguistic assimilation and, 161, 162–63, 170–73; in Muslim society, 92–93, 98, 100; Soviet collapse and, 187. See also gender equality; ­women’s work ge­ne­tics: as field of study, 5, 18, 21, 25; on identity theories, 105, 187, 212 Georgia, 2, 73, 238n31, 242n72 Germany: antimixing policies in, 9, 18, 41; intermarriage in, 25; naming practices in, 145; social scientists in, 21. See also Nazism Grant, Madison, 21 Grigorievna, Lidia, 69 Gulag imprisonment, 7, 13, 46 Gumilev, Lev Nikolaevich, 32–33, 211, 212, 234n87, 234nn81–84 Gumilev, Nikolai, 32 Hamidova, Maria, 52, 72, 108, 147 historical truth vs. memory, 13–14 Hitler, Adolf, 21. See also Nazism Hobsbawm, Eric, 211

I NDE X 281 Hon, Nikolai, 191, 194 hunger, 7, 13, 46, 111 hypogamy, 232n44 Iarkho, Arkadii I., 22 Ibrayev, Kamal (pseud.), 43, 80, 82–83, 126, 179 Ingush, 88, 123, 125, 127, 170, 186 Injigolian, Angela, 200 Institute of Ethnography and Anthropology, 26, 213 interethnic marriages: academic studies on, 34–37; of common religion, 61–66; as defined by the Soviet state, 2–3; discord and divorce in, 86–89; ethnography and, 37–41; gender equality in, 104–9; linguistic assimilation in, 166–73; naming practices and, 146–51; new trends in, 199–202; of Perestroika era, 53–61; in post-­Soviet Central Asia, 189–99; Soviet-­style, 71–74; successful characteristics of, 84–86; war brides, 46–53. See also ­children of interethnic marriages; naming practices; religious faith and marriage interfaith marriage. See religious faith and marriage internal identity, 247n13. See also ethnic identity internationalism, 1, 153, 154–60, 212–15 International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, 26 Isayev, Arhat, 106, 198 Isayev, Ruslan (pseud.), 54, 120, 173, 190–91 Iskandarov, Rustam, 51–52, 57, 109, 133, 134–35, 136, 140 Iskanderova, Maria (pseud.), 103, 109, 130–32, 171, 201 Islam: interethnic marriages and, 206–9; in Kazakhstan, 75; marriage customs of, 45, 109–10; Muslim-­Muslim marriages, 24, 61–66, 76; Soviet state on w ­ omen’s rights in, 92–93 “Is Mixed Marriage Stable?” (Jumadilova), 193 Ivanov, M. S., 31–32, 33–34 Jewish communities, 229n55 Julchieva, Elena, 81, 102, 125 Jumadilova, Umit, 193 Kandiyoti, Deniz, 211 Karatayeva, Lesia, 78, 104, 123, 133, 155, 175, 190

Kasenghali, Askhat, 192–93 Kasymova, Sofia, 202 Kazakh-­Korean marriages, 6, 15 Kazakh-­Russian marriages, 99, 101–2, 110, 135, 200–201 Kazakhstan, 227n18; education in, 174–75, 203; identity in post-­Soviet, 187–88, 190–95, 197–99; interethnic marriages in, 40, 60–61; linguistic assimilation in, 164–65; naming practices in, 142–51; nationality statistics in, 7; national-­ territorial history in, 7, 20; religious faith in, 75; traditional marriage customs of, 69 Kazakh-­Tatar marriages, 61, 62, 68, 127, 128–29 Khojayeva, Dilbar, 134, 136, 196–97 Khrushchev, Nikita, 23, 133, 163, 248n53 Kim, Daria (pseud.), 55, 197–98 Kim, Hyun (pseud.), 88–89, 98, 99 Klimenko, Irina, 134, 195 Konstaniants, Nadezhda, 72–73, 100–101, 106–8, 205 Korean-­K azakh marriages, 6, 15 Korean-­Russian marriages, 88–89, 98–99, 111, 137 korenizatsiia, 20, 161 Kozlov, V. I., 35 kulaks, 13, 19, 168 Kurban Bairam, 76 Kyrgyz-­Russian marriages, 93 Kyrgyzstan, 90, 210, 227n18 ­labor migration, 195, 202, 259n39. See also migrations Laitin, David, 165, 185 language. See linguistic assimilation Lapouge, Georges, 21 Leinarte, Dalia, 13 Leninist state policies, 19–20, 174 Lezgians, 113 Lieberson, Stanley, 204 linguistic assimilation, 38–39, 185–86; bilingualism, 161–62; gendered influence on, 162–63, 170–73; in interethnic families, 68, 71–72, 161, 166–70, 203; official state policies on, 20, 29, 161, 163–66, 174; in post-­Soviet Central Asia, 204–6; shame and, 183–85, 204–5; in United States, 254n30. See also assimilation; cultural adaptation; education; nationality linguistic diversity, 18–19, 50

28 2 I NDE X

living conditions, 50, 237n26 Lysenko, Trofim, 5 Makhsumova, Marina, 85–86, 94, 95–96 Mamadzohirova, Larisa, 137, 149, 172 Martsevich, Anastasia, 101, 158–59 Marx, Karl, 29, 31 Masov, Rahim, 196 mass deportations, 5, 7, 13, 19, 46 Mengel, Laurie, 121 mestizaje, 10 Mexican immigrants, naming practices of, 145, 251n15 migrations: for ­labor, 195, 259n39; mass internal, 45, 188, 254n30; in Tajikistan, 208 Mirzorahimova, Natalia, 104 mixed marriages. See interethnic marriages Mongolia, 189, 250n9 morality, 57, 59, 97, 98, 195 Morning, Ann, 9 Morozova, Susanna, 72, 108, 125, 127, 157–58, 178–79, 207 Mukarram (pseud.), 113–14, 176 Muslim-­Muslim marriages, 24, 61–66. See also Islam; religious faith and marriage Muslim-­Russian marriages, 43–45, 46–53, 68 Nahipova, Madina, 67, 85, 111 naming practices, 140–42, 159–60; in Britain, 250n11; dionymy, 252n39; forcible renaming state policies, 250n12; of interethnic marriages, 146–51; internationalism and, 153, 154–59; in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, 142–46, 251n34; in Mongolia, 250n9; of nuclear families, 152–54; in Turkey, 144; two-­name solution, 151–52. See also ­children of interethnic marriages; ethnic identity nationality: of ­children of interethnic marriages, 8, 117–27; Khrushchev on, 23, 133, 248n53; official miscategorization of, 12; on Soviet passports, 2, 7, 117–19, 122–26, 133, 137–38, 185, 213–14, 249n61; of a “Soviet p­ eople,” 1–3, 213–14, 231n33; Stalin on, 5; as term used by Soviet state, 9; transcending, 132–39. See also ethnic identity; linguistic assimilation; names of specific nations natsional’nost,’ as term, 2, 29

Naumova, Olga, 33, 37, 62, 252n46 Nazarbayev, Nursultan, 190 Nazarova, Nargiza, 77, 136, 137, 178 Nazarova, Ra’no, 84–85, 104, 137–38, 177 Nazism, 9, 13, 21, 145. See also Germany New Zealand, 9 Nikolaeva, Katia (pseud.), 156–57 Niyazova, Larisa, 60–61, 78–79, 82, 83, 101, 149–51, 208 oral history interviews, 7, 10–11, 14, 217–19 orphanages, 113–14 Oshurova, Muborak, 109, 151 Parker, David, 27 passport nationality, 2, 7, 117–19, 122–26, 133, 137–38, 185, 213–14, 249n61. See also nationality polygamy, 210 polygyny, 195–96, 259n38, 259n39 Potapov, L. P., 30 Pushkin, Alexander, 132 racism: against Africans, 132; in interethnic marriages, 110–11; Soviet’s dismissal of, 2, 5, 9, 139, 261n1; in United States, 2, 9, 17. See also social hierarchy Rahimova, Jamila, 74, 75, 80, 90–91, 122, 126, 133, 136–37, 210 Rahimova, Mavjuda, 182 Rahimova, Vera, 42–43, 67, 69, 84, 151 Rahmon, Emomali, 196 Ranger, Terence, 211 religious diversity, 19 religious faith and marriage, 74–84; ­children of interethnic marriages and, 206–10; interethnic but common, 61–66; of Muslims-­Russians, 43–45, 46–53; naming practices and, 143. See also cultural adaptation; interethnic marriages; religious diversity research methods, 7, 10–11, 14–15, 217–19 Roche, Sophie, 189 romantic love, 48, 54, 243n8 Rus­sian Acad­emy of Sciences, 213 Rus­sian Eugenic Journal, 21, 22 Rus­sian Eugenic Society, 22 Russian-­K azakh marriages, 99, 101–2, 110, 135, 200–201 Russian-­Korean marriages, 88–89, 98–99, 111, 137 Russian-­Kyrgyz marriages, 93

I NDE X 283 Rus­sian language. See linguistic assimilation Russian-­Muslim marriages, 43–45, 46–53, 68 Rus­sian Orthodox Chris­tian­ity: interethnic marriages and, 19, 76, 82, 83, 206–9; in Kazakhstan, 75; traditions of, 71 Russian-­Tatar marriages, 50–51, 93, 123–24 Russification. See assimilation Ruziev, Mirzosharif, 177 Ruzieva, Ekaterina, 196 Saliyeva, Maria, 49, 69, 76, 147 Sattorova, Ma’suda, 62, 176 Satyboldinova, Fatima, 64–66, 99, 126, 175 sblizhenie natsii, 233n67 Schoeberlein, John, 34 Semenova, Aigerim (pseud.), 77, 125–26, 180, 208 Sergazinov, Timur, 106, 126, 153–54, 167–68, 198–99, 203, 206–7 shala-­K azakh, as term, 62 shame, 183–85, 204–5 social hierarchy, 49, 126. See also ethnic identity; racism social sciences on nationality and race, 17–18, 20–21 sociology, as field of study, 26–28 Soliboyeva, Tatiana, 55–57, 102, 126, 148, 209–10 Song, Miri, 27 South Africa, 9, 25, 41, 246n5 Sovetskaiia etnografiia (publication), 31 Soviet Acad­emy of Sciences, 23, 26–27, 30, 37 Soviet ethnography. See ethnography Soviet internationalism. See internationalism “Soviet ­people,” as nationality, 1–3, 213–14, 231n33. See also assimilation; nationality spetskhran, 26, 27 Stalin, Joseph, 5, 19–20, 21 Staniukovich, T. V., 36 status caste exchange, 232n44 Stoler, Ann, 10 Strangers Next Door (Williams), 28 Suny, Ronald G., 4–5, 125 Susokolov, Alexander, 12, 29, 87, 242n72 Svinarka i Pastukh (film), 57–58 Tajikistan, 227n18; clothing in, 47, 71; education in, 176–78; identity in post-­Soviet, 187–88, 195–99, 205–6; interethnic marriages in, 51–52, 95,

113; linguistic assimilation in, 165; migrations in, 208; naming practices in, 142–51; nationality statistics in, 7–8; national-­territorial history in, 7, 20, 134–35; Tajik, as category, 227n22; traditional marriage customs in, 48–49, 58, 69, 90–91, 95, 188, 211, 243n9 Tajik-­Russian marriages, 110, 113–14 Tajik-­Uzbek marriages, 11, 15, 19, 24, 39, 45, 61–62, 82, 260n67 Tatar-­K azakh marriages, 61, 62, 68, 127, 128–29 Tatar-­Russian marriages, 50–51, 93, 123–24 Tatarstan, 40, 50–51, 62, 93, 238n31 Terent’eva, L. N., 38–39 Tleubayeva, Saltanat (pseud.), 73, 111, 148–49, 181–82, 184–85 Tleukhan, Bekbolat, 193 Tokarev, S. A., 33 Tolstov, S. P., 23, 24, 30, 233n63 Tolstoy, Leo, 86 Toomer, Jean, 138–39 Troegubova, Tatiana, 192 truth vs. memory, 13–14 tsarist state policies, 18–19 Tumarkin, D. D., 31, 33 Turkish naming practices, 144. See also naming practices Turkmenistan, 2, 25, 57, 93–94, 227n18 Tuychiboyeva, Alla, 47, 49–50, 69–70, 91 Tuychiboyeva, Lola, 91–92, 138, 209 Umarova, Svetlana, 58–59, 70 United States: antimixing policies of, 2, 9, 17; linguistic assimilation in, 254n30; mixed marriage in, 25, 117, 214, 239n77; naming practices in, 145; as race-­based society, 6 Urunboyev, Kamoliddin, 169 Usmanova, Klara, 82, 120–21 USSR. See u­ nder Soviet Uzbekistan, 227n18; intermarriage rates in, 25; national-­territorial history in, 20 Uzbek language, 97, 205–6 Uzbek-­Tajik marriages, 11, 15, 19, 24, 39, 45, 61–62, 82, 260n67 Vizer, Svetlana, 52–53, 70–71, 123–24, 133, 152, 168 Volkova, Natalia, 74

28 4 I NDE X

war. See World War II war brides, 46–53. See also civil war; World War II Whittington, Anna, 214 Williams, Gertrude Marvin, 131 Williams, Robin, 28 ­women’s work: during and ­after the war, 47–48; in agriculture, 64; in domestic life, 104–6. See also gender equality; gender norms World War II: demographic shifts due to, 46; evacuations during, 7, 19, 46, 69;

famine due to, 7, 13, 46, 111; Soviet ethnic mobility due to, 45–46. See also war brides Yugo­slavia, 31 Yurchak, Alexei, 214 Yusupov, Abdallah, 86 Zheltoksan protests (1986), 59, 239n55 Zhemsekbayeva, Kuralai (pseud.), 79, 194, 207–8