Abstract
SUMMARY: Sergei Abashin suggests two reasons for the relative isolation of indigenous Central Asian scholarship. The first is the officially supported Soviet theory of etnos , which proved to be a useful tool for describing independent nationhood in ways different from the Marxist orthodoxy. At the same time, Abashin suggests that the often arrogant critique of the Soviet legacy by Western scholars contributes to the relative isolationism of Central Asian scholarship. In Abashin’s view, “constructivist” approaches to the history of Central Asian nations should go beyond conspiracy theory and attempt to answer questions about the relative success of the massive reconfiguration of Central Asia’s social and political map that was Soviet nation-building. Moreover, these approaches tend to reproduce the nation-centered historical paradigm, while the task now is to include various ethnic, confessional, and social groups in a new non-ethnic and non-nation-centered history of Central Asia.
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