Mongol Commonwealth?: Exchange and Governance across the Post-Mongol Space

Abstract

Suddenly, is everywhere. Just a few short decades ago, even at University of Washington--which back then stood out starkly for its atypical efforts integrate histories of Slavs and of Asia--the term was hardly heard. (1) Today, we have Group (www.eurasiagroup.net), a money-making consultancy in New York, and Foundation (www.eurasia.org), a money-awarding agency in Washington, with branch offices in Moscow, Kiev, Tblisi, Almaty, and elsewhere, funded mostly by U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). In academia, old Soviet Studies centers are now called Eurasia: Columbia (Harriman Institute: and Eastern European Studies), Harvard (Davis Center for and Eurasian Studies), Berkeley (Institute of Slavic, East and Eurasian Studies), Stanford (Center for East and Eurasian Studies), Illinois Champaign-Urbana (Russian, East and Eurasian Center), Toronto (Centre for and Eurasian Studies), and on and on. (2) The Committee apparat on Old Square is now Presidential apparat on Old Square. Of course, along with nameplates, substance can change, too. But maybe, as Karl Kraus quipped of psychoanalysis, is disease masquerading as cure? A confession: I'm a perpetrator. In 2005, Princeton University's Studies Program became and Eurasian Studies, after a process in which some faculty objected that addition of would dilute Indeed, everyone is going Eurasia. Miami University of Ohio still has its Center for and Post-Soviet Studies (which, however, organized a 2006 conference on Performance in Eurasia). More pointedly, consider joint Kennan Institute-University of Washington 2004 symposium on future of Russian Studies. (3) The well-intentioned organizers at U. Washington--whose own program is now called Russian, East and Central Asian Studies--informed me that handling Russia is challenge enough. And look at American Association for Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS)--no added that long-standing name (after considerable discussion and inability find consensus on a new designation). The 1990s membership drop off in AAASS has been paralleled by upsurge in membership in a new Central Eurasian Studies Society (CESS), which has ballooned more than a 1,000 members and in 2006 held its seventh annual meeting. CESS define[s] Central Eurasian region include Turkic, Mongolian, Iranian, Caucasian, Tibetan, and other peoples. Geographically, Central extends from Black Sea region, Crimea, and Caucasus in west, through Middle Volga region, Central Asia, and Afghanistan, and on Siberia, Mongolia, and Tibet in east. (4) CESS does mention Russia. Indiana University's Department of Central Studies--formerly Uralic-Altaic--deems Central the home of some of world's greatest art, epic literature, and empires, from the vast heartland of Europe and Asia extending from Central Europe East Asia and from Siberia Himalayas. Indiana, too, omits explicit mention of Russia or Soviet Union as well as of China or East Asia. So, there are at least a few holdouts sticking Russia (or Slavs), and some invoking an expansive yet seemingly self-contained Central that conspicuously does mention Russia. (5) Perhaps seemingly innocuous character of term Eurasia--the choice to Eurasia or not Eurasia--is so innocent? (6) Consider peer-reviewed journals. The American Kritika, founded (or re-established) in 2000, subtitled itself Explorations in and Eurasian History. (A second confession: Kritika editors substituted Eurasian, instead of European, largely at my insistence.) Kritika admirably pays close attention Russian-, German-, and French-language scholarship, but its team of editors has been able invoke and mean little by it, other than a vague appeal empire, borderlands, and non-Russians. …