International Institute of Social History (Amsterdam) in cooperation with Institute for Culture and History, University of Amsterdam, 30 September 2011

The conference seeks to address what the history of Turkmenistan from the Russian conquest until the Khrushchev period.

In the century under discussion, the Turkmens were brought under Russian administration and subsequently became the titular majority of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Turkmenia. We aim to discuss both the profound changes that took place in society as well as the way in which these changes affected the study of the Turkmens by historians and social scientists, including ethnographers.

Topics of interest include the Russian conquest and the view of and on the Turkmens in the period of the ‘Great Game’; the Civil War and native resistance in Turkmenistan; Sovietization and the creation of a Turkmen nation-state under the Bolsheviks, including earlier and newly emerging concepts of history and identity; as well as Soviet policies towards Islam in Turkmenistan. In all these cases, we seek to discuss the relationship between central and local authorities as well as between authorities and scholars.

Through the conference, which will be hosted by the Turkmenistan Research and Exchange Network and the International Institute of Social History, we hope to establish international contacts between scholars working on Turkmenistan, including in Turkmenistan itself, and to link up for future joint research projects.

We have limited funds available for supporting scholars from abroad, including from Turkmenistan.

Please submit short paper proposals to Prof. Dr. Michael Kemper, Eastern European Studies, University of Amsterdam, Spuistraat 134, NL-1012VB Amsterdam; email: m.kemper@uva.nl. Deadline for proposals is June 15, 2011.