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«Женщина востока» и советский ориентализм. Переосмысливая советское описание «освобождения» женщины в Азербайджане в 1920е-1930е гг.

Year 2021, Issue: Special Issue - Gender in the Caucasus and in the Diaspora, 1 - 22, 20.02.2021

Abstract

Целью данной статьи является анализ советских политик в отношении так называемой «восточницы», прежде всего с точки зрения изучения присутвия ориентализма в раннесоветской образовательной и культурной продукции. Используя материалы на русском языке, я рассматриваю как «восточница» и ее «освобождение» были сконструированы на примере Кавказа, прежде всего, Азербайджана, в 1920е-1930е гг. Я также кратко касаюсь вопроса о том, как представления о советском освобождении «закабаленной женщины-мусульманки» были транслированы в другие страны. Я анализирую советские публикации для женщин и архивный документальный фильм, посвященные женщинам Кавказа, особенно Азейрбайджана. Исследование показывает, что несмотря на присутвие определенной критики политики царского правительства на Кавказе, советская культурная продукция сохранила много ориенталистских черт. В частности, описание женщин Азербайджана как «угнетенных», «рабынь» и «теней» способствовала производству образа русских женщин, как более современных, свободных и европеизированных. Таким образом, следуя Саиду, можно сказать, что такое описание азербайджанских женщин помогало созданию образа России и русских как «Запада». Кроме того, анализ публикаций и фильма показывает, что история об «отсталых женщнах Кавказа» юыда важна не только для убеждения советского населения в освободительнйо миссии новой власти, но и для создания позитивного образа СССР на «Западе» и «Востоке». Так, публикации «друзей СССР» представляли советские политики как анти-колониальыне и в то же время, как часть «цивилизаторской миссии», которой гордились страны «Запада».

References

  • Altstadt, Audrey. 2016. The Politics of Culture in Soviet Azerbaijan, 1920-1940. London&New York: Routledge.
  • David-Fox, Michael. 2012. Showcasing the Great Experiment. Cultural Diplomacy and Western Visitors to the Soviet Union, 1921-1941. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Dzabbarov, Farhad. 2012. O roli svetskoi zhenskoi shkoly G. Z. Tagieva v razvitii azerbaijanskoi zhenshchiny. 10. 08. 12. https://1news. az/news/farhad-dzhabbarov-o-roli-svetskoy-zhenskoy-shkoly-g-z-tagieva-v-razvitii-azerbaydzhanskoy-zhenschiny---foto#page999
  • Gradskova, Yulia. 2020. Opening the (Muslim) Woman’s Space – the Soviet Politics of Emancipation in the 1920s-1930s. Ethnicities, 20(4): 667-684.
  • Gradskova, Yulia. Soviet Politics of Emancipation of Ethnic Minority Woman. Natsionalka. Springer, 2018.
  • Gradskova, Yulia. 2013. “Speaking for Those “Backward”: Gender and Ethnic Minorities in Soviet Silent Films, ” Region 2 (2) : 1-20.
  • Iman-Zade, Saida. 1954. Osvobozhdenie azerbaidzhanki – odno iz vazhneishikh zavoevanii velikoi oktiabrskoi sotsialisticheskoi revolutsii. Baku: Azerbaidzhanskii gosuniversitet (Avt. dissert. ).
  • Halle, Fannina W. 1933. Woman in Soviet Russia. London: Routledge.
  • Halle, Fannina W. 1938. Women in the Soviet East. London: Martin Secker&Warburg Ltd.
  • Heyat, Farideh. 2002. Azeri Women in Transion. Richmond: Curzon.
  • Kamp, Marianne. 2015. Debating Sharia. The 1917 Muslim Women’s Congress in Russia. Slavic Review 4: 13-37.
  • Kandiyoti, Deniz. 2009. Islam, Modernity and the Politics of Gender. In Islam and MoIdernity, Key Issues and Debates, eds. Masud, Muhammad Khalid, Armando Salvatore and Martin van Bruinessen, 95-124. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
  • Kelly, Catriona. 2001. Refining Russia. Advice Literature, Polite Culture and Gender from Catherine to Yeltsin. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Khalid, Adeeb. 1999. The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • Liubimova, Serafima. 1958. V pervye gody. Moskva: Gospolitizdat.
  • Nukhrat, Antonina. In Trud i byt zhenshchiny-kustarki. Pervyi Vsesoyuznyi Kooperativnyi sezd kustarok. 1928. Moskva: Vsekompromsoyuz.
  • Plaggenborg, Stefan. 2000. Revoliutsiia i kultura: kulturnye orientiry v period mezhdu oktiabrskoi revoliutsiei i epokhoi stalinizma. St. Petersburg: Neva.
  • Qasimova, Ylena & Irada Qasimova. 2006. Traditions of Women’s Activity in Azerbaijan (konets 19-nachalo 20 veka). Baku: Azerbaijan Gender Information Center. https://www. gender-az. org/index_en. shtml?id_main=17&id_sub=58&id_sub_sub=28
  • Rorlich, Azade-Ayşe. 2004. The Challenge of Belonging: The Muslims of Late Imperial Russia and the Contested Terrain of Identity and Gender. In Democracy and Pluralism in Muslim Eurasia, ed. Yaacov Ro’I, 39-52. London and New York: Frank Cass.
  • Said, Edward. Orientalism. Western Conceptions of the Orient. Penguin books, 1995.
  • Sarkisova, Oksana. 2017. Screening Soviet Nationalities. Kulturfilms from the Far North to Central Asia. London: I. B. Tauris.
  • Shakulova, V. S. 1981. Kulturnaia revoliutsiia i zhenskii vopros. In: Opyt KPSS v reshenii zhenskogo voprosa, 77-102. Moskva: Mysl.
  • Tlostanova, Madina. 2008. The Janus-faced Empire Distorting Orientalist Discourses: Gender, Race and Religion in the Russian/ (post) Soviet Constructions of the ‘Orient’. Words & Knowledges Othervice Spring: 1-11. Pamphlets published in the Series “Working Woman of Orient”
  • Berger, A. (prof). 1928b. Azerbaidzhanka. Moskva: Institut okhrany materinstva i mladenchestva.
  • Berger, A. (prof). 1928a. Chechenka. Moskva: Institut okhrany materinstva i mladenchestva. Ivanovskii, S. 1928. Kabardinka. Moskva: Institut okhrany materinstva i mladenchestva.
  • Khudadov, V. N. 1927. Armianka. Moskva: Institut okhrany materinstva i mladenchestva.
  • Khudadov, V. N. ; G. D. Demidov. 1928. Gruzinka. Moskva: Institut okhrany materinstva i mladenchestva.
  • Shamkhalov, A. 1928. Dagestanka. Moskva: Institut okhrany materinstva i mladenchestva.
  • Shteinberg, E. Tatarka. 1928. Moskva: Institut okhrany materinstva i mladenchestva.
  • Smirnov, N. Turchanka. 1927. Moskva: Institut okhrany materinstva i mladenchestva
  • The Other Life [Drugaia Zhizn] Central studio of documentary films. Film Director Yu. Zheliabuzhskii, co-director Branitski. Krasnogorskii arkhiv foto-kinodokumentov, F. 9660 The inspection is on [Smotr idet] (Vostokkino) 1931
  • Commission for Improvement of Work and Everyday Life of Women (State Archive of the Russian Federation, GARF), f. 6928

“Woman of the East” and Soviet Orientalism: Reviewing the Soviet story on the “emancipation” of women in Azerbaijan in the 1920s-1930s

Year 2021, Issue: Special Issue - Gender in the Caucasus and in the Diaspora, 1 - 22, 20.02.2021

Abstract

This article aims to explore the Soviet way of dealing with the so called “woman of the East” and to find out how much it is possible to speak about Orientalism with respect to early Soviet cultural and educational production. I explore how the “woman of the East” was constructed in different materials in Russian language focusing on the emancipation of women in the Caucasus and, particularly, in Azerbaijan from the 1920s-1930s. I am also interested in how the information about the “docile Muslim women” and women’s emancipation in the Caucasus and particularly in Azerbaijan was spread abroad. In order to do it I analyze Soviet publications and films dedicated to women in Caucasus and Azerbaijan. The study shows that in spite of critique of the colonial politics of the tsarist regime, the Soviet cultural production preserves many orientalist clichés and tropes. The presentation of women in Azerbaijan as “dominated, “slaves” and “shadows” helped constructing the Russians as a whole and the Russian women in particular, as freer and more modern. According to Said, “identifying ‘us’ Europeans as against “those’ non-Europeans” (1996, 7) is an important mechanism for producing the “west”. The analyzed materials suggest that the narrative on the “backward woman” in the Caucasus was important not only for convincing the Soviet people in the important emancipatory mission of the Soviet state, but also for improving the state’s image in the “West” and the “East”. Indeed, the Soviet emancipators were described in the publications of the “Soviet friends” as those fighting against colonialism and, at the same time, carrying out the civilizing mission similar to that of the “Western” countries.

References

  • Altstadt, Audrey. 2016. The Politics of Culture in Soviet Azerbaijan, 1920-1940. London&New York: Routledge.
  • David-Fox, Michael. 2012. Showcasing the Great Experiment. Cultural Diplomacy and Western Visitors to the Soviet Union, 1921-1941. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Dzabbarov, Farhad. 2012. O roli svetskoi zhenskoi shkoly G. Z. Tagieva v razvitii azerbaijanskoi zhenshchiny. 10. 08. 12. https://1news. az/news/farhad-dzhabbarov-o-roli-svetskoy-zhenskoy-shkoly-g-z-tagieva-v-razvitii-azerbaydzhanskoy-zhenschiny---foto#page999
  • Gradskova, Yulia. 2020. Opening the (Muslim) Woman’s Space – the Soviet Politics of Emancipation in the 1920s-1930s. Ethnicities, 20(4): 667-684.
  • Gradskova, Yulia. Soviet Politics of Emancipation of Ethnic Minority Woman. Natsionalka. Springer, 2018.
  • Gradskova, Yulia. 2013. “Speaking for Those “Backward”: Gender and Ethnic Minorities in Soviet Silent Films, ” Region 2 (2) : 1-20.
  • Iman-Zade, Saida. 1954. Osvobozhdenie azerbaidzhanki – odno iz vazhneishikh zavoevanii velikoi oktiabrskoi sotsialisticheskoi revolutsii. Baku: Azerbaidzhanskii gosuniversitet (Avt. dissert. ).
  • Halle, Fannina W. 1933. Woman in Soviet Russia. London: Routledge.
  • Halle, Fannina W. 1938. Women in the Soviet East. London: Martin Secker&Warburg Ltd.
  • Heyat, Farideh. 2002. Azeri Women in Transion. Richmond: Curzon.
  • Kamp, Marianne. 2015. Debating Sharia. The 1917 Muslim Women’s Congress in Russia. Slavic Review 4: 13-37.
  • Kandiyoti, Deniz. 2009. Islam, Modernity and the Politics of Gender. In Islam and MoIdernity, Key Issues and Debates, eds. Masud, Muhammad Khalid, Armando Salvatore and Martin van Bruinessen, 95-124. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
  • Kelly, Catriona. 2001. Refining Russia. Advice Literature, Polite Culture and Gender from Catherine to Yeltsin. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Khalid, Adeeb. 1999. The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • Liubimova, Serafima. 1958. V pervye gody. Moskva: Gospolitizdat.
  • Nukhrat, Antonina. In Trud i byt zhenshchiny-kustarki. Pervyi Vsesoyuznyi Kooperativnyi sezd kustarok. 1928. Moskva: Vsekompromsoyuz.
  • Plaggenborg, Stefan. 2000. Revoliutsiia i kultura: kulturnye orientiry v period mezhdu oktiabrskoi revoliutsiei i epokhoi stalinizma. St. Petersburg: Neva.
  • Qasimova, Ylena & Irada Qasimova. 2006. Traditions of Women’s Activity in Azerbaijan (konets 19-nachalo 20 veka). Baku: Azerbaijan Gender Information Center. https://www. gender-az. org/index_en. shtml?id_main=17&id_sub=58&id_sub_sub=28
  • Rorlich, Azade-Ayşe. 2004. The Challenge of Belonging: The Muslims of Late Imperial Russia and the Contested Terrain of Identity and Gender. In Democracy and Pluralism in Muslim Eurasia, ed. Yaacov Ro’I, 39-52. London and New York: Frank Cass.
  • Said, Edward. Orientalism. Western Conceptions of the Orient. Penguin books, 1995.
  • Sarkisova, Oksana. 2017. Screening Soviet Nationalities. Kulturfilms from the Far North to Central Asia. London: I. B. Tauris.
  • Shakulova, V. S. 1981. Kulturnaia revoliutsiia i zhenskii vopros. In: Opyt KPSS v reshenii zhenskogo voprosa, 77-102. Moskva: Mysl.
  • Tlostanova, Madina. 2008. The Janus-faced Empire Distorting Orientalist Discourses: Gender, Race and Religion in the Russian/ (post) Soviet Constructions of the ‘Orient’. Words & Knowledges Othervice Spring: 1-11. Pamphlets published in the Series “Working Woman of Orient”
  • Berger, A. (prof). 1928b. Azerbaidzhanka. Moskva: Institut okhrany materinstva i mladenchestva.
  • Berger, A. (prof). 1928a. Chechenka. Moskva: Institut okhrany materinstva i mladenchestva. Ivanovskii, S. 1928. Kabardinka. Moskva: Institut okhrany materinstva i mladenchestva.
  • Khudadov, V. N. 1927. Armianka. Moskva: Institut okhrany materinstva i mladenchestva.
  • Khudadov, V. N. ; G. D. Demidov. 1928. Gruzinka. Moskva: Institut okhrany materinstva i mladenchestva.
  • Shamkhalov, A. 1928. Dagestanka. Moskva: Institut okhrany materinstva i mladenchestva.
  • Shteinberg, E. Tatarka. 1928. Moskva: Institut okhrany materinstva i mladenchestva.
  • Smirnov, N. Turchanka. 1927. Moskva: Institut okhrany materinstva i mladenchestva
  • The Other Life [Drugaia Zhizn] Central studio of documentary films. Film Director Yu. Zheliabuzhskii, co-director Branitski. Krasnogorskii arkhiv foto-kinodokumentov, F. 9660 The inspection is on [Smotr idet] (Vostokkino) 1931
  • Commission for Improvement of Work and Everyday Life of Women (State Archive of the Russian Federation, GARF), f. 6928

"Doğunun Kadını" ve Sovyet Oryantalizmi. 1920'ler-1930'larda Azerbaycan'da kadınların “kurtuluşunun” Sovyet öyküsünü yeniden düşünmek

Year 2021, Issue: Special Issue - Gender in the Caucasus and in the Diaspora, 1 - 22, 20.02.2021

Abstract

Bu makale, Sovyetlerin “Doğunun Kadınları” ile ilgilenme şeklini incelemeyi ve oryantalizmin erken dönem Sovyet eğitim ve kültür ürünlerindeki varlığını incelemeyi amaçlamaktadır. 1920-30'lardan itibaren Kafkasya'da, Azerbaycan örneğinde kadınların özgürleşmesine odaklanarak, Rus dilinde “Doğunun kadınlarının” nasıl farklı malzemelerle inşa edildiğini araştırmaktadır. Kafkasya'da “uysal müslüman kadınlar” ve kadınların özgürleşmesine ilişkin bilgilerin yurt dışına nasıl yayıldığını da merak ediyorum. Bunu yapmak için, makale Kafkasya ve Azerbaycan'daki kadınlara adanmış Sovyet yayınlarını ve filmlerini analiz etmektedir. Çalışma, Çarlık rejiminin sömürge siyasetinin eleştirisine rağmen, Sovyet kültürel üretiminin birçok oryantalist klişeyi ve kinayeyi koruduğunu gösteriyor. Azerbaycan'da kadınların “mazlum,“ köle ”ve“ gölgeler ”olarak sunulması, bir bütün olarak Rusların ve özellikle Rus kadınlarının daha özgür ve daha modern olarak inşa edilmesine katkıda bulunmuştur. Said'e göre, "biz" Avrupalıları "Avrupalı olmayanlara karşı" tanımlamak (1996, 7) Rusya ve Rusların "Batı" imajını üretmek için önemli bir mekanizmadır. Analiz edilen materyaller, Kafkasya'daki "geri kadın" hakkındaki anlatının yalnızca Sovyet halkını Sovyet devletinin önemli özgürleştirici misyonu hakkında ikna etmek için değil, aynı zamanda devletin “Batı” ve “Doğu”daki imajını iyileştirmek için de önemli olduğunu göstermektedir. Nitekim Sovyet özgürleştiricileri, “Sovyet dostlarının” yayınlarında, sömürgeciliğe karşı savaşan ve aynı zamanda “Batılı” ülkelerinkine benzer bir uygarlık misyonu gerçekleştirenler olarak tanımlanmıştır.

References

  • Altstadt, Audrey. 2016. The Politics of Culture in Soviet Azerbaijan, 1920-1940. London&New York: Routledge.
  • David-Fox, Michael. 2012. Showcasing the Great Experiment. Cultural Diplomacy and Western Visitors to the Soviet Union, 1921-1941. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Dzabbarov, Farhad. 2012. O roli svetskoi zhenskoi shkoly G. Z. Tagieva v razvitii azerbaijanskoi zhenshchiny. 10. 08. 12. https://1news. az/news/farhad-dzhabbarov-o-roli-svetskoy-zhenskoy-shkoly-g-z-tagieva-v-razvitii-azerbaydzhanskoy-zhenschiny---foto#page999
  • Gradskova, Yulia. 2020. Opening the (Muslim) Woman’s Space – the Soviet Politics of Emancipation in the 1920s-1930s. Ethnicities, 20(4): 667-684.
  • Gradskova, Yulia. Soviet Politics of Emancipation of Ethnic Minority Woman. Natsionalka. Springer, 2018.
  • Gradskova, Yulia. 2013. “Speaking for Those “Backward”: Gender and Ethnic Minorities in Soviet Silent Films, ” Region 2 (2) : 1-20.
  • Iman-Zade, Saida. 1954. Osvobozhdenie azerbaidzhanki – odno iz vazhneishikh zavoevanii velikoi oktiabrskoi sotsialisticheskoi revolutsii. Baku: Azerbaidzhanskii gosuniversitet (Avt. dissert. ).
  • Halle, Fannina W. 1933. Woman in Soviet Russia. London: Routledge.
  • Halle, Fannina W. 1938. Women in the Soviet East. London: Martin Secker&Warburg Ltd.
  • Heyat, Farideh. 2002. Azeri Women in Transion. Richmond: Curzon.
  • Kamp, Marianne. 2015. Debating Sharia. The 1917 Muslim Women’s Congress in Russia. Slavic Review 4: 13-37.
  • Kandiyoti, Deniz. 2009. Islam, Modernity and the Politics of Gender. In Islam and MoIdernity, Key Issues and Debates, eds. Masud, Muhammad Khalid, Armando Salvatore and Martin van Bruinessen, 95-124. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
  • Kelly, Catriona. 2001. Refining Russia. Advice Literature, Polite Culture and Gender from Catherine to Yeltsin. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Khalid, Adeeb. 1999. The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • Liubimova, Serafima. 1958. V pervye gody. Moskva: Gospolitizdat.
  • Nukhrat, Antonina. In Trud i byt zhenshchiny-kustarki. Pervyi Vsesoyuznyi Kooperativnyi sezd kustarok. 1928. Moskva: Vsekompromsoyuz.
  • Plaggenborg, Stefan. 2000. Revoliutsiia i kultura: kulturnye orientiry v period mezhdu oktiabrskoi revoliutsiei i epokhoi stalinizma. St. Petersburg: Neva.
  • Qasimova, Ylena & Irada Qasimova. 2006. Traditions of Women’s Activity in Azerbaijan (konets 19-nachalo 20 veka). Baku: Azerbaijan Gender Information Center. https://www. gender-az. org/index_en. shtml?id_main=17&id_sub=58&id_sub_sub=28
  • Rorlich, Azade-Ayşe. 2004. The Challenge of Belonging: The Muslims of Late Imperial Russia and the Contested Terrain of Identity and Gender. In Democracy and Pluralism in Muslim Eurasia, ed. Yaacov Ro’I, 39-52. London and New York: Frank Cass.
  • Said, Edward. Orientalism. Western Conceptions of the Orient. Penguin books, 1995.
  • Sarkisova, Oksana. 2017. Screening Soviet Nationalities. Kulturfilms from the Far North to Central Asia. London: I. B. Tauris.
  • Shakulova, V. S. 1981. Kulturnaia revoliutsiia i zhenskii vopros. In: Opyt KPSS v reshenii zhenskogo voprosa, 77-102. Moskva: Mysl.
  • Tlostanova, Madina. 2008. The Janus-faced Empire Distorting Orientalist Discourses: Gender, Race and Religion in the Russian/ (post) Soviet Constructions of the ‘Orient’. Words & Knowledges Othervice Spring: 1-11. Pamphlets published in the Series “Working Woman of Orient”
  • Berger, A. (prof). 1928b. Azerbaidzhanka. Moskva: Institut okhrany materinstva i mladenchestva.
  • Berger, A. (prof). 1928a. Chechenka. Moskva: Institut okhrany materinstva i mladenchestva. Ivanovskii, S. 1928. Kabardinka. Moskva: Institut okhrany materinstva i mladenchestva.
  • Khudadov, V. N. 1927. Armianka. Moskva: Institut okhrany materinstva i mladenchestva.
  • Khudadov, V. N. ; G. D. Demidov. 1928. Gruzinka. Moskva: Institut okhrany materinstva i mladenchestva.
  • Shamkhalov, A. 1928. Dagestanka. Moskva: Institut okhrany materinstva i mladenchestva.
  • Shteinberg, E. Tatarka. 1928. Moskva: Institut okhrany materinstva i mladenchestva.
  • Smirnov, N. Turchanka. 1927. Moskva: Institut okhrany materinstva i mladenchestva
  • The Other Life [Drugaia Zhizn] Central studio of documentary films. Film Director Yu. Zheliabuzhskii, co-director Branitski. Krasnogorskii arkhiv foto-kinodokumentov, F. 9660 The inspection is on [Smotr idet] (Vostokkino) 1931
  • Commission for Improvement of Work and Everyday Life of Women (State Archive of the Russian Federation, GARF), f. 6928
There are 32 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Journal Section Article
Authors

Yulia Gradskova 0000-0002-0975-5560

Early Pub Date February 20, 2021
Publication Date February 20, 2021
Published in Issue Year 2021 Issue: Special Issue - Gender in the Caucasus and in the Diaspora

Cite

MLA Gradskova, Yulia. ““Woman of the East” and Soviet Orientalism: Reviewing the Soviet Story on the ‘emancipation’ of Women in Azerbaijan in the 1920s-1930s”. Kafkasya Çalışmaları, no. Special Issue, pp. 1-22.

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