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What was Hujum?
It is still believed that the campaign for the «practical emancipation» of Muslim women in Central Asia, or Hujum, proved successful and forever changed the social and cultural history of the region. Muslim women finally gained civil and political rights, and they joined the ranks of various Soviet educational institutions and state-owned enterprises in large numbers. The researchers agree in the representations of Hujum as an uncompromising struggle of the European Communists against the veil, which was for them a symbol of «household remnants» and an artifact of the «backwardness» of the indigenous population. In addition, historians emphasize that Hujum was carried out by cruel methods and was a «compulsion to freedom». The present study is devoted to the revision of such representations of Hujum in historiography. The article is based on a wide range of Russian-language sources created mainly by European women employees of women's departments. Some sources are being introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. The article critically examines the role of Muslim communists, court and police officers during the Muslim women emancipation in the 1920s, which in Soviet historiography were positioned as the major defenders of women during Hujum. Paid special attention to women's departments, which, unlike the Bolshevik party or the «Jadids», have not yet become an object of study in historiography and have not been positioned as one of the main actors in the emancipation of Muslim women. The women's departments methods of work are highlighted in detail and thus is questioned the conclusion that they tried to «force Muslim women to freedom». In addition, the article examines the period after Hujum, which was ignored by the scholars. In the sources, in particular in document management, journalism and memoirs of women's department employees, it was called «Retreat». During the study, it was found that Hujum turned out to be an unsuccessful campaign, which was immediately recognized by women's department employees and high-ranking Central Asian officials. Hujum destroyed the women's departments and the entire infrastructure of emancipation. The Soviet government failed to eliminate gender inequality, as well as the religious worldview that legitimized the patriarchal social and everyday life of the indigenous population in Central Asia.