Islam, Society and States across the Qazaq Steppe (18th - Early 20th Centuries)

Wien : Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2013.

The present volume maps out new lines of inquiry into the social history of Central Eurasia from the early modern to the early Soviet period. Contributions to the volume focus on the region inhabited by Qazaq communities, at the centre of which we find the steppes of present-day Kazakhstan as well as areas now comprising parts of Xinjiang, Siberia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The papers here assembled offer new insights on transnational forms of imperial governance, networks of Islamic learning and the politics of local elites which shaped the social and cultural history of a vast geographical area at the heart of Eurasia. The volume thus attempts to connect the social and the religious space inhabited by the Qazaqs to the historical context of successive competing states ruling over Central Eurasia, and to the wider Islamic cultural sphere.

Chapters

‘Kazakh Religious Beliefs in the Writings of Russian Doctors during the Imperial Age (1731 – 1917)’

Anna Afanasyeva, , in: Islam, Society and States across the Qazaq Steppe (18th - Early 20th Centuries).: Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2013. Ch. 6 P. 143–180.

The study focuses on the writings of Russian doctors working in the Kazakh steppe during the C18th - early C20th. Largely neglected by previous scholarship, Russian doctors' accounts of everyday life of the steppe population present an important source on Kazakh healing practices in their connection with the nomads' religious beliefs. ...

Added: January 4, 2015

Keywords: ислам, социальная история, Islam, social history