Этнография и востоковедение в туркестанских женотделах в первой половине 1920-х

С. 132–151.

Мелентьев Д. В.

This article is devoted to the field Oriental studies, which were 
carried out by the Soviet women’s departments employees in the first half of 
1920s in Turkestan. In this study, I made an attempt to introduce new Turkestan 
women’s  departments  archival  documents  into  scientific  circulation,  alike 
to  analyze  them  in  the  context  of  the  interaction  of  power  and  academic 
knowledge. I will demonstrate this with three related examples. Firstly, female 
women’s departments employees tried to obtain ethnographic information by 
doing  questionnaires  to  build  effective  strategies  for  emancipating  Muslim 
women. The questionnaires recorded information about the worldview, women 
life style of the region indigenous peoples. Secondly, the employees turned to 
the epistolary traveler’s heritage, scientists and Turkestan Governor- General 
colonial administrators. This is evidenced by the recommended literature list 
«on the women’s issue», which the women’s departments employees should have 
read. Thirdly, female employees independently turned to local orientalists and 
ethnographers for clarifications on why the locals treated the low women socio- 
cultural status as a normal phenomenon. The study found that questionnaires, 
the colonial literature study and direct appeal to scientists turned out to be 
futile  attempts  to  comprehend  the  region  people’s  indigenous  cultures  and 
rather hindered emancipation.

Keywords: этнография, женщины, востоковедение, ислам, gender studies, ethnography, гендерные исследования, islam, orientalism, ориентализм, Oriental Studies, Muslim women, Soviet Turkestan, Советский Туркестан

In book

Востоковедные полевые исследования: материалы всероссийской научной конференции 2021-2022 гг. Том 2, избранные доклады

Т. 2. Кн. 2. , М.: ИВ РАН, 2023.