Eren Tasar
Biographic Data
| ID | 1236266 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Eren Tasar |
| GIVEN NAMES | Eren |
| FAMILY NAME | Tasar |
| SIGNATURE | TASAR E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
| ORCID | 0009-0000-5390-8344 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 7 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 23 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
The Basmachi Movement in the Late 1920s and Early 1930s in Soviet Kyrgyzstan during the Socialist Transformations
Despite its importance, the Basmachi movement in Soviet history remains underexamined. The struggle of the Bolsheviks with Basmachi detachments was an integral stage of the Russian Civil War in Soviet Central Asia. The Basmachi movement also took place in various regions of the territory of southern Kyrgyzstan. Forced collectivization, political, economic restrictions on the wealthy, and other reasons caused the revival of the movement towards th…
A Soviet Sultanate
Politicizing Islam in Central Asia
Unusually for a work of political science, this ambitious book aspires to be a work of history. Its author, Kathleen Collins, has indeed assembled historical sources sufficiently breathtaking to leave this historian drooling, the product of decades of research: 79 focus groups with people from all walks of life, more than 500 interviews, 150 Islamist propaganda videos, archival and published sources, and more still. The book’s main argument is th…
A Question of Texture. “Getting Religion” in a Bashkir Antireligious Text from the 1950s
This essay demonstrates that the renaissance experienced in the religious and literary spheres across much of the USSR after World War II influenced the field of scientific atheism as well. Through the prism of a remarkable article that appeared in the flagship Bashkir literary journal Literary Bashqortostan, it argues that a distinct type of antireligious writing, namely Muslim atheism, crystallized during the 1950s, combining the religious and …
The Bleeding Wound
This author’s prolific scholarship combines nuanced argumentation with an encylopedic knowledge of late-socialist Soviet society, notably in the realms of foreign relations, nationalities policy, and religion. In this exhaustively researched book, Ro’i turns his attention to the Soviet–Afghan War (1979–1989), a conflict that Eduard Shevardnadze, the USSR’s last foreign minister, termed “a sin” in a 1990 speech to the Supreme Soviet (115). Althoug…
Lâle Can, Spiritual Subjects
Reviewed by: Spiritual Subjects: Central Asian Pilgrims and the Ottoman Hajj at the End of Empire by Lâle Can Eren Tasar Lâle Can. Spiritual Subjects: Central Asian Pilgrims and the Ottoman Hajj at the End of Empire. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2020. Xiv + 257 pp. Paper, $25.00. ISBN: 978-1503611160 This elegant monograph marks a welcome addition to an increasingly sophisticated literature on the hajj during the era of high imperiali…
Jeff Sahadeo. Voices from the Soviet Edge
Mantra
This paper traces the development of the historiography of Islam in Soviet Central Asia from the Cold War’s outset to the present by illustrating its uncritical reproduction of modernist and communist templates for describing Muslim religiosity, and its debt to two foundational frames of Soviet antireligious propaganda: “survivals” and “nationalized Islam.” It highlights the important implications of these frames for this scholarship’s developmen…
Islamic Media in Soviet Central Asia
This paper takes stock of “Islamic media” in the ussr by reviewing the kinds of sources that are available for the study of Islam in the Soviet Union, and, more importantly, exploring how social historians can use them. What follows is a detailed discussion of three genres of materials: anti-religious propaganda; correspondence of the official organizations engaged with Islam; and what, for convenience’s sake, I will term Islamic samizdat (popula…
Sufism on the Soviet Stage
The Origins of the Civil War in Tajikistan. Nationalism, Islamism, and Violent Conflict in Post-Soviet Space
The Origins of the Civil War in Tajikistan. Nationalism, Islamism, and Violent Conflict in Post-Soviet Space." Europe-Asia Studies, 70(1), pp. 145–146
Soviet and Muslim
Long associated with its aggressive promotion of atheism, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union adopted a nuanced, flexible, and often contradictory approach toward Islam in the USSR’s largest Muslim region, Central Asia. “Soviet and Muslim” demonstrates how the Soviet state unwittingly set in motion a process of institutionalization during World War II that culminated in a permanent space for Islam in a society ruled by atheists. Central Asia …
The Anti-Religious Campaign, 1959–1964
With Party chairman Nikita Khrushchev’s success against the “Anti-Party Group” in 1957, the hard line against religion once again became a viable project for the first time since the 1930s. Khrushchev launched his anti-religious campaign in late 1958 as a “corrective” to what he viewed as the state’s unacceptable lethargy toward religion in the period since World War II. His campaign restricted SADUM’s finances significantly. However, it also coi…
Institutionalizing Soviet Islam, 1944‒1958
This chapter focuses on the Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults (CARC), created by Stalin in 1944 in order to supervise all officially recognized religions in the USSR with the exception of Russian Orthodox Christianity. CARC vigorously promoted an interpretation of Stalin’s 1943‒44 religious reforms that stressed moderation toward religion and the sanctity of freedom of conscience. As a result of this posture, CARC invested heavily in SAD…
The Brezhnev Era and its Aftermath, 1965–1989
After Nikita Khrushchev’s ouster in 1964, Soviet officials dealing with religion assessed the moderate line toward religion that had dominated the 1940s and 1950s, as well as the hard line that had animated Khrushchev’s anti-religious campaign. They determined that both had been too extreme and opted to reconcile the two lines. In the 1970s and 1980s the restriction of religion thus became more omnipresent but less potent. A notable example conce…
Reassessing Orientalism
Building on the insights developed in the seminal 2012 volume he edited, The Heritage of Soviet Oriental Studies, Michael Kemper joins Artemy Kalinovsky to present a new collection devoted to ‘Inte
Agnès Nilüfer Kefeli, Becoming Muslim in imperial Russia
Agnès Nilüfer Kefeli, Becoming Muslim in imperial Russia: conversion, apostasy, and literacy." Canadian Slavonic Papers, 58(1), pp. 102–103
The Official Madrasas of Soviet Uzbekistan
sadum, the muftiate of the Soviet Central Asian republics, operated three Islamic educational establishments at various times in the half century following World War ii. This article argues that, far from being rubber-stamp bodies imparting official propaganda, these madrasas benefited from significant influence from three constituencies in the religious sphere: the state, sadum, and influential unregistered ʿulamā beyond the reach of both. As in…
Soviet Society in the Era of Late Socialism, 1964–1985
Although scholars in the humanities and social sciences have long recognised the ‘stagnation’ paradigm's limitations, consensus on the need for a more nuanced set of concepts, analytical tools, and
The heritage of Soviet Oriental studies
The heritage of Soviet Oriental studies, edited by Michael Kemper and Stephan Conermann, Abingdon, Routledge, 2011, xv + 336 pp. (hardcover, US$150). Readers from a diverse array of intellectual va
Islamically informed Soviet patriotism in postwar Kyrgyzstan
Few analyses of the broader impact of World War II upon Soviet society have turned to Islam or Central Asia. Yet the conflict marked a critical turning point in the encounter between the region’s Muslims and the Soviet state. This paper examines attempts by Central Asian Muslims to position Islam at the center of their identification with the Soviet Union. It argues that the war created a new field of possibilities for the region’s population to …
Tashkent
The Central Asian muftiate in occupied Afghanistan, 1979–87
Known by the Russian acronym SADUM, the muftiate responsible for overseeing mosques in the five Soviet Central Asian republics conducted pro-Soviet public diplomacy in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan after the invasion of December 1979. SADUM's engagement with pro-Soviet ulama in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan marks a departure from the character of its extensive propaganda and relationship-building activities elsewhere in the Musl…
The Official Madrasas of Soviet Uzbekistan
sadum, the muftiate of the Soviet Central Asian republics, operated three Islamic educational establishments at various times in the half century following World War ii. This article argues that, far from being rubber-stamp bodies imparting official propaganda, these madrasas benefited from significant influence from three constituencies in the religious sphere: the state, sadum, and influential unregistered ʿulamā beyond the reach of both. As in…
Islamically informed Soviet patriotism in postwar Kyrgyzstan
Few analyses of the broader impact of World War II upon Soviet society have turned to Islam or Central Asia. Yet the conflict marked a critical turning point in the encounter between the region’s Muslims and the Soviet state. This paper examines attempts by Central Asian Muslims to position Islam at the center of their identification with the Soviet Union. It argues that the war created a new field of possibilities for the region’s population to …
The Origins of the Civil War in Tajikistan. Nationalism, Islamism, and Violent Conflict in Post-Soviet Space
The Origins of the Civil War in Tajikistan. Nationalism, Islamism, and Violent Conflict in Post-Soviet Space." Europe-Asia Studies, 70(1), pp. 145–146
Tashkent
The Central Asian muftiate in occupied Afghanistan, 1979–87
Known by the Russian acronym SADUM, the muftiate responsible for overseeing mosques in the five Soviet Central Asian republics conducted pro-Soviet public diplomacy in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan after the invasion of December 1979. SADUM's engagement with pro-Soviet ulama in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan marks a departure from the character of its extensive propaganda and relationship-building activities elsewhere in the Musl…
Islamically informed Soviet patriotism in postwar Kyrgyzstan
Few analyses of the broader impact of World War II upon Soviet society have turned to Islam or Central Asia. Yet the conflict marked a critical turning point in the encounter between the region’s Muslims and the Soviet state. This paper examines attempts by Central Asian Muslims to position Islam at the center of their identification with the Soviet Union. It argues that the war created a new field of possibilities for the region’s population to …
Tashkent
The Central Asian muftiate in occupied Afghanistan, 1979–87
Known by the Russian acronym SADUM, the muftiate responsible for overseeing mosques in the five Soviet Central Asian republics conducted pro-Soviet public diplomacy in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan after the invasion of December 1979. SADUM's engagement with pro-Soviet ulama in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan marks a departure from the character of its extensive propaganda and relationship-building activities elsewhere in the Musl…
The heritage of Soviet Oriental studies
The heritage of Soviet Oriental studies, edited by Michael Kemper and Stephan Conermann, Abingdon, Routledge, 2011, xv + 336 pp. (hardcover, US$150). Readers from a diverse array of intellectual va
Soviet Society in the Era of Late Socialism, 1964–1985
Although scholars in the humanities and social sciences have long recognised the ‘stagnation’ paradigm's limitations, consensus on the need for a more nuanced set of concepts, analytical tools, and
Reassessing Orientalism
Building on the insights developed in the seminal 2012 volume he edited, The Heritage of Soviet Oriental Studies, Michael Kemper joins Artemy Kalinovsky to present a new collection devoted to ‘Inte
Agnès Nilüfer Kefeli, Becoming Muslim in imperial Russia
Agnès Nilüfer Kefeli, Becoming Muslim in imperial Russia: conversion, apostasy, and literacy." Canadian Slavonic Papers, 58(1), pp. 102–103
The Official Madrasas of Soviet Uzbekistan
sadum, the muftiate of the Soviet Central Asian republics, operated three Islamic educational establishments at various times in the half century following World War ii. This article argues that, far from being rubber-stamp bodies imparting official propaganda, these madrasas benefited from significant influence from three constituencies in the religious sphere: the state, sadum, and influential unregistered ʿulamā beyond the reach of both. As in…
Soviet and Muslim
Long associated with its aggressive promotion of atheism, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union adopted a nuanced, flexible, and often contradictory approach toward Islam in the USSR’s largest Muslim region, Central Asia. “Soviet and Muslim” demonstrates how the Soviet state unwittingly set in motion a process of institutionalization during World War II that culminated in a permanent space for Islam in a society ruled by atheists. Central Asia …
The Anti-Religious Campaign, 1959–1964
With Party chairman Nikita Khrushchev’s success against the “Anti-Party Group” in 1957, the hard line against religion once again became a viable project for the first time since the 1930s. Khrushchev launched his anti-religious campaign in late 1958 as a “corrective” to what he viewed as the state’s unacceptable lethargy toward religion in the period since World War II. His campaign restricted SADUM’s finances significantly. However, it also coi…
Institutionalizing Soviet Islam, 1944‒1958
This chapter focuses on the Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults (CARC), created by Stalin in 1944 in order to supervise all officially recognized religions in the USSR with the exception of Russian Orthodox Christianity. CARC vigorously promoted an interpretation of Stalin’s 1943‒44 religious reforms that stressed moderation toward religion and the sanctity of freedom of conscience. As a result of this posture, CARC invested heavily in SAD…
The Brezhnev Era and its Aftermath, 1965–1989
After Nikita Khrushchev’s ouster in 1964, Soviet officials dealing with religion assessed the moderate line toward religion that had dominated the 1940s and 1950s, as well as the hard line that had animated Khrushchev’s anti-religious campaign. They determined that both had been too extreme and opted to reconcile the two lines. In the 1970s and 1980s the restriction of religion thus became more omnipresent but less potent. A notable example conce…
Sufism on the Soviet Stage
The Origins of the Civil War in Tajikistan. Nationalism, Islamism, and Violent Conflict in Post-Soviet Space
The Origins of the Civil War in Tajikistan. Nationalism, Islamism, and Violent Conflict in Post-Soviet Space." Europe-Asia Studies, 70(1), pp. 145–146
Islamic Media in Soviet Central Asia
This paper takes stock of “Islamic media” in the ussr by reviewing the kinds of sources that are available for the study of Islam in the Soviet Union, and, more importantly, exploring how social historians can use them. What follows is a detailed discussion of three genres of materials: anti-religious propaganda; correspondence of the official organizations engaged with Islam; and what, for convenience’s sake, I will term Islamic samizdat (popula…
Mantra
This paper traces the development of the historiography of Islam in Soviet Central Asia from the Cold War’s outset to the present by illustrating its uncritical reproduction of modernist and communist templates for describing Muslim religiosity, and its debt to two foundational frames of Soviet antireligious propaganda: “survivals” and “nationalized Islam.” It highlights the important implications of these frames for this scholarship’s developmen…
Lâle Can, Spiritual Subjects
Reviewed by: Spiritual Subjects: Central Asian Pilgrims and the Ottoman Hajj at the End of Empire by Lâle Can Eren Tasar Lâle Can. Spiritual Subjects: Central Asian Pilgrims and the Ottoman Hajj at the End of Empire. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2020. Xiv + 257 pp. Paper, $25.00. ISBN: 978-1503611160 This elegant monograph marks a welcome addition to an increasingly sophisticated literature on the hajj during the era of high imperiali…
Jeff Sahadeo. Voices from the Soviet Edge
A Question of Texture. “Getting Religion” in a Bashkir Antireligious Text from the 1950s
This essay demonstrates that the renaissance experienced in the religious and literary spheres across much of the USSR after World War II influenced the field of scientific atheism as well. Through the prism of a remarkable article that appeared in the flagship Bashkir literary journal Literary Bashqortostan, it argues that a distinct type of antireligious writing, namely Muslim atheism, crystallized during the 1950s, combining the religious and …
The Bleeding Wound
This author’s prolific scholarship combines nuanced argumentation with an encylopedic knowledge of late-socialist Soviet society, notably in the realms of foreign relations, nationalities policy, and religion. In this exhaustively researched book, Ro’i turns his attention to the Soviet–Afghan War (1979–1989), a conflict that Eduard Shevardnadze, the USSR’s last foreign minister, termed “a sin” in a 1990 speech to the Supreme Soviet (115). Althoug…
Politicizing Islam in Central Asia
Unusually for a work of political science, this ambitious book aspires to be a work of history. Its author, Kathleen Collins, has indeed assembled historical sources sufficiently breathtaking to leave this historian drooling, the product of decades of research: 79 focus groups with people from all walks of life, more than 500 interviews, 150 Islamist propaganda videos, archival and published sources, and more still. The book’s main argument is th…
A Soviet Sultanate
The Basmachi Movement in the Late 1920s and Early 1930s in Soviet Kyrgyzstan during the Socialist Transformations
Despite its importance, the Basmachi movement in Soviet history remains underexamined. The struggle of the Bolsheviks with Basmachi detachments was an integral stage of the Russian Civil War in Soviet Central Asia. The Basmachi movement also took place in various regions of the territory of southern Kyrgyzstan. Forced collectivization, political, economic restrictions on the wealthy, and other reasons caused the revival of the movement towards th…
Political science (20 works) · History (17 works) · Law (14 works) · Ancient history (13 works) · Soviet and Russian History (13 works) · Islam (12 works) · Politics (10 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Central asia (8 works) · History (8 works)