The Benefits of Marginality

The Great Famine around the Aral Sea, 1930–1934

Bibliographic Data

ID11047562
AuthorsNiccolò Pianciola (0000-0002-7837-6425, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume48
Issue3
Pages513-529
Publication date2020-05-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueNationalities Papers (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0090-5992 • E-ISSN: 1465-3923
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/nps.2019.22
OpenAlexW2979811304
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited14

Based on research in Kazakhstani and Russian archives, this article is a regional study of the 1931–1933 Soviet famine. It compares Soviet policies in the southern and northern “halves” of the Aral Sea region. While the Kazaks in the northern part of the region suffered from the famine, the Karakalpaks in the south did not. The article explains this difference by underscoring the role of the main transportation infrastructure connecting Central Asia to Russia, the Orenburg-Tashkent railway. The railway crossed the northern, Kazak, part of the Aral Sea region and made massive livestock and grain procurements possible, while the absence of any reliable transportation route connecting Karakalpakstan to Soviet industrial centers contributed to shielding the Karakalpaks from the famine. The article also investigates the consequences of the famine for the Aral Sea fishing economy. The famine led to the inversion of the relative economic importance of the northern and southern parts of the sea: if before the famine fishing was concentrated in the former, after the famine it had shifted to the latter. Finally, the article situates the administrative detachment of Karakalpakstan from Kazakstan in 1930 within the context of Stalinist economic policies in Central Asia

Archaeology · Context (archaeology · Economics · Economy · Famine · Fishing · Geography · Political science · Colonial History and Postcolonial Studies · Russia and Soviet political economy · Soviet and Russian History

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