Yarulin Ildus

№ 2, 2016

• WHO ARE BASMACHI? Soviet Myth Making and Stigmatization of Civil War in Central Asia

  The article studies the specifics of mythologization and stigmatization of the peripheral communities in the Soviet empire on the example of the civil war in Central Asia. Focusing on the phenomenon of Basmachi movement, L.Blyakher and I.Yarulin show the reasons for why the very term “basmachi” emerged, how its volume and content were formed, and what functions it performed in relation to the peripheral community. According to the authors’ conclusion, the attempts to reconsider Basmachi movement that have been increasingly undertaken in the recent years have failed precisely because within the Soviet stigmatizing discourse this term referred to the movements that were extremely different both in their political preferences and social nature, but at some point were declared enemies by the Soviet authorities.

  DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2016-81-2-109-123