[Discussion] PUBL.- Islam and Politics in the Former Soviet Union (in French)

[gonul@pultar.org]

From: Sebastien Peyrouse <sebpeyrouse@yahoo.com>

PUBL.- Islam and Politics in the Former Soviet Union (in French)

Marlene Laruelle and Sebastien Peyrouse, Editors
Islam et politique en Ex-URSS (Russie D'Europe et Asie Centrale) [Islam and
politics in the former Soviet Union (European Russia and Central Asia]
Paris, IFEAC-L'Harmattan, 2005, 338 pp., in French, 29,50 euros.

More than fifteen years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, this book aims
to review the current evolution in this area, by emphasizing the question of
religion and its links with politics. The period of political liberalization in
the perestroika was followed/accompanied by an upsurgence in religion. The new
States of Central Asia and the republics of the Russian Federation consisting of
a majority of Muslims (Tatarstan, Bashkiria) use their religious identity as
instruments in order to assert their nationhood and statehood.

The interweaving of religion, politics and nationality is neither new nor
specific to this geographical area.  It lies within the scope of some more
general processes, through which the post-Soviet societies have too rarely been
analysed. These themes could arouse a more general reflection about the
paradoxical links emerging today between religion and politics. The
former/Religion tries to take advantage of the globalization to occupy new
public spaces and to present itself as one of the foundations of the individual
and collective identities. Islam in the former USSR should not be considered to
be a cultural isolate.

It is part of the globalization and of the processes of religious recomposition,
such as: the individualization of belief, its participation in "neo-ethnical"
identities, its formulation in terms of antiglobalization etc. This book does
not focus on specific questions of islamology; it rather offers an analysis of
the Post-Soviet Islam as a political plan by comparing it with the other Muslim
States and with European Islam, which is relevant to understand the Russian
case. This book also aims to illustrate the necessity of a reflection which
takes into account the entire Post-Soviet region: the collapse of the Soviet
Union in 1991 and the independence of the 15 republics do not mean that there
are no common schemas of analysis, nor does it result in the absence of any
developmental unity of these countries during the last fifteen years.

Contents:

Introduction. Les processus globaux de recomposition identitaire et religieuse:
l'islam post-sovietique(Marlene Laruelle, Sebastien Peyrouse)

Partie I. Religion, etat et politique, des instrumentalisations reciproques

Les composants islamiques de la politique confessionnelle en republique du
Tatarstan (Rafik Mukhametchin)

La recomposition du spectre religieux en Asie centrale: l'alliance entre islam
et christianisme orthodoxe (Sebastien Peyrouse)

L'appartenance a l'islam comme critere politique? La politisation des Directions
spirituelles et la constitution de partis musulmans en Russie
(Marlene Laruelle)

"L'islam habite notre avenir!" Le proselytisme musulman en Russie, conversions,
institutionnalisation et strategies politiques (Evgueni Moroz)

Le facteur religieux aux elections presidentielles bachkires de 2003 (Danil
Azamatov)

Les diverses instrumentalisations politiques de l'islam au Tatarstan (Aidar
Khabutdinov)

Partie II. Question sociale, question nationale. La place de la religion
dans la sphere publique

Quelques reponses a une question non posee: l'islam et le recensement de la
population de Russie en 2002(Jean Radvanyi)

Les revendications musulmanes en Russie: entre mobilisation et defection
politique (Francoise Dauce)

Sous la croix des recenses. Identites et religion: le recensement russe de
2002 en Republique du Bachkortostan (Xavier Le Torrivellec)

Les combinaisons paradoxales de l'islam kazakh: renouveau institutionnel,
identite nationale et politisation (Sanat Kuchkumbaev)

Construction de l'identite nationale et islam: les Kurdes de Turquie et les
Tatars de la Volga (Edouard Ponarin, Lilia Sagitova)

Partie III. L'Enjeu de la transmission sociale et theologique de la foi

Chami-damulla et son rôle dans la constitution d'un "islam sovietique"
(Achirbek Muminov)

La vallee du Ferghana dans les annees 1970-1980, aspects economiques et sociaux
du mouvement islamiste (Adil Kariev)

Nouvelles formulations ideologiques et theologiques de l'islam post-sovietique
(Marlene Laruelle, Sebastien Peyrouse)

La communaute musulmane du Kazakhstan, acteurs officiels et groupes officieux
(Nurlan Alniazov)

Le soufisme "populaire" en Asie  centrale (Sergei Abachin)

Secularisme et islam politique en Asie centrale (Bakhtiar Babadjanov, Martha
Brill Olcott)




Distrib. by: Central-Eurasia-L - Announcement List for Central Eurasian Studies