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6. Self-Fashioning Kyrgyzness among Women
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9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 120 Ail authorities went to great lengths to show that women’s full participation in society accelerated the process of “cultural development” for the Kyrgyz. According to party administrators in Kyzyl Kyia, in March 1925, Uzbek and Kyrgyz women organized women’s circles. They applauded the outcome of this cooperation, suggesting that these women together facilitated mass cultural work. Women seemed likewise proactive and enthusiastic about this type of activity. In 1927, according to the newspaper Sovetskaia Kirgiziia, “Uzbek and Kyrgyz women jointly sent a petition to the oblast authorities, asking for a special school for women.”1 The article asserted that these women took the initiative to represent Kyzyl Kyia’s workers and peasants. Soviet authorities recognized that local women’s involvement in cultural projects was essential in attracting not only the women of neighboring villages but also men. The creation of a Soviet identity that superseded one’s identity as a member of an ethnic community was the ultimate goal of Soviet cultural politics. Therefore, ethnic mixing in regions where communities were closely attached to their ethnicity would be the best result of all. In June 1936, a news article about club activities in Kyzyl Kyia boasted about the female coal miners of the area successfully participating in the first Olympiad of Amateur Arts of Coal Miners of Central Asia and proudly concluded that the women CHAPTER 6 Self-Fashioning Kyrgyzness among Women SELF-FASHIONING KYRGYZNESS AMONG WOMEN 9 121 of Kyzyl Kyia held their own among miners from various parts of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.2 State-sponsored institutions such as clubs promoted various Soviet policies , including interethnic collaboration, sedentarization, unveiling, women ’s education, and the public transformation of ordinary women into Soviet heroines. In regard to women, there existed significant tension between the elites’ enthusiastic reception of Soviet cultural policies and the inadequate functionality of Soviet institutions, the very institutions that were expected to educate and champion women as heroes. The narratives presented here illustrate that both phenomena coexisted as an ordinary occurrence in Kyrgyz society and as part of the everyday relationship between the state and society. The promulgation of Soviet heroines was a primary focus of Stalinera cultural policies, which were to influence Kyrgyz women’s self-image and the new concept of Soviet womanhood. These concepts lead to the practical question of how the women of Kyrgyzstan responded to such policies upon encountering them in clubs, theaters, and festivals. Interethnic Collaboration and Fighting the Veil Discussion of the Soviet goal of interethnic collaboration appeared in various documents of the clubs and in newspaper reports. Collaboration between Uzbek and Kyrgyz women seemed more newsworthy than that between Russian and Kyrgyz women. The elevated position of the Russian and other European transplants was a given fact, and their impact on the “backward” cultures was taken for granted. The indigenous populations had no choice but to cooperate with the Soviets from the western regions. For the Soviet authorities, the stakes were especially high in the ethnically diverse region around the southern city of Osh because they placed significant emphasis on relations between specific groups, such as Uzbeks and Kyrgyz, that had an occasional antagonism toward each other. State officials sought to show that different ethnic communities could work and live together successfully under the Soviet plan, and they counted on women’s organizations to help bring ethnically diverse communities closer. The official language in Sovetskaia Kirgiziia articles shows that whenever one ethnic community made overtures, however small, toward a different ethnic community, Soviet authorities exaggerated the collaboration in their reports to higher authorities. Ail authorities meticulously reported the ethnic background of women attending Zhenotdel (Women’s Department) and other club meetings. For example, Sovetskaia Kirgiziia reported that in Osh oblast the number of Uzbek women attending educational institutions dramatically increased, thanks to the efforts of the local Zhenotdel. The article boasted that, within a year, the number of women in Osh schools tripled, from 47 students in 1926 [34.234.83.135] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 10:44 GMT) 122 9 SELF-FASHIONING KYRGYZNESS AMONG WOMEN to 147 in 1927. The numbers also increased in the Girl Pioneers and Komsomol . In addition, also with attribution to Zhenotdel’s hard work, 57 women became Communist Party members in 1927, doubling the numbers from 1926. The quoted statistics show that only 18 of the 147 women attending the School for the Liquidation of Illiteracy were Kyrgyz; the rest...