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A. Niazi,
Ph. D. (Hist)
TURKMENS: ETHNOS AND FAITH
"Turkmen-nama" - "The Book of the Turkmens" was published in 2012 and reprinted in 2014. (Shohrat Kadyrov. "Turkmen-nama. Historical and Ethnographic Atlas." Upsala Moscow. IFECAS. 2014 -338 pp.).
Shohrat Kadyrov, the Institute of Oriental Studies, presented a comprehensive historical picture of centuries-long formation of the Turkmen people and their transformation into a single nation. This first so fundamental historical and ethnographic work is based on scientific data, accumulated by his predecessors. The detailed information on history, arts, crafts, demography, household relations, customs of Turkmen and their ancestors are described, as well as features of Muslim culture and national life of modern Turkmenistan - all information from the Neolithic to the present day is covered in the work under review.
The publication goes beyond the usual boundaries, as the author enters into polemics with various ethnological and ethnographic schools, putting forward his own ideas about ethnicity, and attempts to make them the key to the other sections of the book. The concept of ethnicity, its development and functioning of nation building is explained in extensive introductory chapter "What is ethnicity" (pp. 16-67). Readers can skip this theoretical section as it is quite complicated and written for an academic audience.
Briefly, S. Kadyrov's hypothesis about the nature of ethnicity is as follows: the ethnographer proposes to use faith in kinship, in irrational concept of the mind and emotions of a person for determining stability of the ethnic group. Kinship is the sacrament of birth and death, as it has the features of faith (p. 49). At the same time the scholar
draws our attention to the rationality, functionality, and social usefulness of faith. Such faith, in his opinion, is close to the faith of man in the family, the loved ones, and it can be applied to all ethnic communities. Faith in relationships, real and imaginary, is the most important feature that is attached to all ethnic groups and types - so it is possible to formulate the main conclusion of the theoretical reasoning of S. Kadyrov.
According to him, an essential part of this faith is "belief in an exemplary relationship." The author implies a certain ethnic core, which is regarded as a sample in different ethnic groups and communities. «The sample is not constant in the historical and ethnographic perspectives. Thus, different ethnic Turkmen: Salyr, Chovdur, Ersari and now Ahalteke were "exemplary" among the Turkmen at different times.» - S. Kadyrov writes (p. 56).
As a result, the scholar offers his definition of ethnicity -"Ethnos is a group of people united by kinship, its idealization and by choice of an example group on the criterion of primogeniture in it, a group, structured according to the degree of kinship to the older (ancient), and later to the dominant subgroup numerically or in the status position. This is a social structure, where relations and consolidation of members are based on faith and beliefs of the unity of the real and the fictional relationship to each other, the absolute and, at the same time, the relative value of kinship" (pp. 53, 56).
Such a hypothesis about the nature of ethnic group, put forward by the author of the book "Turkmen-Nama" can cause a lot of questions from experts, because evidence is clearly insufficient, and the original conceptual apparatus is unusual not only for ordinary, but also scientific perception.
Faith is declared as a binding concept in the chain of logical constructions of S. Kadyrov. Almost sacred belief in kinship that
permeates ethnic communities at all levels up to modern nations, and which should be taken for granted, simply does not require scientific evidence. This is the original postulate of the author. He just believes in this faith, proclaims its paradigm of ethnicity (p. 57), and claims that the definition of ethnic lexeme of "imagination kinship" or "idea of kinship" appeared in place of the concept of "faith in relationships" by mistake. (p. 49).
Naturally, there are many doubts about such allegations. First of all, are almost all people in the world believers in reality? Rather, they are in small traditional archaic ethnic groups and worship their totems. But is it widespread among today's major communities, especially Western ones that took shape among nations and peoples? Is this faith at all? How can the bearers of this faith describe it - both intellectuals and ordinary people? Somewhere it can be akin to belief in God's chosen people, messiahship, reminding of belief in ancestors or "national spirit." Someone can call it psychic norm. This may be an instinctive feeling, the collective unconscious, biological property, which does not have anything to do with faith in a general meaning.
Rather, in most cases it would be better to talk about the feeling, feeling of kinship or common origin by blood, spirit, culture, historical destiny, that is not necessarily faith, and, moreover, a blind faith. Therefore, it seems more correct to speak about the idealization of kinship, rather than faith in relationship.
At the same time, the spiritual faith - Islam - has played a very important role in the centuries-old ethnic self-construction and self-identity formation of the Turkmen. Unfortunately, it is said in the book in passing. The solidarity of the Turkmen tribes and people took place not only on the basis of linguistic community and economic structures, kinship and political alliances, but also because of ethno-social reorganization associated with entering into multinational Islamic
civilization, in ruling dynasties and armies of Muslims. At the same time, the tribal hierarchical management structures were changed.
This story is described in part in the "Book of the Turkmens". It shows the influence of the Arab, Iranian, Turkic areas and the Mongol presence on the formation of Turkmen Muslim culture and ethics. Although Islam began to win the hearts of the Turkmen already in the seventh century, it has been firmly established among a significant part of the tribes in the tenth century, when the territory of modern Turkmenistan became the center of the Seljuk state. Many Turkmen had found themselves in Asia Minor and the Middle East during the military campaigns of the Seljuks. Some of them had assimilated, but a lot of them still live in Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan. A majority of Turkmen is Sunni, but there are many Shiites among them.
The new aristocracy, revered for its piety, godliness, religious teachings and practices began to emerge among the Turkmen along with the spreading of Islam. The religious aristocracy even caused certain changes in ethnic formations, which can be traced to this day. Noble extended families - ovlyads (hojja seids, ata, magtymy, sheehy) - often try not to mix blood with commoners, while the ovlyads are considered to be saints (pp. 146-147). It is assumed, that ovlyads are able to form exemplary ethnic cores inside sub-ethnic groups of the Turkmen nation, presenting some kind of examples to follow, and some of them can become dominant even in politics. But we should not exaggerate the importance of traditional cultural-kinship unification in the modern state system of Turkmenistan.
It is obvious that the presence of Turkmens in the dynamic Islamic world in the first centuries of its active expansion in the territories of different peoples had caused intensive processes of
ethnogeny in their communities. This had influenced the increasing anthropological diversity of the inhabitants of the Caspian area.
Probably, at this stage archaic faith in totems, ancestors and kinship start to give way to faith in spiritual kinship, and the influence of religion and culture on the formation and development of ethnic groups has qualitatively changed. Nowadays monotheistic faith blocks recurrences of ancient faith in blood kinship in many cases, whether real or imagined.
Turkmenistan has retained the custom of ancestor worship, but it is not faith in them. Believers appeal for intercession and mercy to Allah. Faith in kinship is an anachronism for modern society, but idealization of the custom still remains, which is natural to people. Ethnic consciousness is expanding, ethnic groups are evolving, becoming super-ethnic groups, and the role of religious faith remains quite stable.
Ethnologists, and in general, social scientists are engaged in a rather complicated task on the interaction of ethnic processes of development or degradation of our spiritual life. In the meantime, Russian anthropologists and ethnographers carry on unproductive debates about the features and nature of ethnos and do not notice that each school sets different goals and objectives of research, use different methodologies, put forward different concepts in the same terms and study quite dissimilar societies. Some of them make conclusions on the examples of the United States and other advanced countries, others - on Eurasian societies, for example, Turkmenistan, and it has eventually brought research and discourse on ethnicity and nation to a standstill.
This article was submitted by the author for publication in the bulletin "Russia and the Moslem World".
