Table Of ContentALLEN J. FRANK
GULAG MIRACLES:
SUFIS AND STALINIST REPRESSION
IN KAZAKHSTAN
ÖSTERREICHISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN
PHILOSOPHISCH-HISTORISCHE KLASSE
SITZUNGSBERICHTE, 895. BAND
VERÖFFENTLICHUNGEN ZUR IRANISTIK
HERAUSGEGEBEN VON BERT. G. FRAGNER UND FLORIAN SCHWARZ
NR. 84
STUDIES AND TEXTS ON CENTRAL ASIA
HERAUSGEGEBEN VON FLORIAN SCHWARZ
BAND 2
ALLEN J. FRANK
GULAG MIRACLES:
SUFIS AND STALINIST REPRESSION
IN KAZAKHSTAN
Angenommen durch die Publikationskommission der philosophisch-
historischen Klasse der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften:
Accepted by the Publication Committee of the Division of Humanities
and Social S ciences of the Austrian Academy of Sciences by:
Michael Alram, Bert G. Fragner, Andre Gingrich, Hermann Hunger,
Sigrid Jalkotzy-Deger, Renate Pillinger, Franz Rainer, Oliver Jens Schmitt,
Danuta Shanzer, Peter Wiesinger, Waldemar Zacharasiewicz
Diese Publikation wurde einem anonymen,
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Peer review is an essential part of the Austrian Academy of Sciences Press
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it is assessed by international specialists and ultimately must be approved
by the Austrian Academy of Sciences Publication Committee.
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the r equirements for permanent archiving of written cultural property.
Cover Design: Bettina Hofleitner
Coverphoto: © Allen J. Frank. Gravestone of Mäshhür Zhüsip Köpeyulï,
near Bayanaul, Kazakhstan.
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Copyright © Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften
Austrian Academy of Sciences
Wien/Vienna 2019
ISBN 978-3-7001-8334-1
Druck/Printed: Prime Rate, Budapest
https://epub.oeaw.ac.at/8334-1
https://verlag.oeaw.ac.at
Made in Europe
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements .................................................................................................... 7
Introduction ................................................................................................................ 9
Chapter 1. Muslim Hagiographies and the Social History of Central Asia .............. 17
Central Asian hagiographies as historical sources .............................................. 17
Hagiographical elements in Muslim compositional genres ................................ 19
Regional and thematic aspects of hagiographic traditions .................................. 21
Kazakh hagiographies ......................................................................................... 23
Sources for modern Kazakh hagiographies and shrine catalogs ......................... 31
Chapter 2. Sufi Communities and the Significance of Miracles............................... 33
Sufi communities in Central Asia ....................................................................... 33
Miracles and sacred lineages .............................................................................. 40
Five Ishan lineages in Kazakhstan ...................................................................... 47
Chapter 3. Confiscation, Collectivization, and Repression ...................................... 61
Ishans and the state to 1917 ................................................................................ 64
Stalinist repression in Kazakhstan ...................................................................... 69
Chapter 4. Gulag Miracles and Sacred Relics .......................................................... 85
Gulag miracles .................................................................................................... 85
Relics and other sacred objects ........................................................................... 97
Chapter 5. Accommodation, Sovietization, and Islamization ................................ 103
Sacred lineages and the Second World War ..................................................... 105
Ishans and Soviet career paths .......................................................................... 109
Saints on the collective farm: Tractor and rain miracles................................... 114
Ishans and Soviet patriotism ............................................................................. 115
Conclusion.............................................................................................................. 117
Appendix: Miracles in the Gulag and Tsarist Prisons ............................................ 119
Bibliography ........................................................................................................... 133
Maps .................................................................................................................... 143
Index .................................................................................................................... 147
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book originated in the city of Baltimore, from a series of discussions with
Jeff Eden about Central Asian history. Jeff was present at every stage of the
project, from its inception through to its submission and publication, and he
deserves special thanks for his encouragement and for his kind attention and
time.
Several other colleagues significantly encouraged and assisted the
preparation of this monograph. Ulan Bigozhin and Ashirbek Muminov
supplied many important and otherwise unobtainable sources for the project.
Devin DeWeese provided helpful suggestions to the manuscript, and his
contributions to the history of Central Asian Sufism and Soviet Islam have
strongly informed this work, well beyond his reviewer’s comments. Paolo
Sartori, Florian Schwarz, and Bettina Hofleitner likewise provided kind
assistance and encouragement in seeing the work through to publication.
Finally, the author wishes to thank the National Library of Kazakhstan for
making many crucial publications available.
INTRODUCTION
The crimes of 20th century Nazi and Stalinist totalitarianism enveloped a vast
portion of the globe, inflicting mass arrests, enslavement, genocide, ethnic
cleansing, and generalized terror and social disruption on diverse populations,
communities, and cultures. Among Western historians in particular, the
experience of Muslims with totalitarianism, especially during the Second
World War, is most commonly addressed with respect to colonized
populations. The interactions between Nazi Germany and the Islamic world
are often depicted as continuing the Imperial German policy of encouraging
Muslims under French and British colonial rule to rebel against their
overlords, or otherwise assist in the German war effort.1 Similarly, we have
studies of how the British and French governments, both perpetrators of
atrocities in their own Muslim colonies during the Second World War,
managed their Muslim subjects, as well as the propaganda threats emanating
from Nazi Germany.2 If we take into account the relatively limited, and – in
contrast to the 21st century experience – benign, wartime interactions of the
United States with the Islamic world during the Second World War, it is not
surprising that from the vast literature on the social impacts of Nazi and
Stalinist crimes, one is left with the impression that Muslims escaped
relatively unscathed, if only thanks to geography.3 Muslims, however, made
up a significant proportion of the Soviet Union’s citizenry, and like every
other ethnic or religious community in that country, suffered severely under
Stalinist rule. These include Muslim communities in the Crimea, the
1 Nazi-Muslim relations are the topic of the following recent monographs: David Motadel,
Islam and Nazi Germany’s War, (Belknap Press: Cambridge Massachusetts, 2014); Stephan
Ihrig, Atatürk in the Nazi Imagination, (Belknap Press: Cambridge Massachusetts, 2014);
Francis Nicosia, Nazi Germany and the Arab World, (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2014); Marko Attila Hoare: The Bosnian Muslims in the Second World War: a
History, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
2 See, Madhusree Mukerjee, Churchill’s Secret War: the British Empire and the Ravaging of
India during World War II (New York: Basic Books, 2010); Annie Rey-Goldzeighuer, Aux
origins de la guerre d’Algerie: de Mers-el-Kebir aux massacres Nord-Constantinois,
(Paris: La Decouverte, 2002).
3 For some discussions of religious policy towards Muslim communities under Japanese
occupation, see Harry J. Benda, The Crescent and Rising Sun: Indonesian Islam under
Japanese Occupation, 1942–1945, (The Hague and Bantung: Van Hoeve, 1958); Abu Talib
Ahmad, “Japanese Policy towards Islam in Malaya during the Occupation: A Reassessment,
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 33/1 (2002), 107–122.
