The New Woman in Uzbekistan: Islam, Modernity, and Unveiling under Communism

by Marianne Kamp

Winner of the Association of Women in Slavic Studies Heldt Prize

Winner of the Central Eurasian Studies Society History and Humanities Book Award

Honorable mention for the W. Bruce Lincoln Prize Book Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS)

This groundbreaking work in women's history explores the lives of Uzbek women, in their own voices and words, before and after the Russian Revolution of 1917. Drawing upon their oral histories and writings, Marianne Kamp reexamines the Soviet Hujum, the 1927 campaign in Soviet Central Asia to encourage mass unveiling as a path to social and intellectual "liberation." This engaging examination of changing Uzbek ideas about women in the early twentieth century reveals the complexities of a volatile time: why some Uzbek women chose to unveil, why many were forcibly unveiled, why a campaign for unveiling triggered massive violence against women, and how the national memory of this pivotal event remains contested today.

Genres: History, Islam, Grad School, Soviet Union, Nonfiction, Academic

320 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2000

About the author

Dr. Marianne Ruth Kamp is an associate professor in Central Eurasian studies at Indiana University. She is a social historian of modern Central Asia, with a focus on gender, social change, and the history of Uzbekistan.

Reviews

[Anne Haack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brava! The oral histories here are really wonderful and lend nuance. (In 100 years I would like to read Marianne Kamp's assessment of today's vaccine vs. anti-vaccine movements.) She really addresses the nuances and forces around unveiling well. "Veiling in Uzbekistan in 2000 required as much individual fortitude as unveiling did in 1927."

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Importantly presents Uzbek women as active agents and symbols for both traditional and modernists movements. Kamp draws from oral histories and takes a comparative approach by examining Turkey and Iran.

[evie · Rating 3 out of 5]

read for uni, unprompted, and used entirely for the worst essay i’ve ever written

[Jacob Dunning · Rating 4 out of 5]

Women in Islamic nations is far from my area of expertise or study, but Kamp provides an interesting glimpse into history that is not discussed on a broad scale. Very informative.