Drawing on extensive research in the archives of Russia and Uzbekistan, Douglas Northrop here reconstructs the turbulent history of a Soviet campaign that sought to end the seclusion of Muslim women. In Uzbekistan it focused above all on a massive effort to eliminate the heavy horsehair-and-cotton veils worn by many women and girls. This campaign against the veil was, in Northrop’s view, emblematic of the larger Soviet attempt to bring the proletarian revolution to Muslim Central Asia, a region Bolsheviks saw as primitive and backward. The Soviets focused on women and the family in an effort to forge a new, “liberated” social order.
This unveiling campaign, however, took place in the context of a half-century of Russian colonization and the long-standing suspicion of rural Muslim peasants toward an urban, colonial state. Widespread resistance to the idea of unveiling quickly appeared and developed into a broader anti-Soviet animosity among Uzbeks of both sexes. Over the next quarter-century a bitter and often violent confrontation ensued, with battles being waged over indigenous practices of veiling and seclusion.
New local and national identities coalesced around these very practices that had been placed under attack. Veils became powerful anticolonial symbols for the Uzbek nation as well as important markers of Muslim propriety. Bolshevik leaders, who had seen this campaign as an excellent way to enlist allies while proving their own European credentials as enlightened reformers, thus inadvertently strengthened the seclusion of Uzbek women—precisely the reverse of what they set out to do. Northrop's fascinating and evocative book shows both the fluidity of Central Asian cultural practices and the real limits that existed on Stalinist authority, even during the ostensibly totalitarian 1930s.
Reviews
"Few doubt that Central Asia labors under a Soviet legacy, but precisely what that legacy is remains elusive. Northrop goes a long way toward reconstructing a key piece of it: the history of the Bolsheviks' effort to uproot the old and impose the new on the Muslim population of Uzbekistan between 1917 and 1941."—Foreign Affairs 83:3, May/June 2004
“Northrop shows how, in the Soviet case, there simply was not enough modernization for modernity. The din of factory machinery, sirens and barking loudspeakers, which Soviet artists celebrated in the 1920s, did not reach the quiet, dusty streets of Uzbekistan. . . . Northrop finds a colonial empire obscuring imperialist policies under the cloak of decolonization.”—Kate Brown, Times Literary Supplement, April 8, 2005
“Veiled Empire contributes a lot to a more proper understanding of Soviet power in practice. It provides a remarkably deep [insight] into the inherent dynamics of Soviet power and gender relations in Uzbekistan during the first two decades of its existence.”—Reinhard Eisner, Nationalities Papers 32(2), September 2004
“Douglas Northrop’s Veiled Empire: Gender and Power in Stalinist Central Asia, a new study of Bolshevik cultural revolution in Central Asia, displays a thorough familiarity with the newly opened Russian and Uzbek-language archives, theoretical sophistication, historiographic erudition, and attention to everyday life. It offers the mold-breaking analysis of cultural change in Central Asia for the Soviet period that Adeeb Khalid’s The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform offered for the Imperial period. . . . Much of Veiled Empire explores subaltern resistance and the state’s response—policing its native agents, constructing a punitive legal system, and intruding into the private sphere. . . . Veiled Empire. . . an important book for those interested in Central Asia and Soviet imperialism, and in the clash of modernity and tradition, especially over gender. As Northrop reminds us, the veil has remained a potent point of contestation between secular states and Muslim cultures. . . . Northrop. . . provides a detailed, compelling, and thoughtful analysis of the hujum, and it should become the authoritative work on the subject.”—Matthew J. Payne, The Journal of The Historical Society, IV: 2, 2004
“The author’s very balanced conclusion that this Soviet “atypical empire” was both colonized and modernized is based on extensive archival studies and soundly demonstrates that coercive modernization is a failure. Summing Up: Recommended.”—A.V. Isaenko, Appalachian State University, CHOICE, September 2004
“Veiled Empire takes, as its central subject, an article of clothing: the head-to-toe covering worn by Uzbek women. A horsehair mesh veil masks the face, while cotton cloth loosely envelops the hair and body. I had the opportunity to don an antique Uzbek veil, and can attest to the fact that it is a hot, heavy, cumbersome garment, no doubt even for women used to wearing this cloak from the time of early adolescence. Douglas Northrop traces the multivalent meanings attached to this garment from various vantage points, including Bolshevik activists in both the center and the periphery, veiled and unveiled Uzbek women, Uzbek men, and the Muslim clerical establishment. . . . Northrop’s book is among the most sophisticated contributions to a growing body of literature rooted in the non-Russian areas of the USSR. . . . He evinces a breadth of knowledge and a subtle argumentation that sets a new standard in this underdeveloped field. Cornell University Press deserves commendation for putting out a book generously illustrated by photographs and maps, and enhanced by the author’s interesting bibliographic essay and unabridged translation of a sample archival document.”—Paula A. Michaels, Canadian Journal of History, April 2005
“The ‘veiled empire’ of the title of Douglas Northrop’s remarkable and important book captures the ironies and paradoxes that he so persuasively describes. . . . This book challenges not only much of the revisionist literature in its focus on ideology and colonial power, but also a good deal of the counter-revisionist literature that, in Northrop’s telling, argues too enthusiastically for the efficacy and widespread adoption of Bolshevik frameworks and concepts. It ought to provoke lively debate for years to come.”—Mark von Hagen, American Historical Review, June 2005
“Douglas Northrop aims to demonstrate that the transformation of national and regional identities was a matter of gender roles and ways of life. . . . Veiled Empire is a major and convincing contribution to the cultural history of Stalinism. It is provocative, refreshing, and well-written. This book is a pioneering study of colonial rule under Stalinism and should be read by all scholars interested in the cultural history of Stalinism.”—Jörg Baberowski, Slavic Review, Summer 2005
“This work will appeal to those interested in the relationships among colonialism, gender, religion, culture, and identity, as well as scholars of Stalinism, the Russian Revolution, and Central Asia.”—Sharon A. Kowalsky, Journal of World History, June 2005
“The ‘veiled empire’ to which Douglas Northrop refers in his stimulating, thought-provoking book was doubly obscured, in the author’s opinion, from outside gaze. In a figurative sense, official propaganda and censorship functioned quite effectively to hide real conditions in the Soviet Union; in a literal sense, most Muslim women within its borders continued in the decades after the Revolution to appear in public wearing the traditional veil. . . . Readers of the author’s fascinating investigation of the revolutionary transformation of Soviet Central Asia are left to formulate their own criteria in judging this vivid episode in Soviet colonial history. Veiled Empire is strongly recommended reading for anyone interested in the Soviet chapter in the history of Western colonialism.”—Daniel Brower, Journal of Modern History, December 2005
"A major work of empirical and theoretical scholarship, using newly available archival sources in Tashkent and Moscow, on Soviet campaigns against polygyny, the veil and female seclusion in Central Asia, and the resistance this engendered. Although the principal focus is on Uzbekistan, there is valuable comparison with other Central Asian republics including Turkmenistan. Perceptive, erudite and superbly written, it is also illustrated with rare photographs from the period."—Mike
Dennison, OSI/Eurasianet Turkmenistan Project
“Veiled Empire is a tour de force of research, based as it is on a thorough and pioneering search of Moscow and Uzbek archives. Douglas Northrop’s proficiency in languages and vast knowledge of several different historiographies make this a stunning achievement.”—Lynne Viola, University of Toronto
"In Veiled Empire, Douglas Northrop masterfully analyzes a wealth of archival information from Uzbekistan, made accessible after the collapse of the USSR, on arguably one of Stalin’s most celebrated revolutionary campaigns in Central Asia. Veiled Empire is a path-breaking and highly sophisticated work that carefully unpacks the events surrounding what came to be a highly symbolic piece of female clothing, to explore much deeper contestations over power and identities and to demonstrate the limits of Soviet power as well as the pull of changing loyalties through time. It is a most welcome addition to the growing body of literature on the analytical history of Soviet rule in post-independence Uzbekistan.”— Nazif Shahrani, Indiana University
