Abstract

This volume has been put together to mark the occasion of 40 years of Central Asian Survey. The creation of Central Asian Survey was a long process that began with discussions in the mid-1970s, mostly among a group of scholars associated with the Soviet Nationalities Seminar at the University of Chicago under the tutelage of Alexandre Bennigsen. From the 1960s onward, there had been a small, but growing, community of scholars focused on the Central Asian region. This included the forementioned ‘Bennigsen School’ of young American specialists on Soviet Islam, and also another group of scholars based around Bennigsen at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique in Paris, along with scholars emerging from the programme at Colombia University under Professor Edward Allworth. Until the 1970s the study of Central Asia was largely positioned with the broader remit of Slavic/Russian Studies under the rubric of “Soviet Nationalities”.