Dudoignon, Stéphane A. & Noack, Christian (dir.), Allah’s Kolkhozes : Migration, De-Stalinisation, Privatisation and the New Muslim Congregations in the Soviet Realm (1950s-2000s), Berlin, Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 2014, 541p.

The larger part of the Muslim popu­la­tion in the Soviet realm lived and conti­nues to live in rural areas. Other than in many parts of the present-day world of Islam, alter­na­tive, self-segre­gated, often anti-estab­lish­ment Muslim cong­re­ga­tions emerged outside the big urban agglo­me­ra­tions of the former USSR. Among other factors of this emer­gence can be mentioned: the mass resett­le­ments operated from the 1940s to the 1970s towards cash-crop growing lowlands; the tight limi­ta­tion on the drift from the land by the Soviet autho­ri­ties; the rela­tive auto­nomy enjoyed by rural produc­tion units endowed with specia­lised economic profiles; and the libe­ra­li­sa­tion of reli­gious practice in the wake of de-Stali­ni­sa­tion.

Eleven case studies trace the trans­for­ma­tions of Soviet and post-Soviet Islam within the former collec­ti­vised villages in Central Asia, the Caucasus and Inner Russia. The authors provide rich evidence for the close inter­play between Soviet kolkhoz admi­ni­s­t­ra­tions and the reli­gious personnel of Islam on the local lore. They show how this connec­tion prepared the ground for the emer­gence of alter­na­tive Muslim cong­re­ga­tions in already the post-Stali­nist Soviet Union — long before the pheno­menon became broadly visible during the boom of public reli­gious practice in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

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