My book Kazakhstan in World War II: Ethnicity and Mobilization in the Soviet Empire examines the party-state's mobilization strategies and explores how the war altered official policies towards Kazakhstan's ethnic groups. The book is aimed at readers interested in Soviet and Central Asian history and the global history of World War II. Supervisors: Uli Schamiloglu, David McDonald, and Francine Hirsch Address: VA, USA
This graduate seminar shifts the typical geographic focus of World War II from Europe and the Pac... more This graduate seminar shifts the typical geographic focus of World War II from Europe and the Pacific to the borderlands of the British, French, Japanese, and Soviet empires. The goal of this seminar is to explore the different ways that comparative and transnational methodologies can help graduate students understand wartime and postwar phenomena such as mobilization, sexual violence, and decolonization. We will approach these issues by discussing books and articles that examine the wartime and immediate postwar histories of Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia. This course will acquaint graduate students with perspectives and methodologies useful for their own research projects while providing a solid foundation for a comprehensive understanding of postwar world history.
This upper-level undergraduate course examines Central Asia – the region encompassed today by Kaz... more This upper-level undergraduate course examines Central Asia – the region encompassed today by Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan – from the beginning of Russian colonization to the end of the Khrushchev period. The primary goal of the course is to identify and explore historical processes that dramatically affected the region’s populations. These processes include the integration of Central Asian regional economies into imperial economies, Russification, political and cultural revolution, repression, and intellectual responses to social change. We will pay particular attention to identifying the key differences between Russian imperial rule and Soviet rule in Central Asia. The assigned readings will introduce students to important scholarly literature on Central Asia as well as key primary sources connected to Central Asian history.
In July 1941, the Soviet Union was in mortal danger. Imperiled by the Nazi invasion and facing ca... more In July 1941, the Soviet Union was in mortal danger. Imperiled by the Nazi invasion and facing catastrophic losses, Stalin called on the Soviet people to “subordinate everything to the needs of the front.” Kazakhstan answered that call. Stalin had long sought to restructure Kazakh life to modernize the local population—but total mobilization during the war required new tactics and produced unique results. Kazakhstan in World War II analyzes these processes and their impact on the Kazakhs and the Soviet Union as a whole. The first English-language study of a non-Russian Soviet republic during World War II, the book explores how the war altered official policies toward the region’s ethnic groups—and accelerated Central Asia’s integration into Soviet institutions.
World War II is widely recognized as a watershed for Russia and the Soviet Union—not only did the conflict legitimize prewar institutions and ideologies, it also provided a medium for integrating some groups and excluding others. Kazakhstan in World War II explains how these processes played out in the ethnically diverse and socially “backward” Kazakh republic. Roberto J. Carmack marshals a wealth of archival materials, official media sources, and personal memoirs to produce an in-depth examination of wartime ethnic policies in the Red Army, Soviet propaganda for non-Russian groups, economic strategies in the Central Asian periphery, and administrative practices toward deported groups. Bringing Kazakhstan’s previously neglected role in World War II to the fore, Carmack’s work fills an important gap in the region’s history and sheds new light on our understanding of Soviet identities.
This graduate seminar shifts the typical geographic focus of World War II from Europe and the Pac... more This graduate seminar shifts the typical geographic focus of World War II from Europe and the Pacific to the borderlands of the British, French, Japanese, and Soviet empires. The goal of this seminar is to explore the different ways that comparative and transnational methodologies can help graduate students understand wartime and postwar phenomena such as mobilization, sexual violence, and decolonization. We will approach these issues by discussing books and articles that examine the wartime and immediate postwar histories of Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia. This course will acquaint graduate students with perspectives and methodologies useful for their own research projects while providing a solid foundation for a comprehensive understanding of postwar world history.
This upper-level undergraduate course examines Central Asia – the region encompassed today by Kaz... more This upper-level undergraduate course examines Central Asia – the region encompassed today by Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan – from the beginning of Russian colonization to the end of the Khrushchev period. The primary goal of the course is to identify and explore historical processes that dramatically affected the region’s populations. These processes include the integration of Central Asian regional economies into imperial economies, Russification, political and cultural revolution, repression, and intellectual responses to social change. We will pay particular attention to identifying the key differences between Russian imperial rule and Soviet rule in Central Asia. The assigned readings will introduce students to important scholarly literature on Central Asia as well as key primary sources connected to Central Asian history.
In July 1941, the Soviet Union was in mortal danger. Imperiled by the Nazi invasion and facing ca... more In July 1941, the Soviet Union was in mortal danger. Imperiled by the Nazi invasion and facing catastrophic losses, Stalin called on the Soviet people to “subordinate everything to the needs of the front.” Kazakhstan answered that call. Stalin had long sought to restructure Kazakh life to modernize the local population—but total mobilization during the war required new tactics and produced unique results. Kazakhstan in World War II analyzes these processes and their impact on the Kazakhs and the Soviet Union as a whole. The first English-language study of a non-Russian Soviet republic during World War II, the book explores how the war altered official policies toward the region’s ethnic groups—and accelerated Central Asia’s integration into Soviet institutions.
World War II is widely recognized as a watershed for Russia and the Soviet Union—not only did the conflict legitimize prewar institutions and ideologies, it also provided a medium for integrating some groups and excluding others. Kazakhstan in World War II explains how these processes played out in the ethnically diverse and socially “backward” Kazakh republic. Roberto J. Carmack marshals a wealth of archival materials, official media sources, and personal memoirs to produce an in-depth examination of wartime ethnic policies in the Red Army, Soviet propaganda for non-Russian groups, economic strategies in the Central Asian periphery, and administrative practices toward deported groups. Bringing Kazakhstan’s previously neglected role in World War II to the fore, Carmack’s work fills an important gap in the region’s history and sheds new light on our understanding of Soviet identities.
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World War II is widely recognized as a watershed for Russia and the Soviet Union—not only did the conflict legitimize prewar institutions and ideologies, it also provided a medium for integrating some groups and excluding others. Kazakhstan in World War II explains how these processes played out in the ethnically diverse and socially “backward” Kazakh republic. Roberto J. Carmack marshals a wealth of archival materials, official media sources, and personal memoirs to produce an in-depth examination of wartime ethnic policies in the Red Army, Soviet propaganda for non-Russian groups, economic strategies in the Central Asian periphery, and administrative practices toward deported groups. Bringing Kazakhstan’s previously neglected role in World War II to the fore, Carmack’s work fills an important gap in the region’s history and sheds new light on our understanding of Soviet identities.
World War II is widely recognized as a watershed for Russia and the Soviet Union—not only did the conflict legitimize prewar institutions and ideologies, it also provided a medium for integrating some groups and excluding others. Kazakhstan in World War II explains how these processes played out in the ethnically diverse and socially “backward” Kazakh republic. Roberto J. Carmack marshals a wealth of archival materials, official media sources, and personal memoirs to produce an in-depth examination of wartime ethnic policies in the Red Army, Soviet propaganda for non-Russian groups, economic strategies in the Central Asian periphery, and administrative practices toward deported groups. Bringing Kazakhstan’s previously neglected role in World War II to the fore, Carmack’s work fills an important gap in the region’s history and sheds new light on our understanding of Soviet identities.