Paper long abstract:

Education and Identity: Who are Afghan Students?

This paper reflects on the way in which Afghan students identify themselves as members of the society and as citizens and the role of schools in their perceptions.

Although identity crisis is a deep rooted problem in multi-ethnic and multi-lingual Afghanistan, recently president's approval of the electronic ID card on which the word "Afghan" has been printed as the "nationality" of the holder of the card, has brought again identity to the frontline, as many do not identify themselves as Afghan. This research took place when issues of identities were openly discussed in media and among all walks of life.

After fall of Taliban, Afghan government introduced a new curriculum and significant importance was given to peace, citizenship and human rights. In order to promote the international dimension of education, Afghan government has also welcomed school partnerships with international community offering training on concepts and skills such as global citizenship, critical thinking and digital literacy.

The main question of this research is, to what extent students' perception of their identity is a function of what they learn at school comparing to what they learn from the society and in particular the elites?

Data from questionnaires and interviews have been analyzed from 60 secondary school students in a total of 10 schools of which 5 were receiving education on citizenship through international partnership (group A) and 5 were not (group B).

The findings suggest that majority of students in control group (B) (not receiving complementary education on citizenship) identify themselves in terms of ethnicity, religion, language and gender. While students in the treatment group (A), tended to identify themselves more subjectively as human being, citizen and a "proper noun".

Considering the emergence of radical and extremist identities at national and international levels, this research was intended to understand citizenship education's contribution to peace and to discuss the implications of the findings for schools. This paper provides recommendations for how school-based citizenship education may contribute to current challenges related to citizenship and identity.

Paper long abstract:

According to the Kazakhstani national e-history project, the first account of a Korean in Central Asia was in 727 A.D. As part of his pilgrimage to India, a Korean Buddhist monk named Hyecho purportedly traveled through parts of Western China, which was considered part of Central Asia. By some historians' accounts, travel between the Silla Empire on the Korean peninsula, the Tang rule in mainland China, Nara Japan, and the Silk Road accounted for the appearance of precious gems in Imperial Korea (Kim, 2014). It was the Treaty of Peking (1860), however, that established the path which would eventually result in the 1937 Korean deportation. According to the Treaty, China ceded parts of outer Manchuria to Imperial Russia. This included the territory of Ussuri Krai, which includes part of Primorye oblast (Wada, 1987). Lankov (2011) notes that historically, Koreans and Russians encountered each other as early as the 17th century when Imperial Korean forces joined Qing imperial forces against the Russian Cossacks during the Albazin conflict (1680s). However, according to Kim (2003a), immigration from the Korean peninsula up the coast into Imperial China and Tsarist Russia began around the 1860s and continued through the 1920s (Diener, 2009; Wada, 1987). Eventually, after being granted Russian (then later Soviet) citizenship, Stalin ordered for the mass deportation of entire Korean villages from the Far East (Primorye) with the intention of resettling them in the Central Asian autonomous regions.

As noted in Ahn (2019), there has been a substantive body of work exploring the lives of different Korean diasporas in the US (Abelmann, 1995, 1996, 2003, 2009; Choi, 2012), China (Gao, 2010). Kazakhstani historians like German Kim have prolifically produced historiographical works on Soviet and Central Asian Koreans (Kim, 1993, 2003a, 2003b, 2005, 2009a, 2009b). However, the collective memories of Central Asian Koreans have not been fully explored, particularly in connection to notions of "homeland" and identity. This paper explores the linkages between participants' family histories regarding the Korean deportation, notions of historic homeland, and participant identities regarding their "Korean-ness". Twenty-seven ethnographic interviews were conducted between May and October 2015 primarily around two Kazakhstani oblasts, Almaty and Shymkent. The interview questions were based on a study looking at the lived experiences of other diasporic communities in Kazakhstan (Li Wei, 2016; Smagulova, 2016). The broader study explores questions related to issues of social mobility, socio-economic access, and identity construction among ethnolinguistic minorities in Kazakhstan.

Paper long abstract:

"Ashik-Kerib," a text composed during Lermontov's exile to the Trans-Caucasus, has mostly been analyzed in terms of the tale's sources, be they Azerbaijani, Armenian, or Georgian. This approach has distracted from questions about the tale's meaning and its place within Lermontov's work without necessarily furthering knowledge about the tradition(s) of the region from which it is taken. A case in point is Ashik-Kerib's encounter with Khidr-Ilyas (a name Lermontov translates parenthetically as "St. George"), which, while constituting one of the most detailed descriptions of an action in Lermontov's "Turkish Fairytale" as well as the subject of the only songs of Kerib that Lermontov records, has thus far received little scholarly attention. Drawing on the earliest recording of the Azerbaijani dastan as well as Azerbaijani, Armenian, and Georgian scholarship surrounding the tale, I argue that the analysis of this episode is central to understanding Lermontov's intention in writing Ashik-Kerib; it speaks to the nature of poetry as Lermontov understood it, drawing a link between poetic and prophetic inspiration. Furthermore, it is crucial to interpreting the status of the text itself, since it is ultimately uncertain who translated this portion of the text: Lermontov, a local tradition/translator, or some combination of these. I will elaborate of the problem of the relationship between translation and poetic creation through reference to Sergei Paradjanov's version of Lermontov's tale, Ashik-Kerib.

Paper long abstract:

The role of the Caucasus for Russian romanticism that developed in the 19th century has been crucial to the development of the genre. It has been especially important to the works of Alexander Pushkin, who has been regarded as the Father of Russian Literature. In my paper, I am discussing the role of the territory what constitutes modern Azerbaijan in one of Pushkin's later works "The Tale of The Golden Cockerel", where a character by the name of the Shamakhan Queen appears, who represents a region in modern Azerbaijan known to Russians for its silk since the 15th century. She plays an important role in shifting the narrative of the story. The Shamakhan Queen turns the "Russians" in the story from conquerors to the conquered in a reversal of Edward Said's Orientalism and Harsha Ram's prophetic topos.