Double Burden and Double Consciousness: Women in Soviet Central Asia

The situation of women was of key importance for the solidification of the Soviet regime in the 1920s and 1930s in Central Asia. Conquering powers, in general, aim at winning the “hearts and minds” of traditional societies, or, if it is not possible, they aim at deconstructing the traditional ties of these societies, in order to make place for their own new structures. Women, as the transmitter of traditions and the maintainers of family honour, can act as powerful allies in both cases – or, if they resist the influence of the conquering power, they can be major and inescapable enemies as well. In Central Asia, the Soviet power seemingly brought empowerment to women by its “civilizational mission”. As an exchange, these women were expected to support Soviet aims. At the same time, the empowerment of women also contributed to the elimination of traditional ties within the society. As a consequence, the importance of the traditional female model was enhanced and politicised as a way of resistance against Soviet power. In this violent political (and several times physical) struggle between the Soviet and the traditional forces, women ended up as liminal beings between the two models, obliged to follow the Soviet stereotypes in public, and the traditional ones in private. In this way, instead of real empowerment, they had to carry a very specific double burden in an environment based on double consciousness. The aim of my research is to analyse the struggle between the Soviet and the traditional forces in Central Asia, focusing on the liminal position of women, who were used as political objects during this struggle, being (often forcefully) inscribed with the colliding values of the two antagonistic forces at the same time.