She was no one's property: Kazakh nomadic women and the Soviet myth of subjugation

Note: this essay is an excerpt from the longer article "The Letters of Adolf Januszkiewicz, Another Soviet Forgery" by Zaure Batayeva (published May 25, 2022). Footnote numbers correspond to those in the original article.

Among the many lies embedded in the Soviet forgery attributed to the Polish exile Adolf Januszkiewicz, none are more calculated — or more consequential — than those about Kazakh women. The book's portrayal of nomadic women as property, as the lowest rank in a crude hierarchy of men, horses, and livestock, was not a 19th-century traveller's ignorance. It was a deliberate policy, one thread in a much larger Soviet campaign to sever Central Asian women from the memory of their own strength.

What archaeology, anthropology, and living oral tradition have consistently shown is the opposite: that nomadic women of the Kazakh steppe were skilled riders, hunters, and warriors; that they composed and performed poetry; that they participated in the defense of their communities; that their arranged marriages were governed by customs of mutual aid rather than sale. The evidence is not obscure. It was suppressed.

The following is an examination of how that suppression was carried out — through a fabricated text, a misidentified skeleton, and a century of state-enforced forgetting.

There is another important message that the book attributed to Januszkiewicz wants to convey in its letters: not only were there social inequalities in Kazakh tribes (especially between nomads and jataq), there was also a severe inequality between the two genders. If Januszkiewicz is to be believed, Kazakh tribes treated their women badly. Kazakh men gave away their girls and women as gifts to poets passing through their aul, offered their girls and women as prostitutes to white government administrators, married multiple wives only for the purpose of using them as domestic servants, and sold their daughters in exchange for animals. [48]

"the fair gender of the Kirgiz stood on the lowest level… The Kirgiz put God's creatures in the following order: man, horse, woman, camel, cow, sheep, goat and lastly — the most unfortunate — dog… The Kirgiz would rather give away a girl than a good horse." — Adolf Januszkiewicz, Letters and diary entries, Soviet edition 1966

According to Januszkiewicz, the daughters and wives of "jataq" were even worse off. Those who became the servants of wealthy nomads were fed leftover bones and treated worse than dogs. [50]

What the evidence actually shows

Is any of this true? We have enough evidence that Januszkiewicz's portrayals of Kazakh nomadic women are not true. Regardless of certain traditional customs to which they had to conform, Kazakh nomadic women were not treated as slaves or servants; on the contrary, they were the equals of men, usually carrying out their own duties but equally capable of carrying out the duties usually assigned to men.

As the British-Czech anthropologist Ernest Gellner already argued in 1981, nomadic societies around the world, including those of the Central Asian Steppe, were in some ways more egalitarian than other types of society. First, because the wealth of nomads was volatile: an accident or natural disaster could easily deprive any nomadic family of its livestock (often its only type of property). And second, because nomadic families did not establish high levels of specialization ("division of labor") in their ranks. All members of a nomadic family — male and female, young and old — were multifunctional members of their economic unit, able to participate in all the essential activities: manage livestock, ride horses and/or camels, produce food, provide protection and defense, move and set up camp. [51]

As the Soviet-Russian anthropologist Anatoly Khazanov established in his comparative study of nomadic societies (including those of the Central Asian Steppe) in 1984, one of the distinctive characteristics of nomadic families was that the division of labor between men and women existed but was not strongly developed, because "joint production" and "joint consumption" were more fundamental to the success of a nomadic family. [52]

The Soviet-Kazakh economist S.E. Tolybekov had already stated in 1959 that all nomads, regardless of their gender, tended to be multi-talented or at least multi-functional persons, capable of carrying out various economic activities, telling the histories of their ancestors and performing songs and poetry. As Tolybekov himself put it: "Every illiterate nomadic Kazakh… a shepherd and a soldier, an orator and a historian, poet and singer." [53]

Confirmation of the multi-functional qualities of Kazakh nomads, men as well as women, can be found in the reporting that the American explorer Milton Clark did in 1951–52, in the Indian region of Kashmir, where hundreds of Kazakh nomads, after managing to escape from Soviet and Chinese forces, had found refuge and were living the same horse-centered nomadic lifestyle as their ancestors. In his writing and photographs, Clark shows that female nomads were capable of horseriding, guarding livestock, reciting poetry, dancing, playing the dombra, and, in emergency situations, defending their aul with guns against invading enemies. [54]

The warrior women that archaeology recovered

No matter how much Januszkiewicz tries to ridicule the warrior skills of female nomads, modern archaeological research has proved him wrong. In recent decades, more than 300 burial sites have been found across the vast expanse of the Eurasian steppe (including Kazakhstan) in which, more than 2000 years ago, female nomads were buried with their weapons — bows and arrows, quivers and spears — with their horse gear and sometimes even with their horses. Further research of the skeletons and burial sites has shown that the women, while alive, were involved in activities such as horseriding, hunting, and fighting. [55]

There is no reason to believe that, after the arrival of Islam in Central Asia (which affected pastoral nomads less than the sedentary inhabitants of cities), female nomads lost their hunting and fighting skills. The epic Qoblandy Batyr, whose depiction of the struggle between the Kazakh and Qalmaq tribes in the 17th and 18th centuries is probably in many aspects historically accurate, features the Qalmaq princess Qarlyga, who possesses all the skills of a warrior and can fight just as well as any man. [56]

Even more importantly, there is a historical fact that directly contradicts Januszkiewicz's representation of the female warriors in Kenesary's army of rebels. The reports written by Russian administrators and Kazakh informants show that Kenesary had a younger sister, Bopai, who was a skillful warrior and military leader, who led her own unit of rebels in Kenesary's fight against Russian colonization. According to Zhambyl Artyqbaev, Bopai's military leadership was effective — not a joke, as Januszkiewicz is falsely trying to make us believe. [57]

Zheti Qazyna and Tört Tülik: the order Januszkiewicz perverted

Apart from misrepresenting the multi-functional roles that women played in Kazakh nomadic communities, Januszkiewicz also misrepresents the entire order on which the system of Kazakh pastoral nomadism was built. By creating a hierarchy among people, domestic animals, and livestock and by assigning women a lower status than some of the animals, Januszkiewicz blends and perverts the two most important principles of Kazakh pastoral nomadism: Zheti Qazyna and Tört Tülik.

According to the first principle, Kazakh nomadic families had seven assets they should treasure: a fine young man, a fine young woman, deep knowledge, a fast horse, a hunting bird, a solid weapon, and a hunting dog. Note also that this principle implies that Kazakh nomads treasured their dogs — the opposite of what Januszkiewicz is trying to make us believe. [58] According to the second principle, Kazakh nomadic families depended on four sources of wealth — four different kinds of livestock: camels, horses, sheep, and goats (a group that was expanded over time to include cows).

The golden man who was a woman

The lengths to which the Soviet regime was willing to go to falsify history — in this case, the history of the women of Central Asia — can best be understood by looking at a famous example from the field of archaeology. In 1969, three years after the publication of Januszkiewicz's book, Soviet archaeologists discovered a burial mound (kurgan) near Issyk, containing a skeleton, multiple weapons, thousands of golden artifacts, a leather tunic, leather trousers, and other pieces of clothing, including a high conical hat.

The glorious warrior was quickly declared to be a man, even though the bones were small, several artifacts had floral motifs and a jewelry function, and the conical hat was a characteristic part of a woman's dress. Archaeologists continued to whisper about the possibility that the skeleton might be that of a young woman, but the Soviet regime refused to acknowledge this possibility and went on to display the clothes, weapons, and golden artifacts under the header "Golden Man of Issyk." By 1997, when it had become possible to determine the sex of a skeleton by means of DNA analysis, the skeleton of the "Golden Man" had gone missing. [62]

It is likely that the decision to suppress any investigation into the sex of the Issyk warrior was the result of the same Soviet policy, the same campaign, that a few years earlier had led to the mockery of warrior women in Januszkiewicz's book. In both cases the goal was the same: to deprive Soviet-Kazakh women of an example that might show that the traditional nomadic culture of their ancestors had allowed women to participate in important, even heroic, activities.

Qalym: a gift, not a sale

This brings us to the final point regarding Januszkiewicz's representation of Kazakh nomadic women: their arranged marriages. That Januszkiewicz is shocked by the custom of arranged marriage, and that he fails to make any reference to his own aristocratic milieu, where arranged marriages were the norm, should be sufficient evidence to any researcher that "Januszkiewicz" is in fact not the person he claims to be.

Being a Soviet ideologue (or group of ideologues), "Januszkiewicz" does not limit himself to expressing shock at the injustice of the custom. His goal is to present the custom of arranged marriage in Kazakh nomadic families as proof that the women in these families are nothing more than slaves. To do so, he misrepresents the Kazakh custom of qalym as the act of selling a daughter in exchange for livestock — a misrepresentation that can also be found in the literary works of several Soviet-Kazakh writers.

The historical reality was different: the custom of qalym was one of the many forms of mutual aid that existed in Kazakh nomadic communities, allowing the bride's family to receive a gift (not necessarily livestock) from the groom's family so as to be able to prepare a dowry for their daughter, ahead of the wedding.

A campaign, not an oversight

On the basis of which sources did Soviet propagandists fabricate these lies? The sources we have already identified: the reports by the Russian statistician Fyodor Scherbina and his Kazakh colleague Alikhan Bukeikhanov about their expeditions to the Stepnoi Krai in the period 1896–1899. Scherbina's anti-nomadic prejudice is especially on display in chapter VI of the first volume, titled "Population and peculiar features of the nomadic lifestyle." Unwilling to understand the seasonal cycles of nomadic life, Scherbina is only able to see what he wants to see: that nomadic men are lazy and nomadic women are their property and their servants. These ignorant comments were the ideal source from which Soviet propagandists, hiding behind the avatar "Januszkiewicz," could create a seemingly realistic but in reality very negative picture of the nomadic way of life.

How can we be so sure that this negative portrayal of Kazakh women was created in the Soviet era? The answer was already documented in 1974 by the American political scientist Gregory Massell. According to Massell, the campaign had grown out of frustration with the indigenous populations of Central Asia, who were very resistant to adopting the policies imposed by the Soviet regime. Using the different propaganda tools at their disposal — film and literature, school manuals, newspapers, radio, and television — the Soviet regime was targeting the women in these populations, depicting the women's nomadic ancestors as a class of exploited proletarians and calling on the women to "emancipate" themselves from this culture of exploitation. [61]

Massell does not cite Januszkiewicz's book as an example, and "Januszkiewicz" is careful not to use the word "emancipation" (as this would have immediately betrayed his Soviet identity). However, there is a clear and full correspondence between the message "Januszkiewicz" wanted to convey and the message that the Soviet regime wanted to convey. The writers and editors compiling Januszkiewicz's book had received instructions — and we can read those instructions in every page they wrote about women.

Despite the Soviet regime's best efforts to misinform us, we have retained a fairly clear picture of how our female ancestors lived their lives: women divided house chores and other physical labor between themselves and the men in their families; female poets and singers enjoyed the same level of respect as their male colleagues; women could freely interact with visitors, whether male or female; women actively participated in defense and warfare; and many women made the best of their arranged marriages, as did their husbands.

She was no one's property. She was never below the horse, the camel, the cow. That order was invented — and so was everything built upon it.

Notes

[48] Januszkiewicz, Żywot Adolfa Januszkiewicza i jego listy ze stepów kirgizkich, Russian translation ed. F. Steklova (Almaty: Kazakh Academy of Sciences, 1966), letters passim on treatment of women.

[50] Ibid., on conditions of jataq women as servants in wealthy households.

[51] Ernest Gellner, Muslim Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), on egalitarian structures of nomadic societies in Central Asia.

[52] Anatoly Khazanov, Nomads and the Outside World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), on sex division of labor in pastoral nomadic families.

[53] S.E. Tolybekov, Obshchestvenny stroi kazakhov v XVII–nachale XX veka (Almaty, 1959), cited on the multifunctional nature of nomadic Kazakhs regardless of gender.

[54] Milton Clark, "How the Kazaks Fled to Freedom," National Geographic, November 1954.

[55] On female warrior burials across the Eurasian steppe, see Adrienne Mayor, The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014).

[56] Qoblandy Batyr, Kazakh oral epic. On the figure of Qarlyga as warrior, see scholarly discussions of the epic's historical basis in Kazakh–Qalmaq conflicts of the 17th–18th centuries.

[57] Zhambyl Artyqbaev, ed., Adolf Yanushkevich. Dnevniki i pisma iz kyrgizskoy stepi, 2nd ed. (Pavlodar, 2006), commentary on Bopai Qasimova's military role.

[58] On Zheti Qazyna (Seven Treasures) as a core principle of Kazakh nomadic value systems, see ethnographic literature on Kazakh oral tradition and customary law (adat).

[61] Gregory Massell, The Surrogate Proletariat: Moslem Women and Revolutionary Strategies in Soviet Central Asia, 1919–1929 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974).

[62] On the "Golden Man of Issyk" and the suppressed question of the warrior's sex, see Jeannine Davis-Kimball, Warrior Women: An Archaeologist's Search for History's Hidden Heroines (New York: Warner Books, 2002), pp. 67–72.