The Oxford Research Encyclopedia (ORE) project is one of the most ambitious reference projects that Oxford University Press has embarked upon. Fully searchable, the database provides researchers from a variety of disciplines a unique and a valuable insight into the life of Soviet Muslims, journal’s obvious propagandistic slant and purpose notwithstanding.
GUSO DROP DISCOGRAPHY ARCHIVE
The Muslims of the Soviet East Archive contains the most complete collection of the journal in the English language. Consisting of multiple sections, the journal contained a mix of sermons exhorting Islamic piety from notable Central Asian clerics, discussions of regional Islamic history, and the role of Soviet Muslims in the cultural and political life of the USSR. to counter the notion prevalent in the West that the USSR was thoroughly and intractably anti-religious. If the publication of the journal in Arabic, Farsi, and Dari was meant to familiarize readers in those countries with the life of their coreligionists in the Soviet Union, the introduction of the journal in the “Western” languages served an additional propaganda purpose, i.e. Provided the subject matter of the journal - religion, Soviet authorities were especially reluctant to make it available in the reformed Latin alphabet in use in Uzbek schools, thereby precluding, or at least reducing, the likelihood of the journal becoming available to the younger generation, whose anti-religious education was of paramount importance to the government. The choice of the Arabic script had also a secondary strategic significance. Consequently, the original Uzbek language edition was exclusively in the traditional Arabic script known as the Yana Imla, a disappearing writing form in Soviet Central Asia (due to the aggressive linguistic and educational reforms carried out by the authorities), but in use in Uzbek communities in places like Afghanistan. As with many foreign language publications in the Soviet Union, the target audience of the journal were not its citizens but readers abroad. A Russian version would come along surprisingly late, only in 1990, one year before its closure. Published originally in Uzbek, the journal expanded its linguistic base in the following years, adding Arabic (1969), French and English (1974), Farsi (1980), and Dari (1984). Established in 1968 by the Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan, and in continuous publication until its closure in 1991, the journal Muslims of the Soviet East was the only Islamic periodical carrying the official seal of approval of the Soviet government.
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