April 28, 2011 Adeeb Khalid to Discuss Central Asian Cultural Revolution

Historian Adeeb Khalid will explore the transformation of culture and identity in Central Asia during the early years of Soviet rule, in a lecture at the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress.

Khalid, a Kluge Center distinguished visiting scholar, will present “Between Empire and Revolution: The Making of Soviet Central Asia, 1917-1932” at 4 p.m. on Thursday, May 5, in Room 119 on the first floor of the Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St. S.E., Washington, D.C. The event is free and open to the public; no tickets or reservations are needed.

According to Khalid, in 1917 Central Asia was a recently conquered colony of the Russian empire, but by 1932, it was fully a part of the new Soviet state. Its economy was tied to the center in new ways and the region underwent a cultural revolution—campaigns for mass education and against illiteracy coincided with a flourishing of theater and the emergence of the novel and new forms of poetry.

In his lecture, Khalid will explain how the transformations in culture came not from Moscow but from the Central Asian people themselves and how their new identity fostered a growing modernity that shaped the region as it is today. Also, he will talk about his research into the Library’s vast collections of Central Asian and Russian cultural materials for completion of his third book, “Between Empire and Revolution,” which bears the same name as the lecture.

Through a generous endowment from John W. Kluge, the Library of Congress established the Kluge Center in 2000 to bring together the world’s best thinkers to stimulate and energize one another to distill wisdom from the Library’s rich resources and to interact with policymakers in Washington. For further information on the Kluge Center, visit www.loc.gov/kluge/.

The Library of Congress, the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution and the largest library in the world, holds nearly 147 million items in various languages, disciplines and formats. The Library serves the U.S. Congress and the nation both on-site in its reading rooms on Capitol Hill and through its award-winning website at www.loc.gov. Many of the Library’s rich resources and treasures may also be accessed via interactive exhibitions on a personalized website at myLOC.gov www.myloc.gov.