De l’archéologie russo-soviétique en situation coloniale à l’archéologie post-coloniale en Asie centrale

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze how Russian-Soviet archaeology of Central Asia raised in a colonial context and how this subject would be considered as a part of post-colonial studies. The study of Antiquity in Tsarist Russia and the USSR appears usually as being deeply contrasted with the traditional representations of archaeology built by the Western powers. This analysis will, however, show how postcolonial approaches can be successfully used in the field of Russian, Soviet and post-Soviet archaeology in Central Asia. Following the recent “normalization” of the colonial history of the Russian and Soviet Empire, this papers proposes a comparative approach with the other European colonial situations, in order to highlight such themes as the archaeological activity of military, the political commitment of scholarly societies, the archaeological arguments justifying the conquest, etc. The post-Soviet archaeology should instead be considered under a more nuanced point of view through the context of the “affirmative actions” undertaken by the Soviet authorities with the purpose of creating the modern Central Asian nations. In the post-Soviet – and postcolonial – period, the highly politicized national research raises the question of the independence of the post-Soviet archaeologists. However, even if it doesn’t provide a definitive answer on the colonial or not colonial status of Russian, Soviet and post-Soviet archaeology, this study aims to show how the Central Asian world can no longer be treated separately from the other colonial doctrines that marked the last two centuries of world history.

Keywords

• colonial archaeology
• Central Asia
• Turkestan
• Uzbekistan
• russification
• aryan and touranian theories