Allen J. Frank's book will be of interest to World War II historians, Sovietologists, and Central Asianists, particularly those in cultural and literary fields. The description of Kazakh lifeways on the eve of WWII and the discussion of letters written by Kazakh soldiers was fascinating and potentially crosses over multiple disciplines. Frank discusses literary genres, the military history of the Kazakh steppe, and pre-Soviet and early Soviet Kazakh culture. His work with Kazakh-language sources is truly admirable, and a valuable contribution to scholarship of Soviet Central Asia, though one wishes that Frank took into account the work of Central Asianist scholars of cultural history and anthropology (Diana Kudaibergenova, Jeanne Féaux de la Croix, Margarethe Adams, Julie McBrien, Eva Dubuisson), putting his work in a broader context and in dialogue with recent scholarship.
Frank's is a very rich subject, one on which little is written, particularly in English. The author's contributions to the literature are considerable (as seen in his previous works, Muslim Religious Institutions in Imperial Russia: The Islamic World of Novouzensk District and the Kazakh Inner Horde, 1780–1910 (Brill, 2001), Qurban-‘Ali Khalidi: An Islamic Biographical Dictionary of the Eastern Kazakh Steppe (co-edited with Mirkasym A. Usmanov, Brill, 2005), Bukhara and the Muslims of Russia: Sufism, Education, and the Paradox of Islamic Prestige (Brill, 2012), and Saduaqas Ghïlmani: Biographies of Islamic Scholars of Our Times, 2 vols., ed. by Ashirbek Muminov, Allen J. Frank, and Aitzhan Nurmanova (IRICA, 2018). He writes in English, but uses a many Kazakh-language sources and references Kazakh scholars, including ethnomusicologist Gulsym Baytenova (58). He also accesses German- language sources, adding breadth to the subject of Soviet soldiers during WWII, including the fascist and racist assumptions about Central Asians.
This book focuses on a particular kind of Kazakh-language genre, often in verse, called khat- oleng (letter poem). Frank writes specifically about the Kazakh focus of these missiles, indicating that the letter writers often write about a unique wartime experience they underwent as Kazakhs in the Soviet Army. The genre seems to have a lot in common with spoken and sung poetry, and the author has possibly missed an opportunity to make significant connections between Kazakh spoken and written verse forms. Though Frank mention other verse genres (38–39), he does not delve into the similarities and relationships between oral and written genres. For example, he mentions that accounts of famine are not mentioned in wartime correspondence. But maybe they are present in oral forms of the day, such as aitys? The fear of reprisals and censorship would clearly be greater in written verse, making oral forms of poetry important in communicating wartime experiences. It also would have been worthwhile to relate the battle descriptions in khat-oleng to Kazakh epic poetry (zhyr).
What I really liked and learned from was Frank's discussion of Kazakh kinship, religion, and literature. This discussion touches on what seems to be a specifically Kazakh form of moral storytelling (though to be sure one can place it within a larger Central Asian context). Frank writes about the fluidity of Kazakh kinship (16), and the importance of Kazakh lineage. He also writes convincingly about the aul (encampment) as a center of Kazakh society, and the role of kinship in these gatherings (18). For those interested in religion, one of the great contributions of this book is the exploration of ancestral holy lineages (qozhalar), ancestral spirits (aruaqtar), and the link between ancestral spirits and kinship. This discussion, though sorely needed in English language scholarship, could have been strengthened a bit by referring to other scholars of religion and culture in Central Asia.
In Frank's discussion of Soviet conscription and Kazakh participation in the Soviet army, his description of the Kazakh battle cry (uran) deserves particular mention. He relates how the Kazakh clan-based battle cry (uran) shows up in early epic poetry (27), and then explains that after the 1916 conscription of Kazakhs, the laborers’ battle cry essentially replaces the clan uran (35). This acceptance of Kazakhs previously excluded from conscription, Frank writes, symbolized Soviet solidarity and ethnic inclusion.
Allen J. Frank's valuable scholarship on the letter-poems written by Kazakh soldiers during WWII illuminates many aspects of Kazakh life and literary forms during this crucial turning point in the consolidation of Soviet Central Asia.
