The State and the Sacred: Memory, Theology, and Identity in Kyrgyzstan
Journal: KU ScholarWorks (The University of Kansas)
Year: 2016

Since becoming independent in 1991, Kyrgyzstan has endured two revolutions, ethnic violence, and economic decay. Against this tumultuous background have been ongoing attempts to construct a viable Kyrgyz nationalism and the “resurgence” of religion in the public sphere. In many respects, however, these phenomena have been conceptualized as being largely independent of one another. Similarly, religion – and Islam in particular – has sometimes been depicted as an ideological “alternative” to a con