Talk by Ismael Biyashev on The City and the Silent Hill: Nomadic Archaeology and the problem of historicity at Otrar. 

Cambridge Central Asia Forum invites you to a talk by

Ismael Biyashev, University of Michigan, Ann-Arbor

on

'The City and the Silent Hill: Nomadic Archaeology and the problem of historicity at Otrar'

Date: 7 February

Time: 11am

In Person Venue: Room S1, Alison Richard Building, 7 West Road, Cambridge

Online Zoom registration link: https://cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/register/Vu0-L-UHQ5eiILMpKuPEtA

 Everyone is welcome.

Abstract: Throughout the long 19th century, nomadism emerged as a “problem” or “question” to be resolved globally and in the Russian Empire particularly. From Siberia to Crimea, and the Grand Duchy of Finland to the Kingdom of Poland, would-be archaeologists from all walks of life claimed to have discovered sites and artifacts connected to nomadic peoples.  By the turn of the 20th century, “nomadic archaeology” had reached the Steppe Krai and Russian Turkestan. In this presentation I examine how and why indigenous modernizers -led by the Alikhan Bokeikhanuly (Bukeikhanov)-  did (and did not) choose to engage with the issue of nomadism as an archaeological problem, focusing on the case of the polemics around the first excavation of the site of Otrar, in what is today Southern Kazakhstan. I contend that their tactics reveal an attempt not just to adapt or transfer metropolitan discourses, to local realities but to construct a hybrid vision of contemporary nomads’ relationships to their past, and their land.   

Biography: Ismael Biyashev is a historian of empire, and a specialist in Russian Imperial and Early Soviet History. He is Assistant Professor of History and Fellow of the Society of Fellows at the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor. Tentatively titled Modernity in Motion Ismael’s book manuscript is the first attempt to reconstruct the scholarly field of nomadic archaeology that emerged in the Russian Empire in the late 19th century and to chart its historical development, change over time, and global networks based on materials from archival collections in Siberia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Finland, the US, elsewhere.

Cambridge Central Asia Forum Seminar Series Term Card (Lent Term 2025)

7 February Ismael Biyashev, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, ‘The City and the Silent Hill: Nomadic Archaeology and the problem of historicity at Otrar’

14 February Boram Shin, Jeonbuk University, South Korea, ‘Critical Story of critical minerals in Central Asia’

21 February TBC

28 February TBC

7 March Gulnara Abikeyeva, Visiting Fellow in Trinity College, University of Cambridge, Discussion: ‘Is It Difficult To Be A Strong Woman In Kazakhstan?’ and Film Screening of Nuri (Director: Sharipa Urazbaeyva)

14 March Fieldnotes with Rachel Kay, University of Cambridge, 'Working lives and ecological change in the Central Asian walnut trade' & Ainsley Trahan, University of Cambridge, 'Cross-border Disaster Management: A case study of Azerbaijan and Georgia'

More information available on https://centralasia.group.cam.ac.uk/