participation in the political and economic devel-
opment of Central Asia and the Caucasus, gender
roles still place women in the domestic arena.
Within current contexts, women protestors utilize
their gender roles as mothers to confront regional
regimes. This produces new cultural frames for
viewing local women as public women, protectors
of men.
Central Asia is a cultural and geographic area of
five countries situated in close proximity: Kazakh-
stan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and
Kyrgyzstan. They are linguistically similar (except
Tajikistan), share Islamic religious beliefs and
practices, a common history, and internal ethnic
diversity. Prior to the nineteenth-century Russian
conquest all were a part of Turkestan, and then
between 1920 and 1990 a part of the Soviet Union
until independence in 1991. All these countries
experience local economic decline and vast unem-
ployment. They share quasi-democratic, totalitar-
ian regimes, which persecute political and Islamic
opposition. Uzbekistan has enacted harsh laws
against religious and secular opposition. Currently,
7,000 detainees are charged with religious and anti-
government activities in the country (HRWWR
2002). Fearing imprisonment, local men are reluc-
tant to protest in the streets. Hoping that they will
not be dealt with as harshly as men, local women
become publicly active as a way of protecting their
male relatives (UDD 2002).
The Caucasus, another cultural and geographic
area, includes Armenia; Azerbaijan and Nagorno-
Karabakh; Georgia and its three “entities” of
Abkhazia, Ajara, and South Ossetia; and the
Checheno-Ingush Republic (Chechnya). Although
religio-cultural diversity characterizes the region,
these administrative entities are united by close
proximity to each other and a common historical
and sociopolitical background. Conquered by Rus-
sia by the nineteenth century, these areas became a
part of the Soviet Union. While some republics
(Georgia) became independent at the end of the
twentieth century, others (Chechnya) are still disput-
ing their administrative relationships with Russia.
Politically, these areas are “anocracies,” transitional
between autocracies and democracies (Marshall
2003, 17). Unlike Central Asian states, the Cauca-
sus has an active opposition, a relatively free press,
and a vibrant political life (for example, Azerbai-
jan). At the beginning of the twenty-first century,
the Caucasus suffered from socioeconomic and
political instability, due in part to the influx of
thousands of refugees, and infrastructural dam-
age resulting from unresolved regional conflicts.
Chechnya, a predominantly Muslim republic, has634 political-social movements: protest movements
been in armed conflict with Russia for a decade
(1994–6 and 1999–2003). During this conflict,
Chechen civilians continued to “disappear” while
in the custody of Russian Federal troops (HRW
2002). Often left as the sole heads of their families,
women in these areas take to the streets to prevent
further persecution of their male relatives.
Historically, albeit inconspicuously, women par-
ticipated in the sociopolitical life of Central Asia
and the Caucasus as a separate force or united with
men. Women’s social positions were transformed
by these protests, which were staged by groups as
diverse as Soviet ideologues and nativist move-
ments. The regions’ oral traditions include stories
about women’s protests against political and per-
sonal subjugation. In the epic “Forty Maidens,”
Central Asian women warriors physically resisted
foreign intrusions and shared the same rights and
responsibilities as men (Chatterjee 1997). The oral
tradition of the Caucasus describes the foremothers
of local women as Amazons. Late nineteenth-cen-
tury travel accounts report that local women, like
Amazons, fiercely resisted Russian conquests. Dur-
ing the siege of the town of Ahloulgo, 400 women
threw themselves from the walls of the fortress as a
sign of protest (Golovin 1854, 94). Some women,
like the Georgian Queen Tamara, assumed state
leadership in their societies. In fact, Georgia’s
power and influence reached its peak during her
reign in the twelfth to thirteenth centuries.
At the beginning of the Soviet era, women of
these regions took an active part in the transfor-
mation of their social positions. In Turkestan in
1916, “Ruzvan-bibi Akhmedzhanova, Zukhra-bibi
Musaeva and other women, while protesting against
sending their sons to war, were shot dead by [Rus-
sian] soldiers” (Alimova). In Turkestan, women’s
protests against the veil, khudzhum(assault), began
on International Women’s Day, 1927. Organized by
the Sredazburo’s (Central Asian Bureau) Zhenotdel
(Women’s Section) under the direction of Serafima
Lubimova and her deputies, these protests triggered
social changes, which came at a terrible price for
local women (Keller 1998). Inspired by Soviet
emancipation rhetoric local women tore off and
burned their veils in public. In conjunction with
other aspects of the liberation campaign, these pub-
lic protests inspired thousands of regional women
to burn their veils on the spot (Massell 1974). At
the same time, this public unveiling drastically
increased violence against unveiled women and
cost tens of thousands of lives. In 1928 alone, about
300 women were killed either by their close rela-
tives or by basmachi(local guerilla movements)
(Popov 1938).