decisions were made (Chubinidze 2000, Tsereteli
2000).
From 1991, after the dismantling of the Soviet
Union, the first women’s non-governmental organ-
izations started to appear in the Caucasus. By the
end of the twentieth century women’s organizations
in Caucasian countries were powerfully developed,
with between 150 and 170 active organizations.
Permanently operating special women’s state com-
mittees were also set up. In the higher educational
institutions courses covering various aspects of
gender are available. There are also scientific
research centers on gender and women’s rights.
From 2002 to 2004 the speaker of the parliament
of Georgia, and the interim president, was a woman,
N. Burdjanaze.
Modern Caucasian women are actively involved
in community life, but decision-making positions
are less accessible to them. The average member-
ship of women in parliaments in the Caucasian
countries is 12 percent (Babayan 1999, Tsintsadze
2003).
Bibliography
S. Babayan, Gender realities and the prospects of the soci-
ety in transformation, in Association of Women with
University Education, Proceedings of the 3rd interna-
tional conference. Woman and society. Gender equal-
ity in the perspective of democratic development [in
Armenian], Tsakhtadzor, Armenia 1999, summary in
English, p. 174.
N. Chubinidze, Discussion of women’s economical and
political status issues, in N. Devdariani et al. (eds.),
Women in political and social life [in Georgian], Tblisi
1998, 75–86.
Y. Y. Karpov, Caucasian woman. World vision premises
of the public status [in Russian], in Etnograficheskoe
Obozrenie (Moscow) 4 (2000).
M. Tsereteli, Women’s rights in the light of their motiva-
tion values [in Georgian], Tblisi 2000.
Mzia TsereteliCentral AsiaIn the Muslim regions of the Russian Empire, the
Woman Question was initially dealt with mostly at
the beginning of the twentieth century and particu-
larly after the revolution of 1905, or rather when
the reforming Muslim Jadidist movement included
the Woman Question in its political and social pro-
gram. In these regions, the Muslim press con-
tributed a great deal to the implementation of the
question. The Central Asian intellectual Jadidists
participated in the reform movement, but because
they were excluded from the political realm their
program remained only a theory. Even before the
October Revolution of 1917, the Central Asian
central asia 587Jadidists proposed to ban the parandzha(clothing
that covered women from head to foot) and the
chachvan(horse-hair veil) by decree, but the pro-
posal lacked a following. Contrary to the Jadidists,
the Qadimists (the traditionalist clerics) defended
the veil and the seclusion of women. The debate
between Muslim reformism and conservatism con-
tinued after 1917.
The Woman Question acquired fundamental
importance after the October Revolution. Women’s
emancipation was one of the main objectives of the
Bolshevik government. For this purpose, in 1919 it
instituted the Zhenotdel, the women’s department
of the Communist Party. While in European Russia
the Zhenotdel immediately became active amongst
women, in Central Asia its real activity did not
begin until 1923–4. The issues that the Soviet gov-
ernment had to fight against to emancipate Central
Asian women were linked to Muslim traditions and
institutions: polygyny, kalym (bride-price), the
forced marriage of underage children, the seclusion
of women, and the veil. The Soviets were com-
mitted to struggle against traditions considered
backward in the name of modernization and secu-
larization of the country. More, they intended to
use women to destroy the Muslim patriarchal fam-
ily and consequently to break the blood and tribal
ties that were at the base of society and to establish
new social bonds on a socialist basis. Female eman-
cipation was essentially directed at promoting
social change and undermining Muslim religious
identity. In Central Asia, woman was considered
the vehicle of change, the “surrogate of the prole-
tariat” (Massell 1974), considering the almost total
absence of a working class. For this aim, the
Zhenotdel created institutions to inform women of
their rights, ratified by Soviet legislation, and to
furnish medical, legal, and professional help that
was almost completely absent before 1917. In
1926, the Soviet government planned an attack
against the former everyday life and against Mus-
lim tradition: the khudzhum (attack, Uzbek) was
effectively launched in 1927, promoting mass
unveilings (mostly in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan) on
dates such as 8 March, 1 May, and the anniversary
of the October Revolution. The Jadidists supported
the policy of mass unveilings. During 1927, thou-
sands of women took off their veils, but most of
them came back to the veil following the reprisals
carried out by their families, by some of the more
conservative fractions of the populace, and by most
Muslim religious leaders. Many women were killed
or suffered physical and moral violence. In 1930,
the Zhenotdel was disbanded, but in Central Asia
some cells continued to operate.