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Central Asia is a fascinating region yet remote and unfamiliar to many people. This new study provides and introduction to the politics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgzstan, Ijikistan, Turkestan, and Uzbekistan. The early chapters introduce the readers to the history of Russian and Soviet involvement in the region up until the collapse of communism, whilst the bulk of the book focuses on the politics of independence. The search for national identity in each region and the influence of Islam are discussed and attention is paid to political, economic and international developments. A central theme of the book is the importance of informal politics associated with national, regional and tribal networks in shaping the evolution of the five states. ... Read more

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A comprehensive look at Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States.Photographs throughout.CONTENTS:Introduction.RUSSIAN FEDERATION:The Land and the People; History; Communist Era; Stalin's Cultural Counter-Revolution of the 1930s; The Post-Stalin Era; The Brezhnev Era; Government Transition; The Gorbachëv Era; An Independent Russia is Born; The Putin Presidency; Foreign Policy; Government of the Russian Federation; Constitution of the Russian Federation; Culture; The Changing Economy.THE COMMONWEALTH OF THE INDEPENDENT STATES:Collapse of the Soviet Union; Commonwealth of Independent States; Economy under the CIS; Some Regional Problems of the CIS.WESTERN REPUBLICS:Belarus; Ukraine; Moldova.TRANSCAUCASIAN REPUBLICS:Armenia; Azerbaijan; Georgia.CENTRAL ASIAN REPUBLICS:Kazakhstan; Kyrgyzstan; Tajikistan; Turkmenistan; Uzbekistan. Bibliography ... Read more

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A man and a woman meet by chance while returning to their homeland, which they had abandoned twenty years earlier when they chose to become exiles. Will they manage to pick up the thread of their strange love story, interrupted almost as soon as it began and then lost in the tides of history? The truth is that after such a long absence "their memories no longer match." We always believe that our memories coincide with those of the person we loved, that we experienced the same thing. But this is just an illusion. Then again, what can we expect of our weak memory? It records only "an insignificant, minuscule particle" of the past, "and no one knows why it's this bit and not any other bit." We live our lives sunk in a vast forgetting, a fact we refuse to recognize. Only those who return after twenty years, like Odysseus returning to his native Ithaca, can be dazzled and astounded by observing the goddess of ignorance firsthand.

Milan Kundera is the only author today who can take such dizzying concepts as absence, memory, forgetting, and ignorance, and transform them into material for a novel, masterfully orchestrating them into a polyphonic and moving work.

Customer Reviews (40)

How memory works
The protagonist, Irena, has returned to Prague form a twenty year exile in Paris. The title and subject of Kundera's book should be of great interest to those folks who suffer from its premise: that we tend to avoid bad memories, employing selective memory or denial as to past actions and their consequences. The current political climate in the US might be a perfect metaphor, but this story is on a more personal, individual level.
The clichéd thought that one can never go back is germane to the story. This is expertly detailed in a scene where Irena fetes all of her old friends at a soiree where she serves good French wine and expensive food only to learn that they are singularly unimpressed with all that her émigré experience has meant to her. Even more disturbing is that their old political dissidence has been replaced with a bourgeois attitude not unlike hers. It is almost as if they are saying, "Why did you bother to leave."
The rekindling of an old flame from her school days is even more painful. She encounters Joseph who has also returned from exile. Their memories of the past and what they mean to them are quite different. Their encounter leaves us with a feeling of emptiness. The book encapsulates what many of us experience with the passing of time. It seems that no one wants to remember the good times or the bad, preferring to plunge blindly ahead into the future.

Michael D. Edwards, Author of the recently released "Royal Ryukian Blues" a memoir of Okinawa.

Exile equals death
This book is Milan Kundera's variation on the Odyssey theme, exemplified in the fate of his home country the Czech Republic and its inhabitants.

Many Czechs emigrated during the revolution of 1968 as they saw their future in their country as very bleak. But, the situation changed completely after the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The Czech Republic became again a completely independent, free and multi-party State.
During the emigration years, the general mood of the emigrants was `nostalgia', the pain of ignorance, of not knowing what happened in their far away country.

When they went back after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, they saw amazingly that they no longer existed for their relatives: `he had the sense he was coming back into the world as might a dead man emerging from his tomb.'
Former lovers didn't know each other anymore: `a reality is no longer what it was when it was; it cannot be reconstituted.'
Even legally, the emigrants didn't exist anymore. After 1989, all properties nationalized under the communist regime were returned to their former owners (or their children). This restitution became irrevocable after one year, if the claim was not contested.

This book is a strong meditation on human memory (`which is only capable of retaining a paltry little scrap of the past') and on man's fate (`If we do not know what future the present is leading us toward, how can we say whether this present is good or bad.')

It is a perfect introduction to Milan Kundera's literary universe dominated by such cardinal themes as the enigma of the self, the ineluctable defeat called life, memory and forgetting, and freedom of man and of expression (literature).
A must read for all lovers of world literature.

Snooze
In Ignorance the lovers end up meeting, having a brief romantic reunion in real life, then part again, with a bit better of a feeling about themselves. Of course, Kundera goes off on his now almost predictable digressions, and they are among his better ones in recent books. Lightman- well, he has written a novel that seems adapted from a bad 1970s television movie of the week. His sentences are larded with clichés, and those that are not describe a world that is barren in detail and intellect. I could picture Robert Conrad as Charles the elder, and a young Nicollete Sheridan as Juliana- the perfectly narcotized bimbo that Lightman doesn't realize his creation is. Who cares who would be the young Charles? He'd just end up in Diet Pepsi ads....Kundera's book is a mildly entertaining New Yorker story, if cut to its actual good length of a quarter its size....despite this book's handful of good moments it's time for him to not pick up his pen until he really has something new to say, narratively or philosophically. Is a one night stand really the best he can offer? Kundera is merely a weak shadow of his former greatness. My guess is this is his last even decent tale.

another persons shoes
This was an account of the move from one world to another and how if affected both the person who left for a better life and those who were left behind. It is a good way to see the world through the eyes of an emigre and the deep changes such a move creates in relationships among friends and family.

Nostalgia ("nostos"-return, "algos"-suffering)
It's been a while since I've read Milan Kundera but I'm glad I've started reading his recent work.I loved THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING years ago.

I picked up IGNORANCE because I was intrigued with the idea of two Czechs returning to their homeland after 20 years and resuming their relationship.While the novel doesn't chronicle the "love story" between Irena and Josef (most of the novel traces their journeys home that leads to their meeting), it does expose how unreliable our memories and interactions can be.
What we've done, what we remember, how we move on.
As usual, Kundera delivers more than what I was looking for. ... Read more

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The subject of this particular book is of great interest today for three major reasons: first, the six republics of Central Asia, strongly shaped by Turkic languages (Tajik is a variety of Persian, but Turkic influence is still there). and Islam, are relatively unknown; secondly, their respective language policies, which they say are central for development and modernisation, may show us much about the creative potential of choices of language anywhere in the world as well as problems connected with implementation; third, these two scholars and their local assistants harvested much previously unpublished empirical data which they have presented to readers in a clear framework. The conclusion very well relates language policies in these states to broad issues of nation-building-, language planning, multilingualism, and other concepts. ... Read more

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Of all the regions of the former Soviet Union, Central Asia is potentially one ofthe most explosive and certainly one of the least understood. It is also growing rapidly inimportance to U.S. national security, commercial, and foreign policy interests: it has vast oil, gas,gold, and other resources; it has become a source and transit route for narcotics and possiblenuclear and other materials; and it is affected by the fierce conflicts in Tajikistan andAfghanistan. Vast in size (larger than Eastern and Western Europe combined), and with a rapidlygrowing population of over 50 million people, it is marked by the persistence of relativelycorrupt and authoritarian governments.

This report assesses the potential for conflict in Central Asia through the prism of one ofits most volatile areas, the Ferghana Valley. Spanning parts of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, andKyrgyzstan, the Ferghana Valley is home to 20 percent of Central Asia's entire population.Theregion has recently experienced increasing religious and ethnic tensions--the further danger beingthat instability in the valley could spread more widely throughout Central Asia.The FerghanaValley project of the Council on Foreign Relations' Center for Preventive Action (CPA) hasproduced this report as the fourth volume in its series of Preventive Action Reports. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Detailed analysis and worthy read
Caliming the Ferghana Valley is an important book to read if you are looking to learn more about the valley and the three Central Asian countries, in general. Senator Nunn and company give you a deeper understanding of the issues and obstacles to creating a successful region. The detailed explanations and statistics help you realize the impact that arbitrary borders and soviet colonialism have had on the world. The mixed ethnic populations of each country (Uzbek, Tajik and Kyrgyz)are represented in all three countries and this book illuminates the problems those ethnic tensions cause.
Not the easiest read, but very informative.

Future Flashpoint or Future Allies
After reading Tajikistan: The Trials of Independence (see review), my perspective of this region wasbroadened immensely with Calming the Ferghana Valley.An in-depth study of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan (with particular focus on Northern Tajikistan) and Kyrgystan, the book acts as more of a petition, or call to action, to secure stability in these regions before the continued fragility, confusion, and disintegration of the political and social structure influences an irreversible course toward explosive upheaval.

The recent events in Afghanistan have demonstrated how far-reaching the effects of socio-political unrest can be.They have also demonstrated how strategically valuable these countries can be, being located in the middle of the tumultuous Asian continent.This book is a first attempt at staving off the violent actions andreactions that may or may not occur as a result ofthe unrest.But with the bombings in Osh, Kyrgystan; the kidnappings and "disappearances" in Tajikistan, and the secret unrest in Uzbekistan, it does not take much influence to convince one thatthe unrest may be more violent than diplomatic.
I'm just a guy from Minnesota, USA.I have never been to any of these places and probably never will go. Reading this book, however, gives me an apprecation for the struggles that these people encounter every day--both on an individual level and on the governmental level.
The land is a beautiful land, ranging from deserts to spectacular mountains.The people there have a desire to succeed and, with a little of our help, as proposed in this book, perhaps they will.
Read it--Learn a little about this world that you live upon! ... Read more

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This book provides a comprehensive study of Soviet Central Asia. It covers politics, education, agricultural problems, ethnic and demographic issues and the role of Islam in the region. Shirin Akiner's introduction considers recent political developments in the USSR in the context of the issues covered by the contributors, who include prominent academics from Central Asia, Russia, the USA, the UK, France and Israel. ... Read more

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Kazakhstan, Kirgystan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have all become independent states in central Asia, following the break-up of the USSR. All have Muslim majorities and ancient histories, but are otherwise very different. This book provides an introduction to the region. Rashid gives a history of each country, including its incorporation into Tsarist Russia to the present day. He provides basic socio-economic information and explains the diverse political situations. He focuses primarily on the underlying issues confronting these societies: the legacy of Soviet rule; ethnic tensions; the position of women; the future of Islam; the question of nuclear proliferation; and the fundamental choices over economic strategy, political system and external orientation which lie ahead. ... Read more

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Covering Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and, Tajikistan, these 12 essays (drawn from a 1998 conference sponsoredby the Center for Civil Society International) explore the prospects of and dangers facing the growth of Western-style democracy in Central Asia. Reflecting a range of disciplines ... Read more

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review of Civil Society in Central Asia
This book as been reviewed in the current volume of the British Columbia Asian Review (BCAR)... ... Read more

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Based on first-hand research conducted by the Moscow Centre for Civilizational and Regional Studies, this book documents the findings of one of the first authoritative studies on the newly independent states of Central Asia - Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kirgizia and Tadjikistan. Attention is also drawn to the causes and outcomes of the civil war in Tadjikistan as well as the growing international competition for access to the natural resources of the Central Asian countries. ... Read more