Veiled and Unveiled in Chechnya and Daghestan [Hardcover]

Fascinating ethnography of women in the Caucasus living through a period of Islamic revivalismOffering an unflinching portrait of life in Daghestan and Chechnya and focusing on its girls and women, this book presents the north Caucasus today through the eyes of two Poles, an anthropologist and a journalist, who travelled there amid a locally rooted but newly assertive Islamic revivalism. Shadowed by Russian secret police, the authors participate in Muslim rites in villages which penalize those caught smoking or drinking, even in their own homes; spend time with polygamous families; talk to human rights and democracy activists whose names feature on hit lists; and to young people about religion, polygamy, prostitution and sex. They also track down 'Wahhabis' (known locally as 'devils') who conceal their religious affiliations for fear of persecution. In Daghestan the authors encounter two Sufi religious leaders, both of whom were later murdered, and in Grozny, young men who survived torture but were forced to commit perjury. They hang out with young women 'encouraged' by the Chechen regime to 'conduct themselves morally' for the good of the nation; accompany girls on dates; and find out from eighteen-year-old divorc?es why it's better to share a bed with another wife than have no husband at all.Iwona Kaliszewska has been researching the North Caucasus since 2004. She teaches anthropology at the University of Warsaw. She is currently a visiting scholar at University of California, Berkelely at the Institute of Slavic, East European and Euroasian Studies. Maciej Falkowski is a political scientist and journalist based at the Centre for Eastern Studies in Warsaw. The works of Bronislaw Malinowski and Ryszard Kapuscinski taught us that Polish travellers have a special place in the canon of ethnographic description. Here is another example of that distinguished tradition. --Professor Georgi Derlugian, NYU, Abu Dhabi, author ofBourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus: lSg