Text, time, and travel: temporal pathways of postsocialism and Islam

Abstract

As the concept of postsocialism faces increased scrutiny, there is a call to expand its spatiotemporal scope beyond socialist contexts in order to reclaim its analytical capacity. In Azerbaijan, the quiet resurgence of tezkirahs – biographical anthologies rooted in both the Islamic and Soviet traditions – presents an opportunity to explore how former Soviet citizens can bridge different histories, countries, and cultural traditions to nurture an expansive sense of collective presence and moral dignity after seventy years of communist rule and disconnect. These texts help Azerbaijanis chart their diverse roots in the former imperial domains of Persians, Turks, and Russians and absorb them into their vision of who they once were and could be again. Writers and readers of tezkirahs establish connections to non-socialist pasts and places through what I refer to as temporal pathways, where traversing time becomes a journey to another place, and vice versa. By exploring this spatialized historical sensibility through the capacious ethnographic-textual lens of an Islamic genre, this article sheds fresh light on postsocialist possibilities.