Coerced Liberation: Muslim Women in Soviet Tajikistan

In 1924, the Bolshevik regime began an unprecedented campaign to forcibly emancipate the Muslim women of Tajikistan. The emancipatory reforms included unveiling women, passing progressive family code laws, and educating women. By the 1950s, the Soviet regime largely succeeded in putting an end to veiling, child marriage, polygamy, and bride payments. Yet today there is a resurgence in these practices the Bolsheviks claimed to have eliminated. Coerced Liberation reveals that the Soviet regim...