Islam i iazyk sovetskoĭ vizual'nosti

This paper suggests possible ways of interpretation of the cultural experience of Soviet Muslims through the prism of photographs and photo-albums, created for and by the Muslim elites. I am interested in a black-and-white language of Soviet Islamic visuality that became important in the afterwar period. Photographs can be very informative also traditionally approached as texts, but I find more promising to look at the photographic events, patterns of visuality and a visual set in motion. Photograph is an act of creation rather than simply representation of reality. It is in the photograph collections that a hybrid Soviet Muslim identity finds its most spectacular expression since this identity was in a large extend build up by photo cameras. Photo shots taken between the 1940s and 1980s that I have at my disposal all originate from the private archives exclusively. Each of the keepers of such collections deals with them as important objects in constructing collective memory. Once created to transmit certain ideas (be it Islamic patriotism, literacy, Soviet modernity or else) the photographs are being instrumentalized by their holders, changing their place in the albums, finding or loosing inscriptions on them. Attention to visuality of Soviet Islam gives us a chance to distance from a traditional text-centered historical narrative and brings the discussion of specific topics from the field of Islamic studies to a broader platform of postcolonial debates on perception of self and others.