Evading Reality treats the great ideological/political struggle embroiling literate Central Asia during the early 20th century. One of the region's leading cultural intellectuals, cAbdalrauf Fitrat (1886-1938), in his Bukharan and Turkistan homeland, for over two decades fought against the restrictive notions of arch-conservative Muslim hierarchies as well as the rigid dogmatism of communists. This study translates and analyzes three (one in two versions) of Mr. Fitrat's key writings composed in the second stage of this war of ideas. The early 1920s, already a period of state thought control, obliged him to evade the ostracism of authorities by speaking out both deceptively and disarmingly at one time. In the end, his writings succeeded in arming his spiritual descendants in the battle against Marxist ideology. His literary devices confused opponents, delighted adherents and provide a rich legacy for today’s Tajik and Uzbek societies.

Edward A. Allworth, A.M. Chicago (1953), Ph.D. (1959) Columbia University, in Slavic and Turkic languages and literature, is Emeritus Professor of Turko-Soviet Studies, Columbia University. He has written fourteen books and published more than 100 articles about cultural or ethnic politics in Central Asia, the former USSR and the Middle East. The most recent of these books are The Preoccupations of cAbdalrauf Fitrat, Bukharan Nonconformist (2000) and Devolution in Central Asia, 1990-2000 (2002).