Tajikistan is a key state in Central Asia, and will become crucial to the regional power balance as it transitions away from Soviet government systems and responds to the rise of Chinese financial power alongside the continuing presence of Russian military might and instability in neighboring Afghanistan. This book demonstrates how the Soviet atheist legacy continues to influence current state structures, the regulation of religion, the formation of national identities, and the understanding of the place of religion in society. Hélène Thibault focuses on the differences between secular nationhood in Tajikistan, and an increasingly popular and influential Muslim identity. Featuring extensive and original primary-source material, including 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork, Thibault demonstrates the profound and lasting influence of Soviet power structures and attitudes, and how secular and religious identities clash in a context of tightening authoritarianism.

Hélène Thibault obtained her PhD in political science from the University of Ottawa. She joined Nazarbayev University in 2016 as an assistant professor in the department of Political Science and International Relations. Prior to this, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Chair for the Study of Religious Pluralism and the Center for International Studies at the Universite de Montreal. Her current projects look at changing matrimonial arrangements in Central Asia, especially polygyny in Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. She also took part in multiple election observation missions with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Ukraine and has travelled extensively in the former USSR.