Reorienting the nation; perspectives from Soviet Cental Asia in the 1920s

This dissertation explores a global history of the nation in the interwar period, focusing on the interactions between Central Asian elites, local authorities and borderlands with representatives of central Soviet power. In reorienting the nation as a label and splitting the concept of the nation-state into form and instance, this thesis interprets these interactions through the lens of a Sovietising mission, a type of civilising mission that sought to deliver Soviet modernity to Central Asia via the nation. It contextualises the failure of Comintern activity in Central Asia during the summer of 1920, the national delimitation of Central Asia, and the post-delimitation border disputes within a global spread of the nation-state form during the interwar period by showing how the adoption of socialism in one country led to the incorporation of the USSR into an international system based on the nation-state that was coalescing at the time, fully established in the aftermath of the Second World War.