A Biography in Motion: Chokan Valikhanov and His Travels in Central Eurasia*

Ab Imperio, 1/2009

Scott C. Matsushita Bailey

A Biography in Motion:

Chokan Valikhanov and His Travels

in Central Eurasia*

Writing a biographical essay on the life a historical figure is often problematic.1 There are layers of complex interpretation to deal with, particularly

as the distance from the subject increases and as historical interpretation

evolves. Political transformations that take place within the space that

is the focus of the study further complicate matters as time progresses.

Historians often write biographies, as much as they try to avoid it, with

subconscious attention to issues relevant to their own time, something that

contemporary scholars must keep in mind when reading previous works.

Individuals who were living under times of transition or colonial encounter

present particularly interesting subjects for the historian, although they also

*

I am grateful both to the anonymous reviewers and Ab Imperio’s editorial team for their

very helpful suggestions. I would like to especially acknowledge the encouragement of

Alexander Semyonov. I am also thankful to Virginia Martin for sharing her ideas on the

Kazakh Chinggisids. Thanks also to Jerry Bentley, James Brown, Elton Daniel, Louise

McReynolds, and Matt Romaniello. Research support for the article came in part through

a stay at the University of Illinois Russian and East European Center and a FulbrightHays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad fellowship.

1

The Ab Imperio editorial team has pointed to Marc Bloch’s ideas from his classic

Apologie pour l’histoire ou Metier d’historien for further inspiration on the study of the

hu(man) as history. Marc Bloch. The Historian’s Craft. New York, 1953. P. 27.

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Scott C. Matsushita Bailey, A Biography in Motion: Chokan Valikhanov

arrive embedded in additional layers of complexity, particularly when the

individual exhibits ties both to the colonizer and the colonized and when

the setting for the person’s life is a...