Dr. Thomas Loy

AREAS OF INTEREST

• History and Memory in Central Asia
• Jewish Culture and History in Central Asia /Afghanistan
• Soviet Central Asia
• Tajik language and literature

EDUCATION
2003 M.A. (Magister) in Central Asian Studies, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin
2016 Dr. Phil (PhD) in Central Asian Studies, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin

ACADEMIC CAREER
Since March 2021 Research fellow, Oriental Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences
2020 Post-doctoral fellow, Institute of Iranistics, Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna
2009 – 2019 Assistant Professor, Central Asian Seminar, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin
2004 – 2008 Researcher and Coordinator of the Oral History Research Project ”Bukharan Jews- Making Meaning of Memories and Identity,“ Central Asian Seminar, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin

STUDY GRANTS
2000 – 2001 DAAD scholarship (one year) at the State National University Tajikistan (DDMT), Dushanbe

RESEARCH GRANTS and PROJECTS
2018 – 2019 DAAD grants (Go East) for three-weeks summer-schools Tajik Language, Culture and Everyday Life in Dushanbe and Uzbek Language, Culture and Everyday Life in Samarkand
2002 – 2003 DAAD research scholarship (three months), Tajikistan
2023 – 2026 GAČR ID: 23-08007K: „The Jewish Triangle: Connections and Disruptions in Persianate Jewish Life during the 19th and 20th Centuries.” Investigator: Thomas Loy. Co-investigator: Ariane Sadjed, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Iranian Studies

CONFERENCES

• Organization and implementation of the conference “Afghanistan: Von innen und außen / Views from Inside and Outside,” Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, 17-18 February 2018.

ONGOING RESEARCH PROJECTS

Bukharan Jewish periodicals 

In the early 20^th century newspapers and periodicals became the main platforms for cultural and political debate among reformist intellectuals in Central Asia and a major tool for knowledge transfer and the connection to the modern world. Founded and funded by the Bukharan Jewish entrepreneur Rahmin Dovidboyev (1880-1937) the first Judeo-Persian weekly Rakhamim (“Mercy”) was published between 1910 and 1914 in Skobelev (today’s Ferghana in Uzbekistan). In Soviet times, the Bukharan Jewish press was transformed from a pioneering privately owned enterprise that served the needs of the Jewish communities throughout Central Asia to an instrument owned and regulated by the state. This projects focusses on the development and transformations of Judeo-Persian / Judeo-Tajik newspapers and periodicals in Central Asia in the first half of the twentieth century and situates them in the broader Central Asian mediascape.

“The Jewish Triangle: Connections and Disruptions in Persianate Jewish Life during the 19th and 20th Centuries.”

GAČR 3 years bilateral project, started in July 2023 (together with Ariane Sadjed, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Iranian Studies) - ID: 23-08007K.

For centuries, Persian speaking Jews lived in today’s Iran, Central Asia and Afghanistan. Dominated by competing Muslim empires, Jewish communities remained connected through traditional trade routes that facilitated the exchange and mobility of people, goods and ideas within and beyond what has been conceptualized as the Persianate sphere. In the age of colonialism and with the creation of nation states, these traditional networks became disrupted and dissolved while new, divisive and disconnected ideas of community and belonging emerged. The proposed research uses the concept of the “Persianate” as a framework to grasp the entangled Jewish histories in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, beyond nationalized narratives. Tracing the interconnections and divisions in Persianate Jewish life in Iran, Central Asia and Afghanistan will elucidate the diversity within these communities, and provide a better understanding of Persianate societies through the prism of Jewish history. The aim of the project is to examine transregional relations of Jews between Iran, Central Asia and Afghanistan and the disruption of these traditional networks affected Jewish community formation in the 20th century.

COMPLETED RESEARCH PROJECTS

Persophone literary modernity in CENTRAL ASIA, AFGHANISTAN and IRAN

https://verlag.oeaw.ac.at/produkt/literary-modernity-in-the-persophone-realm-a-reader/99200937?name=literary-modernity-in-the-persophone-realm-a-reader&product_form=5469

PUBLICATIONS IN ENGLISH

Monographs

• Bukharan Jews in the Soviet Union. Autobiographical Narrations of Mobility, Continuity and Change. Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2016

Research articles

• ‘Linguistic compatriots’: on the relationship between Tajik and Judeo-Tajik language and literature. Central Asian Survey, 1–23.
• “Cross-border biographies: representations of the “Bukharan” Jewish self in changing cultural and political settings, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies (Vol.21, Number 2, May 2022)
• The Guide to Knowledge: The Journal Rahbar-i Dānish and Its Role in Creating a Soviet Tajik Literature (1927–1932). Iranian Studies, 55(3), 653-674. 
• Thomas Loy & Zeev Levin (2022) From 'Mercy' to 'Banner of Labour': the Bukharan Jewish press in late Tsarist and early Soviet Central Asia, Central Asian Survey, 41:1, 22-40
• “Connecting Histories and Geographies. The Jews of Central Asia,” New Eastern Europe 5 (2017), 104-110.
• “’Unmasking Enemies’ Again and Again? The Memoirs of Mordekhay Bachayev and the Revenge of the Soviet Past,” Sonderheft ASIEN 129 (2013), 73-90.
• “From the mountains to the lowlands - the Soviet policy of "inner-Tajik" resettlement,” TRANS…Internet-Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften, 16 (2006).

Chapters in collective volumes

• “The End of the ‘Jewish Triangle’: Jewish Geography and Mobility in Central Asia.” In Rotem Kowner (ed.): Jewish communities in Modern Asia. Their rise, Demise and Resurgence. Cambridge University Press, 2023, 25-46.
• "Writing oral histories: A Central Asian Jewish family story," in The Written and the Spoken / Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit in Central Asia - Festschrift for Ingeborg Baldauf, eds. Redkollegiia, Potsdam, edition tethys, 2021, 131-161. 
• “Rise and Fall: Bukharan Jewish Literature of the 1920s and 1930s,” in Iranian Languages and Literatures of Central Asia, eds. Matteo Di Chiara, Evelin Grassi, (Cahier de Studia Iranica XX), Paris, 2015, 307-336.
• “The Big Fraud – Recollecting the resettlement of the population of the Yaghnob valley,” in Remembering the past in Iranian Societies, eds. Christine Allison, Philip G. Kreyenbroek. Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 2013, 141-164.
• “About a Friend. Reflections on the Memoirs of Mordekhay Bachayev,” in Bukharan Jews in the 20th Century. History, Experience and Narration, eds. Ingeborg Baldauf et al., Wiesbaden, Reichert, 2008, 127-144. 
• “Close Relatives. The Life Narration of Abrasha (Arkadi) Levayevich Il'yasov,” in Bukharan Jews in the 20th Century. History, Experience and Narration, eds. Ingeborg Baldauf et al., Wiesbaden, Reichert, 2008, 145-175.

Edited volumes

• Literary Modernity in the Persophone Realm: A Reader. Edited by Christine Nölle-Karimi, Thomas Loy, Roxane Haag-Higuchi. Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2024.
• Reinhard Eisener: Buchara im Strudel der Russischen Revolutionen – Auftakt und Revolutionäres Umfeld 1917-1919. Edited by Thomas Loy and Dagmar Scheibert. Edition tethys, 2023.
• Redkollegiia (Loy, Rzehka et al) eds., The Written and the Spoken / Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit in Central Asia - Festschrift for Ingeborg Baldauf, Potsdam, edition tethys, 2021. 
• Ingeborg Baldauf, Moshe Gammer, a Thomas Loy, eds. Bukharan Jews in the 20th Century. History, Experience and Narration, Wiesbaden, Reichert, 2008.

Briefs and other articles

• “Yaghnob: The Hidden Valley,” Steppe 8, Winter 2010-2011, 36-52.