Nurlan Kabdylkhak
Assistant Professor (Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2025)
Office: SBS-N-319
Email: nurlan.kabdylkhak@stonybrook.edu
Interests: Modern Russia; Central Asia; Eastern Europe; empire; colonialism; nationalism; social history; political history; religious institutions.
My research focuses on the history of Central Asia under the Russian empire and the Soviet Union. I am particularly interested in the dynamics of colonial governance in late imperial Central Asia and in the ways local communities responded to the challenges and opportunities presented by the imperial state.
My current book project examines the social and political history of Muslim institutions and religious patronage on the Kazakh steppe between the 1820s and 1920s. Although the colonial government undertook systematic efforts from the 1860s onward to curtail the influence of Islam, Islamic institutions flourished across the steppe under Russian rule. This study explores both the material and human dimensions of that transformation, demonstrating how Muslim communities skillfully navigated imperial bureaucracy and developed creative strategies to preserve and expand their religious institutions.
At Stony Brook, I teach courses on the history of modern Russia, the Soviet Union, and Central Asia, as well as thematic courses that engage with broader questions of empire and colonialism.
