Karmysheva Balkis Khalilovna
13 July 1916, Kuldzha, China — 9 October 2000, Moscow
Biography, education, career:
On 27 December 1951 Balkis Karmysheva defended her Candidate’s Dissrtation at the Institute of Ethnography, titled The Lokai Uzbeks of South Tadzhikistan. A Historical and Ethnographic Study of Cattle Breeding Before the Revolution. On 11 August 1978 she defended her Doctoral Dissertation based on her monograph, titled Sketches of Ethnic History of the Southern Regions of Tadzhikistan and Uzbekistan, Based on Ethnographic Data. In 1945–1950 she worked as a researcher at the Institute of History, Archaeology, and Ethnography of the Tadzhik Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1951‑1956 she held the positions of Scientific Secretary and senior researcher at the Institute of History, Archaeology, and Ethnography of the Tadzhik Branch of the USSR AS. In 1956–2000 she successively occupied the positions of junior researcher (1956–1957), senior researcher (1957‑1982), and lead researcher (1982‑2000) at the Department of Central Asia and Kazakhstan of the Leningrad Branch of the Institute of Ethnography.
Areas of expertise: History and ethnography of the peoples of Central Asia; ethnic processes; cattle-breeding; material and spiritual culture; onomastics; life-cycle rituals, etc.