Editor’s Note

Welcome to our third and final issue of SPSR for 2025.As we are now well into the second half of the year, it is my hope that this issue of the journal finds you well.As I have stated here in the past, while times remain challenging, especially in the post-Soviet space, we here at SPSR continue to remain hopeful that the future will bring a long-awaited peace for those living in the areas that are this journal's focus.This third issue of SPSR for 2025 includes a total of five articles.The first article is entitled "Post-Soviet Technocracy in Islam, the Politics of Memory and Ethnic Identity: The Tatar Case" by Danis Garaev of the Kazan (Volga Region) Federal University (Russian Federation).Garaev's article refutes the widespread thesis about the driving force of nationalism in the politics of the Russian republic of Tatarstan during the post-Soviet period.Garaev argues that between the 1990s and the 2010s, a discourse of engineering and technical workers played a key role in the formation of state policy in the socio-political sphere of Tatarstan.This discourse placed special emphasis on scientific and technological development, faith in progress and finding the most effective methods to achieve the set goals.This article also reveals that the Tatarstan political elite formed in the late Soviet period was technocratic in its education, experience and methods of work, and that this fact predetermined the insensitivity of the Tatarstan post-Soviet political elite in regard to Tatar nationalist ideology.This issue's second article is "Asia Redefined: Oriental Studies of Kazakhstan" by Albina Muratbekova of Khoja Akhmet Yassawi International Kazakh-Turkish University (Kazakhstan).Muratbekova examines the trajectory of the formation of Oriental studies in Kazakhstan through an investigation of its historical, institutional, and contextual settings.This article examines the comprehensive institutional heritage of Oriental studies, with a particular emphasis on Soviet academia in general and Soviet Central Asian republics in particular.Next, it delves into the institutional, methodological, and contextual evolution of Oriental studies in Kazakhstan to explore the state and directions of the field.Finally, Muratbekova concludes with a reflection on the current scope of Kazakhstan's Oriental studies and its future research potential, given the country's growing international aspirations.