Renegotiating Identities and Cultural Legacies Chapter Twelve Be(com)ing Uzbek

Conclusion
As stated in the introduction, I see Uzbekistan as a textbook case of the ethnosymbolist approach to nationhood, which merges the constructed character of the nation—intrinsically articulated to current situation and regime legitimacy—with a self-conscious “invention of traditions” based on ancient cultural and ethnic “cores.” Many aspects of today’s Uzbek nationhood were already identifiable in the claims of Jadids or Uzbek national-communists of the 1920s—the centrality of Uzbekistan, its status as a benchmark of Turkestani identity, its continuity with the Transoxiana legacy, its blend of sedentary and post-nomad, Turkic and Persian, features. These attributes were systematized during the Soviet decades by the vast work of local academia, which used ethnogenesis as a driving conceptual engine for crystallizing the nation’s main reference periods. While one can plainly identify political junctures in the construction of the nation, the set of references to draw from has been well-established for a long time and has its own inherent logic.
In Soviet times as in contemporary Uzbekistan, the nation’s grand narrative has aimed at anchoring the titular ethnic group on its territory, at dissociating the national “consciousness” from the existence of an ethnonym, and at demonstrating the nation’s continuity since ancient times. Soviet academic and political authorities thus contributed to the birth of a local patriotism or “republicanism” that quickly, from the 1940s on, acquired the (potential) attributes of the nation-state. While that term was obviously not used at the time, because it was deemed bourgeois and did not fit the Soviet logic of unification, the arsenal of scholarly arguments supporting the nation-state was nonetheless perfected. In many aspects, today’s Uzbek nationhood owes a lot to the Soviet narrative and has interiorized several colonial clichés—such as the superiority of sedentary over nomadic populations, and the prestige of referring to an Aryan past.
This longue durée of the nation’s grand narrative does not preclude the existence of changes and evolutions, both abrupt and slow. The death of the “father of the nation” in 2016 reopened windows of opportunities for the Uzbek regime to evolve and reformulate its relationship with society. The new president, Shavkat Mirzyoyev, has always been an insider, as he was prime minister for more than a decade. Yet he has made several noticeable changes. He, for example, criticizes the Ma`naviyat va Ma`rifat as a “jingo patriotism” (ura urachilik)⁶⁹ that is not efficient at a time when greater economic efficiency should be the driving ideology of the country. It would be naïve to hope for the democratization of the country, but the disappearance of the “father of the nation” may push for adjusting the nationhood narrative to new realities, in order to keep it relevant and shared by the population.
Notes
1. See the classic work of Anthony Smith, National Identity (London: Penguin, 1991).
2. Adams, The Spectacular State.
3. Michael Billig, Banal Nationalism (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishers, 1995).
4. Tanya Merchant, “Popping Tradition: Performing Maqom and Uzbek ‘National’ Estrada in the 21st Century,” Popular Music & Society 32, no. 3 (2009): 371–86.
5. Gul’nara Abikeeva, “Uzbekistan: ‘Chopping Board’ or Serious Cinema?” Studies in Russian & Soviet Cinema 4, no. 2 (2010): 221–26.
6. Nancy Rosenberger, “Patriotic Appetites and Gnawing Hungers: Food and the Paradox of Nation-Building in Uzbekistan,” Ethnos 73, no. 2 (2007): 339–60.
7. Islam Karimov, “Natsional’naya ideologiya—dlya nas istochnik dukhovno-nravstvennoy sily v stroitel’stve gosudarstva i obshchestva,” in Islam Karimov, Nasha vysshaya tsel’—nezavisimost’ i protsvetanie rodiny, svoboda i blagopoluchie naroda, vol. 8 (Tashkent: Uzbekiston, 2000), 451.
8. Islam Karimov, Turkistan, nash obshchiy dom (Tashkent: Uzbekiston, 1995).
9. William Fierman, “Cultural Nationalism in Soviet Uzbekistan,” Soviet Union 12, no. 1 (1985): 1–41; James Critchlow, Nationalism in Uzbekistan (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991).
10. The “Five Principles” are: (1) Economics has priority over politics; (2) The state is the main reformer; (3) All reform must occur under the rule of law; (4) The state underlines the importance of strong social protection; and (5) The transformation to a market economy must be thought out and gradual. See Martin C. Spechler, The Political Economy of Reform in Central Asia: Uzbekistan under Authoritarianism (London: Routledge, 2008); Rafael Sattarov, “Is the Uzbek Development Model a path towards true modernization?” CABAR, November 25, 2016, http://cabar.asia/en/rafael-sattarov-is-the-uzbek-development-model-a-path-towards-true-modernization/.
11. Michael Denison, “The Art of the Impossible: Political Symbolism, and the Creation of National Identity and Collective Memory in Post-Soviet Turkmenistan,” Europe-Asia Studies 61, no. 7 (2009): 1167–87; Abel Polese and Slavomir Horak, “A Tale of Two Presidents: Personality Cult and Symbolic Nation-building in Turkmenistan,” Nationalities Papers 43, no. 3 (2015): 457–78.
12. Andrew F. March, “State Ideology and the Legitimation of Authoritarianism: The Case of Post-Soviet Uzbekistan,” Journal of Political Ideologies 8, no. 2 (2003): 209–32.
13. Karimov, “Ideologia,” 89.
14. National Society of Philosophers of Uzbekistan, Ideya natsional’noy nezavisimosti: osnovnye ponyatiya i printsipy (Tashkent: Uzbekiston, 2001).
15. R. Z. Zhumaev, Politicheskaya sistema Respubliki Uzbekistan: stanovlenie i razvitie (Tashkent: Akademiya nauk RU, 1996), 148.
16. Habibulla Tadzhiev, Teoreticheskie i metodologicheskie voprosy natsional’noy ideologii (Tashkent: Uzbekiston, 1999), 4.
17. Rafael Sattarov, “Spirituality and Enlightenment, Uzbekistan’s State-Sponsored Ideology,” Central Asia Papers, July 2017.
18. Nick Megoran, “Framing Andijon, Narrating the Nation: Islam Karimov’s Account of the Events of 13 May 2005,” Central Asian Survey 27, no. 1 (2008): 15–31; Madeleine Reeves, “Migration, Masculinity, and Transformations of Social Space in the Sokh Valley, Uzbekistan,” in Migration and Social Upheaval as the Face of Globalization in Central Asia, ed. Marlene Laruelle (London: Brill, 2013), 307–32.
19. Kendzior, “Reclaiming Ma’naviyat,” 223–42.
20. Megoran, “Framing Andijon, Narrating the Nation.”
21. “The Naked Truth about Censorship in Uzbekistan,” Global Voices, April 10, 2016, accessed July 25, 2017, https://globalvoices.org/2016/04/10/the-naked-truth-about-censorship-in-uzbekistan/.
22. McGlinchey, “Searching for Kamalot,” 53–66.
23. Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan: Nation, Empire, and Revolution in the Early USSR (London: Cornell University Press, 2015).
24. See ongoing research by Riccardo Mario Cucciolla on the Uzbek “cotton scandal” in the 1980s.
25. Olivier Ferrando, “Manipulating the Census: Ethnic Minorities in the Nationalizing States of Central Asia,” Nationalities Papers 36, no. 3 (2008): 489–520.
26. John Heathershaw, “Tajikistan,” in Post-Soviet Nations, ed. Peter Rutland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).
27. Yulia Tsyryapkina, “Evolution of the Russian Language in the Tashkent Region’s Urban Spaces,” Uzbekistan Initiative Papers No. 19, October 2014.
28. Jacob M. Landau and Barbara Kellner-Heinkele, Politics of Language in the Ex-Soviet Muslim States (London: Hurst, 2001).
29. Matteo Fumagalli, “Ethnicity, State Formation and Foreign Policy: Uzbekistan and ‘Uzbeks Abroad,’” Central Asian Survey 26, no. 1 (2007): 105–22.
30. A. Jalolov and X. Qo’chqor, Mustaqillik: Izoxli Ilmiy-Ommabop Lug’at (Tashkent: Sharq, 2000), quoted in Megoran, “Framing Andijon, Narrating the Nation.”
31. Decret no. 315 “O sovershenstvovanii deyatel’nosti Instituta istorii ANRU,” Pravda Vostoka (July 27, 1998): 2–3.
32. Interview with D. Alimova, Institute of History, Tashkent, February 19, 2004.
33. Mirzokhid Rakhimov, “Post-Soviet Transformations and the Contemporary History of Uzbekistan,” Uzbekistan Initiative Papers, No. 14, March 2014.
34. See the polemics around the Ethnic Atlas of Uzbekistan: Alisher Ilkhamov, ed. Etnicheskiy atlas Uzbekistana (Tashkent: Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation Uzbekistan, 2002); D. Alimova, Z. Arifkhanova, Sh. Kamoliddin, “Ob”ektivnost’ i otvetstvennost’: kakim ne dolzhen byt’ etnicheskiy atlas Uzbekistana,” Pravda Vostoka, January 14–15, 2004, republished in O”zbekiston Tarihi 1 (2004): 72–85.
35. Alex Luhn, “Uzbek president bans teaching of political science,” The Guardian, September 5, 2015, accessed July 25, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/05/uzbekistan-islam-karimov-bans-political-science.
36. T. Sh. Shirinov, A. A. Anarbaev, and Yu. F. Buriakov, “Arkheologicheskie issledovaniya v ANRU,” Obshchestvennye nauki v Uzbekistane 8 (1993): 57.
37. Peter Finke, Variations on Uzbek Identity.
38. The Uzbek dynasty established itself in Transoxiana in the early sixteenth century under the leadership of Shaybani Khan (1451–1510). Its leaders originally belonged to a nomadic population from the eastern territory of the Golden Horde, taking its name from Uzbek Khan, who reigned from 1312 to 1342.
39. Marlene Laruelle, “The Concept of Ethnogenesis in Central Asia: Political Context and Institutional Mediators (1940–50),” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 9, no. 1 (2008): 169–88.
40. A. Yu. Yakubovskiy, K voprosu ob etnogeneze uzbekskogo naroda (Tashkent: UZFAN, 1941), 1.
41. Marlene Laruelle, “National Narrative, Ethnology, and Academia in Post-Soviet Uzbekistan,” Journal of Eurasian Studies 1, no. 2 (2010): 102–10.
42. Karim Sh. Shaniiazov, “Üzbek halkining etnogeseziga oid ba’zi nazarij masalalar’,” Obshchestvennye nauki v Uzbekistane 6 (1998): 31. I am extremely grateful to Khudaikul Ibragimov and Ulughbek S. Mansurov for having this text translated from Uzbek into Russian. The opinions presented here cannot be attributed to them.
43. Ibid.
44. Ibid., 32.
45. Ibid., 10.
46. Karim Sh. Shaniiazov, Kanf davlati va kanglilar (Tashkent: FAN, 1990).
47. Ibid., 37.
48. Karim Sh. Shaniiazov, Üzbek halkining šakllaniš žaraëni (Tashkent: Shark, 2001).
49. Ibid., 9.
50. Ibid., 40.
51. Marlene Laruelle, “The Return of the Aryan Myth: Tajikistan in Search for a Secularized National Ideology,” Nationalities Papers 35, no. 1 (2007): 51–70.
52. Victor Shnirelman, “Aryans or Proto-Turks? Contested Ancestors in Contemporary Central Asia,” Nationalities Papers 37, no. 5 (2009): 557–87; Slavomir Horak, “In Search of the History of Tajikistan: What Are Tajik and Uzbek Historians Arguing About?” Russian Politics & Law 48, no. 5 (2010): 65–77.
53. Sh. Kamoliddin, “Eshche raz ob etnicheskom atlase Uzbekistana,” Etnozhurnal (February 2004), www.ethnonet.ru.
54. Alisher Ilkhamov, “National Ideologies and Historical Mythology Construction in Post-Soviet Central Asia,” in Patterns of Transformation in and around Uzbekistan, eds. Paolo Sartori and Tommaso Trevisani (Diabasis: Emilia, 2007): 91–120.
55. John Dunn, “The Paper Nation: Nationalist Iconography on Uzbek Currency,” Journal of Central Asian Studies 3, no. 2 (1999): 32–66.
56. Beatrice Forbes Manz, “Tamerlane’s Career and Its Uses,” Journal of World History 13, no. 1 (2002): 1–25.
57. Analysis of the main benchmarks of Uzbek historical discourses has been done by Shahram Akbarzadeh, “Nation-Building in Uzbekistan,” Central Asian Survey 15, 1 (1996): 23–32; Charles Kurzman, “Uzbekistan, the Invention of Nationalism in an Invented Nation,” Critique: Journal of Critical Studies of the Middle East 15 (1999): 77–98; Andrew F. March, “The Use and Abuse of History: ‘National Ideology’ as Transcendental Object in Islam Karimov’s ‘Ideology of National Independence,’” Central Asian Survey 21, no. 4 (2002): 371–84.
58. Louw, Everyday Islam in Post-Soviet Central Asia.
59. Rakhimov, “Post-Soviet Transformations.”
60. Sergey Abashin, “Mustakillik i pamyat’ ob imperskom proshlom: prokhodya po zalam tashkentskogo Muzeya pamyati zhertv repressiy,” Neprikosnovennyy zapas 66, no. 4 (2009), http://magazines.russ.ru/nz/2009/4/ab6.html.
61. Stéphane A. Dudoignon, “Changements politiques et historiographiques en Asie centrale (Tadjikistan et Ouzbékistan, 1987–1993),” Cahiers d’études sur la Méditerranée orientale et le monde turco-iranien (CEMOTI) 16 (1993): 85–136.
62. Dilorom Alimova, Dzhadidizm v Sredney Azii: puti obnovleniya, reformy, bor’ba za nezavisimost’ (Tashkent: Uzbekiston, 2000).
63. Timur Dadabaev, Identity and Memory in Post-Soviet Central Asia (London: Routledge, 2015). See also Timur Dadabaev, “Recollections of Emerging Hybrid Ethnic Identities in Soviet Central Asia: The Case of Uzbekistan,” Nationalities Papers 41 (6): 1026–48.
64. Khalid, Islam after Communism.
65. Johan Rasanayagam, “The Politics of Culture and the Space for Islam: Soviet and Post-Soviet Imaginaries in Uzbekistan,” Central Asian Survey 33, no. 1 (2014): 1–14.
66. Kurzman, “Uzbekistan, the Invention of Nationalism in an Invented Nation.”
67. Alisher Sidikov and Deana Kjuka, “Karimov: Uzbek Migrants Are ‘Lazy,’ ‘Beggars’ ‘Don’t Exist,” RFE/RL, June 26, 2013, accessed July 25, 2017, https://www.rferl.org/a/uzbekistan-karimov-beggars-migrants-remittances/25028531.html
68. More in Laruelle, ed., Migration and Social Upheaval as the Face of Globalization in Central Asia.
69. See the “leak” from the president’s speech at https://www.ozodlik.org/a/28401784.html.
Chapter Fourteen
Public Life in Private Spaces in Uzbekistan