Uzbekistan’s Transformation: Strategies and Perspectives

11 Ibid., 1 f. 
12 For example during the extended meeting of the cabinet 
on 15 January 2017: Kriticheskiy analiz, zhestkaya disciplina I per-
sonal’naya otvetstvennost’ dolzhny stat’ povsednevnoy normoy v deya-
tel’nosti kazhdogo rukovoditelya [Critical analysis, strict disci-
pline and personal responsibility must become the everyday 
norm for every leader], https://president.uz/ru/lists/view/187 
(accessed 30 June 2020). 
13 A short film published by the Islom Karimov Founda-
tion on 8 May 2019 offers striking insights: https://www. 
youtube.com/watch?v=dVtCwO6yc3E (accessed 30 June 
2020). 

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Uzbekistan under Karimov 
SWP Berlin 
Uzbekistan’s Transformation 
September 2020 
9 
established in the political cultures of Central Asia. 
Mirziyoyev was satisfying a widespread expectation 
when he granted his predecessor a prominent place 
in Uzbekistan’s sacral geography – and at the same 
time symbolically underlining his own claim to be 
the legitimate successor. 
The construction of the mausoleum in Samarkand 
and other tributes to Islom Karimov and his era – the 
ceremonial inauguration of monuments in Samar-
kand and Tashkent and the conversion of his former 
residence into a museum – are also politically sig-
nificant because these forms of musealisation grant 
Karimov a prominent and unchallengeable place 
in the nation’s collective memory. Integrating the 
founder into the canon of greats of Uzbek history and 
thus making him a part of an established historical 
semantics neutralises the case for historical reapprais-
al.
14
The message is: One can – and should – now 
look to the future. 
Even before taking office, Mirziyoyev had made 
it clear that change was coming. It was this second, 
much more challenging element of his programmatic 
oxymoron that raised expectations, within Uzbekistan 
and even more so abroad. But in order to understand 
Mirziyoyev’s reform agenda, the strategies he has pur-
sued to implement it, and the overall direction of the 
transformation process, we must first review the era 
of his predecessor Karimov.