Tashkent Historian’s Call for History to be More Uzbek Divides Tashkent Elites

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 19 – Russia is not the only country where governments and scholars are trying to make their national histories more nationalistic; but in contrast to the Russian Federation where the Kremlin has moved quickly to silence anyone who objects, in other former Soviet states, this move is sparking serious controversy.

            In Uzbekistan, for example, a recent call by the head of the Tashkent Institute of History to make Uzbek more national has triggered dissent, including by some in the elite who warn that what Azamat Ziyeyev wants will generate the kind of nationalism that will threaten domestic stability and relations with the country’s neighbors (business-gazeta.ru/article/554029).

            A flashpoint in this debate concerns whether historians should the “voluntary” nature of Uzbekistan’s joining the Russian Empire and the benefits it received from being part of the USSR or argue that Uzbekistan was conquered by the Russian government and seriously harmed by its inclusion in the USSR.

            This argument both reflects and feeds into debates about how Uzbekistan should relate to Moscow now; and because that is so, it should not be dismissed as one confined to the academy but rather merits attention not only in Uzbekistan but elsewhere as one of the clearest indicators of the kind of relationship with Moscow Uzbeks will support in the future.