The traditional clothes of Central Asian peoples, made from abr silk and semi-silk fabrics in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—chapans and munisaks, burqas and kuylaks, skullcaps and kultapushaks—became the objects of a thrilling hunt for various collectors and foreign connoisseurs.

Author

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Elmira Gyul

Doctor of Art History, Institute of Art History of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan

Here we recall the brief history of such collection efforts, discuss the most significant private collections, and reflect on the challenges of preserving cultural heritage.

One Man’s Everyday Attire, Another Man’s Treasure

Uzbek traditional clothing and abr fabrics came to be collected later than, for example, carpets or interior embroidery, known generally as suzani. Neither abr fabrics nor the clothing made from them were considered an elite product, as we imagine today. These fabrics were used by everyone—rich and poor, men and women, adults and children—as can be seen in archival photographs of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Testifying to the non-elite status of these garments, if you look at the ceremonial photographic portraits of the Bukhara, Khiva, and Kokand rulers, you will often see that they are dressed instead in more expensive robes made of imported brocade.

As the American researcher Andy Hale has noted, “Although abr textiles were included in many of the early exhibitions of Central Asian material culture that were presented throughout the Russian Empire, they did not seem to attract as much attention or love [as] suzani embroidery or famous Turkmen carpets.” This is confirmed by a series of unique photographs taken on the territory of the British diplomatic mission in Tehran between 1897 and 1899. In the images, mission employees inspect the Shakhrisabz suzanis and Karakalpak yurt ribbons spread before them by a merchant.

Perhaps abr fabrics simply seemed too exotic and strange to Europeans. Indeed, the nineteenth-century Hungarian orientalist and traveler Arminius Vambery wrote: “The poverty … of the inhabitants of Central Asia is especially visible from their clothes. It is extremely difficult for someone unaccustomed to get used to the simple paper material or bright silk in which absolutely everyone dresses—both men and women, both old and young.”

Great Game, Great Finds

Nevertheless, international interest in abr silk gradually gained momentum. Once the region came to the attention of European powers and Russia, following the vicissitudes of the Great Game, a market for local textiles gradually emerged, and some were even exported.

Almost all of the famous travelers who came to the region on various missions were involved in the purchase and export of local fabrics and clothing as objects of ethnographic interest. One of those who appreciated the peculiar beauty of abr fabrics was the British explorer Robert Shaw, who visited East Turkestan in 1868. Shaw’s mission—to map the unexplored territory of the Pamir Mountains—was not military, but primarily commercial. After his death in 1879, members of the Shaw family donated the rarities he had brought back with him from Central Asia to various British museums (including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archeology in Oxford).

Ole Olufsen, a Danish military officer and explorer, made several expeditions to the Bukhara Emirate in the 1890s. He brought back samples of textiles that are now housed in the National Museum of Denmark. Another collector was Willi Rickmer Rickmers, a German climber, scientist, and of course scout who in 1903, 1913, and 1928 went on exhibitions in the Caucasus and the Pamirs, as well as visiting other mountains of Central Asia. His textile acquisitions have been held by the Linden Museum in Stuttgart since 1905.

In Russia, abr silk was known mainly as an item of trade (including in the form of dyed warp threads, which were used by Russian fabric-makers) and as a diplomatic gift. Such gifts—sent by caravans to the imperial capital, St. Petersburg—became especially numerous after the conquest and annexation of the Uzbek khanates. After the revolution of 1917, all this luxury was transferred to state museum collections (the Russian Ethnographic Museum, the Kunstkamera, the Hermitage, etc.).

Commemorated in Art

Abr robes are now seen not as something exotic and tribal, but as something elitist and artistically significant. Such depictions began in the early twentieth century with those Russian artists who painted the portraits of representatives of creative circles and the early Soviet intelligentsia. Thus, Boris Kustodiev chose to feature his son in an abr robe (“Portrait of a Son,” 1922). Similarly, Mikhail Nesterov’s images of famous figures show them dressed in brightly colored chapans (“Portrait of academician, biologist A.N. Severtsov,” 1934, “Portrait of A.V. Shchusev,” 1941).

In the work of avant-garde artist Lyubov Popova (1889–1924), who visited Bukhara and Samarkand in the spring of 1916, we can see more implicit aesthetics of abr fabrics. In turn, Yulia Razumovskaya (1896–1987) clearly depicts the patterns of these fabrics in her graphic sketches. In 1925, she graduated from VKHUTEMAS and went to Uzbekistan. The artist’s works dedicated to Bukhara, Samarkand, and Tashkent, in which special attention is paid to the bright, decorative local clothing, are now held by various museum and private collections.

Traditional Clothes Become Antique

As Uzbeks moved around during the Soviet era, their textiles went with them. In the early Soviet period, some Uzbeks fled to the Pamir mountains or beyond the Amu Darya, taking all their belongings with them. Almost all the Lakai left Uzbekistan, spreading their glorious culture and magnificent textiles around the world. While the Lakai were cattle breeders who did not cultivate silk, they—like all ethnic groups in Uzbekistan—did wear clothes made from silk. As a result of the mass migration of Lakai and other Central Asian semi-nomadic tribal groups to the territory of Afghanistan, Herat became a real mecca for collectors and fans of traditional textiles. Following the coup d’etat in Afghanistan in 1973 and the outbreak of civil war there, however, the center of trade in Central Asian textiles moved to Istanbul.

It was also in the 1970s that textile lovers were rediscovering the phenomenon of reserve-dyed fabrics, which include abr fabrics, thanks to fundamental research in this area. This research included Alfred Bühler’s three-volume German-language text Ikat Batik Plangi: Reservemusterungen auf Garnun Stoffus Vorderasien, Zentralasien, Südosteuropa und Nordafrica (1972), as well as his English-language work with designer Jack Lenore Larsen. Gerret Pieter Rouffaer, a Dutch researcher who studied Indonesian reserve-dyed fabrics, had coined the term “ikat” (from the Malay “mengikat,” meaning “to tie” or “to entwine”) in the early twentieth century to denote reserve-dyed fabrics. As the twentieth century progressed, ikat became fashionable, moving from traditional markets to haute couture and from there to high-street clothing stores.

Global interest in Central Asian chapans and abr fabrics grew dramatically in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, individual shuttle traders helped to revitalize the export of antiques from Uzbekistan. Female “shuttle traders” brought antiquities from their regions to the markets of Istanbul and returned home with everyday goods purchased in Turkey.

According to Turkish collectors, the Istanbul market was most active in 1992-2004. This was a golden era for the formation of the largest private collections of Uzbek textiles. It was here, in the ruins of ancient Istanbul, that fans of abr silk from all over the world acquired the product. In parallel, dealers and intermediaries rushed from Turkey and other countries to Uzbekistan, literally devastating the markets of Bukhara, Samarkand, and other cities and villages. Ancient textiles were sometimes exchanged for factory goods: machine-made synthetic carpets, casual clothing, lurex scarves, etc. The export of ancient textiles was supplemented by a new wave of Jewish emigration: upon leaving Uzbekistan, they took their family valuables with them.

Even as the market soared and demand for abr fabrics from Uzbekistan grew, there remained an extreme lack of knowledge about them. This deficit was remedied to some degree by Kate Fitz Gibbon and Andrew Hale’s Ikat: The Silks of Central Asia (1997). In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the West finally recognized abr fabrics as an undoubted artistic phenomenon. Often, in an effort to explain their uniqueness, parallels were drawn to abstract art, namely the canon-breaking transformations through which European painting went in the early twentieth century.

By the end of the 1990s, the Uzbek authorities recognized the need to introduce a ban on the export[1] of antiquities from the country. The 1998 law “On the Export and Import of Cultural Property” states that “cultural values are not subject to export from the Republic of Uzbekistan: those created fifty or more years ago; included by the state in the protected lists and registers.” That is, textile items produced before 1948 and exported from Uzbekistan after 1998 are automatically considered smuggled.

We do not have reliable data on the scale of the export of antique textiles (including items of traditional clothing) from Uzbekistan after 1998, but it certainly continued at least along with the notorious “shuttle trade,” active until the mid-2000s. Moreover, even if the flow of illegal exports has subsided, foreign markets are saturated with previously exported items. The process of forming collections and moving items from one collection to another is ongoing. The world market is full of Uzbek silk from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, primarily thanks to various auctions at which well-known collections or individual items are sold, allowing for the formation of new collections.

Notable Private Collections

What are the most famous private collections of Central Asian clothing—and particularly abr silk? The private collections of Tair Tairov and Alexander Klyachin, made up of purchases in Uzbekistan, have become widely known thanks to exhibitions in Moscow and the publication of catalogs. According to open Internet sources, Tairov began his collection in the 1980s, purchasing rarities at bazaars and from resellers. Klyachin likewise became interested in collecting in the late 1980s, when he visited Central Asia as a student of the Faculty of Geography at Moscow State University. Both not only bought antiques for themselves, but also acted as dealers. Thus, it was from Klyachin that such well-known collectors and donors in the United States as David and Elizabeth Reisbord purchased abr and other clothing from Uzbekistan.

In 2006, Tairov displayed part of his collection of embroideries at the Tashkent Gallery of Fine Arts of the National Bank of Uzbekistan (NBU) within the exhibition “Unknown Lokais,” initiated by the art gallery “Caravan.” His Moscow exhibitions, of which there have been at least 10, have also been very popular. They include: “Clouds Frozen on Silk” (State Museum of Fine Arts named after A.S. Pushkin, 2002); “Silk and Chintz: Dialogue of Cultures” (All-Russian Museum of Decorative, Applied and Folk Arts, 2014–2015); and “Silk Streets, Hanging Gardens: Objects of Textile Art of Central Asia from the Collection of Tair F. Tairov” (Central House of Artists, 2019). Select artifacts from his collection have been published in the catalog “Ikats of Turkestan from the Collection of Tair F. Tairov” (2002).

Klyachin’s rarities were presented to lovers of antique textiles in the 2019 exhibition “East Jazz/East West Jazz,” alongside works of abstract painting from the collection of Jean-Claude Gandur (Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, 2019).

In Turkey, the largest private collections were formed in the 1990s and belong to Mehmet Cetinkaya, Murat Megalli, and Umit Taftali, among others. Çetinkaya is a world-class trader who has been buying and selling carpets and other textiles since 1986. He first presented Uzbek ikat textiles in 1990, at the International Oriental Carpet Conference (ICOC) in San Francisco. In 1992, when ancient clothes from Uzbekistan began to appear in the markets of Istanbul, he became interested in collecting chapans.

With the emigration of Bukharan Jews, large collections of Uzbek artifacts, including abr textiles, appeared in Israel (the collection of Jor Mordechai [Ovdoni]) and Russia (Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, Moscow, “Bukharan Jews: At the Crossroads of Civilizations” exhibition, 2023).

The largest American collections of Central Asian abr fabrics and clothing also began to form in the early 1990s. Chief among them is Guido Goldman’s famous collection of Uzbek ikat, which he formed most actively in the mid-1990s. Shortly before his death, he divided this uniquely beautiful collection between 11 American museums. The largest donations were made to the Textile Museum at The George Washington University and to the Smithsonian’s Sackler Gallery.

Chapans from Uzbekistan also feature in the collections of other Americans. One of the most striking is that of David and Elizabeth Reisbord, which was donated by its owners to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Dr. Reisbord first visited Uzbekistan in 1992. Reflecting on that trip, he wrote later: “The Soviet Union had just collapsed, and everywhere on the streets of Bukhara, beautiful products made of ikat and suzani were being sold and hung on the walls. That was incredible.” Reisbord later began purchasing abr textiles from dealers and other collectors around the world. Before the couple’s donation to LACMA, the collection included 120 chapans and wall panels, as well as more than 20 suzanis.

The owner of another collection, Dr. David Paley, planned to donate some of his rarities to three American museums following a 2022 exhibition.[2] The owner of a fourth significant collection in the United States is Sheri Hunter, who has been captivated by Uzbek fabrics and chapans since her first trip to Uzbekistan in the early 1990s.

The list of famous foreign collections of abr textiles goes on. And as we admire them, it should be observed that this exported cultural heritage has become a global triumph for Central Asian chapans and fabrics, which have taken a victory march through museum halls, galleries, and the catwalks of leading fashion houses. Today, these delightful textile products, preserved in excellent condition thanks to the care of people who love them, act as ambassadors of Central Asian culture, telling the whole world about the amazing weavers who lived on Central Asian soil and created masterpieces of global significance.

Preserving Cultural Heritage

How should the heritage of abr fabrics, clothing, and other antique textiles be preserved in Uzbekistan? What is the correct way to store and exhibit them? How could more people be attracted to this traditional art and collections replenished? Here, the lessons learned from collecting, exhibiting, and studying Uzbek ikat and clothing abroad could be valuable.

It bears repeating that traditional Uzbek clothing and fabrics attract great interest around the world. In 2022-2023, the exhibition “Road to Samarkand: Wonders of Silk and Gold” at the Paris Institute of the Arab World, which presented samples exclusively from museum collections of Uzbekistan, was held with great success—and even attended jointly by French President Emmanuel Macron and Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. Paradoxically, however, these same items are not displayed so impressively at home as to attract the massive flow of visitors they receive abroad; their potential is not fully exploited.

There is almost no tradition of making private collections in Uzbekistan. Indeed, the author knows of only one such collection, owned by Akbar Khakimov and available to view at his gallery, “Akbar House,” in Bukhara. Yet it is private collections all over the world that serve to replenish museum collections by providing donations. Uzbek museums, meanwhile, must depend on very limited government assistance to acquire new items. As a result, the exhibitions are built on stock items acquired in the last century.

Ancient fabrics and clothing are scattered across various museums and are often stored in storage rooms. Storage conditions leave much to be desired; there are no cleaning standards. Moreover, there is no dedicated museum for silks or for traditional costumes. As a result, it is not possible to collect or exhibit items properly—and often we do not even know what is in museum collections, as it is difficult even for specialists to access them. In this regard, at a minimum, centralized digital cataloging of the traditional textiles and costumes in state collections is necessary. We must finally gain an understanding of how much of this unique heritage is held by Uzbek museums.

Modern masters often turn to the patterns of ancient fabrics, both creating copies and experimenting within the canon. Some of them have been able to gain worldwide fame, among them the Margilan weaver Rasuljon Mirzaakhmedov.

Conceptual artist Dilyara Kaipova has opened up a new world of Uzbek textile art with her original chapans, which, with stunning success, weave in the traditional abr style an array of globally recognizable symbols of mass culture: the logos of Captain America and Batman, Darth Vader’s helmet, the Ghostface mask from the horror film “Scream,” etc.

Read more: “Captain Ikat”: Textile Fantasies of Dilyara Kaipova

But aside from these few exceptions, many modern market-sold handmade products have sparked criticism due to their low standard of color and decoration. Will modern abr silks become highly collectible in decades to come, or will only products from the “golden period” be in demand? This question—like those posed earlier in the article—calls for careful consideration and a thoughtful answer.

Cited and mentioned literature, sources:

1. Buhler, Alfred. Ikat Batik Plangi: Reservemusterungen auf Garnun Stoffus Vorderasien, Zentralasien, Südosteuropa und Nordafrica, Basel, Pharos-Verlag Hansrudolf Schwabe, 1972.

2. Fitz Gibbon, Kate, and Hale, Andrew. Ikat: Silks of Central Asia. Laurence King Pub, 1997.

3. Krody, S. B. Colors of the Oasis: Central Asian Ikats. The Textile Museum, 2010. 304 pp.

4. Larsen, Jack Lenor, with Buhler, Alfred. The Dyers Art: Ikat, Batik, Plangi, New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1976.

5. Salleh, A. Robes and dresses: sartorial elegance of Central Asia // Book – album “ Collection museum Islamic art Malaysia ” series ” Cultural heritage Uzbekistan “. Tashkent, 2022.

6. Umesh Charan Patnaik, Aswini Kumar Mishra 1997, 38; Ghosh 2000.

7. Vambery A. Essays on Central Asia. M., 1868.

8. Embroidery and carpets of Uzbekistan in foreign collections. Book-album of the “Cultural Heritage of Uzbekistan” series. Volume 4. Tashkent, 2020.

9. Gul E. The charm of Uzbek abr fabrics: collecting as a vocation // Book-album “Traditional clothing of Uzbekistan in private collections in Turkey” of the “Cultural Heritage of Uzbekistan” series (in print). Tashkent, 2023. Ss. 152–173.

10. Zhumaev K. Divine art. Be’er Sheva, 2017.

11. Law of the Republic of Uzbekistan on the export and import of cultural property https://lex.uz/docs/13906 Opened: 08/23/2023.

12. Ikats of Turkestan from the collection of Tair F. Tairov. Catalog. Authors of the text: Ermakova E., Makhkamova S. M., 2002.

13. How billionaire Alexander Klyachin became a collector of Central Asian robes // Tatler, October 1, 2019. https://www.tatler.ru/heroes/kak-milliarder-aleksandr-klyachin-stal-kollekcionerom-sredneaziatskih-halatov Opened 08.23.2023

14. Dreams of the East: Russian avant-garde and Bukhara silks. Exhibition catalogue. St. Petersburg, 2006.

15. Created in the sky: unique Uzbek textiles from a private collection // Sputnik Uzbekistan. https://uz.sputniknews.ru/20190307/Sozdannye-na-nebe-unikalnyy-uzbekskiy-tekstil-iz-chastnoy-kollektsii-10981045.html Opened 09/05/2023.

16. Tairov T. Bold aesthetics // Journal “Our Heritage”, No. 115, 2015. http://www.nasledie-rus.ru/podshivka/11521.php Opened 08/23/2023.

17. Uzbekistan. Heirs of the Silk Road. Exhibition catalogue. Stuttgart, 1997.

18. Hale E. Woven impressions: abr fabrics from the Paley collection. Book-album “Cultural Heritage of Uzbekistan in Private Collections of the USA and Canada” of the “Cultural Heritage of Uzbekistan” series. Volume 31. Tashkent, 2020. pp. 286–303.

19. Chetinkaya M. Cultural heritage of Uzbekistan – abr fabrics // Book-album “Traditional clothing of Uzbekistan in private collections of Turkey” of the series “Cultural heritage of Uzbekistan” (in print). Tashkent, 2023. Ss. 34–49.

20. Esguerra K. Collection of Uzbek abr fabrics and suzani by David and Elizabeth Reisbord // Book-album “Cultural Heritage of Uzbekistan in Private Collections of the USA and Canada” of the “Cultural Heritage of Uzbekistan” series. Volume 31. Tashkent, 2020. pp. 136–159.

[1] The first law—“On the Export and Import of Cultural Property” No. 678-I—was signed on August 29, 1998. On March 23, 1999, the resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Uzbekistan No. 131 “On Streamlining the Issues of Export and Import of Cultural Property in the Republic of Uzbekistan” was issued. On April 26, 2017, Resolution No. 245 of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Uzbekistan was issued.

[2] The author does not have further precise information.

Usto Mumin, or Aleksandr Vasilievich Nikolaev (August 30, 1897 – June 27, 1957), was an artist who lived and worked in the Uzbek SSR. Nikolaev arrived in Tashkent after demobilization in 1920, and from that moment on his life and artistic creativity were bound up with Central Asia. His pupils called him Usto Mumin, which means “Faithful Master.” One of his best-known paintings, “Pomegranate Zeal,” tells the love story of two young boys. He was persecuted by the Soviet authorities and spent four years in prison between 1938 and 1942. Following his release, Nikolaev returned to Uzbekistan and continued to work as an artist, illustrator and theatre designer. He received an Honorary Award from the Central Executive Committee of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic for his role in establishing the Uighur Theatre in Tashkent. Nikolaev died in Tashkent in 1957.

His life and work are the subject of two recently published books: Eleonora Shafranskaya, Usto Mumin: transformations. Moscow: Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, 2023 (Элеонора Федоровна Шафранская Э.Ф. Усто Мумин: превращения. Москва: Музей современного искусства “Гараж”, 2023), and Boris Chukhovich, ‘Love, Friendship, Eternity’ by Usto Mumin. Prague: Artguide s.r.o., 2023.

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Eleonora Shafranskaya

– Doctor of Philology, Professor of the Moscow Humanitarian Pedagogical Institute. Born in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, lived in Tashkent until 1997, taught philology at the Tashkent State University and the Republican Pedagogical Institute of Russian Language and Literature. Since 1997 she has been living and working in Moscow. In 2008 she defended her doctoral dissertation on the theme “Mythopoetics of a foreign cultural text in Russian prose of the 20th – 21st centuries” at the Volgograd State Pedagogical University.

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Boris Chukhovich

 – Central Asian art and architecture historian, independent curator, associate researcher at the University of Montreal, President of the Central Asian Cultural Heritage Observatory Alerte Héritage.  Until 1998, he worked at the Research Institute of Art Studies in Tashkent, after immigrating to Canada, he collaborated with various universities in Montreal, Quebec, Toronto, was a visiting researcher at the Fondation de la Maison des sciences de l’Homme (Paris, 2014) and Politecnico di Milano (2022-2023). Curated exhibitions of Central Asian contemporary art in Montreal, Ottawa, Venice, Bishkek, Alma-Ata. Author of numerous publications on the art and architecture of Central Asia in the 20th and 21st centuries. Lives and works in Montreal.

In this interview, Eleonora Shafranskaya and Boris Chukhovich talk about their research and their books dedicated to this incredible yet mysterious artist.

How did your scientific interest in the work of Usto Mumin come to be?

Eleonora: I would say that a lot came together here. The personality of Usto Mumin (the nickname of the artist Alexander Nikolaev) became interesting to me after watching the play Pomegranate Zeal, directed by Mark Weil (Ilkhom Theatre, Tashkent), for which Usto Mumin was imprisoned.

I turned to the FSB office (ex-KGB) in Moscow to become acquainted with the artist’s investigation file. He was arrested in 1938 in Moscow, at the exhibition of achievements of the national economy—then the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition—where Usto Mumin was the leading artist of the Uzbek pavilion. A month later, I received copies of the pages from his case, which were forwarded to me from the relevant structure in Uzbekistan. It is really a rare case; I think that I was just lucky to access the FSB archive files.

My attention to Usto Mumin was sparked by a research interest in the fate of creative figures (writers, scientists, artists) who suffered under the Soviet regime. To date, this layer of the history of the twentieth century has not been fully explored. There is still a lot of work for more than one generation.

Boris: In October 2001, the 6^th World Congress of the International Association for Visual Semiotics was to be held in Quebec. I had not studied semiotics before, but it suddenly became clear that after the September attacks, many European scholars had decided not to experience the hardship and abandoned the transatlantic flight. Hotels, banquets, and congress halls had been paid for in advance, and the organizers of the congress, trying to somehow compensate for the costs, invited scientists who were already in Quebec to participate in the forum. Thus, I ended up participating in a scientific event with an unusual profile for me. The sensations were surprising. I was particularly struck by the ability of semioticians to extract new information layer by layer from the same image. This fundamentally distinguished their analysis from what I had encountered in Uzbekistan. In Uzbekistan, historians of art aimed for the widest possible coverage and chronological scale. For instance, Lazar Rempel and Galina Pugachenkova wrote The History of Art of Uzbekistan from Ancient Times to the Middle of the 19th Century, which encouraged their colleagues to enlarge themes and corpus of study as much as possible. Visual semiotics, on the contrary, plumbed the depths of micro-facts and micro-stories. In contrast to panoramic breadth, which is fraught with simplification and schematism, they cultivated deep readings and thorough consideration of each specific problem. In parallel with semiotics, many participants in the congress appealed to the iconological tradition of studying art, represented, in particular, by the texts of Abu Warburg and Erwin Panofsky.

This congress had two consequences for my scientific activities. In a relatively short period in 2003, I wrote voluminous texts about two works of art: the Monument of Independence of Uzbekistan (the so-called “globe” on the main square of Tashkent) and Usto Mumin’s tempera Love, Friendship, Eternity, as it was called at that time. Ultimately, these texts resulted in two long projects. One is an eight-year multimedia project that undertook an extensive exploration of the image of the sphere in representations of power in the history of world culture. Another is a 20-year book project in which I tried to provide a comprehensive analysis of Love, Friendship, Eternity. As can be seen from the combination of a semi-amateur monument erected by direct order of then-President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov and one of the most famous works of art in 20^th-century Central Asia, it was not the object of study that was important to me, but the method of analysis itself. At the same time, I can say that Usto Mumin’s works were at the intersection of many areas of my interests. Since my immigration to Canada, I had been interested in cross-cultural hybridities, creative expressions of exile, and gender history, not to mention Central Asian art of the 20th and 21st centuries. Mumin turned out to be the pivotal figure for all these issues.

How would you describe his creative path? Where does such a fine painting come from and how does it combine different worlds—European and Eastern?

Eleonora: Questions of art criticism are not within my sphere of expertise. However, I will answer as I see fit. This synthesis is associated both with the atmosphere of Samarkand, where Nikolaev ended up in the 1920s, and with colleagues who influenced the artist, chief among them Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin and Daniil Stepanov. Nikolaev, judging by his biography (including his parents’ hobbies) and the recollections of his colleagues, was a knowledgeable man; he knew the history and theory of painting very well.

Boris: This question contains the presumption of a binary structure of the world, which allegedly consists of the East and the West. I don’t have that division in my mind. I prefer to talk not about the amorphous East, supposedly opposed to the West, but about Samarkand, which is unlike other cities in Central Asia, never mind the world as a whole. To describe Samarkand, I don’t need to define it as an eastern city. After all, it is far west of Novosibirsk and Irkutsk, which have never been described as “eastern”. In Samarkand, Nikolaev joined Daniil Stepanov’s circle, the members of which cultivated love for Quattrocento and tried to use his legacy to portray the people of Samarkand. In addition, Usto Mumin’s language combined to varying degrees the influence of Russia’s Silver Age graphics, Persian miniatures, and to a lesser extent Suprematism, as well as Russian icons. I called the search of this group pre-Raphaelite. I showed that Usto Mumin was not the sole inventor of this approach; by the time he appeared in Stepanov’s society, the circle’s aesthetic program was already fully developed. If earlier art historians wrote that Usto Mumin synthesized East and West, I believe that, first of all, he synthesized what such artists as Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, Alexei Isupov, and Daniil Stepanov himself had brought to the activities of Stepanov’s circle. Nikolaev was, however, perhaps the only one to add to the program of the Samarkand Pre-Raphaelites the substratum of Persian or Central Asian miniatures. Neither Petrov-Vodkin, Isupov, Stepanov, Nikolai Mamontov, nor Alexander Samokhvalov were ever inspired by this, while Nikolaev experienced a brief surge of interest in it between 1923 and 1927.

Tell us about his stories. In what are they rooted: Persian miniatures, Arabic or local tales, or his own world?

Eleonora: His relocation to Central Asia became a powerful trigger for his artistic nature. Everything you listed; all the influences came together. Certainly, he created his own imaginary world. By the way, my book contains his publication of a legend composed by himself based on the folklore plots of Central Asia. Thus, I state that Usto Mumin was also a literary writer.

Boris: Having established that Usto Mumin’s first cycle was based on a very definite narrative, I tried for a long time to establish its basis. In my opinion, there were three possibilities. This plot could be: 1) literary, 2) life, or 3) autobiographical. Although the Persian-language classical literature is full of homoerotic motifs, I did not find a structural correspondence between the lovers from these works, e.g., Saadi or Hafiz, and the young men from Pomegranate Zeal, who ask the permission of a religious person for a ritual entry into a love union that legitimizes their relationship. On the contrary, in the stories of Nikolaev himself and the memoirs of his close friend Galina Kozlovskaia, there are at least two plots from real life that are related to the Samarkand cycle. First, this is the story of two old men whom the artist met in a teahouse next to Shah-i Zinda. The story of their life, which readers will learn about from my book, was one of the triggers for the creation of the tempera Love, Friendship, Eternity. Another plot that influenced Nikolaev remained in the archive memoirs of Galina Kozlovskaia, who described the Pomegranate Zeal ritual as she heard it from Usto Mumin. In her description, young men in white robes gather in the garden on an autumn night to share slices of ripe pomegranates to music and dance and, having exchanged with others, taste them, drinking water from a large silver bowl. This ritual was supposed to bind the participants in a single circle of friendship. It is interesting, however, that the Samarkand cycle of Usto Mumin did not literally reproduce one plot or the other. The personages of the tempera Pomegranate Zeal do not accept new adherents into their ranks, but clearly honor the newly formed couple. In turn, the personages of Love, Friendship, Eternity do not reproduce anything from the plot of the story of the old teahouse owner with his friend, but are only partially associated with them. Finally, one of the drawings of the Samarkand cycle – When I saw Samarkand… – contains an expressive allusion to the inner presence of the artist himself in the scenes he depicts. All these factors indicate that Nikolaev, who did not know Farsi and could not read Persian literature, was inspired not by book plots, but by direct life stories that he witnessed in Samarkand.

You cite several quotes in your book, one of which sounds like the artist’s moral code: “be sincere, be content with little, love yourself and boldly pick forbidden fruits.” Was Usto Mumin a Sufi? How is the philosophy of Sufism reflected in his work? Is there an invisible connection between the artist and the world of mystical Islam?

Eleonora: Usto Mumin was not a Sufi. This is one of the myths that accompanies his biography. My book describes in detail, with references to facts (conversations, interrogations, personal confessions), his initiation into Islam, which was of a purely artistic nature. It was not banter; it was a completely sincere game, the life of an artist. He wanted to organically reincarnate into the Other, to look at the world through the eyes of this Other. There was a new phase coming in his life. He just as sincerely and organically reincarnated into another role.

Boris: I have not been able to find any biographical facts testifying to Usto Mumin being a Sufi. This claim became very popular in the 2000s-2010s, not due to the discovery of new information about the artist, but because society broke with Soviet values and was in search of new points of support. Along the same lines, some art historians at that time managed to present Alexander Volkov as a Sufi mystic, but he was always indifferent to religion and never made any attempts to merge with the Muslim population of Turkestan in clothing, language or lifestyle. Uzbek art at the beginning of the 21st century was going through a stage of intense dervishization: the main characters of Uzbek art were qalandars, hermits drying in the deserts, blissful sleepy vagabonds, as well as birds illustrating the poems of Navoi or Attar. Certainly, Alexander Nikolaev converted to Islam, but there is a significant distance between a Muslim and a Sufi, which the art critics who wrote about Mumin forgot too quickly. The texts of Nigora Akhmedova, Tigran Mkrtychev, and to some degree Eleonora Shafranskaya are full of Sufi interpretations of the artist’s work. However, all these associations seem to me excessively free. In assigning certain Sufi meanings to Mumin’s paintings, the art critics have avoided any documentary analysis of the artist’s thoughts or statements on this matter. As a rule, this was pure fantasy on a topic set by the critics themselves, and not a systemic study of the artist’s intentions.

His work is loaded with scandal because of the obvious homoeroticism. How do you describe it in your book?

Eleonora: The answer to this question can be considered a continuation of the previous one. One of the key words in the title of my book is transformation. The biography of Usto Mumin is a chain of transformations, but not always ones conceived by him. Some transformations were dictated by changes to the paradigm within which he was forced to exist (e.g., from his former social status into a Soviet citizen).

The homoeroticism of a number of plots of his Samarkand works (1920s) is also an imaginary world. This world appears most pronounced in the work Pomegranate Zeal, created in the genre of a hagiographic icon as a narrative about the acquaintance of two young men: their love, wedding, and death.

The main character of this icon is located in the center. Apparently, this is Usto Mumin’s dreaming young man holding a paradise fruit in his hand, an incised pomegranate. The whole plot presented in the hallmarks is imaginary. This is one of the transformations of the artist, his artistic nature. It does not matter whether the transformation is real or imaginary.

Boris: Any erotica remains a phenomenon of psychology and culture. Certainly, I had to take into account that, both in the time of Nikolaev and today, homoerotica is perceived as scandalous in many places.

Some colleagues ask: “Does it matter whether Nikolaev was homosexual or not—what’s the difference?” For me, such indifference is inexplicable. After all, the self-perception of a young man in the process of growing up and his whole subsequent life—which would have developed either according to the prevailing normative gender attitude or in contradiction to it—depends on whether he was or was not. Equally unacceptable to me are attempts to silence homoerotic motifs in the artist’s work.

By the way, the Sufi interpretations appeared in the 2000s and 2010s as a form of camouflage for these motifs. Therefore, I took seriously all the evidence I had collected about the artist’s biography and, based on this factual information, built my own interpretation of both the key facts of Nikolaev’s life and his main artistic cycle. Since I am not religious, I perceive homosexuality as one of the natural attractions and behaviors of a man. I write about this side of the artist’s life calmly, as well as about any other property of his personality. Needless to say, this matter is not scandalous, shameful or embarrassing to me.

In what sense is Usto Mumin an innovator: only in terms of plots or also with regard to technique?

Eleonora: In terms of plots, sure. Usto Mumin portrays young boys. As far back as the 19th century, Russian artists (e.g., Vasily Vereshchagin and Nikolai Karazin) painted Bachas with something of an ethnographic tinge, evoking condemnatory emotions in the viewer. Usto Mumin captures the aesthetic and, apparently, the philosophical facet of this phenomenon, possibly inspired by medieval Sufi poets.

As for technique, I recommend that you familiarize yourself with Boris Chukhovich’s book Friendship, Love, Eternity by Usto Mumin, which was published simultaneously with mine. By the way, an unprecedented fact in history: two books about Usto Mumin were published simultaneously, and the presentation of both took place at the same time in Tashkent.

Boris: Your question fits into a linear system of ideas about progress in art. According to this system, an artist’s work only gains meaning if he succeeds in being an innovator, either in terms of language or in promoting some new artistic content. However, this approach does not reflect the specifics of human sciences, which deals with unique phenomena and often cannot be integrated into some “objective” line of progress without aberrations.

As for Mumin’s technique, it has long roots. He learned it from Daniil Stepanov, who studied the secrets of Renaissance painting for the restoration of old canvases. Nikolaev himself emphasized more than once that this technique coincided with that used by the Samarkand nakkoshi, who painted the walls of houses with traditional patterns. To call this technique innovative would be a clear misunderstanding. As for the subjects, I also trace the genealogy of the depiction of gender-indeterminate couples in the paintings of different countries, from Europe to Iran. Perhaps only the enigmatic plot of Pomegranate Zeal, with the culmination of its 11th scene, the tempera Love, Friendship, Eternity, was truly unique for the Islamic context in which these images appeared.

Overall, what is the artist’s legacy? Did someone imitate him or were his aesthetics banned?

Eleonora: Usto Mumin forbade himself to write on a homoerotic topic. He was aware of the corresponding articles that were introduced into the Criminal Code. Here is a quote from my book:

“The campaign that began in 1933 in the USSR to introduce an article on sodomy into the Criminal Code equated the suspects of homosexuality with spies, counter-revolutionaries. First, they are arrested for homosexuality, after a few years, for counter-revolutionary activity. Most often, the arrests ended in execution.

Whether Nikolaev got into this meat grinder because of his non-traditional orientation, or he was such is unknown, but his interest in the handsome young men who became the heroes on his canvases was probably enough to start the persecution. So, that rumors began to spread, eventually leading to the birth of a myth.”

Nowadays, Usto Mumin is imitated by many artists. Usto Mumin is now in vogue. These days, the Nukus Museum of Art is hosting an exhibition by the artist Djengis Lepesov. These works are seemingly a clear homage to Usto Mumin. Moreover, the museum shop sells crude copies of Usto Mumin’s works made by modern painters.

Boris: Indisputably, Nikolaev came to be criticized with increasing frequency by his contemporaries for the horrifying eroticism of his works, and after his arrest, his art was banned for several years. Since the 1960s, however, it has been gradually rehabilitated and then glorified.

The last chapter of my book shows the influence exerted by Usto Mumin on subsequent generations of artists in Uzbekistan. This influence is paradoxical. On the one hand, many of the leading artists, starting with Chingiz Akhmarov, and then Bakhodir Jalalov and Javlon Umarbekov, consciously or unconsciously created images inspired by the aesthetics of Usto Mumin’s early works. On the other hand, the general muminization of the official art of Uzbekistan during the decades of Islam Karimov’s rule emasculated the inner content of the homosexual love drama narrated by Nikolaev in a coherent sequence of scenes. Only its formal signs remained: slumbering young men with a rose over their ears, birds in cages, and juicy pomegranates.

What does your book reveal for a reader who is not familiar with the spirit of that time?

Eleonora: It is precisely the spirit of the times that is one of the main components of the book. The period broke people; twisted their destinies, mentally and physically; instilled in people a fear that has not been eliminated to this day. Well, and one more thing: my book contains previously unknown facts of the biography of Usto Mumin.

Boris: I would prefer that readers themselves speak on this score. I hope everyone will find something of their own.

Photos provided by
Boris Chukhovich

Central Asia is known for its long tradition of exquisite textile production. To this day, scarves or chapans woven using the ikat technique remain sought-after items for fashionistas around the world.

Carpets—rich, beautiful, and bright—are likewise a product of complex techniques that have been passed down for generations in the “rug belt,” which extends across Central Asia to include Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, part of Egypt, North Africa, and Spain. Textile production and carpet-weaving may have been born out of a creative synergy between nomadic and settled peoples.

In this interview, Carol Bier discusses the origins of this craft, its symbolism, and the complex techniques used to produce these textiles.

An interview with

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Carol Bier

Carol Bier is a historian of Islamic art. She has published widely on cultural aspects of geometry in Islamic art that inform a beauty of form, pattern, and structure. She is currently a Research Scholar at the Center for Islamic Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA. Concurrently, she is a Research Associate at The Textile Museum in Washington, D.C., where she long served as Curator for Eastern Hemisphere Collections (1984-2001). She was President of the Textile Society of America from 2006 to 2008.

You have published many articles on the cultural aspects of geometry in Islamic art, and we in Central Asia see a lot of ornaments and symbols in our culture that surely have a recurring pattern. How is geometry manifesting itself in Islamic art?

I have studied a lot of geometry in Islamic art and architecture, an interest born of my earlier studies of textiles and textile patterns. The patterning in textiles is very much related to the technology of weaving or embroidery or resist-dyeing—ikat, or Abrband (from the Persian “abr”—a cloud, “band”—to tie), as it is called in Central Asia, at least in Uzbekistan. So my interest in geometry and Islamic architecture and arts is very much tied to the relationship between craft and technology—building technologies in the case of architecture. What my studies have revealed is the emergence in the Islamic World of an algorithmic aesthetic—so repetition itself has meaning, and that meaning, in my understanding, is very much tied to the geometry, to making geometry manifest.

What we know in the history of geometry is that in the early Arab world—and this then spread to the Persian world and beyond (Central Asia, Spain, North Africa)—there developed translations of, and commentary on, the ancient Greek texts about mathematics and philosophy. So my understanding and interpretation has taken several different directions. One is the study of Qur’anic inscriptions on monuments that have geometric patterns—and I would argue that Qur’anic inscriptions, the passages selected for those monuments, may help inform us as to the meaning and the significance of the patterns as well as the buildings themselves. And in particular the word is Amthal, which is the plural of Mithāl. That term has many different meanings in relation to allegory, in relation to parable, but, for mathematicians, it means geometric problem. And I think that the Qur’anic passages can be interpreted in light of the geometric patterns on the buildings, such that the geometry is precisely making geometry manifest. That, in essence, is the interpretation that I have come to in my study of geometry, art, and architecture in the Islamic world.

You mainly explore the textile culture of the East, which includes the Central Asian region. How did these people come to treasure their textiles so much? After all, they might have led simple lives, but they also had great carpets and silk clothes. Is there any spiritual meaning to these decorations and textiles?

The spiritual meaning is not something that I have particularly explored. The primary ways to investigate this would be by looking at the textual tradition and, today, conducting interviews with practitioners—whereas I have for the most part worked with the primary sources (the materials themselves), so the material culture.

But what I can say is that all of the textile traditions—from felt-making (shyrdak) in Kyrgyzstan and embroidery (suzani) in Uzbekistan to carpet-making (qali), rug products, and so forth—rely on renewable resources that are readily available in Central Asia. So there is a very long history, dating back to prehistoric times, of felt-making and textile manufacture.

The techniques for textile production in Central Asia are just absolutely extraordinary and many of them are still practiced today. There are very rich productions of ikat in, for example, the Fergana Valley. Ikat is a resist-dyed warp that is woven in Central Asia (and elsewhere). You have the cultivation of cotton. You have the procurement and preparation of the dye materials. You have the yarn preparation of the fabric itself and then you have the dyeing technology and then the weaving technology. So a simple product like a scarf, for example, with its warp ends showing, is already the product of multiple technologies. In shyrdak/shyrdok, the cutting of the felt into two layers, and then the placing of one layer on top of the other, produces two identical patterns, but with the colors are then reversed. So that’s a brilliant use of very simple technology, heat and compression, to make felt from wool yarns and then play with the color and the ornament. But then there is symbolism—or symbols—in the designs, such as the horns of sheep, the beard of a goat, or elements of tools that are fundamental to society. You also have in Central Asia a sharp contrast between the herding cultures and the agricultural cultivators. You have nomadic populations, on the one hand, and settled populations, on the other hand. That contrast reflects the varied geography of the region, with desert areas, river valleys, and oasis towns.

Silk and wool production technologies in Central Asia, Turkestan Album, Library of Congress

You have an article on “Traditional Weaving from Pre-Soviet Central Asia” (1992-93), in which you discuss the textile arts of Bukhara, such as embroidery (suzani), pile carpet-weaving, ikat weaving, and so on. Can you tell our readers about that? Are these ancient methods still in use today?

Ikat, as I mentioned, is called abr-bandi (tying of the clouds) and it has to do with the resist-dyeing of the warp yarns before weaving. And that is practiced very widely in the contemporary Fergana Valley, where multiple studios, ateliers, workshops, and factories produce what in English we have come to call ikat. There is also a strong tradition of producing silk embroidery (suzani) in the areas around Bukhara, Samarkand, and Shakhrisabz, for example. As far as I know, we can only trace ikat and suzani back to the nineteenth century, maybe the late eighteenth century, but we have earlier examples from elsewhere in the Islamic world. I am not sure how these technologies came to be transmitted to Uzbekistan, but they were definitely present by the nineteenth century and are very strong today.

Madina Kasimbaeva in Tashkent is a contemporary suzani embroiderer. Her contemporary embroidery in a historical idiom has been very well recognized internationally. Within Uzbekistan, she has received one of the presidential awards for artists; her work is also exhibited in the British Museum in London.

Read more: How Ikat Accompanied History in Central Asia

Your research covers such interesting topics as the Kyrgyz kurak korpe. It is known that “kurak korpe” comes from the Turkic “kura”. But Kazakhs also have such blankets, most often called “kurak korpe” or “oyu korpe.” There are also traditional pillows: in Kazakh, they are called “zhastyk”, in Turkmen “ýassyk”. What is the origin of such terminological similarities? Are there other similarities between the textile arts, their names, and technologies in Central Asian countries?

“Yastık” is the word used for a pillow in Turkey, as far as I know, and all of those words are closely related. You also find that sharing of vocabulary in other contexts—from Persian to Turkish, Turkish to Persian, or Tajik to Turkic languages. Many of the words are the same. So “zhastyk,” “ýassyk,” “zazdyk,” and “yastık” are all related (with a few dialectical differences), and there are also similarities between the arts they use. Such cultural similarities can be seen not only in techniques for producing textiles and in architecture, but also in food.

That being said, the ornaments depend on which type of culture people these countries belong to. For example, some Central Asian ornaments are much more of an urban product; others are a nomadic product. Different designs are chosen and repeated to make patterns among settled urban populations than are selected among nomadic populations.

The premier product of nomadic culture, of course, is carpets. You see them used not only on the floor, as we do in the West, but also as doors and covers, for example, to cover trunks or as furnishings, as well as to cover the floor of a tent (yurt) structure. Pile carpets may have wool warp, wool weft, and wool pile—it is the pile in the carpet that features patterns and designs.

Let’s talk about patchwork traditions and Oriental carpets. What is the meaning of patchwork? What are its cultural origins?

Patchwork is a very important domestic technique—it is something that is done in people’s homes rather than in factories. Scraps of older textiles are put together to make quilts, covers or horse covers, or horse head ornaments.

I have studied much more about carpets than about patchwork. Starting with the terminology of “Oriental carpets,” that is already an indication of an outsider’s perspective. To call something oriental is to suggest that it comes from the Orient, which in the nineteenth century—to which the history of European collecting of carpets dates—was anywhere east of Istanbul. It was not the Far East as we think of it today.

The very fact of the phenomenon of “oriental carpets” demonstrates that these textiles transcended their cultural origins in the “rug belt,” which extends across Central Asia to include Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, part of Egypt, North Africa, and Spain. This region is arid (with dry/low rainfall), making cultivation problematic, so sheep husbandry and herding provide people’s primary economic livelihood. Wool, of course, is a renewable resource: you shear the sheep once or twice a year and then the wool grows back. It is not like shish kebab (in Turkish ṣiṣ kebab), which is not renewable.

The carpets produced in these areas became a favored product traded or gifted (whether as ambassadorial gifts or otherwise) to the colonial powers of Europe. Thus, carpets transcended the eastern world and became a feature of the western world—which gave rise to their being called “Oriental carpets” as a category. For the most part, that category still holds, although it is considered politically incorrect today to refer to them as such. But no one ever wove an “Oriental” carpet. A woman would simply weave a carpet. That is what it would be called in her own culture.

As for patchwork, it is less a commercial product and more, as I mentioned, a domestic product often made from scraps of older textiles. One of the thoughts is that the arrangement of those little squares of fabric may ward off evil. So it has a protective quality for those who use it or wear it.

Historically, it was predominantly women who used to do this type of work. I think men tended to be responsible for the herding of the animals, the maintenance of the herd, and animal husbandry. Meanwhile, the women tended to be in charge of milking the animals and making milk products, as well as the craft traditions of yarn preparation and weaving. I have seen men involved in felt-making—it is traditionally a male-dominated field because it takes a lot of stamping and pressure to turn the wool into felt. Felt was typically used to make shepherd’s coats, felt floor coverings, or dervish hats. As for embroidery, that is also—in the domestic context—a women’s realm. In the commercial context, I have seen men involved in embroidery in northern India, Western China, and Central Asia. But there are, within these different textile technologies, certainly gender roles and gender differentiation.

Carpet-weaving is difficult work, but people in Central Asia seem to see them as a canvas for their creativity. How would you explain this strong carpet tradition that survived so many centuries?

Carpet-weaving has a much longer history than the Islamic world, which in Central Asia dates back to the eighth century of our era.

The oldest carpet we know of comes from a kurgan (barrow) grave in Siberia in Russia. It is called the Pazyryk carpet from the Pazyryk kurgan. It was discovered in 1949 in the permafrost of Siberia. Based on its style, our best guess is that it dates back to the fifth or fourth century BCE—a time before Alexander the Great. What is interesting about it from my perspective is that it has extraordinary technical properties. It is an example of the advanced technology of weaving, and yet we do not have any knowledge of how it came to be. So it has very tightly spun yarn, plied yarn—beautifully knotted. The pattern is already laid out like much later oriental carpets, with a square or rectangular field, repetition of a design, and multiple borders surrounding the central field.

Read more: The Treasures of Pazyryk Kurgans in the Hermitage Museum

Thus, carpet-weaving dates back to at least the fifth or fourth century BCE. We have fragments of carpets from a thousand years later, in the Seljuk era, and then we have entire carpets from the fifteenth century and more recently.

In the Soviet era, during the period of collectivization, factories were established for the weaving of carpets, and so the tradition continued, but more in a commercial environment than in a domestic or nomadic one.

How did trade and commercial value influence the development of these textiles?

There is both the domestic tradition—where textiles were made for home use and for use by local populations—and commercial production. Tribal materials were also sold when money was needed; they became a commodity for monetary exchange. The greatest collecting efforts occurred during the Russian Empire. The greatest museum collections in the world thus became those in St. Petersburg and then, in the Soviet period, in Moscow. The ethnographic museums in those cities have some of the finest holdings of Uzbek carpets, for example. Their bright colors are still fresh today if they have not been exposed to too much light or too much washing. They are really beautiful.

What interests you most about this subject: symbols, spirit, methods, colors?

One aspect that I personally love studying is the beauty—the pattern, shape, design, color… and then, as I mentioned earlier, I am fascinated by the interrelationships of craft and technology, craft production, and the manufacture of products, whether for home use or for commercial use. I can extend that further and say that I am fascinated by the interrelationships of design – structure – technology – and function. Throughout this interview, I have mentioned some of those connections, whether it is the resist-dyeing of the warp, and then the weaving, and then the manufacture of scarfs; or the animal husbandry and the yarn preparation and the dyeing and the weaving of carpets and the different methods of making patterns. The warp resist is one, and that is what gives the ikat pattern all this variation of up and down within the design motifs. But in carpets, patterns are formed by individual knotting of segments of yarn one by one in sequence. So it is a fascinating subject to study.

Barzu Abdurazzakov (1959) is a famous Tajik playwright and theater director. Made an Honored Artist of the Republic of Tajikistan in 2001, he has since 2009 lost favor with the authorities. 

Abdurazzakov comes from a long line of actors: his mother, Fotima Gulyamova (12/31/1934-03/01/2021), was an actress and his father, Khabibullo Abdurazzakov (11/07/1937-01/19/2021), an actor and director. The young Barzu thus absorbed the spirit of the theater from childhood by attending his parents’ rehearsals. However, Barzu himself, who holds diplomas from the Mirzo Tursunzade Tajik State Institute of Arts (1980) and the directing department of the Russian State Institute of Theater Arts (GITIS, 1987), says that he came to the theater to destroy it.

In front of me is a handsome, if not tall, middle-aged man with dark, deep-set eyes and a soft voice who constantly repeats my name, Lola. “You know, Lola; you understand, Lola; well, you yourself know this, Lola.” This is a characteristic feature of Barzu’s conservation with an interlocutor; he always looks directly into the eyes as if seeking the depths of the soul, which makes one weigh every word during a conversation.

Barzu Abdurazzakov gained widespread popularity in the country with his production of the play “Madness. Year 93,” based on the Peter Weiss play. This performance was in 2009 banned by the collegium of the Ministry of Culture of Tajikistan, which saw in the events of the eighteenth-century French Revolution echoes of the Tajik civil war of 1992-1997. Later, the author of the production would tell a journalist:

For him, the core of this story was freedom of expression. Since then, the director has been an “unreliable and suspicious person” who has not been invited to theaters in Tajikistan, where almost all art institutions are funded by the state and their repertoires strictly controlled. Thus, Barzu Abdurazzakov has become one of the country’s main creative dissidents.

I’m talking to Barzu on WhatsApp messenger and I hear the same lovely voice, but the way he talks about the horror that has been happening in Ukraine since the invasion of Russian troops saddens. I ask him about the exodus of Russian citizens to Central Asia and the Caucasus following the announcement of military mobilization. And he says:

This is a disaster. Seeing what my once-beloved country (Russia) is turning into is terrible. I have been observing this for a long time. Starting in 2014 in particular, I already began to understand that it had all led to a catastrophe; the “plague” was approaching this country. I predicted that conflict with Ukraine would be inevitable. And now, after the mobilization kicked off and Russians began to flee, lining up in kilometer-long queues on the border with Kazakhstan, Georgia, etc., filling hotels in Tajikistan, of course I sympathize with the Russians. But on the other hand, I don’t like it. The Russians should have dealt with their powerholders, not run. If I had my way, I would close my borders. I would certainly let women with children, pregnant women, the disabled pass through, but I would not allow in the men who are running away. Why do I say this? Because they would soon remember that we were all different from them and foment an upsurge of nationalist sentiments both in the Central Asian countries and in the Caucasus. Russian imperial thinking has not disappeared anywhere.

Few people in Tajikistan spoke openly against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Barzu Abdurazzakov is one of those individuals who did not support the aggression of the Russian Federation in Ukraine and who has reflected on political issues and post-colonial relations in the post-Soviet space.

I ask him how he sees the rise of nationalism in our country. Does it not seem to him that the measures the authorities have taken to limit the development of radicalism have been justified? He answers, with a deep sigh, that he has always been afraid of the rise of nationalism, which leads to radicalism. He says that he “can understand ‘nationalist’ maxims in Europe because their cultural code allows them to speak about it without converting to fascism or Nazism. The Europeans have already learned this lesson and therefore they talk calmly about their nationalist views. But when our people (Tajiks) start talking about their nationalist ideas, they turn into insults”.

I continue the conversation with the director by asking about the meaning of Tajik theater. He forcefully retorts that he does not understand the term “Tajik theater.” He does not think that the identity of the theater equates with the language of the locality. “When I make performances about my country, talk about the problems of my country, then it can be called Tajik theater. Furthermore, when I reflect on the way of thinking of people in my country, their habits, traditions, peculiarities of their way of life, then it can be identified as Tajik theater. However, even then, for me, the priority is human beings, regardless of their ethnic origin, nationality, etc., and therefore, I do not see many differences between Tajik theater and other theaters.”

I listen to Barzu, his tone imbued with all the bitterness of what was said and implied, and continue to ask questions about Tajik theater, a subject that is close to my heart. I love theaters very much. I remember when I first arrived from the provinces, where there was not a single theater, just cinemas for projecting films and houses of culture for youth. I went to the theater on my own to see a play at the Vladimir Mayakovsky Russian Drama Theater based on Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel Master and Margarita. I was glued to the stage, recalling quotations from the novel that I had learnt by heart in my childhood. For me, the performance was a wonderful experience, the pinnacle of theater arts. It took place before the start of the civil war (1992-1997). Later, in the 2000s, when Tajikistan came back to life, I sometimes went to the theater, and then I met Barzu Abdurazzakov and the rest of the theater community, including the legendary figure of Tajik theater Farrukh Kasymov, the founder of the poetic side of the Tajik theaters, who had already been stricken by a disease of the nervous system and was confined to a wheelchair. I understand very well Barzu’s pain and sadness about the impossibility of—or at least limited opportunity for—reflection on reality through theater arts, which have become a form of heroism in authoritarian regimes. I share his grief.

Breaking the ice, I ask him about the destiny of a production about Tajik migrants that has never been shown in Tajikistan. He explains that the performance, “Muhochiron” (Emigrants), was staged by Barzu based on the play by Slawomir Mrozhek of Poland. It is a story about two emigrants, with two different destinies, who meet in the same space. One is an intellectual—a Vaclav Havel figure. “The other is the anti-hero, whom I hate endlessly,” says Barzu. “I wanted to look into the souls of two Tajiks, absolutely opposed to each other. One whom I hate and the other whom I respect, thanks to whom I live and have hope for the revival of my country.” Barzu deeply appreciates people’s intelligence and believes that with the civil war (1992-1997) and the current state of the ruling regime, the stratum of the Tajik intelligentsia has become thinner—and may soon even disappear. In his production, he exposes popular greed and lack of spirituality through the image of the anti-hero, blaming the decline in the country’s level of morality on illiterate, unprincipled people, deceitful lumpenproletarians, self-satisfied people who have no doubts about anything. “I wanted to show two different poles or edges of human nature, different sides of my people,” concludes Barzu.

We are a little silent, as if we are watching together the screen, where crowds of Tajik migrants in distinctive orange travel jackets pass before our eyes, each preoccupied with their own thoughts. I break the silence and ask Barzu about the production he wanted to do with the “Nigohi Nav” group of theater activists in 2022 in Dushanbe (soon thereafter, one of the founders of the group was convicted by the authorities).

Barzu tells me that after being out of the country for 12 years, he wanted to celebrate his return by staging a new production. He returned to Dushanbe in March 2022 and started working with a group of enthusiasts—Daler Imomali, Soro Sobir, and Shahjamshed Umari—on the topic of mankurtism. Barzu considers the loss of memory to be the most dangerous disease afflicting our society this century. “Especially what has happened to post-Soviet people: it’s not just memory loss, it’s a loss of personality, human dignity, absolute slavery,” says Barzu. “It’s for the same reasons that we forgot about the hundreds of coffins of our fellow citizens who died in migration. For example, today I read one of their chats on social media where a doctor had written: ‘Finally, we are removing these Afghans from the country, today we are sending 500 people, and tomorrow we will send more back to Afghanistan.’ I am horrified by the comments of people who agree with the opinion of that doctor. None has recalled that the Afghans were once considered our brothers; they were related to the Tajiks. After all, Afghan refugees are the same as Tajiks: poor and powerless. However, at the same time, the chat cheerfully discussed the arrival of the Russians, which they seemingly liked. I consider it to be mankurtism of the purest kind. Moreover, I think this is where the root of slavery begins.”

Thus, in their new production, Barzu and his colleagues explored the phenomenon of slavery. They worked on the performance meticulously for two months. They penetrated “with a scalpel” the fabric of Aitmatov’s work “Snowstorm Station” (or “And the Day Lasts Longer than a Century”), studying the subtext, hints, everything that he could not finish due to censorship—it was all returned. “Consequently, we penetrated the brains of human beings who have forgotten their own roots, who have lost their own memories. Of course, our performance did not take place in the steppes of Kazakhstan, but here in Tajikistan. We used Tajik images and our reality. This is the story of a family in which a son does not speak his native language at all; therefore, the main character does not understand what his mother is talking about,” explains Barzu. When the performance was ready, outside colleagues gathered to discuss the performance. One critic exclaimed in admiration that the performance was one of the best in post-independence Tajikistan. Unfortunately, however, the performance was banned on the pretext that “the production is harmful for both the domestic and foreign policy of Tajikistan.”

As we end our conversation, I ask him again: “Where are you now?” “In Tashkent,” the director replies. “I am making a production based on the play ‘Biedermann and the Arsonists’ by the Swiss playwright Max Frisch.”

I wish him good luck with his productions and his future. Suddenly, a quote comes to mind from an article by a well-known local online media outlet that, on the occasion of Abdurazzakov’s 60^th birthday, republished his statements. I consider it as a final touch to this essay:

“Perhaps my mission is to be a Tajik pilgrim, to travel around the cities and talk about Tajikistan through performances. It is a way I serve my country. After all, there were missionaries who traveled from Spain to Latin America to spread the word of God. So, too, do I bring the spirit of my culture to other nations. When the theater posters are being prepared, the only thing I ask is that “Barzu Abdurazzakov (Tajikistan)” be written there. That’s enough for me…”

Music occupies an enormous place in Central Asia, and in particular in Afghanistan.

Dr. Razia Sultanova, a musicologist and cultural anthropologist, has studied the music of the Uzbeks and other national minorities of Northern Afghanistan. How cultural life survives in constant turmoil? That basic question is examined and answered by Razia Sultanova with extensive eye-witness and personal contacts and conversations with a wide variety of Afghan men and women. She looks at basic questions of gender, identity, tradition, and especially the role of music as a vital element for survival. She made a short film and wrote a book, Afghanistan Dispossessed: Women, Culture and the Taliban, to document her studies, but is worried that with Taliban now in power, female performance and music making in the country will cease.

Interview with

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Razia Sultanova

Dr. Razia Sultanova is a musicologist and cultural anthropologist. She is a Visiting Professor at Charles University, Prague, and a Research Fellow at Cambridge Muslim College. Her primary areas of research are Central Asian and Middle Eastern culture, within which she studies Islam and music and gender and music. Razia Sultanova has been awarded a number of international scholarships, including, but not limited to, ones in Germany (DFG in 1993, the Ministry of Culture of the Land Brandenburg in 1994 and 1997); in France (L’Institut français d’études sur l’Asie centrale, in 1996 and 1997); and in the UK (from 1999 onwards).

 http://raziasultanova.co.uk

How did you become interested in Afghan Uzbeks and their music? What kind of music did you study?

The answer to this question can be found in my short documentary film, “Music of the Uzbeks of Northern Afghanistan.” The 35-minute-long film (in Uzbek language with English subtitles, sponsored by the British Council, edited by Usman Tufail), which I directed and produced in 2013, is a story of cultural survival, told through the voices of musicians and performers interviewed and filmed by me in 2006.

Following the collapse of the USSR, I was fortunate to receive a grant in 1993 to work at the Otto-Friedrich-University Bamberg, Germany, transcribing the Uzbek folk songs of Northern Afghanistan that had been recorded by Dr Ingeborg Baldauf in 1977-1978, i.e., prior to the Soviet invasion. So I was dealing with Uzbek songs from Afghanistan recorded on six old bobbin magnetic tapes. The lyrics of all those songs were transcribed and published in two large volumes called Materialien zum Volkslied der Ozbeken Afghanistans (Reihe Islam & Ethnologie) (Emsdetten: A. Gehling, 1989), and it was a privilege to be involved in these musical transcriptions.

However, those Uzbek songs were not examined from a musicological point of view, even though the songs were very beautiful and there were quite a number of them. Dr. Ingeborg Baldauf is a philologist and an outstanding scholar who specializes in Turkic-speaking world languages and cultures and had spent two years in the North of Afghanistan traveling from one village to another, recording songs and meeting with local musicians.

So, in 1993 I arrived at the University of Bamberg to work on that project. Once I began working on it, I became deeply impressed with the scope of the material. At the time of my grant, the Soviet Union had already lost the war in Afghanistan and withdrawn its military presence. We who had lived in the Soviet Union did not know much about what had happened in Afghanistan, because press coverage of the war was practically non-existent. So certainly, in a time of war, music was the least of all concerns in that country, and that’s why for me, as a musicologist, it was so exciting to find such a treasure-trove of little-known recordings and songs. While the song lyrics had been transcribed, musically, the songs had not been examined at all, so I tried to help with musical transcriptions. This was the point at which I became interested in Northern Afghanistan, its music and culture.

There is a huge population of Uzbeks in the North of Afghanistan (according to scholars, up to 5 million people). People think that they migrated there following the October revolution in 1917, but in fact, Uzbeks have been living there for centuries. If you refer to the map of Central Asia, you will see mainland Uzbekistan on the right-hand side, and on the left-hand side is the Uzbek part of Afghanistan, located on the left bank of the Amu Darya river, which is historically known by its Latin name, Oxus River. Anyway, when I came across these folk song recordings, they were in Uzbek. They were all very beautiful and had catchy tunes.

So what kind of songs were they? Ingeborg Baldauf had collected a huge amount of love songs with instrumental accompaniment, as well as female domestic songs like lullabies, songs of celebration, children’s songs, and religious songs.

The various genres of Uzbek songs from Afghanistan were a completely new discovery for me. As you can imagine, in Soviet Uzbekistan, many examples of old folk-style music completely disappeared from the public domain due to the Soviet policy of rejecting the old “feudal” traditional heritage, and only through these recordings of the old Uzbek songs could one understand how rich it all had been and how meaningful was the performance of these old Uzbek songs that had been preserved in the Uzbek part of Afghanistan and on the Uzbek bank of the Amu Darya river. Listening to them, it was easy to feel the close connection of Afghan Uzbek culture to the culture of the Uzbek mainland.

The more I transcribed, the more interested I became in these songs and their performance by Afghan Uzbek musicians. Some famous musicians—like, for example, Mammat from Acha, Sabzi Gul, and Taj Muhammad—were real icons for local music-lovers. Those beautiful songs, sometimes improvisational, like the Kazakh kuis, were simply accompanied on daf (frame drum) or dombura. In this, they were very close to our Central Asian culture, even though Northern Afghanistan was virtually outside the awareness of Soviet scholarship and absent from public knowledge in Soviet Central Asia.

So for me, it was like discovering a whole new universe, which I came across by chance, thanks to the grant and scholarship from Bamberg University. Since then, I have received some further grants and scholarships to continue my research on the area and to keep an eye on Afghan culture. I have been able to search for further data in famous archives around the globe (the Smithsonian Institution, Library of Congress; the Bibliothèque nationale de France; the British Library Sound Archive; and the Vienna Phonogrammarchiv).

When I went to the Vienna Phonogrammarchiv, well-known for its huge recordings collection, there were so many new discoveries to be made there—for example, recordings by the Austrian ethnographers Max Klimburg and Hermann Markus Preßl, who documented rare data on Afghanistan. However, because they were primarily studying ethnography and languages, they archived these song recordings under the Languages category and not in the Music section, so they remained unknown from a musical point of view.

Having come across them, I found that the first scholarly evidence of the Uzbek folk-song heritage in the North of Afghanistan indeed came from these Austrian ethnographers Max Klimburg (in 1958) and Hermann Markus Preßl (in 1967-68). It means that Austria was the first country to explore the rich multinational culture of Afghanistan. There was a myriad of folk-song recordings there, waiting to be discovered by us music scholars. So thanks to the very strong Austrian scholarship (by the way, Ingeborg Baldauf is also an Austrian scholar), I had a chance to gain access to those old Uzbek songs. I was fortunate to later obtain grants for this project from the British Academy and the British Council, visiting Washington, DC, and the Library of Congress, etc.

The Afghan population is nearly 40 million-strong and speaks 40 minor languages, but the official language there is Dari Persian. Some highly valuable studies on music in Afghanistan were conducted from 1960 in the main Afghan cities of Kabul and Herat by Hiromi Lorraine Sakata, John Baily, and Veronica Doubleday. They were followed by an American scholar, Mark Slobin, who traveled there in the 1970s, i.e., more than 50 years ago, to research provincial countryside folk music in Northern Afghanistan. But then Afghanistan descended into a very difficult time of 40 years of uninterrupted war, preventing further study and exploration.

Please tell us about your new book Afghanistan Dispossessed: Women, Culture and the Taliban. How have Afghan women changed since the Taliban have seized power? Are they finding the courage to speak out against the Taliban? Do they have a connection with global women’s movements—and if so, how?

My book is in the process of being published. It is in the very final stages of book production. I am particularly grateful to my commissioning editor, Dr Lester Crook, and the production editor, Harriet Fielding, at the Pen and Sword publishing house for their work preparing the publication.

Another reason behind their inability to rise up against the oppression is that Afghanistan is, in essence, a multinational country. It consists of many districts, each with a different government, different rules, and its own language. The resulting language barriers and ethnic diversity actually prevent people from uniting. For women, in particular, it is a real problem. Afghan women do not have a voice, which young Iranian women do have at the moment. Afghan women have lived for 40 years under conditions of non-stop war, arrests, restrictions, and prisons, so for them to challenge the current political situation is far too complicated and challenging a task.

When I started learning about Afghan female music, I had to research the general situation of Afghan women and learn some facts about them. I was horrified by their history and by the difficult life of the female population, which is harrowing even against the backdrop of female suffering across the globe. Here are some statistics: the total fertility rate in Afghanistan is about five births per woman, although the infant mortality rate is the highest in the world. Around 10 percent of all newborns are stillborn, which means even going through labor has always been a lottery for Afghan women. They simply don’t know, when delivering a baby, whether the child will be born dead or alive and whether they will go on to live. Even now, life expectancy in the country is only 40 years for women and 42 years for men.

The country’s population is quite young. Forty-two percent are under the age of 15. More than that, 43 percent of all males but only 13 percent of females are literate. That’s the harsh reality of their existence. Can you fathom what a difficult country it is to live in for Afghan women?! For example, in 2002, an estimated 900,000 boys attended school, while women and girls were almost completely excluded from educational communities and opportunities.

It is obvious that it is extremely difficult for Afghan girls and women to survive, to be educated, and to live a normal life. In 2011, there were around 8 million students in Afghanistan, a third of whom were women. But now, following the return of Taliban-2, a ban on female education has been announced again, which spells disaster for the country.

So what can we observe? Before the return of the Taliban-2, women were given some opportunities to partake in education and allowed to have careers in medicine, media, and justice. But now, since the Taliban-2’s return, these women have no right to study, to work, or to be in the public eye as TV presenters, etc. So once again, we can see the return of medieval times, when women were not allowed to do much in terms of partaking in public life.

We can also talk about how Afghan women were treated, particularly during the time of Taliban-1, based on the original documents issued to govern the country. I quote from the Decree announced by the General Presidency of Amr bil Ma’ruf and Nahi Munkar (religious police) in November 1996: “Women, you should not step outside your residence. If you go outside the house, you should not be like those who go out with clothes that provoke lust, wearing much make-up, and being seen by every man, as you did before the arrival of Islam.” The same kind of bans and limitations applied to music: a law was issued preventing music from being broadcast by sources of public information, in shops, hotels, vehicles, at rock shows, and in cassette form and recordings. That meant everything that was more or less available before the onset of Taliban-2. So women did enjoy a little bit of freedom and new possibilities before 2021, whereas now everything has once again been banned. Music and dancing have also been forbidden at wedding parties. Ahmed Rashid, the world-famous expert on Afghanistan, has said that the Taliban has banned every conceivable form of entertainment. I will give you some quotations from the speech of the Afghan Education Ministry, Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund: “Of course, we realize that people need some entertainment. But they can go to the park and look at flowers and from this they will learn about Islam.” So according to Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund, the Taliban opposes music because it creates a distraction and a strain on the mind and hampers the study of Islam. During the time of the first Taliban, all the musicians who struggled to survive fled to Pakistan. And now the situation is the same. Everyone who had the means has left the country and moved abroad with their family, seeking safety.

We know that many experts see Afghanistan as part of Central Asia. Please tell us, what distinguishes Afghan women from Central Asian women?

First of all, the harshness of their living conditions, embodied by the burqa, which is worn by Afghan women. The burqa—or, as locals call it, chadri—is a mark of Taliban rule. It is a terrible thing for local women to wear, as I found out when I spoke to them. From the first minute of arrival in Afghanistan, every woman has to wear the burqa, which is very unusual for us Central Asian women—although I immediately found an advantage in wearing it.

I came to Afghanistan because I wanted to make recordings and to talk to musicians, so I always had my video camera, a sound recorder, and a photo camera on me. The burqa actually increased my chances of survival, as it helped me conceal the equipment. As I traveled long distances from Kabul to Mazar-i-Sharif with the families of musicians by car, at all the numerous checkpoints we passed through during our journey, soldiers would stop the car, shouting, “Get out of the car!” as they approached it, searching through everything. They would certainly have confiscated all my equipment if they had found it. Since I kept all my equipment hidden under the burqa, it remained safe! Therefore, in my situation, the burqa was the only thing that protected me and my recordings. So I was happy to wear it!

But for local women, it is very difficult to wear it on a regular basis. The climate there is very hot, especially during the summer. To leave the house, women have to be completely covered in the burqa from head to toe. The women with whom I have had a chance to talk said that it is like being in a cage, or even worse: they end up breathing in their own carbon dioxide and cannot get enough oxygen in through the small eye opening. They said that after a while, you start to feel as if your lungs are going to explode—as if you are suffocating—and as you walk, the sun blinds you from the front and its heat burns your back. So it is really difficult for Afghan women to experience all the social bans imposed by the Taliban, and they hate the limitations with which they have to live.

We in Central Asia certainly do not have a tough life to that degree! Going to Afghanistan was an eye-opening experience for me, even though I had studied many publications prior to my visit. In Central Asian countries, even a hundred years ago, my great-grandmothers used to live in fairly adequate domestic conditions. When you visited our Central Asian villages, you would see that households had all the essential kitchen furniture, like tables and countertops designed specifically for cooking. Afghan village women do not have these simple luxuries—they literally cook food for their families on the ground, without access to any domestic comforts.

Tell us about some of the remarkable women-singers in Afghanistan that you studied.

Among the most famous Afghan singers, only a handful are women, but the most famous is Mahwash. She was born in 1947, and when the country started to descend into war, she emigrated to California in the United States. Now she lives there, and many years ago I had the opportunity to enjoy a performance of hers here in London, at the Royal Albert Hall.

There was an Afghan-Uzbek female performer called Sabzi Gul (1957–2017). When I met her in 2006, she was in her prime. She was the only female wedding singer in Northern Afghanistan. Meeting her was a memorable experience for me because in Uzbekistan there are many female wedding singers. They have a number of female students they teach, so they usually sing a repertoire of special female wedding songs at local weddings. In Afghanistan, wedding singers faced many difficulties and were not allowed to have any students. Sabzi Gul was a fantastic lady who was the only representative of this genre. Luckily for her, she was supported by General Abdul Rashid Dostum (born in 1954). General Dostum, who was born in Sheberghan, is of Uzbek origin. He protected Uzbek and Turkmen villages. That was his land, which he kept under his protection and somehow people lived more safely in the North of Afghanistan than in other parts of the country.

In my interview with Sabzi Gul, she came across as very proud of the fact that General Dostum could not host any parties without inviting her. She used to perform regularly at his evening gatherings. However, when I asked her who would be her successor in female wedding singing, she said that as long as the Taliban remained in power, she would not be allowed to have any students. It was not even possible for a lone woman or a teenage girl to make her way from one end of the village to the other unaccompanied to meet her teacher, and without the opportunity to meet, learn, and practice, knowledge transmission could certainly not take place.

Nowadays, however, one can still find some noteworthy pop singers of Afghan origin. I had a chance to meet one of them, Elaha Soroor, in London. Elaha recently produced a CD album, “Songs of Our Mothers” (CD Album, Kefaya +Elaha Soroor. Bella Union. September 2019). Elaha is a Hazara pop singer who was born in 1988 in Iran before her family moved back to their native place in Afghanistan, where all her troubles began. Elaha wanted to become a musician and a singer. For a short time, it was possible to dream about it, and then everything came to a halt because her father told her: “Stop. Just forget about it!” She, however, took part in a TV singing competition under her nickname. She won the competition because her voice was so powerful and beautiful. And she became famous in Kabul practically overnight. That came at great cost to her safety. She had to leave her family immediately, as her neighbors informed her father that she had gone on TV and had won the competition! Somehow she managed to escape abroad. I met her in 2012 in London, and now she lives in Switzerland. She is a well-educated girl with a degree from a London university. Her testimony about how difficult it is to be an Afghan female professional singer demonstrates that Afghanistan is a very challenging country for female professionals.

Now, following the arrival of Taliban-2, all female singing and performance have been rendered virtually non-existent.

Tell us a bit more about the documentary that you made about your trip to Afghanistan.

If you watch my short documentary film, there are a couple of explanations of my trip to Afghanistan. A few years after returning from Afghanistan, I learned that some of the Uzbek musicians with whom I had conducted interviews had passed away. I thought to myself, I made these recordings with my tiny hand-held video camera just for myself and for my students. However, I realized that my video recordings represented the only documentary evidence of the amazing musicians I met in Afghanistan. Fortunately, it was possible to produce a 30-minute documentary film from the footage I took to honor these memorable music masters and so that you could enjoy their work.

In the documentary, Afghan women happily gather for Eid (a celebration of the end of Ramadan) and other religious events. They sing their religious songs, as well as some teasing songs and lullabies, and these are passed on to the younger generations by women, as you can see in the film. In fact, Eid Mubarak is the most important time, when they all gather together to mark the end of Ramadan. You see three generations of women—grandmothers, mothers, and young girls—singing the songs all together. It is something they do in Uzbek language, which means you can witness their national identity surviving through mutual interest in their culture, in their shared musical experience—and certainly, those genres mean so much to their hearts and to the younger generations that follow in their footsteps.

One of the most important factors shaping female life in the country today is gender segregation. It is a highly important issue in Afghan society. When the family has a newborn boy, this event is followed by a huge celebration. However, if the newborn baby were a girl, they would normally keep it quiet. Sometimes they do not even tell anyone about the newborn baby because it is not considered a joyful occasion. They consider having a girl to be a failure.

It is no wonder, then, that Afghan traditional folk songs—lullabies—are all addressed to baby boys. From this point of view, it is so interesting to hear the songs of the pop singer Elaha Soroor, who was born in 1988. She has composed several songs, including lullabies, that substitute the usually male hero with a baby girl. Her lullabies bring girls into the spotlight.

She has created a song saying: “You, girl, you have come into a difficult world, but I believe you will win. Your fight will be a struggle for your own sake. You will achieve everything you set out to and be happy when you get there, girl.” It is very touching, because you see that these women, who have gone through so many difficulties and achieved something, believe that in music you can see a kind of blessing for the new generation of girls, encouraging them to be strong, to keep fighting, to hope to become professionals, and to get out of the country, which is seen as success.

The music of the countries of Central Asia often serves as a calling card for the region. How do you think it attracts tourists and foreigners? What music do you play for your friends when you talk about Central Asia?

Central Asian music is very powerful and is one of the strongest aspects of the area’s cultural heritage. It is multi-faceted and there are many genres coming from various strata of society and different periods of history. But besides music, we have inherited medieval architecture, classical poetry, visual arts, crafts, and many other traditions.

I play the Uzbek dutar, which is my favorite instrument, and right now I am learning the Kazakh dombra. There are plenty of similarities between these two string instruments, despite some visual differences. There are epic genres that are a big part of Kazakh and also Uzbek heritage. We all belong culturally to the Turkic-speaking world. It makes us united.

Historically, in Central Asia, the Uzbeks, Turkmens, and Tajiks were sedentary people, while the Kazakh and Kyrgyz people were nomads. But nowadays, everything has become thoroughly mixed. I think this explains the many mixed marriages among all these ethnicities and nationalities. I believe we have more commonalities than differences. Music, along with other local traditional heritage, attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists and foreign visitors from around the globe every year.

Have you studied gender issues in these countries? If so, can you tell us what gender segregation is like and how women in these countries differ from each other? What distinguishes women in the Central Asian countries now from their counterparts during the Soviet Union? I am especially interested in learning about women in politics in those countries.

I studied gender in music in the most detailed way. I was the first scholar in UK academia to do so, designing from scratch a new course entitled “Gender and Music” and teaching it in 2004-2006 at SOAS, University of London.

The gender issue was never as important in the Soviet Union as in the West. In the Soviet system, gender equality was a key policy and the state demanded that women be educated and work equally, on par with men. In Central Asia’s recent history, Kyrgyzstan had a female President, Roza Otunbayeva (2010-2011), and there are many female government ministers in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

I remember from my personal experience, when I arrived in Europe, having worked at several universities, and currently still working at the University of Cambridge, UK, that looking at the gender mix in various faculties, you would see that majority of the faculty members were men, with only a few women. My UK colleagues also posed the question: “How many women did you have at your faculty when you were working in your country?” So I replied that the numbers were proportionately the same—fifty/fifty. They were surprised, enquiring: “So how could those women find time for children and housekeeping?” Somehow, our Soviet women managed to find time for everything!

I believe that in our challenging twenty-first century, more Central Asian women will get a chance to advance their careers so that their individual voices can be heard, becoming famous not only in music, but also as active figures in local politics and social care. I hope that for Afghan women, in particular, brighter days lie ahead.

Interview by Elvira Aidarkhanova,  Analyst, PhD in International Affairs

While my colleague Zaure Batayeva collected the stories, communicated with the authors, and translated the Kazakh-language texts that would eventually make up Amanat, my job was to translate the stories that were originally written in Russian. I’m a professional translator who has been working with Central Asian authors for almost a decade now, and I have a good reading knowledge of Uzbek and some knowledge of Kazakh, but I mostly make my living as a certified translator of Russian. And right now, in the spring and summer of 2022, in the wake of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, a Russian translator is a complicated thing to be. All around me, colleagues who have long focused on Russian literature and Russian culture are despairing. How can we accept funding from sources related to the Russian government? How can we justify devoting time to the study of Russian society or art or architecture while next door, in Ukraine, those things are being ruthlessly destroyed? How can we speak of the beautiful aspects of the Russian culture and language when that culture and language are being weaponized to negate and annihilate Ukrainian culture? And most to the point, for my fellow literary translators: Will anyone ever want to publish or read a Russian book again?

Read more: Translating Central Asian Literature: An Interview with Shelley Fairweather-Vega

All this worrying has been productive for some of my colleagues, who have pivoted quickly to translating war writing from Ukraine, powerful texts that demand the world’s attention. Thanks to this, readers in other languages—and, I have to suspect, many of the translators themselves—are turning their attention to Ukrainian arts and letters for the first time. Better late than never, certainly; their efforts can only be applauded. I, too, rushed to translate a war poem by a young Ukrainian poet. But I had little time to spend on that work because my schedule was full of projects already arranged: translations of Central Asian literature. Nobody is canceling or reconsidering these Uzbek and Kazakh projects (as has happened with English translations of works from the Russian Federation), but there has also been no unusual rush to produce and publish them (as is still happening with translations of work from Ukraine and by Ukrainians). This puts me, as a Russian-language translator who does not focus on either Russian or Ukrainian literature, in a distinct and somewhat uncomfortable position.

With all respect to the vital war-related translation work that is happening right now, I want to argue that this is also the perfect time to translate and publish Central Asian literature in English. Most fundamentally, this is because every time is the perfect time to read translated work; we can never get too much of other people’s ideas and stories. But more specifically, the war in Ukraine has reminded us—both Russia-watchers in the West and a large portion of the general public—that the huge geographical area we often think of as the “post-Soviet space” is much more complex (culturally, linguistically, politically) than we usually bother to acknowledge. That space, of course, includes Central Asia.

In Kazakhstan, for instance, there are striking similarities to the pre-war situation in Ukraine. Both countries are caught between bigger powers vying for influence (Russia and Europe in the latter case, Russia and China in the former). Both nations have been rediscovering their own histories, with pride and also pain. Both countries have marked linguistic diversity (Russian, as a colonial language with dwindling influence, and local languages that are gaining in popularity). Both places have experienced recent political upheaval accompanied by violently suppressed protests. Both countries have grappled, both philosophically and practically, with the legacy of their Russian colonial and Soviet past and struggled to adjust to a post-Russian future.

Many of the recurring themes in Amanat reflect this shared struggle, as it has been observed by women writing in Kazakhstan ever since independence. Asel Omar’s two stories in the collection provide one example. Her first, “French Beret,” describes one family’s small triumph against political repression in the Stalinist era. Her second, “Black Snow of December,” explores the protagonist’s conflicting thoughts about the Jeltoqsan protests of 1986, and how members of different social strata in Almaty interacted as those events played out. Family relationships are another persistent theme, especially the ways in which they have changed with the times in Kazakhstan. In Oral Arukenova’s story “Amanat,” siblings debate how to honor their mother’s last wishes; Zira Naurzbayeva contemplates the relationships between mothers and daughters in her “Beskempir” and “My Eleusinian Mysteries;” in Zhumagul Solty’s “Awkward Conversation,” a daughter frets over her parents’ relationship; and Madina Omarova’s narrator ponders her own responsibility for a seemingly motherless neighborhood girl in “Once Upon an Autumn Evening.” Perhaps the most striking motherless girl in the collection is Verka, the young trickster in Olga Mark’s “The Lighter,” who—like the female protagonists in the stories by Zaure Batayeva, Aigul Kemelbayeva, Aya Ömirtai, and Raushan Baiguzhayeva, as well as in Arukenova’s cycle “Procedures Within”—is experimenting to find the best way to make a living, or even establish a career, in a world transformed. Finally, Lilya Kalaus treats the topic of old political wounds with almost a slapstick touch in her “Operatic Drama,” in which two male characters squabble over whose ancestors were most repressed by the Soviet regime. These themes will surely sound familiar to people throughout the so-called “post-Soviet space,” and in every other part of the world besides. And several of the stories in Amanat could truly take place in any city in the world—Omarova’s “Poet,” for example, published here, only confirms it geographical location in the story’s last sentence.

All this helps me answer the question I have been asking myself: How do I justify translating Central Asian writers while the eyes of the world are on Ukraine? I translate Central Asian literature because its authors address universal themes from their own unique perspective. I translate it because there is more than one place in the world where Russian culture has influenced authors who write with startling beauty and power, but where Russian policies have frequently resulted in disaster. And I translate it because Central Asian authors should not be required to wait until catastrophe strikes, as it has in Ukraine, for their chance to be read outside the region.

The Poet
By Madina Omarova. Translated from the Kazakh by Zaure Batayeva

Autumn had come quickly to Almaty. The summer heat had disappeared in one day, and a cool wind from the mountains had enwrapped the city. The city became unhappy.

I noticed the man first. We were walking towards each other. Suddenly his eyes fell on me. He stared and then smiled. He started walking faster. I also smiled and took his hand when he approached. He hugged me, squeezed me, and kissed me. He had aged. I’m not saying that he had become an old man, but he looked older. He said we should go to a nearby café and have a meal. I had nothing else to do, so I followed him. He took tea for himself. I asked for laghman noodles and fifty grams of cognac. And for bread. “And some bread, of course,” I shouted to the waiter.

“I’m exhausted,” he said. “Lonely.”

“Where’s your wife?”

“The wife’s there, but I’ve got nobody to talk to.”

“Hmm . . .”

“When we were working together, did I ever hit on you?”

“No, never.”

“That’s strange.”

“You hit on every girl around, but not me, not a single time.”

“Interesting.”

“Perhaps I’m not your type.”

“No, you are, you are.”

I wanted to smoke. “If I remember right, you don’t smoke, do you?”

“I don’t. I go to the Union every day. Just wander around and go back home. Nobody’s there.”

“Why not?”

“All my friends are dead. They’re in another world.”

“I see.”

“How about we make love?”

“I don’t know, nothing interesting will come of that.”

“You’ve never slept with me. If you do, you’ll never leave me.”

“ Maybe.”

“More cognac?”

“No, I need to go back to work.”

“I’m exhausted,” he said again. “This world has become meaningless. I’m tired. Everything is in vain.” He squeezed my hand. Autumn falls quickly in Almaty.

Amanat: Women’s Writing from Kazakhstan (Gaudy Boy, 2022, ISBN 9780999451489, $22.00). Selected and translated by Zaure Batayeva and Shelley Fairweather-Vega with contributions by Sam Breazeale. Links to purchase: in North America, in Singapore/Southeast Asia, in Europe.

Around the world, “art and artistic activism is a dynamic practice that combines the creative power of art, which moves us emotionally, with the strategic planning of the activities necessary for social change.”[1]

On the contrary, in Uzbekistan, art and culture are kept isolated from world trends by the rhetoric of Soviet and governmental discourse, in which no art form is to be associated with political and social dimensions or change. Meanwhile, the mainstream academic research on Central Asia, and Uzbekistan in particular, is overly focused on the state/regime discourses and on arguments about whether a civil society exists in the region. The academic discourse thereby misses the changes happening at the local, grassroots level. Here, I discuss how the 139 Documentary Center (139DC), a small documentary art community, has been raising awareness of the issues of locals and promoting artistic activism in Uzbekistan.

Author

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Albina Yun

Albina Yun is an independent researcher. She holds an MA in Critical Gender Studies from the Central European University and an MA in Politics and Security from the OSCE Academy. Her areas of interest include migratory processes, ethnocentrism, grassroots activism, postcolonialism, post-Soviet theory, biopolitics, and gender studies.

“In Uzbekistan art is regarded as something decorative, something incomprehensible and ‘cool,’ there is no place for research and dialogue, we want to bring social changes through art and documenting,” says Timur Karpov, a documentary photographer, human rights activist, and the director of the 139 Documentary Center.

139 Documentary Center is a young Tashkent cultural platform and public space for artists, activists, and researchers. It opened in Tashkent around two years ago. Unlike the state-run galleries in Tashkent’s city center, 139DC is located in Dustabad mahalla and rents its space from an old industrial factory, NPO Texhnolog. The surroundings of 139DC are very diverse, including apartment buildings, single-family homes, an old industrial factory, a construction market, and so on. The center’s mission focuses on cultural heritage, urban memory, spatial justice, and the value of documentation and archiving in tackling social injustice. And unlike Uzbek governmental rhetoric, the Center aims to show that, today, art can no longer stand apart from political, economic, social, and environmental issues.

139 Documentary Center works with, documents, and raises awareness of our actuality, not governmental rhetoric and facades.

We Need to Look at Symbols

The exhibition was particularly thought-provoking, as the photos were taken during the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the people of Uzbekistan did not really know what they were celebrating. The 139 Documentary Center is one of the very few places where such historical documentary archives are still valued, and probably is the only place in the country where one can witness such valuable affective history for free. It is important to know that in the main Museum of History in Tashkent, where I went together with Timur in September 2021, there is not a single word about the USSR or the period of the early 1990s.

By living under the governmental rhetoric, we are cut off from any context and actuality. The Center’s work counter this. The director of 139DC notes that Shepelin’s photography is deeply symbolic. One of the most striking revelations one can find in the photos of the exhibition concerns the actuality of changes—the pedestal where the globe stands now in the center of Tashkent is the very same pedestal that Lenin was standing on. And one begins to realize that nothing has really changed: the base is the same, it is just that one symbol has been swapped for another, but the whole system remains as it was.

Documenting Untold Stories

Another important activity of the center is working with mahallas. Through art and documentary activities, members of the 139 Documentary Center want to show the importance, beauty, and legacy of mahallas. To achieve that, 139DC developed a long-lasting project—a series of photography exhibitions—dedicated to the documentation of their Dustabad mahalla’s livelihood, legacy, memory, and struggles. The organization’s objective is to develop and strengthen community outreach and ties with its neighborhood. The first exhibition of the series has already taken place on March 8, 2021, and it was devoted to retired women of the Dustabad mahalla. On International Women’s Day, the Center opened the exhibition and invited everyone to celebrate women and see them outside the context of social stigmatization.

The exhibition was based on photographs and interviews of retired women taken in February–March 2021, revealing what womanhood means for them and how they perceive the ideas of home, motherhood, and their mahalla. Many elderly women struggle because of low pensions, and their neighborhood communities, including 139DC, become sources of support and care.

In addition, the project, entitled Women of our Mahalla, unfolded gradually, expanding industrial and neoliberal determinations of the Uzbek government. In 2018, the controversy around Tashkent city and complete demolition of Olmazor and O’qchi mahallas was an omen for the beginning of extreme gentrification processes leaving behind local residents’ concerns and struggles. Some of the Dustabad mahalla’s houses are very old and were built after the infamous Tashkent earthquake in 1966. Those houses do not have proper heating and water facilities. Most staggering is that most of these old houses are occupied by residents who are single senior women. Instead of improving facilities, the city administration is just waiting for potential real estate buyers to purchase the land and demolish all those houses.

Of course, when there are no prospects of any improvements of the facilities, the residents just wish to move out; a flat is usually promised as compensation for relocation, but this promise is very seldom actually realized. Industrialization and gentrification really destroy mahallas. Not only does the demolition of houses take place, but also, human communities crumble—even those residents who do receive flats in compensation never receive them in the same district. Thus, the members of mahalla who used to live together are thrown into different parts of the city. Fortunately, while there is a discussion in the city administration to remove such urban landscapes, since 139DC moved in Dustabad mahalla, other youth-run enterprises consider establishing themselves in the neighborhood. The independent media journal HookReport decided to rent a second floor in the same building, a new event planning agency appeared in the neighborhood, and a new photo studio is now renting the nearby units of the building where the Center is located.

Uzbekistan has been going through rapid neoliberal and industrial changes since Mirziyoyev came to power. Mainstream academic research is excessively focused on state and regime discourse, neglecting local people and the complex dynamics at play. The government has displayed no interest in taking care of the neighborhoods and their residents. Very slowly, activists such as Timur Karpov and communities such as the 139 Documentary Center are emerging in Uzbekistan, and the dynamic they foster engenders dialogue and reflection. Unfortunately, such spaces are fragile, as there is no proper funding available and, moreover, there is a constant threat of simply being closed down.

[1] The Center for Artistic Activism, “Why Artistic Activism?” The Center for Artistic Activism, April 9, 2018, https://c4aa.org/2018/04/why-artistic-activism.

It is known that dance is a bodily expression of human feelings and emotions. Every nation has its own lexicography and distinguished style of dance. How things were with the development of Kazakh dance?

In this interview, Anvara Sadykova, Senior Teacher at the Kazakh National Academy of Choreography, Nur-Sultan, and historical dance as well as the history of the world and national choreography, talks about the long history of bold and expressive Kazakh dances, how they mirrored the lives of the steppe nomads, expressed their feelings and even served as a social parody. A separate question that Anvara helps to investigate is the origins of the popular dance ‘Kara Zhorga’ (Black Pacer) which had been revived recently with astonishing popularity.

Interview with

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ANVARA SADYKOVA

ANVARA SADYKOVA, Senior Teacher at the Kazakh National Academy of Choreography, situated in Nur-Sultan, the capital of Kazakhstan, teaches a number of core modules on the Kazakh dance, theory and methodology of teaching Kazakh and historical dance as well as the history of the world and national choreography.

In the period from 2009 to 2021, Anvara staged more than 45 choreographic compositions, including two ballets “Turan dala – Kyran dala” (The Kazakh Land’, 2017) and “Zheltorangy turaly anyz” (The Legend about Turanga, 2020).

Anvara is passionate about promoting Kazakh national dance and choreography. She holds master-classes and lectures on Kazakh dance and gives seminars on the history of national choreography in Kazakhstan and abroad. 

This publication is part of the Abai Center Series. The Abai Center recognizes the legacy of Abai Kunanbaiuly, a great Kazakh poet, philosopher, and founder of written Kazakh literature, as well as the rich heritage of the Kazakh culture more broadly. It is both a virtual space for articles and blogs via the website, https://abaicenter.com, as well as a welcoming host of events such as presentations and discussions on literature, arts, cinema, music, history, archeology, and anthropology.

Anvara, please tell us a little bit about your institution – what place does the study and teaching of Kazakh national dance take in the program of the Kazakh National Academy of Choreography in Nur-Sultan?

First of all, I would like to point out that The Kazakh National Academy of Choreography is the only higher educational institution in Central Asia with a full cycle of multi-level professional choreographic education. It was open in 2016 at the initiative of the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev. The Rector of the Academy is the People’s Artist of Russia, a world-famous ballerina Altynai Abduahimovna Assylmuratova.

“Kazakh dance” as a discipline was introduced into the curriculum for the first time in 1965 by a professional Kazakh dancer, People’s Artist of Kazakhstan, the legendary Shara Zhienkulova (1912 – 1991). She published a number of books, including the book ‘The Secret of Dance’[1] (1980), where she described Kazakh folk dances in great detail, supplementing it with the images of costumes and dance positions as well as musical notes. Shara’s traditions at the Almaty Choreographic College named after A. Seleznev are successfully continued by her former student, an outstanding teacher of Kazakh dance, Gainikamal Beisenova.

At the National Academy of Choreography, the class “Kazakh dance” is included into the professional education program from the 5th year of study and is taught for 3 years. At this level, our students study Kazakh dance as future professional performers, that is, ballet dancers and professional ensemble dancers. Further, undergraduate students study the theory and methodology of teaching Kazakh dance for two years, and then, at the Master’s and Doctoral levels, the students study Kazakh dance from a research perspective. Classical ballet heritage, contemporary choreography and, of course, Kazakh dance make up the repertoire of the Kazakh National Academy of Choreography. I am pleased to say that in January 2021, we introduced the Handbook on Kazakh dance – a collective work carried out by the members of the Laboratory of the Kazakh National Dance: professionals of performing arts, pedagogues, ballet masters, researchers and other experts working in the field of Kazakh national dance led by Toigan Izim, Aigul Tati, Aigul Kulbekova, Anvara Sadykova and Almat Shamshiev.

There is an opinion that the nomadic peoples did not have their own, historically established folk dance, which was made up for by a rich musical and singing culture. What can you say about this?

This is one of the most frequently asked question, and it is understandable. However, we dare to disagree with this opinion.

One of the brightest bodily expressions of human emotions by any person or any nation is dance. Nomadic peoples are no exception. Yes, of course, we do not exclude the historical unevenness of the development of the dance culture of our ancestors, but to say that there was no historically established folk dance, I think, is completely wrong!

The longer I work in the field of Kazakh dance, the more I admire the wisdom of our people, the deepest knowledge of our ancestors who were able to leave us a great cultural heritage. Over the centuries, the body language of our folk dance has been formed – expressive, beautiful, giving you the ‘raw’ material to work with, and to stage beautiful choreographic miniatures, compositions, ballets and dance scenes on completely different topics, embracing both the every-day reality and highly philosophical reflections. Such presence of various movements and themes of Kazakh dance could not appear from nowhere, without the fundamental basics!

Unfortunately, the canonical forms of the oldest dances have not reached the present day for various reasons. But the themes of ancient dances and traditional movements are carefully passed down from generation to generation. The works of the researchers and practitioners of Kazakh dance such as Dauren Abirov, Aubakir Ismailov, Shara Zhienkulova, Uzbekali Dzhanibekov, Lidia Sarynova, Olga Vsevolodskaya-Golushkevich developed further by Toigan Izim, Aliya Shankibaeva and Aigul Kulbekova demonstrated evolution of Kazakh dance from ancient times to the present day, as reflected in its spiritual culture.

The first documentary evidence of dance is petroglyphs. There is a number of archaeological sites with petroglyphs in the territory of modern Kazakhstan, including the UNESCO protected Archaeological Landscape of Tamgaly (located 170 km northwest of Almaty) with over 5,000 petroglyphs (rock carvings), ‘dating from the second half of the second millennium BC to the beginning of the 20th century’. Some of the rock carvings captured the whole dance scenes of those ancient times. The majority of photos show clear images of animals; some petroglyphs show people’s figures dancing solo and in the group.

Our ancient ancestors used their flexible bodies as a natural means of expressing their feelings and acted as a means of communication. Their dances had, first of all, a sacred, ritual and ceremonial meaning related to Totem worship, hunting rituals, and rituals of male warriors with weapons preparing for battles. These sacred dances reflected the worldview of our ancestors, their sense and understanding of the surrounding world, natural phenomena, etc. The dance permeated all human life.

The classification of the traditional Kazakh folk dances described by A. K. Kulbekova et al. is an illustration of the origins of the Kazakh dance which reflected the lives, activities, customs and beliefs of our ancestors:

1. Ritual and ceremonial dances; 2. Combative-hunting dances; 3. Work dances; 4. Household-imitative dances; 5. Festive and ceremonial dances; 6. Mass-thematic dances.[2]

A special place in the dance culture is occupied by the dancing art of bakhsy (shamans). Here I would like to recall Olzhas Suleimenov’s poem “Asian bonfires”, which is quoted by the famous choreographer Olga Vsevolodskaya-Golushkevich in a documentary about the activities of the folk-dance ensemble ‘Altynai’. The legendary Kazakh poet highlights the role of shamans (bakhsy) in understanding the world around the Kazakh ancestors: ‘they [shamans] lit the fire and taught how to keep the fire, to bow to the fire, to treat sciatica and chirium with fire, and taught to saddle a horse, and believe the sun, and guess by the stars, from them went – and dance and sing’.

It is known that the main function of Kazakh shamanism was healing. The ritual process took place through a dance action to the accompaniment of percussion instruments, and this was considered the culminating point in shamanistic ritual, after which the shaman, exhausted, foaming at his mouth, fell unconscious. Musical rhythms and dance moves performed by shamans (bakhsy) were of an improvisational nature. And in general, improvisation would be the main component of the entire national culture in general and would be of great importance for the dance art of Kazakh people, in particular. In the plastic arts of shamans, dance acquired a magical symbolic meaning.

Let us have a look how certain movements of Kazak dance reflect the vision of the world. For example, in Kazakh dance there is a hand movement called “ainalma” – the rotation of wrists.

Moldakhmetova A.T. in her PhD thesis [3] quotes the thought expressed by Zaurbekova and Djumanova: ‘the movement of the hands of ‘Ainalma’ reflects the cult of the solar deity; the phenomenon circle in the structure of the nomadic worldview specifically expresses the temporal aspect, a twelve-year cycle of mүshel, in which ‘human life is thought of as a transition from one mushel to another, which meant a return to initial state, end and beginning of a new circle in life space at a qualitatively different level. This, figuratively, the structure of the unwinding spiral was the most important element of traditional thinking’.[4]

For example, this dance ‘Erke Kyz’ represents the whole palette of the intricate rotations of the wrists which creates a beautiful pattern of the dance. Graceful movements of arms and wrists, typical for a female Kazakh dance, can be seen in this dance staged by a wonderful choreographer, Zulfia Aubakirova. A. Shankibaeva, the art critic explains the meaning of this movement as follows: “one turn of the wrists, symbolizing the cycle of a full turnover of reception and return of heavenly well-being, having its deep philosophical meaning, is a distinctive feature of Kazakh dance’.[5]

In the Kazakh language there is the word “aynalayin” – this is how Kazakhs call a person dear to their hearts, denoting their endless love for someone close. Kairbekov B. explains the meaning of this word as follows: ‘In translation it sounds like ‘I am circling around you!’. This word is associated with the process of treatment by a Kazakh healer – bakhsy, who guarded the patient around him, ‘taking’ his ailment, transferring it to himself, and in this sense, it would be more accurate to translate the word ‘ainalayin’ as ‘I am ready to sacrifice myself in the name of saving you!’[6]

As mentioned above, bakhsy in their rituals used the indispensable attributes of a circle and rotation around a person. The Bakhsy’s worldview is characterized by the idea that the Universe consists of the three worlds: The Upper World, where only spirits live, The Middle World, where people, animals, plants live along with the spirits, and The Lower World, where the souls of the dead go to. Thus, the bakhsy is the transmitter between the world of people and the world of spirits. In the process of shamanic rituals bakhsy is able to trace the struggle between the dark and the light forces, which will be reflected in his plasticity in the form of movements typical of warriors.

In connection with the magical beliefs of people about the transmigration of the soul to animals, in the bakhsy dance we can see some movements that convey the habits of animals and birds. Some Kazakh dances are based on imitation of habits of animals, for example: ‘Koyan bi’ (dance of the hare), ‘Burkit bi’ (dance of the golden eagle), ‘Ayu bi’ (dance of the bear), ‘Orteke’ (dance of the goat, trapped in a pit), etc.

For example, you can see the dancers dancing in animal masks at the beginning of the Seryler saltanaty dance performed by the students of Kazakh National Academy of Choreography (music by the folk ethnographic ensemble Khassak; choreography by Anvara Sadykova and Almat Shamshiev). The dance culture of Kazakh people was especially developed in the work of steppe performers – Sala and sera. Their work can be considered as a ‘theatre of one actor’; they were universal performers and naturally talented actors: singers, composers, storytellers, magicians, dancers, wrestlers, jugglers, etc. They performed in auls, where they entertained their audience with various kinds of performances.

There were also folk akyns, singers-improvisers, and folk comedians of the second half of the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries, who were known as the masters of dance art. For example, Berikbol Kopenov (1861-1932) – a singer, dombra player, amateur artist, kyuishi, poet, dancer, nicknamed Agash-ayak (‘wooden leg’) – was famous for his ability to dance on stilts. According to Abirov and Ismailov[7], Kazakh researchers of dance history, Shashubai Koshkarbayev (1865-1952) – a Kazakh akyn, poet and composer – performed his songs to the accompaniment of an accordion and dombra.

He used to jump on a horse before the performance and demonstrate a horseman dance at full speed, standing in the saddle, then jumped to the ground and danced around horse. He was also a master of a comic dance called Orteke (literal translation of Orteke is ‘a goat caught in a pit’).

D. Abirov also mentions the names of folk dancers of the first quarter of the XX century: Akhmet Bersagimov, who was nicknamed Zhyndy Kara, who performed dances and satirical pantomimes, where he ridiculed bays (local wealthy governors) and feudal lords, for which he was nicknamed ‘zhynda’ (fool). Zarubay Kulseitov was famous for performing the dances ‘Koyan bi’ (hare dance), ‘Koyan men burkit’ (hare and golden eagle). Doskey Alimbaev (1850-1946) – Kazakh akyn danced ‘Utys bi’ (dance-competition), as well as ‘Kusbegi – dauylpaz’ (hunter with a bird and a drummer).

The name of Iskhak Byzhybayev is especially close to us. A unique chronicle has come down to us, where he performs the comic dance ‘Nasybaishy’, surprising in its originality, at the folk-dance festival in 1936 in Moscow. The plot of the dance, colourful movements, which are sometimes striking in their complexity, are vivid evidence of the presence of a unique dance culture among Kazakh people.

The first national performers and choreographers led the way to the development of Kazakh stage dance by creating a number of wonderful choreographic works that later made up the golden fund of the national choreography. These are productions by Shara Zhienkulova, Aubakir Ismailov, Dauren Abirov, Yuri Kovalev, Zaurbek Raibayev, Bulat Ayukhanov, Mintay Tleubaev, Eldos Usin, Zhanat Baydaralin, Olga Vsevolodskaya-Golushkevich, Gainikamal Beisenova, Gulsaule Orumbaeva, Aigul Tati, etc.

Today in Kazakhstan there are four ballet theatres with a unique repertoire – the Kazakh National Opera and Ballet Theatre named after Abai (established in 1934), the State Academic Dance Theatre of the Republic of Kazakhstan under the direction of Bulat Ayukhanov (established in 1967), the State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre ‘Astana Opera’ (established in 2013), State Theatre ‘Astana Ballet’ (established in 2012). Theatre of contemporary dance ‘Samruk’ (established in 1998), State dance theatre ‘Naz’ (established in 1999), State Dance Ensembles ‘Saltanat’ (established in 1955), ‘Altynai’ (since 1985), dance ensembles at philharmonic halls in the regions of Kazakhstan, etc.

And this list goes on and on … Our mission is to preserve this unique cultural heritage and look for new ways of developing our national choreography which currently absorbs the best traditions of classical and contemporary dance as well as the heritage of our ancestors.

And answering your question, I can say that without the presence of the deep national song, music and dance traditions that have been formed for centuries in the Kazakh steppe, the ability to be open to other cultures, absorb and accept what is close in spirit, in moral values, we could not present today what we call the Kazakh national culture as a whole.

Since the beginning of 2010, the dance ‘Kara Zhorga’ (Black Pacer) was become widely known. The dance quickly spread on the Internet and became a popular piece for flash mobs, advertisements, numerous online lessons and one of the favourite dances for weddings. The accompanying song with a light, easy and cheerful text, full of humour, appealed to people of all ages. According to some Internet sources, Arystan Shadetuly, a native Kazakh from China, who returned to his homeland in 1995, is considered the ‘revivalist’ of dance in Kazakhstan. How can you explain the origins of this dance?

I have great respect for Arystan-ata. We invited him to take part in the making of our documentary ‘Kazakh Dance’. He is an excellent performer of the dance ‘Kara Zhorga’: a plastic, musical, original dancer. In my opinion, of course, Arystan Shadetuly played a big role in the popularisation of this dance in Kazakhstan.

However, it should be emphasized that on the territory of modern Kazakhstan, the dance ‘Kara Zhorga’ was also performed in Soviet times, but under a different name ‘Buyn bi’ (dance of joints).

The repertoire of the aforementioned ensemble ‘Altynai’ to this day includes the dance ‘Buyn bi’ staged by Olga Vsevolodskaya-Golushkevich, who created her dances under the close attention of the ethnographer Uzbekali Dzhanibekov. And the performance of this dance among the people is proved by the following episode, when Uzbekali Dzhanibekov met two tractor drivers living in the Narynkol district of the Almaty region, skilfully performing the ’Buyn bi’ dance. It was their performance of this dance that inspired the creation of a choreographic composition for the ‘Altynai’ ensemble under accompaniment of a kyui (folk instrumental musical composition).

Today the elements of the ‘Buyn bi’ dance are included in the main programme of the Kazakh male dance, as the section ‘Buyn oinatu’ – ‘The game of joints’.

What is common and fundamentally different between these two dances – ‘Kara Zhorga’ and ‘Buyn Bi’?

First, we should think about the very name of the dance and its meaning. ‘Kara Zhorga’ is translated from the Kazakh language as ‘black pacer’, i.e., in this dance, the performers depict horsemen prancing on pacers. In the book ‘Kazakh folk dances’ written by D. Abirov and A. Ismailov (1961), the dance ‘Kara Zhorga’ is described as follows: ‘The dance shows the agility, dexterity, cheerful enthusiasm of a horseman who has completely mastered the art of horse riding. This dance was popular among the people in various versions and under various names: ‘Kara Zhorga’, ‘Zhorgalau’ (a ride on a pacer), ‘Zhorgany elikteu’ (imitation of a pacer)’.[8] They mention that the folk melodies were performed on dombra and used as an accompaniment to the dances ‘Kara Zhorga’ and ‘Bozaigyr’. In 1928, the dance ‘Kara Zhorga’ (recorded by Aktay Mamanov) was performed in Petropavlovsk on the stage of the People’s House.[9]

Further, Shara Zhienkulova in her book ‘The Secret of Dance’ (1980) describes the dance ‘Kara Zhorga’ as a ‘group male dance [that] depicts an equestrian sport. The number of dancers can be four and more. Each performer holds a kamcha [a whip] in his right hand’.[10]

D. Abirov in his later book ‘History of Kazakh Dance’ (1997) provides analysis of the movements of ‘Kara Zhorga’ as it was performed in the play ‘Ayman-Sholpan’ in 1934, staged by Ali Ibragimov (1899 – 1959), a famous Central Asian dancer and choreographer, known under pseudonym Ardobus. A. Ardobus puts on ‘Kara Zhorga’ as the imitation of horse riding – sports games of young people on horseback. The choreographic text consisted of energetic jumps with waving a whip (kamcha) over the head, jumps with a back bend of the body, springy small bounces in place. The dance was designed to be performed by one person’.[11]

Both D. Abirov and A. Ismailov in the description of the dance ‘Kara Zhorga’ specifically presented such movements as ‘zheldirme’ (trotting), ‘moldas’ (rocking chair), ‘tebingi’ (spurring), ‘shalys’ (hook), ‘Monkime’ (jumping with clenched knees, ‘shabys’ (gallop), ‘ytymaly aynalma’. All these movements are unique, distinctive, perfectly conveying daring, agility, strength, character, manner of a male dance. These movements were included in the main male Kazakh dance study programme.

Abirov explains the popularity of ‘Kara Zhorga’ by historical reasons: ‘For Kazakh nomads, life without a horse was unthinkable. […] The horse was an indispensable form of transport for moving across the vast steppe and mountains. Thanks to his horse, the Kazakh participated in battles, in all kinds of national games, on it he looked for pastures, escaped from disaster. The people admired the good horse. Obviously, therefore, in legends, heroic poems and legends, the people praised the horse as a faithful friend’.[12] ‘Obviously, the birth of the dance ‘Kara Zhorga’ is associated with the observation of people at the unusual pace of the pacer, differing in trot or gallop from other horses. Fractional kicks of legs, rhythmic clatter of hooves, swaying from side to side of the head, bursts of mane, swaying of the croup created the impression of a dance. […] .. Therefore, in the dance ‘Kara Zhorga’ we find movements reminiscent of a pacer’s running and swaying shoulders.’[13]

Based on these works of the classics of Kazakh choreography, we appreciate that the name of the dance ‘Kara Zhorga’ still meant a somewhat different dance in its form, in contrast to the one that is now universally performed under this name. We are convinced that, the today’s dance ‘Kara Zhorga’ was called by us as the dance ‘Buyn bi’ (the dance of joints) in the past. And this name more accurately and more specifically defines the movement behaviour of the performer. The dancers actively engaged the joints of different parts of the body, particularly the joints of fingers, wrists, arms, shoulders as well as their knee-joints and ankles. Their performance was based on a momentary improvisation of a shaman who would express his feelings and emotions through his body movements.

Analysing the nature of the dance movements, which we call ‘Buyn bi’, one can clearly trace its ancient origin, its connection with the Bakhsy culture. Circular, sharp and expressive movements of the joints are a distinctive basic element of this dance. Through such plastic, one can see the ritual dance of bakhsy, whereby he communicated with the spirits. The other function also traced here is a healing one. Each element of ‘Buyn bi ‘meant to awaken the body and increase blood circulation to increase the inner heat and energy to perform his shamanic rituals.

This established lexicography of traditional dance movements passed into the culture of unique steppe performers, who conveyed different emotions through the musical accompaniment of dombra. The performer danced both in the yurt and in the open air. Arystan Shadetuly shared a very interesting observation during filming of the documentary ‘Kazakh Dance’: “The performer danced in the centre of the yurt. His ‘stage’ size was equal to one ram skin’. Therefore, the dominant steppe monoculture was vividly embodied in the dance genre as performed by a single dancer (although this does not at all deny the mass performance of dances).

This watercolour sketch by Cheredeev – the Russian artist-topographer, who visited Kazakh lands as part of the expedition of the Russian Geographical Society in 1854 – is an illustration of his opinion. Cheredeev ‘s sketch ‘Yurt of the Sultan ‘Davlet-Gerei’ shows a Kazakh man dancing in a limited space, in the middle of the yurt.[14]

To summarise the origins of ‘Kara Zhorga’ which is well-known and popular today, I would like to reiterate my point that this dance was known and danced by our ancestors as ‘Buyn bi’ – ‘the dance of joints’ originated from Bakhsy culture and shamanism. The ‘Kara Zhorga’ dance in interpretation of the Kazakh dance classics (D. Abirov, A. Ismailov) is primarily a ‘black pacer dance’ depicting a horseman prancing on pacers. I would say that the name ‘Kara Zhorga’ was ‘borrowed’ to name the dance that was actually known to our ancestors as ‘Buyn bi’. It is especially noticeable in the dances performed by these two Kazakh gentlemen who are amazingly flexible and acrobatic regardless of their respectable age – Orazbai Bodauhanuly and Shedet Maikanuly. Do you know why they are so flexible and agile? Because they regularly stretched their joints by dancing ‘Kara Zhorga’, which our ancestors used to call ‘Buyn bi’!

[1] Zhienkulova, Shara, 1980, Tayna tanca [Secret of dance], Oner, Alma-Ata.

[2] Kulbekova, A.K. et al., 2016, The methodological framework of occupational training in culture and art high schools of Kazakhstan, in: International Journal of Environmental & Science Education, Vol. 11, No. 12, p. 5270.

[3] Мoldakhmetova, А.T., 2020, Rezhissyorskaya interpretatciya kazakhskogo tanca v choreograficheskom iskusstve Kazakhstana konca ХХ – nachala ХХI veka [Producer’s interpretation of Kazakh dance in the choreographic art of Kazakhstan at the end of the XX – beginning of the XXI century], Kazakhskaya nacionalnaya akademiya iskusstv imeni Т.К. Zhurgenova, Almaty, Dissertaciya na soiskaniye akademicheskoy stepeni doktora PhD, p.42.

[4] Zaurbekova, L., Djumanova, G., Г., 2000, Mirovozzrenie kazakhov // sbornik. Traditcionnaya kultura kochevnikov [Worldview of the Kazakhs// Collection. Traditional nomad culture], Almaty: KazNAI imeni. Т. Zhurgenova, p. 57.

[5] Shankibaeva, A.B., 2011, Kazakhskaya choreografiya: razvitie form I khudozgestvennyh sredstv. Monografiya [Kazakh Choreography: development of forms and artistic means. Monography], Almaty, p.66.

[6] Kairbekov, B.G., 2012, Natcionalnye obychai I traditicii. Kazakhskiy etiket [National customs and traditions. Kazakh etiquette], Almaty, p.10.

[7] Abirov, D., Ismailov, A., 1961, Kazakhskie narodnye tancy [Kazakh folk dances], Alma-Ata, p.7.

[8] Abirov, D., Ismailov, A., 1961, Kazakhskie narodnye tancy [Kazakh folk dances], Alma-Ata, p.41.

[9] Ibid.:41.

[10] Zhienkulova, Shara, 1980, Tayna tanca [Secret of dance], Oner, Alma-Ata, p. 58.

[11] Abirov, D., 1997, Istoriya Kazakhskogo tanca. Uchebnoye posobie [The History of Kazakh Dance. Tutorial], Almaty, p. 22.

[12] Ibid.: 86.

[13] Ibid.: 87

[14] Cheredeev, P., Vnutrennost kibitki sultana Vnytrenney Kirgizskoy Ordy Devlet Gireya, In: Kazakhi: istoriya I kultura /rukovoditel projekta A. S. Bimendiev; glavnyi nauchnyi redactor К.Z. Uskenbay, Almaty, [Inside the yurt of the Sultan of the Inner Kirghiz Horde Devlet Giray//The Kazakhs: history and culture], ABDI Company АК, 2013, pp. 288 – 289. From the funds of the Astrakhan Regional Library named after N.K. Krupskaya.

Russian State Museum of Oriental Art (Gosudarstvennyi Muzei Vostoka) has an extensive collection of Central Asian suzani—a type of richly embroidered textile that once served as wedding embroidery to protect the bride and groom from hostile forces, as well as attract good luck. The floral and vegetal patterns that young girls stitched on white canvas for their future dowries symbolized their hope for a new and better life of love and beauty.

Embroidery is one of the most ancient and revered forms of decorative art among the peoples of Central Asia. Especially prized was silk embroidery, which first appeared on the territory of modern Uzbekistan in the 4th – 5th centuries AD. Central Asian embroidery is first mentioned in the diary of the Castilian envoy Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, who visited the court of Timur in 1404. He was impressed by the emir’s palaces, essentially tents made of and embroidered with silk, gold, and silver threads.

Author

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Vera Myasina

Senior researcher, Caucasus, Central Asia, Siberia and Far North Department of the Russian State Museum of Oriental Arts, curator of the “Textiles of the Caucasus and Central Asia” fund. Specializes in textiles and embroideries of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. 

The art of embroidery never ceased to exist, passed down by generations of hardworking needlewomen. By the 19th century, suzani (Tajik “needle-sewn,” “needle-shaped”)—large embroidered panels intended for the bride’s dowry—became popular among the region’s farmers, namely Tajiks and sedentary Uzbeks.

Suzani Wedding Decorations

Every family made embroidered covers and hangings before the wedding of their daughter. These varied in size and purpose: a large suzani might cover the newlyweds’ bed or a wedding bedsheet, a smaller one might serve as a case for pillows, another might be used as a prayer rug or curtains for room niches. Beautiful embroidery in mesmerizing patterns was the prime decoration for the wedding ceremony and had deep symbolism in the newlyweds’ room.

Unlike gold sewing, where all work was done by men, silk needlework was a women’s craft. As soon as a girl was born, the mother began to collect her dowry, and later the grown-up daughter joined in the needlework, making large embroidered pieces and a variety of dresses and robes intended for her wedding celebration. The composition of the dowry changed depending on the locality and the wealth of the parents. If the family did not have time to prepare the necessary embroidery, the bride’s mother could ask for the help of relatives, neighbors, or girlfriends at a chokduzon (literally “sewing tailor-made”), an event devoted to completing the work quickly together.

Suzani played an important role in the wedding ceremony: the bride could be wrapped in it or it could be held over her like a canopy while leading the groom to the house. The place where the bride was seated during the wedding was fenced off with a curtain—not a plain piece of textile but a rich suzani. The entire space where the celebration took place was hung with many embroideries and carpets. After the wedding, suzani remained the main decoration of the newlyweds’ room. Embroidered covers and hangings decorated living rooms not only on holidays, but also on weekdays. They hung over wall niches to hide bedding items and the walls between them during the day. The wall opposite the windows was decorated with the largest hangings, sometimes combined with small ones.

Production

Until the end of the 19th century, embroiderers used silk threads colored with natural dyes, which gave them deep, soft, unique tones. Handmade white cotton fabric (karbos), woven from local threads, served as the base. The patterns were drawn by a specially invited draftswoman (kalamkash), a craft passed down from mother to daughter in a mandatory rite of passage. She would draw the contours of the ornamentation by hand with a sharpened reed pen (kalam).

After the pattern was drawn on, the narrow strips of fabric would be embroidered separately. Only after the completion of the work were they sewn together into a single panel. Therefore, in finished products, the pattern at the seams often does not line up and the details are embroidered with threads of different shades, since different artisans did the embroidery.

Kalamkash had to memorize a large number of ornaments. Sketches and patterns were collected in albums. In the process, new versions of old patterns and compositions would be created. Some of them would become popular and fashionable. The most beloved and most frequently used of the traditional stitches were several varieties of one-sided stitching and chain stitch. The embroidery technique allowed the craftswomen to create textures that gave extraordinary artistic expression to every embroidered piece, from a luxurious cover to a modest skullcap.

The Collection

The Russian State Museum of Oriental Art has a significant collection of large wedding covers and hangings from the 19th and 20th centuries. The collection, numbering over 270 samples, includes ancient embroidery from all the key centers of this art form: Bukhara, Nurata, Shakhrisabz, Samarkand, Tashkent, and Khojent. The patterns of the suzani were predominantly floral/vegetal and often richly filled the entire visible surface of the fabric, which included a central field and a border.

The famous Bukhara embroidery was distinguished by its regal and amazing decoration—no wonder, as Bukhara was a wealthy city. The inner chambers of the houses of the aristocracy were also decorated with tiles and picturesque paintings on ganch, as well as magnificent Persian carpets, which were highly valued in local markets. Bukhara embroidery was no less luxurious.

The clearest example of this style is the pillow cover (takyapush) shown in Figure 1. Its most recognizable decorative features are luxurious and varied terracotta-crimson rosettes framed by graceful vegetation. Such rosettes are very typical of Bukhara. Bukhara suzani are breathtaking, with incredibly imaginative detail and decoration; compositions are often divided into concentric circles, sectors, stars, flowers and complex figures.

Suzani from Nurata (Figure 2), a large village on the border with the steppe that was part of the Bukhara Emirate, are also worthy of attention. In the 19th century, some of the best embroidery in the region came from Nurata. One of the main features of local covers is airy patterns, not overcrowded by dense decorations, with finely embroidered flower branches and bouquets. The sample below stands out for its beautifully balanced ornament that has become the hallmark of local embroidery: a flower star in the center and unusually lush, large bouquets-bushes in the corners of the field. This composition is known as chor shokh u yak moh (“four branches and one moon”). In addition to detailed floral and vegetal patterns, embroidered images of household items—namely, jugs hidden among the “rays” of the star and bouquets—catch the eye. The water jug (aftoba) motif was a favorite one, symbolizing the purity and ritual ablutions prescribed by Islam, as well as life-giving fluids.

Covers and hangings from Shakhrisabz, with their white background, were undoubtedly heavily influenced by the aforementioned two cities, replicating in many respects their patterns and motifs. Local craftswomen also preferred the motifs of rosettes, palmettes, and sometimes blooming bouquets. But Shakhrisabz embroideries had their own features too. On the suzani below (Figure 3), we see big, bright orange rosettes with a detailed core and palmettes framed by wide leafy rings. They decorate the entire space of the central field. The border that frames the pattern—known as chor-chirog (“a lamp with four wicks”) is very typical of this city. This pattern undoubtedly goes back to Zoroastrianism, where the lamp symbolized a sacred fire. In folk art, it is the strongest amulet and symbolizes protection and purification. Indeed, in the wedding ceremony, it was fire that purified, dispersed the darkness, and guarded the newlyweds.

The pillow cover from Samarkand (Figure 4) clearly demonstrates the main stylistic features of this craft center. Unlike the suzani of Bukhara, Nurata, and Shakhrisabz, with their certain elitism, the embroidery of Samarkand gravitated more toward folk traditions. This was due to the difficult political and economic situation in Samarkand throughout the 18th century. The old artistic tradition was interrupted and a new one arose from scratch in the 19^th century, focusing on a wider stratum of the population and reflecting fairly mundane tastes. The style of Samarkand is a distinct and laconic pattern; there is no room for unnecessary details. As we can see, large round rosettes of a cold pomegranate-crimson hue framed by rather wide turquoise-green shoots are lined up both on the field and on the border in an ornament already familiar to us from Shakhrisabz: chor-chirog, which was also very popular in Samarkand. Thanks to precisely selected colors, the Samarkand craftswomen achieved a clear and articulate composition, even if the motifs themselves were nothing unusual and their drawing was somewhat angular. Nevertheless, this gave local embroidery its own unique look.

Wedding suzani from Tashkent bore the local name palak (from the Arabic falak—”sky”) and were known for their laconic geometric decor. Without a doubt, their decorative features are so unique that they immediately attract attention and stand out from all other artistic embroidery of Uzbekistan.

Huge dark red circles, called oy (“moon”) densely fill the entire visible space of the central field, creating the main pattern of Tashkent embroidery. The palak showcased at the State Museum of Oriental Art (Figure 5), where non-ornamented rosettes are lined up in two rows, was the most popular type of local suzani in the 19th century. Such embroideries, with many rows of rosettes-circles, were known according to the number of such circles: palak with six moons, palak with twelve moons, etc.

The name palak (“sky” or “firmament”) is quite telling. These large round rosettes were associated with the moon’s femininity, but also with fire, stars, and the sun. Craftswomen believed that such ornaments would provide magical protection for newlyweds, as well as bestow good offspring on them, as the celestial bodies also possessed power over fertility.

Suzani from Khojent (Figure 6), a city located on the territory of Northern Tajikistan, are in terms of style and composition very close to the embroidery from Tashkent. This similarity is expressed in strict rows of rosettes-circles in a wide leafy frame. But on closer inspection, the distinctive features become more noticeable: a rosette-star in the center; large floral palmettes, very popular here; and a much greater variety of floral and vegetal forms. The main feature of these suzani is their color, a combination of a calm, cold burgundy-purple for the rosettes and black-dark blue for the palmettes of vegetal crowns.

As mentioned above, almost all of the presented suzani have vegetal ornaments. Their lush decor was undoubtedly associated in the minds of the craftswomen with the idea of the abundance of life and the splendor of nature, but it also expressed the folk idea of the Garden of Eden. But above all, these wedding embroideries were supposed to protect the bride and groom from hostile forces and attract good luck. Floral and vegetal patterns hid rich symbolic content: many of them were considered a sign of fertility or served as magical protection. Equally important was the white background of the suzani on which the ornaments were embroidered, because according to ancient tradition, white carried protection and ensured the future well-being of the young couple.

To complement the patterns, which were filled with ancient magic, craftswomen tried to increase the magical power of embroidery in other ways. Often, the finished suzani had misshapen contours or blank spaces, as though someone had accidentally forgotten to embroider there. But the astucious craftswomen deliberately made this “mistake” to protect against the evil eye. In any case, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, suzani were a necessary component of the life of any woman. Weddings and holidays could not be held without them and it was impossible to imagine decorating a living room without them.

All photos by
Russian State Museum of Oriental Art

Mamut Churlu is an artist who worked for years in Uzbekistan and Russia on researching folk art practices as well as creating his own art. As part of the mass return of Tatar repatriates to the Crimean Peninsula at the fall of the Soviet Union, he returned to Crimea, where he formed Crimean Style, a folk art project that promotes preservation and revival of traditional embroidery, weaving, ceramic, and ornamental practices.

Article first published at Lossi36 by Katherine Leung (republished with permission)

So much of Crimean Tatar art was lost in the Stalinist purges but a new generation of young artists devoted to preserving their culture is bringing it all back. New workshops with updated practices have sprung up all around Crimea. Education is key in reintroducing these practices back to the people. Hundreds have participated in Crimean Style’s workshops and are excited about an art form brimming with symbolism, cultural significance, and unabashed tradition. The significance strikes a different chord when it is so rooted in Crimean Tatar rites of passage and identity. Symbolism plays a big role in Crimean Tatar folk art. There are stories and meanings embedded into all Crimean Tatar artwork that have a special name – ornek.

Lossi 36 speaks to Mamut Churlu to discuss his work in the great revival project. We leave politics at the door and explore the beauty of Crimean Tatar artistry.

The Golden Age of Crimean Tatar art coincided with the peak of the Crimean Khanate prosperity from the mid 15th to 18th centuries. Then Crimean Tatar art and culture entered a period of self-isolation after the Russian annexation of Crimea in 1783. In contemporary times, ethnic groups have asserted their identity from the Russian monolithic narrative through art and preservation. Can you talk more about your involvement in the Crimean modern identity project?

Russian aristocrats and educated art consumers started to show interest in Crimean Tatar embroidery in the 19th century, influenced by Romantic art movements in Europe. Fascination with folk art arose at this time. By the end of the 19th century, many Russians had private collections. Beginning in the 20th century, orientalists and ethnographers collected Crimean Tartar art for museum collections. Large collections of Crimean Tatar embroidery can be found in museums in Russia and Berlin.

The process of Crimean Tatar embroidery usually took place in a traditional home. Household items were created as a tradition, usually for weddings and certain rites of passage. Typically, a bride brought up to four hundred hand-woven and hand-embroidered items to the groom’s house. The knowledge of this craft was passed down from their grandmothers and taught to girls in villages.

In 1928, The Academy of Art and Sciences in Moscow organized an exhibition of Crimean Tatar ornamental design, weaving, and embroidery. Many collectors flocked to this exhibition and a cooperative of over 350 craftswomen was formed by 1930, with the idea of creating modern textile products like tablecloths, napkins, and handkerchiefs intended to export to the European market. Around the same time, Crimean Tatar embroidery was presented at an Art and Industry exhibition in Paris and awarded a bronze medal.

We lost a lot when the indigenous people of Crimea were deported in 1944. Most of our folk culture and art was associated with the creation of household items. It wasn’t until a mass return in the 1990s were repatriates able to revive their lost craft. It’s not the sole work of myself, but the efforts of so many young artisans who are bringing this lost art back.

You returned to Crimea in 1989 after spending much time in Russia and Uzbekistan. This is something of a homecoming for you. Can you talk about how Crimean folklore was a part of your upbringing? How do diasporic Tatar communities see the Crimean peninsula?

Even before my return to my homeland in 1989, I created decorative textiles, painted, and worked as a researcher. I worked with museum collections, participated in ethnographic expeditions, spoke at conferences about Central Asian carpet weaving, and even published a study on ceramic toys from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. I worked as a curator, promoting Uzbek ceramics in exhibitions all around the Soviet world.

My painting style is brutalist in character at first. It was birthed as a reaction to political aggression and an ongoing information war against my people. In the mid-90s, I realized that persistent negativity would not uplift me or my people.

I realized it was important to partner up with international arts programs and organizations that were already working towards promoting traditional arts. In 1996, I created a school curriculum that successfully brought back Crimean Tatar kilim. (Kilim is a tapestry-woven textile made from sheep wool, dyed in roots, leaves, and flowers and many believe the decorations on a kilim have special powers to protect a house.)

At the same time, there were other ornamental master jewelers returning to the motherland and creating traditional filigree decorations. Embroidery workshops also sprung up around this time. I started holding workshops for youth and teaching art at schools. In 2004, I was invited to the Ukranian Union of Folk Masters and was able to organize the first-ever exhibition of contemporary decorative Crimean Tatar art in Kyev.

This exhibit was unlike any other. We exhibited ceramic plates and toys, traditional embroidery styles such as the gold thread stitch and double-sided embroidery technique, kilim, calligraphy, and tablecloths. From that moment on, I realized that showcasing the effort and artistry of Tatar art masters was a powerful weapon for promoting our culture at the international level. Education is key to fighting back in the misinformation war. What we needed was inside us this entire time.

I started Crimean Style, an organization that puts together free seven-day seminars to study ornek for use in both traditional and contemporary creative works. This promoted constant creative activity with countless amounts of shows in the largest cities in Ukraine. In over 15 years of Crimean Style’s existence, we’ve held more than thirty exhibitions.

To be completely honest, many people who support Crimean Tatar do so in a political vien. I urge people to see us for our culture and go deeper than politics.

In the 1990s, you participated in a program from the revival of Crimean Tatar Kilim (tapestry-woven carpet and rugs) to develop folk art. Can you talk about your experience there? What is important about developing something that is lost from genocide and other trials the Tatar culture has gone through? Are there new methods to replace old techniques of creating?

In restoring what was lost, it was important to transfer the experience from the old masters to younger artisans. One example is the revival of silver filament jewelry work.

One well-known artisan in filigree jewelry art is Ayder Asanov. Before deportation, Asanov and his father taught at a workshop that trained young master jewelers. Now elderly, Asanov returned to Crimea from Uzbekistan and we’ve worked with him again to bring back this lost art.

Another artisan we’ve worked with is Zuleikha Bekirova. She studied Crimean Tatar embroidery since the 1930s. When she returned, also elderly, we worked with her to preserve and train a new generation of craftswomen in authentic traditional embroidery.

For these two practices – we’ve managed to keep the same traditional practice as pre-deportation. However, the revival project proved much more difficult with copper utensil production. There were no masters left who we could learn from. Crimean Style coppersmiths had to study old samples and reimagine what copper technology existed prior to the purges, without teachers.

Some craftsmen use modern metal welding technology and contemporary tools. We’ve used some of the same designs, but we also have adapted our ornamental heritage to the conditions of modern life.

As with copper dishes, we were able to almost entirely recreate the same dishes produced in the 19th century. We could make plaster molds using the slip casting technique. This practice is followed by engraving, firint, and covering with colored coating enamels for a second firing. The old dishes in Crimean Tatar households were simple and covered in glaze. Absolutely nothing has changed about this practice.

Chatyr Dag (named after a mountain in Crimea) is an organization that you started, that brings together fresh new talent. What message do you hope young Tatar artists take away? What is your message for people worldwide, who may reduce Turkic art to a monolithic category of simply rugs and traditional Islamic dress?

Chatyr Dag is more than just a mountain – it’s a symbol of our common home in Crimea. The peaks of Chatyr Dag can be seen from all parts of the peninsula. Another thing the mountains symbolize is the self-efficacy of the Crimean Tatar people. My organization, Chatyr Dag, has not received a penny of financial support from the Ukrainian or Russian government in its fifteen years of existence. All our activities have been financed by sponsors and donor funds. We rely on volunteer work.

In my opinion, Crimean Tatar art and the message that is embodied in our art is considered the property of the world. Our artwork is the world’s art. We bring together masters of various nationalities who have found their vocations, professions, and endless love in the ancient culture of the indigenous people of Crimea. Our art didn’t start in the 19th century. There are precursors of Crimean art in Neolithic times, long before the concept of states and nations were ever created. Our art has influenced the artwork of ancient Greeks, Scythian Turk, Byzantium, Ottoman, and even art of the Islamic world.

Our art practices are rooted in an authentic feminism found in Tatar women for over a millenia. Women began creating this work and passed it down to their daughters. Our values of a strong family, rites surrounding birth, and protection for our people are all found in our artwork. And truthfully, all of that is fundamental to everything in humanity. Our values are found in all religions and in the laws of all modern states.

All artworks in the article are for sale. Contact Mamut Churlu (chatirdag@rambler.ru) for sales inquiries.

For centuries, Tajik families have used a “gahvora” (cradle) to contain babies. The gahvora is one of the oldest traditions in child care and it is still preserved in the region.

It is noteworthy that even among modern families in cities, you easily can find many families that still use the cradle.

A report on gahvora dangers, prepared and released by an international organization in Tajikistan, prompted a group of Western scholars to study it in more detail. Dr. Lana Karasik, from the City University of New York, shares some of the main up-to-date findings of their studies on the gahvora.

The gahvora is used to sleeping and containing babies, allowing mothers to work, complete chores, and tend to other children. Gahvoras are practical: while in the gahvora, babies are tucked in with swaddles and binds, keeping them warm even when wearing light clothes.

Author

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Lana Karasik

Dr. Lana Karasik is a professor in the Psychology Department at the College of Staten Island and the Graduate Center, CUNY. She also directs the Culture & Development Lab and studies infant motor development—how infants move and explore. She is interested in cultural similarities and differences in how infants develop because cultural practices place different expectations on children’s skills and behaviors. 

 Website

Gahvoras employ a unique design and drainage system, which keeps babies clean and dry without the need for diapers, which are expensive for families and bad for the environment.

Traditionally, the bride’s parents buy her a gahvora when she has her first child. In fact, it is difficult to find a local family without a gahvora. In modern times, gahvoras are more of a status symbol than a practical necessity; families with means living in the capital city, Dushanbe, with a bit more access to water and electricity, may not need to rely on gahvoras.

Some opponents of gahvoras argue that its use harms the child physically and psychologically. But, the claim that the practice is harmful is unwarranted as there is currently no data to suggest so.

As experts in infant perceptual and motor development, social cognition, language, and parenting, Dr. Lana Karasik, Dr. Karen Adolph, and Dr. Catherine Tamis-LeMonda became interested in the gahvora practice after reading an NGO’s internal report about the device and learning about it anecdotally. They were immediately intrigued because the report’s claim of restriction is in stark contrast with other typical childrearing practices that they are familiar with from around the world (in several chapters and papers, they have described cross-cultural differences in childrearing and their relation to motor development).

Our current knowledge of child development is based on research with Western children reared in Western traditions, where practices such as gahvora cradling do not exist. This does not mean that childrearing practices outside of Western traditions are abnormal. It simply means that little research outside of traditional Western norms has been done. So developmental theories haven’t caught up to account for the variability of children’s experiences and their developmental outcomes around the world.

Karasik and her colleagues were among the first to examine the practice of using the gahvora scientifically. In their paper published in PLoS ONE in 2018, they addressed two main research questions: (1) Does the gahvora really constrain infant movement? (2) Do caregivers continue to use the gahvora beyond the first couple of months when manual, postural, and locomotor skills are rapidly developing (as documented in Western infants)? Before examining the effects of movement restriction in the gahvora, it was necessary to first examine and document the extent and timing of restriction. The practice of gahvora cradling has a long tradition in Tajikistan, and it continues to be used to this day.

For their study, the researchers collected data from over 300 families living in “kishlaks” in two major regions outside of the capital, Dushanbe, where gahvora cradling was practiced. While collecting data, it became quite apparent that there are functional benefits of gahvora cradling, which makes sense as the practice has prevailed for hundreds of years and likely also occurs in adjacent regions of Central Asia (Uzbekistan has its own name for it, “beshik”). The gahvora protects children from environmental hazards (harsh weather, farm animals, irrigation ditches, farm tools, open fires, construction material, cliffs, pools of water, crowding, etc.). It has a clever toileting method, keeping infants clean and dry without relying on expensive disposable diapers (which separately have been shown to affect walking, see the paper by Adolph and colleagues). It is also possible that the constraints of the gahvora—swaddles and bindings—help to calm babies and possibly induce sleep.

In a way, the gahvora is like a baby-minder, similar to a Western playpen, keeping infants in place while allowing caregivers to leave the room to complete tasks. The main differences between the gahvora and other child-rearing devices are that babies in the gahvora are laid supine (like in Western cribs), swaddled (swaddling was recently introduced into Western practices and is typically used during the first 1-3 months of life), and bound head to toe with their limbs straightened alongside the body—and the gahvora is used throughout the children’s second and even third years of life.

The World Health Organization published standards on the ages at which infants should acquire major motor skills like sitting, crawling, standing, and walking. According to the WHO, about 50% of infants walk independently at around 12 months. Crawling and walking are major motor milestones in infancy enabling children to engage and learn about the world around them. If crawling and walking is prevented or delayed, as perhaps suggested with the use of the gahvora, would this affect development? Based on data collected from Western samples, basic motor skills—sitting, crawling, standing, walking—do open up opportunities for learning about the environment, objects, and people.

The World Health Organization standards are unfortunate, as they suggest a particular age when all infants should acquire basic motor skills. But the World Health Organization standards do not reflect individual differences or the variability of infants’ experiences, which we know could affect at what ages milestones are acquired. For example, some cultures utilize different practices of exercise, stretching, massages, and special devices, such as toys or equipment, which are all designed to stimulate mobility, manual, and postural skills. But the effects of restriction are lesser known.

Karasik and her team are currently examining the linkages between gahvora use and infant motor development. They are finding that extensive gahvora use was related to children’s brachycephaly, or flattening of the back of the head. However, head shape is not related to infants’ manual or locomotor skills—specifically in terms of when children acquire skills or how well they perform them.

Whether gahvora use has long-term implications on children’s personality is unknown. From the children’s perspective, they don’t seem to view the gahvora as punitive. The research team examined whether and, if so, how much infants protested when placed into the gahvora. Despite lots of handling when placed, swaddled, and bound, infants rarely fussed. Anecdotally, mothers reported that their infants even “ask” to be put in. It has yet to be determined whether, and to what extent, gahvora use is related to children becoming upset.

For this reason, Karasik’s continued work in Tajikistan is so important for both theory and practice. In general, the gahvora cradle is an important practice in Tajik families because of its historical and cultural tradition and functional importance, particularly in rural kishlaks. Children in Tajikistan, who are reared in the gahvora, are loved and are the centerpieces of the family. And that is surely the most important part! Whether motor skills are acquired sooner or later implies that there is some sort of norm—but a norm relative to whom? The idea that there are particular ages or stages is an antiquated one; understanding that there is really no universal baby, and no average baby within or across cultures.

The founders of Central Asian countries’ national cinema include Kazakhstan’s Shaken Aimanov, with his masterpiece “The Land of Fathers”, Kyrgyzstan’s Melis Ubukeyev, with his work “White Mountains”, Uzbekistan’s Shukhrat Abbasov, and his work “You Are Not an Orphan”, Tajikistan’s Boris Kimyagarov, and his work “Hasan-arbakesh,” and Turkmenistan’s Khodjakuli Narlieva, and his piece “Daughter-in-law”.

These names are honored in the book “Two Epochs of National Self-Determination in the Cinema of Central Asia: 60s and 90s“ by Gulnara Abikeyeva, edited by Alim Sabitov, published by the Center for Central Asian Cinematography with the support of the Open Society Foundations in 2006.

In the same publication, Abikeyeva discusses the most notable film directors in Central Asia of the early independence in the 90s, and she draws the list based on the conceptual significance of various works and awards at international film festivals. The list includes Serik Aprymov’s film “Aksuat”, Kyrgyzstan’s Aktan Abdykalymov and his film “Beshkempir”, Uzbekistan’s Yusup Razykov and his film “Orator”, Tajikistan’s Bakhtiyar Khudoinazarov and his film “Kosh ba kosh” and Turkmenistan’s Usman Saparov and his work “Angel, Make Joy”.

Yet, among the filmmakers marked for significant achievements, there is not a single woman on the list. Cinema in Central Asia is developing and evolving, which will inevitably inspire women directors to challenge this imbalance. But surely, we can make a preliminary overview of contemporary female filmmakers and their contribution to Central Asian cinema.

In this interview, we discuss these contributions with Gulnara Abikeeva, a film expert from Kazakhstan, as well as with Sharofat Arabova, a film expert from Tajikistan, and Saodat Ismailova, a film director from Uzbekistan.

Gulnara Abikeyeva (Kazakhstan)

Dr. Gulnara Abikeyeva (born in 1962) is an award-winning Kazakh author, film critic, and film researcher. Currently, a professor of film history and theory at Turan University in Almaty, Gulnara was formerly the artistic director of the International Film Festival Eurasia in Almaty and has launched five cinema magazines. She is an author of ten books about cinema, mostly pertaining to the cinema of Kazakhstan and of other Central Asian countries. As a member of FIPRESCI and NETPAC, she has been a jury member at several international film festivals.

Regarding women in cinema, could you please name the most famous female names in the cinema of Central Asia? How many women directors and screenwriters are there in the Central Asian space? Do you consider art to have “gender” or gender differences, and is there a “female” cinema?

Of course, we have many names already. In Kazakhstan these are Asya Suleeva, Guka Omarova, Asya Baigozhina, Zhanna Isabayeva, Sharipa Urazbayeva, Elena Lisasina, Ekaterina Suvorova, and Leila Akhinzhanova (screenwriter) among others. In Kyrgyzstan – Dinara Asanova, Dalmira Tilepbergenova. In Uzbekistan – Kamara Kamalova, Saodat Ismailova, in Tajikistan – Mairam Yusupova, Sharofat Arabova, and many more.

Certainly, there are fewer women directors and screenwriters in Central Asian cinema than men. However, to say that there are no women in the film industry of the Central Asian countries is an exaggeration. For example, in Kazakhstan, some women producers have significant accomplishments. These are Gulnara Sarsenova who produced such notable movies as “Tulip” and “Mongol,” and she currently heads the State Center for Support of National Cinema. Aliya Uvalzhanova is a producer of another award-winning film “The Gift to Stalin”, “Zhauzhurek myn bala”, Bayan Alaguzova – “Cocktail for a Star”, “Love of a Tractor Driver”, or Asel Sadvakasova with her hits “Kelinka is also a man”, “Aitbai’s fight”.

In fact, a producer of films with her husband-director was Gulmira Aprymova – who helped to produce the films of Serik Aprymov, Limara Zheksembayev – the films of Darezhan Omirbayev, Alena Gordeeva – the films by Amir Karakulov, Bayan Yerimbet – and the films by Askar Bisembin. Many young women work as executive producers and administrators in film. During my years of teaching at the Turan University, I observed a tendency that more girls are studying to be directors, even as camerawomen, and yet it would seem that this was a purely male profession.

Subjectively, I get the impression that women in the film industry in Kazakhstan, who make decisions, are driven by film production – more than in other Central Asian countries. On the other hand, Gulmira Kerimova is the director of the ‘Kyrgyzfilm’ film studio. There are also many women producers who are successfully working in Kyrgyzstan including Altynai Koichumanova and Erke Dzhumakmatova.

Yes, I believe that women’s cinema has its own face, in the best sense. In general, I believe that men and women perceive the world in different ways: more emotionally, more romantically, and, in a sense, more sophisticatedly. Therefore, it is natural that only a woman can convey a woman’s perception of the world. A vivid example of this, say, is Saodat Ismailova’s film “40 days of silence”.

What is the future of cinema in Central Asia?

Central Asian cinema is facing important challenges: first, is to create a common rental market. By having a common history, similar culture, similar languages, it would be possible to increase the potential audience for the most successful films to 66 million people. Currently, the share of films from our neighbors in the national distribution is practically zero, while it should be at least 20 percent. Secondly, the region needs a common, large international film festival for the Central Asian countries with a film market, where all kinds of films would equally be promoted including: feature-length, short-length, documentary, and animation films. Thirdly, it is necessary to create co-productions between the countries of Central Asia, which will allow for real interaction between filmmakers of the region. All these measures will allow, in my opinion, to strengthen the region’s cinematography and make them more visible and influential in the world cinema space.

Sharofat Arabova (Tajikistan)

Sharofat Arabova (born in 1985), is a woman filmmaker and a film scholar. She holds a PhD in history (cinema) from the Department of Art History and Theory, A. Donish Institute of History, Archeology and Ethnography of National Academy of Sciences. She is currently a Lead Researcher in the Art Studies Department, National Academy of Sciences. She is also a member of NETPAC (Network for Promotion of Asia Pacific Cinema) and Filmmakers’ Union of Tajikistan.

Could you describe cinema in modern Tajikistan? What are its main challenges?

Tajik cinema is being reborn from what it achieved a few decades ago. It happened because our cinema was thrown off track in the 1990s due to the Civil War in Tajikistan. I would call some films that preceded the war as ‘Tajik avant-garde cinema,’ and Bakhriyar Khuzoynazarov is only one of its representatives who is remembered even now. But there were many others too, like Tolib Khamidov and Baqo Sadykov… But their films are watched by a narrow circle of cinephiles. There is a need to establish a Film Archive in Tajikistan where Tajik classic film can be preserved, screened, and discussed. Without knowing one’s past, there is no future. A new generation of Tajik filmmakers has to know the traditions they come from and, first of all, learn the grammar of film like it’s their mother tongue.

The second challenge is the need for relevant film professionals. There are many internet sources of self-learning, but as in any art, one needs a mentor or a guide navigating this stream of information. The third big challenge of the Tajik cinema is film distribution. Distribution without promotion is unsuccessful. The production, distribution, promotion, consumption of films are parts of the same ecosystem and are very much interrelated.

Can you tell us about women in Tajik cinematography? What are the big names in the field, especially among directors and screenwriters?

Women in Tajik cinema are minorities as elsewhere in the world. It was a century-old tendency. The profession was considered suitable for men, but twice as difficult for Central Asian women, who are expected to follow traditional behaviors. But luckily this perception has gradually changed. Presently, there are some Tajik women-filmmakers, including me, both established and aspiring. Mukhabbat Sattori directs commercial films; Alla Sobko works primarily in animation; Takhmina Hakimova works in the reportage genre; Anisa Sabiri, the poet turned director, currently studies screenwriting. Takhmina Emin, Takhmina Muminova, and Mavzuna Mavlonzoda have already collaborated on several Tajik fiction and documentary films as screenwriters. Still, there are few women-filmmakers in comparison to men in the Tajik cinema. It is a very competitive field even for the latter because of the fewer amount of films produced annually in Tajikistan. Indeed, there is a need to organize film training more often, and training directed for aspiring women-filmmakers who enjoy writing stories, acting, designing costumes and film sets, or even composing music.

What brought you into the film industry? What do you pursue in your work?

Cinema was naturally present in my childhood. My father was a WWII combat cameraman and a documentary filmmaker, and his cousin was a sound-designer and director.y grand-uncle was one of the founders of the first Central Asian film production house in Bukhara. I grew up surrounded by its atmosphere. Initially, I studied fine art and cultural studies, but later on, film direction. Cultural studies haму always influenced my approach towards cinema. I never thought about the necessity to express myself precisely through cinema. In a way, cinema has become one of the channels I use to communicate with the audience. Filmmaking becomes a tool to imply my hypothesis about life in practice, reflecting on certain social realities around me. It is impossible to separate myself as a woman-director and my films from the cultural context because every film is a statement.

What are the main film festivals in Tajikistan? What are their impacts and outcomes?

There are 2-3 annual film festivals organized steadily in Tajikistan – the earliest is Didor International Film Festival, which has a branch – Didor Documentary Film Festival, and Navsoz Short Film Festival. There was an attempt to launch the first country-wide Golden Tulip Film Awards in 2019. Every film festival has its profile and it supports greatly the Tajik cinema. It is a networking event that is very important for the local cinema industry. It supports the visibility of talents, facilitates film locations, and film projects. Secondly, film festivals benefit the city economy. Thirdly, they provide an audience with a recreation activity. Finally, they participate in shaping the country’s image, as well as its cinema. This has become evident in the past few years when the annual film festivals, organized in Dushanbe, have generated the production of new films and inspired both audiences and aspiring filmmakers.

Saodat Ismailova (Uzbekistan)

Saodat Ismailova (born in 1981) lives between Europe and Uzbekistan. She started filmmaking while studying at the State Culture Institute of Tashkent. Her first film “Believe or Not -Believe” was awarded the Grand Prize at the Tashkent Student Film Festival in 1999. Her debut feature film “40 days of Silence” was nominated for the best debut film at the 2014 Berlin International film festival and thereafter was screened in more than two dozen prestigious festivals around the world. Her video installation Zukhra” was featured in the Central Asian Pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale and her documentary film “Aral: Fishing in the Invisible Sea” won Best Documentary at the 2004 Turin Film Festival.

What does it mean to be a Central Asian artist and what makes you a ‘Central Asian’ artist? Does the place of birth matter for an artist’s identity?

I was born and raised in Tashkent, in an Uzbek family which kept the language and traditions. Over time, I began to go beyond the boundaries within which I thought my culture was defined, and in my mind, the Central Asian region has gradually merged into a whole. I have to thank my profession as an artist for this. Another reason I consider myself a Central Asian artist and filmmaker, is because I have filmed my videos in all the countries of the region, except Turkmenistan. I absolutely feel embedded within the culture and tradition whether my subject is related to Tajikistan or Kazakhstan. I have been attracted by the peaks of the Pamirs as well as by the endless Kyzylorda steppe. By filming and living through this diversity, I have realized the immense richness and uniqueness of the region. I have never received any financial support from these countries and retained my artistic independence.

There are artists who are inspired and attracted by other cultures; I must confess this is alien to me. At the same time, it is also very interesting and one should have a different way of thinking and connecting to their subject of research. Yet, I am firmly attached to Central Asia, there are a lot of stories that deserve to be researched and articulated. I feel my power comes from these roots.

What archetypes have contributed to your creative development?

I have had no intentions to focus on archetypes in order to decipher or define the typical archetypes of Central Asia, but I have seen them by meeting with people while filming, through their stories, memories, and dreams. Realizing them has been more of a conclusion of my previous works, in which I developed attentiveness to the environment, people, and actions that we have seen and met. For example, the concept behind the number forty, which is recurrent in my works, is like it’s walking around and trying to unveil the secret hidden behind this number. The number forty is imprinted onto our life from our birth, and then marriage, and into death. It has also a material representation in the form of sacred places that include this number in their name. Also, the forty hottest or coldest days in the harsh continental climate of Central Asia can be compared to a period of trial, which today we are reminded of by the long quarantine associated with the global pandemic. Probably there are good reasons why the tradition of chilla – forty – quarantine has been preserved in our region for many centuries.

Another important archetype that I have encountered in the subconscious of the inhabitants living near the Amu Darya and the former shore of the Aral Sea is the figure of the Turanian (or Caspian) tiger (lat. Panthera tigris virgata), an extinct subspecies of tigers that lived in Central Asia. People talk about this animal as a sacred creature, associating it with a forefather, a healer, a guardian, but it has become extinct as the result of an intense human intervention in nature and other events in our region, and thus has disappeared in the past century. This archetype reveals a lot about the close past and about the wounds that would not heal.

Do you think that creativity has a gender? Is there such a thing as ‘woman’s cinema’? Do you consider yourself an artist of women’s stories? What are your intentions in your works Chilla (40 days of Silence) and “Qyrq Qyz” (Forty girls)?

I do not take any special position that in my practice I should focus only on women’s stories, but since I am a woman, it has always been closer and easier for me to express my feelings and thoughts through women in my works. Doing this seems to me a more transparent and harmonious artistic solution. Interestingly, works with women have enjoyed a longer and wider exposure at festivals and exhibitions. Perhaps this also creates an impression that I work only with women. I do not divide my work by gender. How can there be a woman without a man, or vice versa? Nevertheless, the stories I am telling are told through the eyes of a woman, because I am one of them.

The connection between the feature film 40 Days of Silence and the multimedia theatrical production Qyrq Qyz (Forty Girls) is obvious. In both cases, the narrative is built around the number forty. My interest in this number began from the sensation I received from my cousin when she kept silent while her family was falling apart, her children were ill, and everything went wrong. Yet she was silent and shone with calmness and nobility. There was so much mystery in her; I wonder how much inner strength and will you have to have to keep all the pain and fears within yourself. Then I learned about the ritual of silence and the number forty and began to pay more attention to this number. I think the film 40 Days of Silence turned out to be so personal and hermetic because it is rooted in the memory of the feeling I had from my cousin.

Later, in a second-hand book shop in Bishkek, I bought a book called Forty Girls – a Karakalpak folk epic translated into Russian by Arseny Tarkovsky. Thanks to Andrei Tarkovsky’s father, I read a heroic epic from Central Asia for the first time. I thought: what a pity that we do not pay more attention to this heritage. In fact, it carries all the genetic memory of the region, and Central Asia. According to books by researcher Julian Baldik, our epics have some of the richest legacies in the world of oral folk art. Of course, we all know that epics were used after the collapse of the USSR to give new national definitions to the newly independent Central Asian states, but it seems to me that this was only superficially done. There has never been any revision of the epic as part of our spiritual heritage.

Now, going back to Forty Girls, this is a female heroic epic that carries in certain parts the memory of the matriarchy that had been part of the Massagetae’s culture. It had elements of animism that can be perceived through the representation of certain animals, as well as the understanding of the geographical space, such as that of the interfluve which belongs to neither nomadic nor sedentary cultures, which continues to define today’s Uzbekistan.

I approached the epic in stages. First I created a 25-minute experimental film based on the monologue of the main character. I then got a commission from the Music Programme of the Aga Khan Foundation to create a theatrical performance with elements of traditional music.

The commonality between the two works is the number forty, but they are two completely different works, and they have roots in different situations: the film has grown from personal memories with my family, while the theatrical performance is based more on the heroic epic.

It seems a bit strange to me to distinguish films or other art works by gender. Art is sexless, it would be a pity if there were ‘female’ or ‘male’ artworks. The artists and directors who once inspired me and still inspire are mostly the people who created their own worlds which make us dream and believe.

Tell us about your current curatorial activity with the Centre for Contemporary Art in Tashkent? What are your views on the development of contemporary art in Uzbekistan? What are the problems or obstacles for the full-scale development of contemporary art in the region?

In 2019, I was invited to present a personal exhibition in the space of a new institution in Tashkent – the Centre for Contemporary Art, which was created with the support of the Art and Culture Development Foundation of the Republic of Uzbekistan. Later in 2019, I was approached to put together a Laboratory at the Centre for Contemporary Art. This laboratory is a test in order to understand the potential and possibility of collective collaboration among creative youth within the city of Tashkent and to understand their needs in education to move further on in the film industry. The project runs until fall 2020, the lab consists of 15 young artists from different disciplines: artists, photographers, architects, dancers, as well as writers. At the moment we are working on a project called Tashkent Futures, which is an online project about the city in which we live, about the city where we will all go out again after a long period of self-isolation, and the artists are rethinking the space we are living in. With the participants of the lab, we have organized a Tashkent Film Encounters (TFE), featuring modern classics of Central Asian cinema, the participants of the lab made special interviews with film directors and wrote newsletters dedicated to the Film Encounters. TFE presented nine films, and was also invited by the Kino Klassika Foundation in London. Now we are working on Tashkent Music Encounters, which consists of two musical collaborations.

On the whole, it seems that in cinematography as well as in contemporary art in the region, it is necessary to try to unite forces, at least partly. We need more joint regional projects, it seems to me that we supplement each other. I would like to see more collective exhibitions, meetings, discussions, and I believe it is essential to communicate and share ideas with colleagues from neighbouring countries, in order to see this impulse coming from inside the region rather than looking outside in search for inspiration.

Lolisanam Ulugova

Lolisanam has been an art manager in Tajikistan since 2000. She has contributed to writing and producing the nation’s first 3-D animation film, a short designed to promote awareness of environmental issues among children. She holds a Master’s degree from the University of Turin, Italy and an undergraduate degree in Russian Language and Literature. She was a Global Cultural Fellow at the Institute for International Cultural Relations at the University of Edinburgh and participated in the Central Asian-Azerbaijan (CAAFP) fellowship program at the George Washington University at Elliott School of International Affairs for Fall 2019.

Dance is an integral part of life in Central Asia; it can be seen both in rural settings and on the proscenium stage, from highly developed virtuosic classical styles to nuanced and subtle folk-dance forms.

Western audiences might be surprised to learn that Central Asia has ancient and classical music and dance tradition, like ballet: Shashmaqam (meaning the ‘sixth maqam’ in Persian). This classical tradition was patronized in the multi-ethnic royal courts of Bukhara and Samarkand by the emirs, much like ballet was patronized in the French court of King Louis XIV.

Author

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Tara Pandeya

Tara Catherine Pandeya is second-generation dancer, cultural activist, choreographer and bridge-building artist who is dedicated to the promotion of dance from the Central Asian Silk Road. As a principal dancer with Cirque du Soleil, she performed 1,500 shows on 5 continents. In 2015, she became the first Westerner to perform in ‘Lola’ the National Ensemble of Tajikistan. In 2017, Tara won prize at Berlin’s ‘Forecast’ Festival for ‘Raqsistan’, a one-woman dance piece, and got funding from the Rockefeller Foundation to conduct dance research in Pakistan. She has performed in 35 countries for UNESCO, with Yo Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project and given talks at at Cambridge, SOAS, Stanford and Panama Universities. Her choreographic and dance projects have been featured in the New York Times, on BBC and in ‘Dance Magazine’. She is the 2018-2019 Fulbright Scholar at Roehampton University’s Center for Dance Research, pursuing an MA in Dance Anthropology.

As a second-generation dancer and foreigner who has been passionately studying, practicing, researching, seeking out and performing traditional and contemporary dance forms from the region of Central Asia for nearly two decades, I often hear, following my performances or after a social dance gathering, the phrase ‘it is in your blood’. Audience members often say ‘you must have some … (Uzbek, Tajik, Afghan, Uyghur or Persian etc.) blood in you to be able to dance the way you do!’ Although the statement is made with the intention of being a compliment, it also sheds light on the way our society devalues dance and dancers as skilled and disciplined working practitioners. Additionally, as a foreigner to these dance traditions, some may question my qualifications to undertake this dance work. But at the very least I can claim a long-term dedication to the subject, having invested my life, time, and limited funds back into a continual search for dance knowledge from master dancers in Central Asia and those from the Central Asian diaspora.

Sweat

Zaragol Iskandarova, one of my dance mentors, was a revered and iconic dancer who came from the Pamir Mountains of Badakhshan, Tajikistan. When asked about dance, she said she ‘would become sick without two or more hours of dance practice per day’. Another example of this type of artistic discipline comes from the famed doira master Abbos Kosimov from Tashkent, Uzbekistan. When I performed in Abbos’ jubilee concert this February 2020, I sat in on 5 to 8-hour rehearsals with him and his musicians. He mentioned in a rehearsal one day that he would practice alone 6-7 hours a day as a young doira artist. Abbos is a virtuoso of the doira and his artistic work habit and dedication, in the form of daily practice, remains unwavered today, as I observed first-hand behind the scenes of his last production. I myself have practiced 5-8 hours a day during intensive creation periods and a minimum of two hours a day daily for decades to maintain a creative and physical habit.

Countless examples of this dedicated work ethic in the performing arts include respected living dance artists such as Mamura Ergasheva, Qodir Momenov, Farohat Saidova, Malika Kalondarova, Dilafruz Jabarova, Sogdiana Israilova, Narziddin Shermatov, Zeynab Farzada, Amon Musov, Viloyat Okilova and so many others, whom I acknowledge, but cannot give a complete list in this short piece of writing. The nuanced work of these master artists is clearly reflected in the hours and decades of practice that they have invested into their art-making as contributors to performed heritages and creative contemporary dance works.

Read more: Shashmaqam – Music and Poetry of Central Asia

It is certainly true that some people are born with natural talents or propensities toward dance. But when a naturally talented artist couples her or his abilities with deliberate and sustained practice, the results are undeniably noticeable. In Tajikistan, for example, dance performed by the non-professional dancer may be understood through the concept of ‘hunar’, the Persian word for skill or talent, not as kasb, profession, relating to something of societal value which requires rigorous study and knowledge to acquire. However, it is a myth that a dancer with solely exceptional hunar (skills) can become kasbi (professional) without years of discipline in mental and bodily labor, which is required to prepare the dancer’s body for artistic performance work.

What does a person’s body go through to form a professional working dancer’s body? Dance training in Central Asia, for most dancers, begins at an early age. It requires total submission and discipline through which one’s instrument- in our case, our bodies- is molded. What might seem like an unnecessarily tedious and lengthy preparation, is a necessary labor for the dancer.

The task of dance artists in Central Asia is two-fold: 1) to execute the dance with the precision of movement and emotion and 2) for the dancer to continuously work to keep her or his mind and body sharp even in dormant periods between performances, learning to skillfully navigate complex socio-political, cultural, and economic contexts while still displaying professionalism in the face of widespread misconceptions surrounding the role of the ‘raqqosa’ (dancer) in society.

Intricate and traditional dance choreographies in Central Asia were created with thoughtful intention by individual artists. Traditional dance gestures are living, breathing forms that evolve with different bodies and once created, they do not stay frozen in time, like a museum piece.

For example, on my 2006 trip to the Pamir Mountains, I observed folk artist Oyatsho Shohidariyoe perform a spirited horse dance “raqsi aspak’, which he danced with pronounced vertical lines. Nine years later, in 2015, I reconnected with Oyatsho, and performed with him and his 14 year-old daughter during the Khorog ‘Roof of the World Festival’. I noticed his daughter interpreted the same traditional choreography with distinctively serpentine and horizontal lines, unique to her flexible arms, which her father mirrored, thus expanding and altering the quality of movement in this deeply traditional and signature ‘horse dance’ piece. This is a clear example of how traditional dance is not static, but rather it is shaped by things, such as individual bodies, the aesthetics of society, the periods with which works are created in, and the environment, creating nuanced and ever-evolving artform.

In order to subvert cliched and outdated narratives about dance, the art of dance as an intellectual pursuit must be recognized and supported by the communities from which these art forms spring. Dancers are theorists; we think on our feet while in action. Likewise, choreographers are writers. We use our philosophies to deepen our movement perspectives to create new works. As choreographers, we write our arguments and choices through arranging our bodies in space.

Why then is dance as an art form often marginalized and not appreciated as an intellectual act, requiring great discipline and intentionality? The fundamental perception of the body being inferior to the brain is an age-old prejudice: by privileging the mind and subordinating body, the body is forced to represent that which the mind is not, as a counterbalance.

Blood

There is a large disparity between how dance is used for art, propaganda, and cultural events when compared with the actual treatment of working dance artists. I believe we can change our thinking by giving greater respect and education to our respective performed heritages.

The stereotype that a ‘dance tune’ is necessarily upbeat, peppy, and happy perpetuates the myth that dance is a one-dimensional artform. It trivializes the vast capacity and repertories of dance. Particularly in Central Asia, dance forms exist for every occasion from rites of passage, to death dances, dances pantomiming folktales, daily chores, regional environments, indigenous animals, staple food crops, seasonal celebrations, and expressing the full range of emotions through poetry.

Cliches associating contemporary, innovative, and progressive attributes with the West, versus traditional, stagnant, and nationalistic qualities with the East, limit opportunities for artist’s individual expression and self-definition.

The lines between the traditional and contemporary are often seamlessly blurred by professional dance artists in Central Asia. Central Asia did not experience an industrial revolution on the same scale as Europe. Artists inhabit, embody, and understand both worlds; for example they might visit their family in a village on the weekend and live and work in an urban city exposed to pop culture and world trends through the internet during the rest of the week. For this reason, professional dance artists in Central Asia are well equipped to straddle the past and present, acting as time travelers, transporting their audiences into liminal spaces.

Here is master artist Sherzod Ergashev- playing a cover of James Brown’s ‘I feel good’ – reinterpreted for the Central Asian Tanbur: 

Some might be surprised to know that some of the most celebrated contemporary dance artists and choreographic minds of the 20th century have origins in Central Asia and Caucasia. For example, Robert Joffrey of the famed Joffrey Ballet Company is a choreographer of half-Afghan parentage, George Balanchine, the Founder and Director of the New York City Ballet, was of Georgian parentage, the ballet virtuoso Rudolf Nureyev was of Tartar heritage, ballet superstar Tamara Toumanova was of Armenian-Georgian parentage and the former director of Marinksky Theater Farukh Ruzimatov was of Uzbek origin.

Inspiration for one of the most controversial and famed ballets, the ‘Rite of Spring’ by Vaslav Nijinsky, drew inspiration from ethnographic sketches of dancers from the Central Asian steppes and paintings by Nicholas Roerich. Nijinsky mined for the avant-garde in the antiquity of Central Asian dance imagery, regalia, and movement vocabulary to produce this iconic choreography, which was restaged by dance choreographer Pina Bausch, one of the most celebrated contemporary choreographers in the world.

Is the work of iconic dance artists purely in their blood or is it in their laboring bodies? Much sweat, blood, and creative thought was devoted to the production of these masterpieces which are recognized and performed around the world today.

Classical and contemporary, are borderless definitions of dance which have origins in Europe and the United States and therefore reflect European and American ideals, environments, culture, and aesthetics. These dance forms are not preceded by the adjectives ‘ethnic’, ‘character,’ or ‘folk’ and are recognized as international genres of dance. Central Asian dance forms require equal levels of artistic craftsmanship, however, these dance forms have not been accorded the same visibility and respect on the world stage as dance mediums which are part of our communal heritage.

In this era of heightened xenophobia, it is crucial to reveal intersecting points in our shared histories, to help remove the fear of ‘otherness.’ If dance practitioners are not recognized as actors of intangible heritage, vital pieces of our humanity and collective history will be lost. When dance forms like those of Central Asia remain unseen and marginalized, we in turn are deprived of vital pieces of cultural inheritance.

Inspired by the beauty of music and dance from Central Asia and using universal themes, I created an original choreographic production called ‘Raqsistan’ (Land of Dance), in collaboration with Central Asian musicians and singers Abbos Kosimov, Sardor Mirzakhojaev, and Rahima Mahmut. I conceptualized and choreographed the production based on the human emotions of fear, otherness, sadness, bliss, and anger. It used traditional Uyghur, Tajik, Afghan and Uzbek dance vocabularies and music in a contemporary setting- mining avant-garde concepts from antiquity:

Anger

I invite you, particularly communities of the Central Asian diaspora, to examine the lenses we use to filter the stories and histories we are told, about performing artists and perceptions about which mediums of art are seen to be ‘high art’. The spectrum through which our world dance heritage has been communicated, both on the world stage and in the field of academia, must be rebalanced and expanded. It starts with you – how will you contribute to a renewed perception and reorientation of your own enduring culture and its performed heritage?

Support dance artists, be thankful if you can return to work during this pandemic period, and keep in mind the next time you watch an ephemeral art form, which thrives on communal participation and viewership, the hours of sweat that were shed to create these fleeting moments of nuanced beauty.