Culture Archives - Page 4 of 4 - Voices On Cental Asia

Hamid Ismailov On “The Devils’ Dance” and Other Works

April 18, 2018

“A beguiling tale of khans, commissars, spies and poet-queens…[who] feature in a rare English translation of modern Uzbek fiction.” This is how The Economist described The Devils’ Dance, the most…

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10 min

Kazakhstan’s New Latin Alphabet Project Spurs Discussions Online

January 23, 2018

Debates over the new Kazakh Latin alphabet have united Kazakh- and Russian-speaking communities, both of which have taken to the web to criticize what they consider an inappropriate alphabet. In…

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8 min

Street Art as a Public Forum in Kazakhstan: Pasha Cas

January 4, 2018

If freedom of expression is a necessary component for public debates to occur and for a public sphere to function, how does the public sphere operate in societies with restricted…

Mels Akynbekov(1942-1993). Shepherds. 1984 year. Oil on canvas, 110х139 cm

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8 min

Socialist Realism in Central Asia

December 20, 2017

Central Asia was the largest Muslim-majority region to experience Soviet rule during the twentieth century, along with the North Caucasus and the Volga-Ural regions. The Soviet Union sought to modernize…

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14 min

Culture

The Uzbek Modernist, Abdullah Qodiriy. A Writer and His Novel

December 19, 2017

The novel O’tgan Kunlar (“Bygone Days”), by the Uzbek writer Abdulla Qodiriy, is a true cult work of early Uzbek realism. Qodiriy had a tragic fate: he was purged and…