Literary Nationalism in Central Asia: The Role of Soviet Uzbek Writers in the Creation of Post-Soviet National Identity of Uzbekistan

The research examines the issue of literary nationalism in Central Asia through the case of Uzbekistan. Employing a constructivist approach, authors analyze how the Uzbek SSR’s writers influenced the formation of a post-Soviet canon of Uzbek national heroes, thereby establishing the continuity between different forms of nationalism. The research traces the development of Uzbek national self-consciousness from the late 19th century, when the Jadid movement sought to modernize the educational system in Turkestan. The driving force of nation-building in Uzbekistan became the Soviet nationalities policy, whose primary objective was the consolidation of a vast number of premodern communities along a single - namely, national - criterion to successfully implement the overarching state project of industrialization. In particular, the research addresses the impact of the primordialization of national identities in the 1930s on Soviet citizens’ perceptions of their national self-identification and identifies the main challenges encountered by the nation-building project in the Uzbek SSR. In the socio-cultural and historical context, the research elucidates the role played by the three major Uzbek writers in the development of national self-consciousness within their republic, providing, in broad terms, the biographical information necessary for understanding the topic. The primary focus is placed on an analysis of three novels - “The Treasures of Ulughbeg” , “Navoi” , and “Starry Nights” - devoted to the late medieval history of Uzbekistan. According to the authors, it was in these such works that writers popularized specific historical figures who would become cultural pillars of nationalism in Uzbekistan after the USSR collapse.