National narrative, ethnology, and academia in post-Soviet Uzbekistan

Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the new states of Central Asia have been obliged to adjust their institutions to new symbolic frontiers and to take into account the independence they achieved in 1991. Both universities and Academies of Sciences have been called to reconsider their research policies and to orient them in order to respond to emerging national issues. The building of national narratives is a particularly relevant object of study in observing the various modes of legitimization of the Central Asian states and the scientific instruments they deem necessary for their political validation. The aim of this paper is to overcome the apparent, albeit actual, character of a number of changes that have taken place in Uzbekistan since 1991, in order to demonstrate the continuity of personal, institutional, and intellectual lines uniting contemporary research to that conducted during Soviet period. The preference accorded to ancient history, the praise of the originality and long heritage of the people, and an obsession with ethnogenesis, all are rooted in the contemporary narrative of the previous regime. They invite a reconsideration of the past two decades in a more nuanced manner and a rereading of the Soviet past in order to understand the process of building the nation-state, which has now been underway for more than half a century.