Abstract
Historical Perspectives on Central Asian Culture
During the post-Soviet disintegration era, the Central Asian region caught global attention primarily for two reasons—its energy resources and the possible threat of the spread of religious extremism around the region, a spill-over effect of the continuing crisis in Afghanistan. Academic interest is also mostly centred on the strategic and economic relevance of the region. This book explores a lesser-known territory—cultural history—and in the process, new and interesting facets of the history of the region have come to the surface. In introduction, the editor justifies the assessment of the encounter of the West, South and East Asia with Central Asia in pre-modern and modern times and the encounter between Russia and Central Asia in the pre-Soviet and Soviet era in terms of a pre-modern globalization of the region, through which the pluralistic culture of Central Asia emerged.
The book is divided into two parts—Arts and New Horizons—with sub- divisions on architecture, music, visual arts, literature, cinema, travellers and explorers and the Silk Route. The section on architecture delineates the essential architectural varieties of Central Asia and their influence in the shaping of an indigenous identity since the days of Amir Timur and the survival of these architectural styles and sites during the Soviet era. While Romi Khosla narrates the reconstruction of architectural monuments in Uzbekistan in the post-disintegration era as an effort to reshape their pre-Soviet identity, Kalpana Sahni takes the case study of Ahmed Yasawi memorial complex, a Sufi shrine, in Kazakhstan and tells the story of its survival through the ages to become a symbol of Kazakh national identity in the post-disintegration period. K.T. Ravindran analyzes the typical architectural form of the dome of Islamic architectural tradition and its implications for representative art, which he terms as ‘synthesis in the sky’. Radha Banerjee and G. Sheikh narrate the syncretic nature of the tradition of paintings in Central Asia and the way the motifs of paintings were transmitted through physical borders and time.
Dilorom Karomat narrates the evolution of Shashmaqom, a typical form of Central Asian music, in Uzbekistan through three phases: 1920–1947, 1948–1970 and 1971–1991. The study analyzes the historic value of this form of music for the people of the region as it is a part of their cultural identity, but the most interesting part is its journey through phases, encountering various forms of official repression, and the efforts of numerous musicologists to protect this musical form. The survival of Shashmaqom is the story of the survival of a significant part of the cultural heritage of Central Asia.
The four articles on the literary traditions of the region focus on the linkage between literature and the shaping of the cultural identities of the local people. Rais attempts a comparative analysis of Ramayana and ‘Alpamysh’, two heroic tales that transcend the barrier of time to influence people even today. Neelima Singh analyzes the impact of the thousand-year-old epic, Manas, on Kyrgyz culture. Saifi examines the nineteenth century literary tradition in the Bukhara Khanate and the social realities reflected therein. Maurya, on the other hand, analyzes the persona of Abai Kunnanbave, the famous Kazakh poet of the nineteenth century, who fought relentlessly for justice and whose literary works became the source of revolt against the oppression of the reigning rulers.
Rashmi Doraiswamy analyzes the factor of ‘modernity’ as revealed in the cinematic adaptations of two short stories by the noted Kyrgyz author, Chingiz Aitmatov. She discusses the multi-layered character of Aitmatov’s writings, as evident in these two novels, and the theme of both the novels that centre around the encounter of modernities or the clash of values between the old and new generations of labour (‘The Camel-like Eye’) or the struggle of ‘modernity’ to accommodate itself in an old setting (‘The First Teacher’). She concludes that the cinematic adaptations are ‘more straightforward’, ‘less complex’ and more prone to present the story in a ‘linear narrative’. The discussion is notable as it reveals not only the Kyrgyz experience of coming to terms with modernity as a concept, but also how the two different mediums of literature and films choose to express the same theme differently.
There is a notable attempt, in another section of this book, to discuss and analyze the history of the region, as reflected in the accounts of thinkers, travellers and explorers. Devendra Kaushik analyzes the thoughts of the renowned Kazakh philosopher of the tenth century, Al-Farabi, and discusses the relevance of his socio-political thoughts today. Ruby Roy narrates the story of the Kyrgyz people through the eyes of Russian scholars-cum-travellers like Peter Ivanovich, V. N. Tatishef, Richkof, Venukov and others, who used to travel to the region during the mid-eighteenth century. Arup Banerjee extensively deals with the expeditions of Marc Aurel Stein to the region; the Stein collection changed perceptions about the civilizations along the Silk Route.
In the section on the Silk Route, Rajeev Sethi expresses the essential values of inter-civilizational cultural exchanges. To him, no civilization has ever survived without absorbing influences from external cultures and so he looks at the ‘transnational production of culture as encounters of fate on the crossroads of trade’. R.K. Chisti concentrates on the production and variation of silk as a commodity, particularly in the Indian context. Meena Singh Roy discusses various regional initiatives for new transport corridors in the Eurasian region, as these are projected as a revival of the old Silk Route. The different perceptions and takes on the Silk Route emphasize its varied facets, as a transport corridor and as a way of exchange of cultures.
The book explores the cultural heritage of Central Asia in its diverse forms and looks at how history and tradition are essentially linked with culture and how history, tradition and culture have impacted the evolution of the identity of the people of Central Asia in an intertwined way. The uniqueness of the book is this: it devotes itself to the study of the culture of a region that can boast of a rich cultural tapestry. The book invites its readers to delve into a dialogue on the themes of how the cultural identity in the region is being transformed or metamorphosed, after seventy years of Soviet cultural domination, and the presence of popular cultural identities, other than the official one.