The former Soviet countries of the region are striving to recover the deep dimensions of their own memory. It is an issue where Kyrgyzstan has lagged behind, unlike Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, which are at the forefront. The history of peoples begins from that of families. The humiliating labor emigration to Russia and Europe.
Moscow () – “We have invited participants from 13 countries to document the repressions, and the painful exit of the colonizations of the past… Today, with the war in Ukraine, this issue has become truly crucial.” The one who explains it is Gulzat Alagoz, a specialist from the historical research platform “Esimde“, which has been dedicated for years to recovering the memory of the peoples of Central Asia in its deep dimensions.
Esimde studies the history of Kyrgyzstan between the 20th and 21st centuries: presents the stories and testimonies of individuals and groups of people, collects archival documents and publishes this material, addressed to a wide audience. In Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, the academic body organized the international conference “On the memory bridge“. Various academics, social workers, activists and artists dedicated to this field participated, as well as guests from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia.
Alagoz explains the objective of the project: it is about “saving our culture and our language from tyranny”, a liberation that must be achieved through science, art, the economy and in all areas of social life. It is the “return to oneself” through the memory and rehabilitation of the victims of persecution, which must accompany the conscience of contemporaries. In this sense, the researcher esminde it also appreciates the efforts made by the neighboring countries of the region and the former Soviet peoples.
According to the expert, Kyrgyzstan should follow the example of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, where their respective governments have passed much more effective laws to this effect. Here, “we walk at a very slow pace on this issue.”
On October 7 and 8, Kyrgyzstan celebrates the “Days of History and Ancestors”. In other countries of the region, however, “Days in memory of the victims of repression” are celebrated. The Kazakhs commemorate the “victims of the repressions and the Holodomor”, the famine caused by the Stalinist collectivizations, which mainly affected Ukraine, but was greatly felt in Central Asia.
Uzbekistan has rehabilitated many people who participated in the “Basmacy” and “Dzhadidy” movements, reformists and intellectuals from the Muslim area who were victims of harsh repression, to which specific museums and archives have been dedicated, something that has not yet been has achieved in Kyrgyzstan. During the conference, the successes and delays of many countries in these initiatives were compared.
The president of the Russian association also intervened Memorial, Jan Racinsky, who pointed out that it is necessary to insist on keeping all archives open: “In the entire post-Soviet space, access to archives continues to be a problem, since in 70 years of the regime no information was disseminated – which cannot be found in books and other publications- and many data are still buried… hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people do not know what happened to their parents and ancestors, many times they do not know where they were buried”. The history of peoples begins from the history of families.
The director of the Tashkent memorial museum, Bakhrom Irzaev, has dedicated himself to investigating what happened to the young people of Turkestan who studied in Germany in the years before the rise of Nazism. One of them, Timur Kazybekov, returned to Uzbekistan after completing his studies and became a major public figure. He founded textile companies and spread German culture, before being shot by the Soviets in 1938 in Fergana. During his visit to the house-museum dedicated to him, Kyrgyz President Zaparov declared that “Uzbekistan is at least a decade ahead of us.”
Questions of memory and identity of these countries are also linked to the last thirty post-Soviet years, characterized by humiliating labor emigration to Russia and Europe, a topic that was addressed by many speakers. Esimde He had already organized two conferences in 2018 and 2020, on the “Language of memory” and the “Sons of Mankurt”, the name of the slave from a novel by Cinghiz Akhtmatov.
