I am a researcher, educator, and a freelance journalist from Uzbekistan. I study Islam, gender issues, education and other socio-cultural developments in Central Asia. Currently I am working on a PhD a dissertation on intergenerational post-Soviet memory transmission in Central Asia.

Contested Soviet Social Memories and Central Asian Youth

The project studies post-Soviet memory transmission among young people in Central Asia. It explores how young people in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan perceive the Soviet past and how this perception influences their understanding of present social realities. The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 granted independence to Central Asian states. Elderly people in the region have sometimes responded to the various post-independence crises with nostalgia about their past life under Moscow's rule. Existing studies show that this nostalgia is partly linked to a widespread lack of socio-economic stability, a stability that many project into their Soviet-era youth. The governments of Central Asia, on the other hand, cultivate a narrative of repressive pre-independence years in their efforts of nation-building. This study seeks to fill the gap in the existing literature by exploring the dual influence of these narratives on the self-understanding, identification, and groupness of Central Asian youth, using a mixed-method approach that includes semi-structured interviews and participant observation in educational settings. It will contribute to a deeper understanding of how historical memory is reconstructed and instrumentalized in post-Soviet societies, and how it shapes the identities of the new generation.