In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

16 In the early 1930s, European and American writers, artists, and journalists traveled across Soviet Central Asia to chronicle the tremendous economic and social transformations that were occurring in the region—from the vast campaigns to divert Central Asian rivers to the efforts to transform the landscapes of towns and cities across the region. One of these visitors , Joshua Kunitz, later wrote of the dynamism of Soviet Central Asia in contrast to its alleged backwardness. For Kunitz, Central Asia was a place where people had “lived for centuries in unchanging primitive conditions, [where] the only means of locomotion was the ass or the camel,” and where the traditional “Central Asian village was a symbol of darkness, filth, and disease.”1 In stark orientalist language, this visitor—who clearly was positively inclined toward the Soviet project—underscored common perceptions in the European mindset of the “primitive” East, a place where local inhabitants were in desperate need of European knowledge, technology, and even social, economic, political, and ideological structures. a City to Be tranSFormed The city consisted of “two parts [which] are so distinct and so unlike that a visitor may sometimes walk a considerable distance without meeting a Russian in one or a native in the other. European Taskend (Tashkent) is but of yesterday—Asiatic Tashkend of more than a thousand summers.” —Henry Lansdell, 1887 2 • stronski text i-350/3.indd 16 6/25/10 8:53 AM a City to Be tranSFormed O 17 Although he often used the rhetoric of colonialism in his writings, Kunitz was not an advocate of this traditional European form of domination in Asia but a staunch defender of socialist ideology and its universality . Like so many others—Russians, Westerners, and even some Central Asians—Kunitz had deep faith in the adaptability of socialism to reach beyond its European origins to help jump-start entire societies along the path of Soviet-style progress and move away from imperial models of governance . He argued that the revolutionary changes in Central Asia during the 1920s and 1930s were leading to a full-blown renaissance of local cultures and lifestyles, with indigenous residents being the primary beneficiaries of socialist rule. Having been liberated from the oppressive regimes of Central Asian emirs and tsarist rulers by the revolution, the Uzbeks—and other ethnic groups across the region—were quickly advancing toward modernity under the guidance of the Communist Party, through the help of the Russian people and with the assistance of Soviet innovation. Using the imagery of socialist modernization, he described the magnetic force that Soviet technology reportedly held for the residents of Central Asia: One can well imagine the tremendous fascination that a tractor, a motor truck, an airplane, a hydro-electric plant, or a locomotive holds for the Central Asian peasant. He is awed by it, but he is drawn to it. He is suspicious of its novelty, but lured by the advantages it offers. All the Bolshevik had to do was to bring these things to the attention of the peasant and they spoke for themselves. All that was necessary was to organize a couple of modern state farms, several machine and tractor stations, and to electrify a few villages, and no amount of political bungling could counteract the power of such propaganda.2 Kunitz saw Soviet technology and rationality as having the transformative power to pull indigenous residents out of their allegedly backward past and push them toward the socialist future and ultimately to communism. For this traveler to Uzbekistan, the Sovietization of Central Asia was a symbol of progress, a reaction to European colonialism, and part of the natural course of history. In the early 1930s, however, Soviet Uzbekistan was still very much a work in progress, with a society in turmoil and Central Asians just beginning to take more active roles in the socialist modernization projects that were occurring in their cities, towns, villages, and collective farms. But if Kunitz’s depiction of Tashkent was the public image of the city in the 1930s, what was the reality of life in Central Asia that residents faced in these early years of socialist power? What was unique about this Central Asian urban space and what were its major flaws that Soviet power sought to change? The following portrayal provides an overview of Tashkent before its Stalinist transformation, addresses these questions, and explores stronski text i-350/3.indd 17 6/25/10 8:53 AM [18.116.62.45] Project MUSE (2024-04...

Share