Witnessing the Past: Abdulla Qahhor’s Tales from the Past and Soviet Self-Identification in 1930s-1960s Uzbekistan

• In Event: A Childhood in the "Orient": Autobiographical Reflections through the Lens of the Soviet Experience

Abstract

This paper examines the final novella of Uzbek author Abdulla Qahhor, Tales from the Past (1966), in which the author articulates a particular form of Soviet subjectivity specific to Central Asia through his childhood memories. Rather than presenting himself as a loyal member of the Communist Party in the revolutionary days, as a person who struggles with his spontaneity to come to consciousness, Qahhor figures himself as passive witness to the cruelty of pre-Soviet Uzbekistan, which he uses to justify the Soviet present. The piece also compares Qahhor's work to the childhood memoirs of other Uzbek writers from the 1930s to the 1960s.

Author

• Kristen Jasmin Fort, American U of Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan)