Paper long abstract:

Historical narratives in the Talas region of Kyrgyzstan are diverse and expanding, but remain rooted in material social practices. They emerge from and reflect many contexts, including local community life, institutions such as museums, as well as spiritual and scholarly activities. Narrative knowledge, textual sources, artifacts and material objects, and performances are crafted into relevant contributions to contemporary politics, education, and social and economic life.

This paper discusses ritual life at the Manas Ordo tomb and museum complex in the upper valley of the Talas river, and shows how ritual activities there connect with places and activities in other parts of the valley, including at other sacred and heritage sites, in healing practices, and in rituals for ancestors and heroes. The paper focuses on how people engage with these sites, and make connections among them by exchanging objects, narratives, and other meaningful materials. Historical knowledge is part of this circulation, shaping and being shaped by sites and practices. Discussions and representations of the past are often used to legitimate commitments and ideologies, and people put forth evidence for authority or accuracy.

Circulating histories are presented in different contexts, whether museum, restored tomb, or ritual invoking ancestors, along with claims about evidence and interpretation that rely upon widely differing ideas about truth, validity and proof. This paper shows that careful analysis of these claims and their social embedding is crucial to understanding the meanings and uses of historical knowledge.

Paper long abstract:

This paper focuses on Hasan Hodja Nisârî's collection of biographies, entitled Muzekkir-i Ahbab, which is one of the most important resources of the 16th-century literary environment and seminal due to the fact that it reflects the Central Asian literature, social structure, religious and cultural life. Penned in 1566 in Bukhara, this collection encapsulates valuable information concerning the lives and works of 278 poets and Sufis. This paper uses a document review method and is translated from Persian language to English. The document review is examined through the original manuscript that I found in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

This work is the first collection of biographies since Nevâî's which is entitled Mecâlisü'n-Nefâis.In Müzekkir-i Ahbâb collection, a host of historical incidents are narrated, and besides providing striking information regarding the then major cities such as Bukhara, Samarkand and Belh; emperors of the Sheybani State and historical personalities of that time, their births and deaths, places they visited and their works are elaborated as well.

Projecting to exist in the Eastern Islamic world not only with conquests but also with their cultural influence, Sheybanis and Uzbeks take the cultural tradition of Timurids as an example and modify it to fit their serai approach. To this end, it is known that they first received help from people who lived in the Timurid serai and were closely acquainted with it. Sheybani Khan patronizes in his own serai experienced artists, scholars, and pundits who had served serai but lost their positions due to the collapse of the Timurids. These people, in turn, give lessons to aristocrats in the Uzbek serais virtually as cultural consultants

In the 16th century in Central Asia, Ma Wara'un - Nahr and Khorasan, besides literary, scientific and artistic activities, a major element not to be forgotten is religious and Sufi life. Religion was practiced intensely in every segment of the society, and effects of religion were felt in art and literature as well.

Significant contribution to this collection, which can attract the attention of researchers, is made. Upon ascertaining these points, the significance of the work is highlighted. The work contains interesting and unique information concerning Central Asian social, cultural and religious life in the 16th century.

KEY WORDS

Central Asian Society in 16th Century, Hasan Hodja Nisari, Muzekkir-i Ahbab, Bukhara, Samarkand, Sheybanis

Paper short abstract:

Manas, a hero of Kyrgyz oral epic poetry, has been made central to post-Soviet Kyrgyz political and cultural identity. The Analyzing Kyrgyz Narrative Research Group based at the American University of Central Asia is studying the vitality and context of contemporary performance of the Manas epos.

Paper long abstract:

Manas, a hero of Kyrgyz oral epic poetry, has been made central to post-Soviet Kyrgyz political and cultural identity. The Analyzing Kyrgyz Narrative (AKYN) Research Group based at the American University of Central Asia (AUCA) was founded to study the vitality and context of contemporary performance of the Manas epos.

One aspect of contemporary performance is the distinction between a 'real' manaschi (who is capable of improvisation) and a 'book' manaschi (who recites from memory). Wishing to examine this distinction, while also seeing whether the Lord-Parry theory of oral formulaic composition was, as some authorities claim, less present in Turkic poetry, AKYN recorded two contemporary manaschis on three different occasions performing the same section of narrative: the birth of Manas.

This paper shows what analysis of these performances has revealed: both specific features of the performers - their style, their learnt phrases and formulas, their focus - and established influences that illuminates how the oral tradition relates to earlier printed variants.

Key words: Manas epic, manaschi, performance, AKYN.

Paper long abstract:

"Soviet Kazakhstan" - this juxtaposition of words evokes tragic associations. In the XX century, Kazakhstan has been affected deeply and transformed significantly by the Soviet experiment. It has seen political repression, large scale famine, and became one of the two main destinations for ethnic deportations. Time after the USSR, referred to as the "post-Soviet", can be seen, following the model of Marianne Hirsch, as a double-layered cultural phenomenon, where the prefix "post" signifies not an entirely new regime that has replaced the old one, but rather a prolonged condition of reflection on the recent past, and peculiar transformation of the Soviet tradition. In this cultural condition, art becomes an important instrument of mourning, re-evaluation, and creation of counter-memory.

My paper will focus on capabilities of art in understanding of metamorphoses in collective memory and manifestations of trauma in modern Kazakhstan. I will start with discussion of two theories of memory that can be applicable to the post-Soviet situation: First, the concept of postmemory (Hirsch) as memory of second and third generations to survivors of atrocities. Second, the notion of concentrationary memory (Pollock, Silverman) that notices traces of totalitarian thinking in post-totalitarian societies. These concepts help me to approach questions of the role and responsibility of an artist in the post-traumatic society, as well as ethical and aesthetical aspects of making art that touches on the pain of others. I will then propose my own approach to artmaking. Through discussion of my recent and ongoing projects, I will demonstrate how psychoanalysis and semiotics can be used in an artwork for both exploration and creation of spaces of memory.