The Reinterpretation of the Contact Zone expressed in the Exhibition of the Uzbekistan “National Memorial Museum of the Victims of Repression” After the Dissolution USSR

Abstract

This article, in the 30th anniversary of the Soviet Union dissolution, is an attempt to examine how Uzbekistan, among the countries of the former Soviet Union, reinterprets its past history (mainly during the Soviet period) through an analysis of museum exhibitions. The immediate task of Uzbekistan, like other new born countries in Central Asia, which became independent after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, was ‘nation-building’. Various ways have been sought to create the identity of an independent nation. One of them is the change of interpretation of the Soviet period. Central Asian countries are putting forward a break with the Soviet era, citing the mistakes of the Soviet central government in the past. In addition, they are trying to strengthen the solidarity of the newly independent nation and create a national identity by putting themselves as victims of political oppression. In the exhibition, Uzbekistan identifies itself with a colony conquered by the Soviet Republics. The subjects of the colonial empire include not only Tsarist Russia but also the Soviet central government. Exhibitions 1 and 2 of the Museum of Repression in Uzbekistan reconstruct the history of oppression moving from the imperial Russia, through the Bolshevik revolution, the socialist construction, Stalin counter-terrorism and post-war period to the perestroika period. The repression related to the cotton scandal is unique to Uzbekistan. And the 3rd exhibition room deals with the current development of Uzbekistan. In the Museum of Repression in Uzbekistan, the socialist revolution disappeared. And here Lenin s ideal of pursuing common prosperity by building a common home for the people that was considered to be different from imperial Russia, a prison for the people, became insignificant. The Bolsheviks changed into a plundering colonizers that are indistinguishable from the Western empires. It is portrayed only in the portrait of a harsh empire that has invaded. Likewise today s authoritarian rulers in Uzbekistan are arbitrarily interpreting the past in order to solidify their own nation-state.