"Search of Terra Cognita"

   The discourse of visual absence of Europeans, but their psychological presence in the works of orientalism of Х1Х-ХХ century determines exactly the nature of direction given by Said. Their all-seeing eye and omnipotent view in fact created the superiority of the West over the East, painting «topographic or archeological-ethnographical realism», the glamour of palaces, poverty and other sides of rather complex life of Asian peoples.  And what is the presence of the East and the West in « eastern orientalism»? Who is visible and who virtually dominates it? Today we may easily identify certain typology of «ethno-renaissance» existing in many countries of the East and in the first place in the former CIS republics, based on rethinking national and cultural self-identification and aspiration to revive their own culture. In this sense, “eastern orientalism” emerges as original ethno-cultural protest. It has been observed that it is nothing but regular historical phenomenon, emerging as a result of crisis in geopolitical, social-economic and cultural spheres.

  The movement of Jaddids (“jaddid” is “young” from Arabic) - “juvonbukhori” (young bukharians) tried to overcome the crisis in the Bukhara emirate at the end of Х1Хth century. Out of the cultural-enlightenment direction with the goal of reviving national culture through modernization, it developed into «national communism», some kind of «synthesis of socialism, nationalism and Islam” on the condition that center is always outside the state. The young Bukharians tried to stimulate the interest of masses to their own history, to cultural heritage, to the process of society modernization with the help of new technologies, which resulted in serious shifts in the attitude, thus slowly moving towards new thinking, i.e. western thinking. The progressive movement of Muslim intellectuals had little opportunity to develop in their own countries but was included into the general stream of orientalism and Europeanization of the East. Historically, it is important that the Jaddids did away with the monopoly of traditional education and desacralized the process of writing the text, which had been considered to be sacred in the Middle Ages. The era of individual handwriting was over as well as traditional national art as a major component of culture in Central Asia.

  Due to the priority of calligraphy over other kinds of creativity together with philology, it had been the most vital artistic activity of the medieval Muslim East. But in the era of printing press, it gradually began to lose its sacral significance. The conflict between European mimecism and oriental spiritualistic perspective resulted in the fact that the brightest phenomenon of medieval painting – miniature – ceased to exist as an independent kind of creativity. The influence of «other cultures» became rather significant. Thus Jaddids paved the way for the « art of upheaval», i.e. western. The influence of art of other countries in the antiquity, in the Middle Ages, and contemporary period in Tajikistan always spread by the same traditional ways: through export of canonical images, through training local artists by newly arrived masters or through getting their education in other centers, by the way of copying normative images.

  A century later, a new burst of the «ethno-renaissance» coincided with geopolitical processes at the end of ХХ-ХХ1century when it became clear that there would not be any «melting pot» of all the cultures and nations in the format of alternative paradigms of globalization and anti-globalization. If globalization is traditionally viewed as modern civilization process, then ant-globalization is most often represented as the first in the history of humankind movement against achievements of the civilization. The latter emerged to spite the processes leading to elimination of national originality of cultures. Developed countries still oppose themselves to the «wild people», considering many countries with rich cultural heritage in the past, to post-peripheral countries. The complexity of movement, for example, of Central Asia is in its lagging behind other countries in terms of its development and the necessity to attend simultaneously to the tasks of the past, present and future. This situation has still remained in the region. In the era of post-modernism with its unusual dynamics and violent change of political events, artistic directions and styles, and technology development, the view of evolution of culture as a linear processed became replaced by that of multiplicity of levels and sub-cultures and diversity. The abundance of various groups, shades of anachronism and avant-garde, shift of genres and principles, borrowings and citing – these are only few peculiarities of global development of culture. In this historical thickening, such markers as ethnic identity, language, religion and tradition, which help to establish some regularity in chaos, are quite important.

  «Ethnocultural renaissance» emerged due to many different reasons; the following are among them:
   - acquisition of national independence and the necessity to build a separate recognizable stereotype on the international arena
   - development of pseudohistorical myth-making as a social response to realities of time; - migration, which forces to participate in different types of communities, societies formed based on geographical, political and religious belonging
  - protest against the powerful influence of developed countries through mass culture and language, which results in disappearance of ethnic and cultural originality.

  Currently, the process of designing national tradition is characterized by the tendency of ”urban intellectuals” to revive it from the fragments of ancient beliefs and ceremonies with the aim of «national spirituality revival», which means that the search in different temporal and civilized layers still continues. In Tajikistan, for example, they have already celebrated the anniversary of the Aryan culture (2006) and the 1100th anniversary of ethnic Tajik Samanid dynasty (1999), which is linked to the establishment of Islam in Central Asia, the 2500th anniversary of Kulyab – the cradle of ancient cults, beliefs and heathen ceremonies as well as Islam, socialism, etc. Such construction of visual symbols is the manifestation of the fact that the past is important for building the «golden area» of the nation with its own pantheon of heroes in order to demonstrate its own achievements to the world and finally, to disprove existing orientalist stereotypes regarding the center. Such quests are specific for the official culture mainly preoccupied with symbols for a nation.

  However, there are a number of subcultures in the country, which address the same issues through other means. The most important place in Tajik visual culture, of course, belongs to the work of artists that received academic education in the Soviet period (theatre, cinema, fine arts, etc.). Some of them are independent and continue working «for themselves», seeking less the commercialization of their art and establishing the significance of their local experience. The problems of «ethno-renaissance » and spirituality are also of interest to them. Despite the poor development of tourism in the country, a very powerful group consists of those that are considered to be «tourist culture drivers» or creators of the «airport, i.e. souvenir art». The mission of these art vulture image-makers is to create attractive image of their motherland. In this sense, their creative activity serves the goal of «knowledge expansion» of those coming to their country, thus, in some sense coming closer to orientalists in their search of exotic glamour and bright ornamentality, in other words, of all that is non-Western. In this race, dependence becomes pertinent in the selection of topics as well, when obvious preference is given to landscapes with characteristic mythological sites decorated by minarets, mazars, waterfalls, characters in the national costumes and other ethnographic material. And then the «Happy Tajikistan» reestablished by them symbolizes relation between the house made of pahsa (kibitka) and «Tajikhood».

  In the present-day Tajik society, priority is given to moral and spiritual values of traditional culture rather than to the rest. However, it is impossible not to pay attention to the fact that it has turned into sort of industry. Legitimization of dekhanin (peasant)-artist, usto took place, which today strives not only to meet the needs of the community but also to work under the orders of the center outside its boundaries. Their creative activity should be more artistic and less functional. The same thing happened with the miniature, poorly developed in Tajikistan, but turning into a special sphere of artistic industry, as in other countries. Regardless the simplicity of subjects and technologies, these works of art alongside with photografic «Kodak-ization» are involved into the politics of creation of national image. They have their virtual client, which is not represented in the works of art, but psychologically is present in them because it forces to see and fix everything according to what is desired. This makes artists dependable on this imaginable center in terms of commerce and discourse.

  A principally new phenomenon is the birth of actual art in Tajikistan and its involvement of wide circles of artists. In our opinion, it is this art that could be viewed as fruitful «break-up» of tradition, which is able to help understand cultural identity, to establish contact with international art mainstream in order to end the isolation specific for contemporary Tajik art. Innovations have considerably influenced mentality, the language of art, design and what is more important – the attitude to tradition itself. Today we do not consider it anymore from the point of view of the narrow national format as a tree with rich crown and the roots of this tree that feed any courageous projects that sometimes are far from habitual visual symbols of tradition. In some sense it is due to internet there emerged global new invisible community of masters from all countries, who started coordinating common creative efforts. This allows easy reintegration of the East into this artistic space. However, who dictates standards for this kind of reintegration? We again follow the parameters established by the Center
  

  1. Nochlin L. The Imagery Orient// Art in America.May, 1983-C. 118, Mac Cenzy J. Orientalism. History. Theory of the Arts. Manchester 1998-Р. 50  

2. Ye. Okladnikov, A. Zobnina. Ethnic renascence: theory and contemporary Russian practice//Radlov collection of papers. Research and Museum Projects. RAS, 2007.- St. Petersburg, 2008-P. 449

3. V. Shnirelman. Neo-heathenism and nationalism. East-European area/natural habitat//research in applied and urgent ethnology of the Insitutte of Ethnology and Anthropology – RAS -M., 1998,- P.3

Larissa Dodkhudoeva, Tajikistan

back

©SCCA 2001-2002