The author considers how the idea of musical heritage was explored by the different cultural powers and activists in pre-revolutionary Central Asia, and in Soviet and independent Uzbekistan during the 20th and early 21st centuries. Muslim enlighteners and intellectuals (jadids), prominent Uzbek Soviet writers, poets, musicologists and other intellectuals all dealt with musical heritage. Among them were important figures in the history of Uzbek culture: Abdurauf Fitrat and Abdulla Qodiriy (Kadiri), Viktor Uspenskiy and Evsei Cherniavskiy Cherniavskiy, Evsei. 1922. Podhod k tuzemnomu iskusstvu. Iskusstvo i zhizn': Periodicheskiy zhurnal hudozhestvennoi mysli i teatra, 1: 5 [Google Scholar], Yunus and Is'hoq Rajabov and others. Special emphasis is placed on the key figure in the development of national musical identity in Uzbekistan, Abdurauf Fitrat (who was purged in 1938). Attitudes to heritage are shown through the struggle between "old" and "new" in pre-revolutionary times, in the framework of the Soviet political system and cultural policy, and in its use as a tool of national-ethnic mobilization in the current development of the nation state of Uzbekistan. In the contemporary period the new cultural powers are trying to re-establish a line of succession for national music linking ancient times to the present. Two main sources pertaining to national musical identity are considered in the article: written texts (historical manuscripts, contemporary national studies, samples of traditional music notated according to the Western staff system) and a body of 'national' melodies and the emotional images of the national spiritual world which they evoke. Keywords: TraditionMusical HeritageNational IdentityCentral AsiaUzbekistan Notes 1. For an account of cultural policy and the new situation in musical culture in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan at the beginning of the independence period, see Levin (1993 Levin, Theodore. 1993. The reterritorialization of culture in the new Central Asian states: a report from Uzbekistan. Yearbook for Traditional Music, 25: 51–9. [Google Scholar], 1996 Levin, Theodore. 1996. The hundred thousand fools of God: Musical travels in Central Asia (and Queens, New York), Bloomington: Indiana University Press. [Google Scholar]) and During (1998 During, Jean. 1998. Musiques d'Asie Centrale: l'esprit d'une tradition, Arles: Cité de la Musique/Actes Sud. [Google Scholar], 103–46; 2001 During Jean 2001 . Musique et musicians d'Ouzbekistan: Tous les styles, tous les genres . Missives . Numero special: Images culturelles de l'Asie centrale contemporaine : 62 – 73 . [Google Scholar]). 2. "Intonation" is a theoretical notion which was developed by the Soviet musicologists. Its founder was the prominent Soviet Russian scholar academician Boris Asafiev. Usually it includes the initial parts of melody – groups of sounds, rhythm or other elements – possessed of certain semantic meanings. Musical intonation can be connected with the lines of movement of human speech. 3. Uzbek and Persian-Tajik are transcribed here in accordance with the rules used in the national writing in contemporary Uzbekistan with some exceptions (modern Uzbek "x" we transcribe as 'kh", "g'" as "gh". 4. The key and earliest work devoted to this matter in Central Asia was Fitrat's book Munazara (Dispute) written in 1909 in Bukhara and published in Istanbul in 1911 (see Fitrat 2000 Fitrat Abdurauf . 2000 . Munazara . In Abdurauf Fitrat: Tanlangan asarlar , 1: 46–98, edited by Hamidulla Boltabaev . Tashkent : Ma'naviyat . [Google Scholar], 46–98). 5. For example, Evsei A. Cherniavskiy, a Turkestani amateur musician and cultural activist, wrote: "The people of Turkestan have a certain high culture of their own but as a heritage from the past" (1922, 5). The same idea was also developed by other authors at this time, and several publications arose devoted to different kinds of heritage in Uzbekistan, such as Adabiy meros (Literary Heritage). 6. Contrary to the present dominant opinion in national literature, I hold the view that the heritage of the past was widely studied in the Soviet period. Such study was very often masked by an official demonstration of ideological loyalty: almost all publications on heritage began with reference to the works of Marx and Lenin, though the material under publication might lie far from socialism. Heritage was viewed in a double way in this period: as both the material for building and developing a new musical culture and as part of national culture itself. 7. Bastakor (in Persian: basta – to tie; kor – work, job, etc) – this term was introduced in the Soviet period, and refers to composers who create vocal and instrumental pieces (songs, musical dramas, etc.) in traditional style (in general monodic). 8. Tokhtasyn Gafurbekov writes about it as follows: "The article 'Zafarnoma' written by academician I. Muminov and already type-set was excluded from vol. IV of the O'zbek Sovet entsiklopediyasi (1973), as well as the chapter on Abdurauf Fitrat in the book Muzykalnaia kritika v Uzbekistane (1984)" (1997, 22). 9. See, for instance, an article devoted to the opening of the shahids' museum in Tashkent by Abdullaev (2002 Abdullaev , Rustam 2002 . Milliy istiqlol va musiqa (Kompozitor bilan suhbat) . In Musiqa ijodiyoti masalalari: Maqolalar to'plami , II kitob, edited by Rustam Abdullaev et al. Tashkent : "Yangi asr avlodi" , pp. 4 – 11 . [Google Scholar]). 10. See, for example, Nazarov (1997 Nazarov, Abdumannon. 1997. Sohta muamma kimga zarur? Yoki ilmiylikdan yirok ba'zi "ilmiy" kashfiyotlar hususida. O'zbekiston adabiyoti va san'ati, 24(3409): 5 [Google Scholar], 5) for serious objections to the interpretation of Fitrat's musical ideas and activity made in my article (Djumaev 1997). 11. The prominent Uzbek dutar player Abdurahim Hamidov told me that he considers Qodiriy's novel the best writing about Uzbek music ever written (personal communication, 2001). 12. Among memoirs, see, for example, Qodiriy (1974 Qodiriy, Habibullo. 1974. Otam haqida: Khotiralar, Tashkent: Gafur Gulom nomidagi adabiyot va san'at nashriyoti. [Google Scholar], 98, 99), Yuldashbaeva (1972 Yuldashbaeva, Fatima. 1972. Moia sud'ba: Rasskazy o zhizni, Tashkent: Izdatel'stvo TSK LKSM Uzbekistana "Yosh Gvardiya". [Google Scholar], 92) and Saidnosirova (1994 Saidnosirova, Zarifa. 1994. Oibegim mening: Khotiralar, Tashkent: "Sharq" nashriyot-matbaa kontserning bosh tahririiati. [Google Scholar], 121). Additional informationNotes on contributorsAlexander DjumaevAlexander Djumaev received his PhD in music (musicology) from the Khamza Institute of Art Research of the Ministry of Culture of Uzbekistan in 1981 and headed the Department of Music History at the same institute from 1984 to 1993. From1997 to 2004 he was coordinator of the Arts and Culture Program at the Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation) – Uzbekistan. He is currently Regional Coordinator of the Program of the Aga Khan Music Initiative in Central Asia and member of the Sub-Board of the Arts and Culture Network Program of the Open Society Institute-Budapest. He is Liaison Officer of the International Council for Traditional Music. His research interests are music cultures of Central Asia; aesthetics, theory and history of the Maqamat; Islam and music; medieval written sources on music; cultural policy in Central Asia
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Alexander Djumaev (2005) studied this question.