Articulating national identity in Turkmenistan: inventing tradition through myth, cult and language

A study of myth, cult, and language as tools of state power, this paper analyzes ways national identity was constructed and articulated in one state. When T ürkmenistan became independent in 1991 its first president, S aparmyrat N yýazow, promoted himself as the ‘savior’ of the nation by reconceptualising what it meant to be T ürkmen. Myth, public texts and language policy were used to construct this identity. While they were the targets of the state's cultural products, T ürkmen citizens contributed to the processes of cultural production. N yýazow legitimised his authoritarian leadership, first by co‐opting T ürkmen citizens to support his regime, and then by coercing them as participants in his personality cult. The paper concludes that N yýazow used the production of culture, ‘invented tradition’ in Hobsbawm's sense, to bolster his agenda and further his own power. It also argues that the exaggerated cult of personality Nyýazow cultivated limited his achievements, rather than solidifying them.