Attitudes Toward Tashkent’s Mahallas During the Years of Soviet Rule

This article analyzes the policies pursued toward Tashkent’s mahallas during the years of Soviet rule and the resulting changes in their historical appearance, social functions, and cultural memory. The study draws on historical and toponymic sources, Soviet-era urban planning documents, periodical press materials, and contemporary scholarship, and applies historical-comparative, problem-based chronological, and systematic analysis. The results show that Soviet policy toward the mahalla evolved in three stages: an ideological and anti-religious offensive in the 1920s–1930s, administrative consolidation and the merging of mahallas in the 1940s–1950s, and large-scale spatial restructuring after the 1966 earthquake. These stages were expressed in the renaming of mahallas, localities, and squares (Suzukota, Chiltug‘on, Beshyog‘och), the closure, repurposing, or demolition of mosques, madrasas, and pilgrimage sites (Zangiota, Hotin, Ovrat, Muhammadkarimxo‘ja), and the replacement of historical mahallas with standardized microdistricts. The discussion demonstrates that the traditional mahalla and the Soviet microdistrict embodied two contrasting models of social governance: grassroots self-governance based on neighborliness and collective solidarity versus centralized planning and administrative control. Although Soviet policy considerably eroded the architectural fabric and religious infrastructure of mahallas, it failed to destroy their informal social functions; historical names, sacred places, mutual assistance, and territorial identity survived in popular memory and were reproduced even in new residential areas. The article concludes that this social resilience explains the rapid revival of the mahalla institution after 1991, and that the Tashkent experience offers practical lessons for preserving historical urban heritage and integrating traditional community institutions into contemporary governance.