Sport in Central Asia under Gorbachev: Uzbekistan from 1985 to 1991

Öz

This paper assesses the modern and traditional sports during the last six years of the Soviet Union before its collapse in 1991. The case study is the Central Asian republic of Uzbekistan under the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU, established 1917). Central Asia is a crucial historical case because it was a Muslim-majority region that Moscow wished to transform. The study is interdisciplinary and contains primary and secondary sources from the Cold War era. The research question asks: What did the implementation and impact of Soviet sport look like in Uzbekistan under Mikhail Gorbachev (CPSU leader from March 1985 to December 1991). Uzbekistan’s sportspeople, facilities, Spartakiad ranking of 1983, Olympic athletes, and traditional sports are the topics examined.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• communist sport,
• folk sport,
• Gorbachev,
• Soviet sport,
• Uzbekistan

Kaynakça

1. Allamuradov, B. ‘Educate Patriots’, Tashkent Pravda Vostoka, 21st January 1984, p. 3, cited in USSR Report (29 March 1984) Political and Sociological Affairs, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Springfield, Virginia, United States of America, JPRS-UPS-84-030, p. 80, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA371939.pdf (accessed 4 Dec 2020).
2. Lapitov, Chori. [Editorial Report] ‘On Popularizing’, Tashkent Ozbekiston Adabiyoti Va San'ati, No. 18, 4 May 1984, p. 2, cited in USSR Report (21 August 1984) Political and Sociological Affairs, Soviet Southern Republics, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Springfield, Virginia, United States of America, JPRS-UPS-84-073, p. 57 (Author’s personal copy, source, 2020: https://discover.dtic.mil).
3. Report of the Uzbek CP Central Committee Commission, ‘On the Tragic Events in Ferghana Oblast and the Responsibility of Party, Soviet, and Law Enforcement Organs’, 18300786b, Tashkent Pravda Vostoka, 30 July 1989, cited in USSR Report (15 November 1989) Soviet Union Political Affairs, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Springfield, Virginia, United States of America, JPRS-UPA-89-060, p. 45, https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a346350.pdf (accessed 7th Aug 2020).
4. Vahobov, S. ‘English Writer Gets Acquainted with Life of Our People’, Tashkent Ozbekiston Adabiyoti Va San’ati, 30 March 1984, p. 7, cited in USSR Report (21 August 1984) Political and Sociological Affairs, Soviet Southern Republics, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Springfield, Virginia, United States of America, JPRS-UPS-84-073, p. 72 (Author’s personal copy 2020, source: https://discover.dtic.mil).
5. Brezhnev, L.I. Report of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. (Moscow: Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, 1981.)
6. International Olympic Committee.org, http://www.olympic.org , National Olympic Committee of Uzbekistan, http://www.olympic.uz/en/
7. Abazov, Rafis, Culture and Customs of the Central Asian Republics. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, 2007.
8. Akiner, Shirin, The Islamic Peoples of the Soviet Union. London: Kegan Paul, 1983.

9. Akiner, Shirin, ‘Uzbekistan: Republic of Many Tongues’, in Language Planning in the Soviet Union, ed. J.M. Kirkwood. Macmillan: London, 1989.
10. Akiner, Shirin, Central Asia: New Arc of Crisis? London: Whitehall Paper Series, 1993.
11. Akyildiz, Sevket, ‘Olympic Culture in Soviet Uzbekistan 1951-1991: International Prestige and Local Heroes’, Polyvocia—The SOAS Journal of Graduate Research 3 (March 2011): 1-16. https://www.soas.ac.uk/sjpr/edition-3/file67219.pdf (20 Nov 2020).
12. Akyildiz, Sevket, ‘Soviet Physical Culture in Uzbekistan: Implementation and Social Impact’, in Sports and Coaching: Pasts and Futures, ed. Dave Day. Manchester: Manchester Metropolitan University, 2012, 105-122.
13. Akyildiz, Sevket. H, ‘Assessing Uzbekistan’s Olympic Performance, 1992-2012’, Central Eurasian Scholars and Media Initiative (27th August, 2012), http://cesmi.info/wp/?p=202 , or bbc.com Kyrgyz and Uzbek,
14. http://www.bbc.com/kyrgyz/in_depth/2012/08/120827_sevket_hilton_take_on.shtml, or https://www.bbc.com/uzbek/institutional/2012/08/120824_cy_uzbek_shevket_akyildiz.shtml (accessed 9 August 2020).
15. Akyildiz, Sevket, and Richard Carlson, ‘Sovietisation in Uzbekistan 1980-1991: Success or Failure?’, Twentieth Century Communism A Journal of International History: Local Communisms, no. 5 (June 2013): 156-174.
16. Akyildiz, Sevket, and Richard Carlson, Social and Cultural Change in Central Asia: The Soviet Legacy. London: Routledge, 2014.
17. Akyildiz, Sevket, ‘Sport has become the privilege of the millions’: Physical culture in Uzbekistan 1924-1991, Proceedings of the XII Biennial Conference of the European Society for Central Asian Studies: Central Asia: A Maturing Field, University of Cambridge, ed. Alexander Morrison and S.S. Saxena. Cambridge, Cambridge Scientific Publishers, 2016, 1-18.
18. Akyildiz, Sevket, ‘Modern and Folk Sports in Central Asia under Lenin and Stalin: Uzbekistan from 1925 to 1952’, Vakanuvis—International Journal of Historical Researches, 4, no. 2, (Fall 2019): 515-541, https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/vakanuvis/issue/48884/595032 (accessed 4 Nov 2020).
19. Akyildiz, Sevket, ‘Cultural Change in Central Asia: Brezhnev, Modern Sports, and Memories in Uzbekistan, 1964 to 1982’, History Studies: International Journal of History, 12, no. 1, (February 2020): 35-54. Available: http://www.historystudies.net/dergi//cultural-change-in-central-asia-brezhnev-modern-sports-and-memories-in-uzbekistan-1964-to-1982202003798d093.pdf (accessed 4 Nov 2020).
20. Allen, Dean, ‘“National Heroes”: Sport and the Creation of Icons’, Sport in History 33, no. 4 (December 2013): 584-94.
21. Bernstein, Seth, Raised Under Stalin: Young Communists and the Defence of Socialism. Ithaca, NY & London: Cornell University Press, 2017.
22. Brown, Archie, and Michael Kaser and Gerald Smith, The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Russia and the former Soviet Union. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
23. Brown, Archie, The Rise and Fall of Communism. London: The Bodley Head, 2009.
24. Edelman, Robert, Serious Fun: A History of Spectator Sports in the USSR. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.
25. Fierman, William, ‘Western Popular Culture and the Soviet Youth: A Case Study of “Muslim Region”’, Central Asian Survey, 7, no. 1 (1988), 7-36.
26. Fierman, William, Soviet Central Asia: The Failed Transformation. Boulder, USA: Westview Press, 1991.
27. Goldblatt, David and Johnny Acton, How to Watch the Olympics. London: Profile, 2012.
28. Grant, Susan, Physical Culture and Sport in Soviet Society: Propaganda, Acculturation, and Transformation in the 1920s and 1930s. London: Routledge, 2013.
29. Hassan, David, ‘Introduction: What makes a Sporting Icon?’, Sport in History 33, no. 4 (December 2013): 417-26.
30. Horak, Slavomir, ‘Sports Politics in Authoritarian Regimes: The Synergies of Sport, Ideology and Personality Cult in Turkmenistan’, in Sport, Statehood and Transition in Europe: Comparative Perspectives from post-Soviet and post-Socialist Societies, ed. Rojo-Labaien, Ekain, Álvaro Rodríguez Díaz. London: Routledge, 2020.
31. Katzer, Nikolaus and Sandra Budy and Alexandra Kohring and Manfred Zeller, Euphoria and Exhaustion: Modern Sport in Soviet Culture and Society. Frankfurt: CampusVerlag, 2010.
32. Khodjayev, E, and V. Mizhiritsky, Uzbekistan: Questions and Answers. Tashkent: 1987.
33. Kruglaik, Maryna, and Oleksandr Krugliak, ‘Sport in post-Socialist Ukraine’, in Sport, Statehood and Transition in Europe: Comparative Perspectives from post-Soviet and post-Socialist Societies, ed. Rojo-Labaien, Ekain, Álvaro Rodríguez Díaz. London: Routledge, 2020.
34. Kozlov, Viktor, The Peoples of the Soviet Union. London: Hutchinson, 1988.
35. Lane, David, Soviet Society Under Perestroika. London: Unwin Hyman, 1990.
36. Petrov, P. ‘National Styles of Wrestling in the Soviet Union and the Post-Soviet States: Political and Sociocultural Aspects of Their Development and Use’, The International Journal of the History of Sport, 31, no. 4 (2014): 405-22.
37. Rojo-Labaien, Ekain, Álvaro Rodríguez Díaz, Sport, Statehood and Transition in Europe: Comparative Perspectives from post-Soviet and post-Socialist Societies. London: Routledge, 2020.
38. Riordan, James, Sport in Soviet Society: Development of Sport and Physical Education in Russia and the USSR. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.
39. Riordan, Jim, ‘Soviet Youth: Pioneers of Change’, Soviet Studies, 40, no. 4 (October 1988): 556-72.
40. Riordan, Jim, ‘Playing to New Rules: Soviet Sport and Perestroika’, Soviet Studies, 42, no. 1, (January 1990): 133-145.
41. Riordan, Jim, Sport, Politics and Communism. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991.
42. Riordan, Jim, ‘The Rise, Fall and Rebirth of Sporting Women in Russia and the USSR’, Journal of Sport History, 18, no. 1, (Spring 1991): 183-199.
43. Riordan, Jim, ‘Rewriting Soviet Sports History’, Journal of Sports History, 20, no. 3 (Winter 1993): 247-258.
44. Rywkin, Michael, Moscow’s Muslim Challenge: Soviet Central Asia. Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1990.
45. Rywkin, Michael, Soviet Society Today. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1990.
46. Sharipova, F. Fighter. Tashkent, T-Publishing, 2000.
47. Shneidman, N.N, The Soviet Road to Olympus: Theory and Practice of Soviet Physical Culture and Sport. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979.
48. Sobratee, Gulhammid, Uzbekistan. Moscow: Novosti Press Agency, 1987.
49. Timofeyev, A. and Y. Kopytkin, Soviet Sport: The Success Story. Moscow: Raduga Publishers, 1987.
50. Wilkins, Frances, Let’s Visit Uzbekistan. London: Macmillan, 1988.