Fictions nationales. Cinéma, empire et nation en Ouzbékistan (1919-1937) - Archive ouverte HAL Accéder directement au contenu
Ouvrages Année : 2013

Fictions nationales. Cinéma, empire et nation en Ouzbékistan (1919-1937)

Résumé

Although the book starts in 1919, it focuses primarily on the period running from 1924, the year when Soviet Uzbekistan was founded and the first fiction film was made by a team from Soviet Russia, up until 1937, the year of Stalinist terror and the first talking movie, once again produced by a Soviet Russian filmmaker and his crew. Between these two dates, a genuinely national cinema materialized with a first wave of national film production and the emergence of an Uzbek cinematographic elite. The purpose of the book is to explore specifically how films reflect the particularly tense political context from the last years of the Russian Civil War through the period of the ‘first Stalinism’ in Uzbekistan up until the Terror of 1937-1938. As the Civil War drew to an end, the Central Asian region of Turkestan began to achieve cultural autonomy, a process which was completed with the ethno-national delimitation of 1924 leading to untrammelled decision-making authority within the framework of the Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) of Uzbekistan. The book examines the conditions in which independence was acquired by looking at the history of cinematographic institutions, showing how the relationship was fashioned between the as yet weak Bolshevik centre in Moscow and a remote Uzbek periphery (chap. 1). Once the film studios had been set up, the films they turned out were truly Orientalist and/or colonialist in spirit, due to the sheer size of the pre-existing, commercially oriented production structures, together with the weakness of communist political networks and ideology. These films had a lot in common with French ‘colonial films’ for instance. Hence the representation of ‘revolutionary’ Central Asia was at the opposite end of the spectrum to what was required by the censorship committee and the Bolshevik politicians in Moscow (chap. 2). This period was followed by a far-reaching Soviet ‘policy of indigenization’, which promoted the national elite and fostered the emergence of specifically Uzbek national films. Together with the idea of the nation, the films championed modernization, and praised the emancipation of women and secularization of society (chap. 3). This period, however, did not last long. The communist elite in Moscow began to implement a harsh policy of centralization and political cleansing in order to further develop communist ideology. The Uzbek periphery consequently lost its autonomy in cultural affairs, though it must be pointed out that the Uzbek political elites were not against the idea of economic centralization, which they regarded as rational, provided they had their word to say in central decision-making. Two differing conceptions of a modern state came into conflict here, with the Bolshevik Muscovite elites thinking in terms of a centralized and authoritarian state, while the cultural and political Uzbek elite had an interventionist and more collaborative federal structure in mind. At this precise moment of state centralization, the USSR became a truly imperial state (chap. 4). This was the context in which, as of 1931, the first generation of Uzbek filmmakers appeared. Nabi Ganiev and Suleyman Khojaev (a former jadid, i.e. a reformist intellectual) started making films, but they understood national and class-struggle discourses in a specifically nationalist way, far removed from Soviet ideological requisites (chap. 5). If the Bolshevik Muscovite elite were to counter the nationalist ideology developed in their films—especially in Before Dawn by S. Khojaev (1934, censured)—they had no choice but to reduce them to silence; Nabi Ganiev was jailed (1936-1939), and Suleyman Khojaev was sent to the Gulag in 1934, just after finishing his film, where he died during the Stalinist terror. Uzbek cinema was thus bereft of its national filmmakers. The only way to continue making films was, once again, to invite a team from Soviet Russia, and this is how the first talkie ever made in Uzbekistan was produced. The Oath (1937), directed by A. Usol'tsev-Garf, not only praised the greatness of the Russian people, but also the supremacy of class over nation. This film put an end to the odyssey of Uzbek national cinema that had started to emerge before the Second World War (chap. 6).
Fichier non déposé

Dates et versions

hal-01562385 , version 1 (14-07-2017)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-01562385 , version 1

Citer

Cloé Drieu. Fictions nationales. Cinéma, empire et nation en Ouzbékistan (1919-1937). 2013, 9782811108601. ⟨hal-01562385⟩
77 Consultations
0 Téléchargements

Partager

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More