Paper long abstract:

My paper will focus on Tajik dance performances in concerts and films, from Khrushchev's thaw to the late 1970s. My main question is what these dance performances reveal about the performative negotiations and conceptions of Tajik nationalism and sovereignty in the post-Stalin era of the Soviet Union. Using dance performances from two different film genres, Nisso, Youth's First Morning (1979) and Lullaby (1966), as well performances from the 1966 Concert of Tajik Masters of Arts, I will argue for the contested nature of Tajik nationalism within Soviet cultural institutions, where the legacies of early Soviet nationality policy are present within narratives of a national modernity based in notions of the past. This time period sheds light on the emerging space for nationalist movements and identities, as well as the continuing limitations of nationalist cultural policy. This paper will draw from film, poetry, newspaper sources, as well as secondary literature.