Paper abstract:

This paper explores the constructs of narratives of national identity presented in the history curricula of independent Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. In the Central Asian context, with its shared and perplexing history, policy-making of national identity is in the midst of rethinking and revisiting its previous notions from the glorified past. This pattern of reclaiming forgotten past and reviving innate features can be empirically observed among states with transitioning political systems. In the selected states the notion of national identity is mostly defined through ethnic markers of titular groups along with imperatives that have been engrained throughout history. Exploring this trend of revisiting and reviving history in state policies for national identity construction is the main research area of this paper. Examining the historiography of these states after gaining independence will give a better understanding of national identity politics in this region. The paper is based on a qualitative analysis of state-approved history textbooks used in public schools, official state documents, and semi-structured interviews. Based on the premises of critical discourse analysis and narrative studies, my main argument is that with a shared political and historical past, the selected countries have taken different approaches to building the sense of belonging through historical pages. Semi-structured interviews with regional experts in history writing shed light on the role of state policies in the process of producing national history. Another argument is that history writing and rewriting in post-colonial settings are preconditioned and sustained by the political and social settings of that given time. Hence, the influence of political and social aspects is investigated. Elements of mythmaking, interpretations of shared and contested historical events, linguistic semiotics, and emerging history narratives are the main discursive themes that are discussed in detail.