Turkomstaris-Sredazkomstaris-Uzkomstaris: the Forming of Institutions and Ethnocentric Division of the Cultural Heritage of Central Asia

Abstract

The article discusses the initial stages of elaboration of policies for the preservation of cultural values in Soviet Central Asia in the first post-revolutionary years and especially at the moment of national subdivision of Turkestan. Its goal is to trace, through the prism of interrelations between the “Center” and “Periphery”, the correlation between the political situation and the institutional form of the preservation and restoration of cultural heritage, which had attained ethnocentric character by the 1940s. The author argues that, after the national subdivision, republican scholarly research centers could only generate an ethnocentric version of history within the new political framework.