Jadidism in Uzbekistan’s Politics of Memory: Constructing the Narrative of the Third Renaissance

This article analyses how the memory of Uzbek Jadid reformers is reworked and mobilized in contemporary Uzbekistan as part of the state-sponsored metanarrative of the “Third Renaissance” and the “New Uzbekistan”. It examines (1) the core semantics of the political narrative about the Jadids, (2) the actors and institutional channels that produce and circulate this narrative, and (3) the ways in which a “reinvented” Jadid past is translated into commemorative policy and practices.
Methodologically, the study combines narrative research and memory studies, focusing on the interaction between political storytelling, academic historiography, and memorial governance. The empirical base includes public statements of the Uzbek political leadership, memorial legislation and policy documents (with particular attention to the expanding regulatory and institutional infrastructure of memory), as well as Uzbek historical scholarship on Jadidism since the early 2000s.
The article shows that the dominant official reading of Jadidism foregrounds its reformist and “democratic” potential, presenting it as a culturally rooted yet innovation-oriented model of non-Western modernization. Within this framework, Jadid “ancestors” are positioned as initiators of a renaissance interrupted by the Soviet period but continued in the 21st century through contemporary reforms; this narrative is further personalized by depicting the current head of state as a “neo-Jadid” and is reinforced by affective idioms of “blood”, “spiritual strength”, and the “energy of generations”. The “useful past” thus functions as a legitimacy resource for sovereign statehood and national identity-building, while extensive state efforts – ranging from institutional support for Jadidology to museums, memorial sites, educational initiatives and digital platforms – stabilize the narrative in both law and public space. Finally, the article argues that portraying Jadidism as the most successful non-Western reform project draws a tangible symbolic boundary between Uzbekistan as “the East” and an imagined “West”, even as the renaissance vocabulary itself remains rooted in Western conceptual heritage.

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