ORAL HISTORY IN CENTRAL ASIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY

Аннотация

The article focuses on an analytical review of contemporary works in the field of oral history in Central Asian historiography. The place and role of oral history as one of the "new directions" in historical science and methods of historical research are considered. An attempt is made to analyze the work of scientists from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan dealing with the problems of applying oral history methods in humanitarian research. Having emerged in the 50s of the last century, oral history has undergone evolution and has been filled with new content. The main directions and developments in oral-historical research of the countries of the region are highlighted, such as "women's oral history", oral history through the eyes of contemporaries, the history of political repression in the 30s of the twentieth century. The author elaborated on the various schools of oral history in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. He showed the specifics of oral historical research in these countries, reflected in the scientific and public literature. The author identifies three general trends for national schools of oral history in Central Asia: this is the addition of these archival documents and, thereby, the expansion of ideas about the past; identifying the features of human memory and determining its "place" in the stream of "big" history; search for an updated strategy for comprehending historical reality and the development of a fundamentally different type of narrative practices. The article shows that numerous projects in the field of oral history in the recent period of the region are developing on the basis of a variety of institutions (universities, the Academy of Sciences, museums, non-governmental, non-profit organizations). According to the author, as a research method, oral history has gained recognition in the historical science of the countries of Central Asia. Oral history methods are in demand in various fields: family history, “makhalla” history, everyday stories, etc. However, it is concluded that the practice of oral history in the Central Asian region characterizes this new research direction as only an additional source opportunity, moreover, in the aspect of a secondary one, "subordinate" to written sources. The scientific novelty of the materials presented in the article lies in the identification of the specificity and functional capabilities of oral history in the formation of the general regional history of Central Asia. The numerical and qualitative modesty of the historiography of oral history testifies to the state of the problem and the status of the oral history method in regional and domestic science, and therefore the question of filling this gap is acute.