Decolonial Disruptions: Discourses and Practices

The term ‘decolonial’ newly emerged in Central Asian studies as a replacement for the more widely used ‘postcolonial’ concept. The major difference between the two lies in how postcolonial approaches in the region focused on explaining the colonial past, while decolonial perspectives focus on unlearning dominant colonial narratives and constructing new meanings. Decolonial studies reshape both the production of knowledge and the identities of those who generate it. When decolonial studies become a shared endeavour among scholars and activists, they foster new collective understanding of the past and present across wider communities. As Alexander put it: ‘there will be a searching re-remembering of the collective past, for memory is not only social and fluid but deeply connected to the contemporary sense of the self’ (2013, 309).

Decoloniality in Central Asia involves both discourses and practices, unravelling along three levels of disruption: individuals, groups, and transnational networks. Both discourses and practices overlap, but since 2022 collective practices have become ever more widespread in the region. Discourses include recovering histories of ancestors, exposing colonial violence, and fostering dignity in their own culture. Altogether, the discourses raise awareness of a person’s own internalised coloniality. The ability to rethink established norms requires freedom, and this decolonial awakening is particularly evident where greater political openness allows some space for decolonial perspectives and spontaneous discussion.

We use the term ‘discourses’ because, unlike other forms of communication, they are disciplinary in nature and used by subject-matter experts to explore how historical events influence the present (Foucault 1980). Central Asian decolonial knowledge producers navigate the boundary between state ideologies and lived narrative, challenging state-endorsed claims that the Soviet Union should not be viewed as a colonial force. Kazakh scholars, for example, have written about the Asharshylyq – the devastating famine imposed by Stalin that claimed the lives of 1.5 million people in what is now Kazakhstan (Mikhailov Reference Mignolo and Tlostanova1996; Abylkhozhin, Akulov, and Tsai Reference Abylkhozhin, Akulov and Tsay2019; Akimbekov Reference Akmbekov2021). Such works no longer debate the nature of both Tsarist and Soviet Russia as settler colonial empires. Instead, decolonial discussions and practices today have moved on to understand the experience of the very people who suffered from famine.

Today’s decolonial discourses in Central Asia focus on exposing the atrocities of the Russian Tsarist and Soviet empires in military campaigns, economic exploitation, nuclear testing, environmental degradation, and forced decentralisation (Kassymbekova and Chokobaeva Reference Kassymbekova and Chokobaeva2021; Amirova Reference Amirova2022; Kassenova Reference Kassenova2022). Younger generations of scholars especially view Sovietisation as an inherently colonial experience compatible with other European colonial projects in Africa and Asia. They re-examine the same historical accounts written by Russian military conquerors and colonial ethnographers with a newfound critical review of the meaning of the modernity imposed on the Central Asian people.

Practices include acts beyond discursive power, such as learning and promoting indigenous languages, attire, traditions, learning family histories, and choosing non-Russified schooling and education. Decolonial practices repel the shaming of indigenous cultures that Russocentrism perpetuated. They neutralise the lasting legacies of colonial social and political structures, including those linked to language, class, and gender. The Kyrgyz feminist artist Altyn Kapalova installed a monument to the exodus of Kyrgyz from the Tsarist military draft in 1916. The Esimde (I remember) research and discussion platform reconstructs memory of repressed people from international archives, oral histories, and diaries. In Kazakhstan, the artist Saule Suleimenova has recreated historic photos from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in her Kazakh Chronicle series. Both creators link feminist art with a decolonial reimagining of local pasts and presents. They thus displace colonial Russified notions of modernity.

Collectively, discourses and practices range from the spontaneous to the organised and include both vertical and horizontal relations. Vertically, networks include the wider public and political elites but are still rare in Central Asia. Horizontally, decolonial movements, networks, and actors lead the discourse, generate ideas, and create the language. National, transnational, and transregional networks build connections between institutions and individuals and set agenda for decolonial disruptions (Castells Reference Cameron1996, Reference Cameron1998; Burbank and Cooper Reference Burbank and Cooper2023). Among the most potent examples of transnational networking is scholar-activist RUTA Association for Central, South-Eastern, and Eastern European, Baltic, Caucasus, Central and Northern Asian Studies in Global Conversation. Esimde and Bukhara Biennial have emerged as regional hubs for conversations.

Both decolonial discourses and practices also generate visions of the future that incorporate cultural and political self-determination. These processes resemble the new alignments in Africa, Asia, and Latin America after World War II, which generated networks of solidarity among formerly colonised peoples (Burbank and Cooper Reference Burbank and Cooper2023). Transboundary networks eventually resulted in institutions aligning with pan-African or pan-Latin American decolonial movements. Ultimately, many decolonial disruptions challenge leftovers of colonial political governance regimes.

Beyond the first steps towards decolonial consciousness, feminist scholars view the decolonial moment as inseparable from questions of gender and sex. Patriarchy represents coloniality’s omnipresent backdrop: imperial powers control gender, sexuality, race, class, and religious identities (Vergès Reference Vergès2021). Colonial patriarchy marginalises communities that deviate from binary heteropatriarchal ideas of sex and gender. Decolonial feminism therefore ‘contribute[s] to the struggle, undertaken for centuries by part of humanity, to assert its right to existence’ (Vergès Reference Vergès2021, 10). In Central Asia, feminist voices are powerful but often in the margins of public decolonial conversations (Arystanbek Reference Arystanbek2022, Reference Arystanbek2023). They push mainstream discussions in what Lewis and Mills described as a ‘two-fold project: to racialize mainstream feminist theory and to insert feminist concerns into conceptualizations of colonialism and postcolonialism’ (2003, 3). Throughout the Element, we point out such dualities in activists’ efforts.

As decolonial approaches gain prominence, critiques of these emerging perspectives intensify as well. In the eyes of sceptics, decolonial disruptions involve a regression into collective victimhood that fail to recognise the agency of the subaltern under colonialism. However, we see it as a path to finding meaning in surviving the colonial past and generating a new vision of the future independent from the metropole. Uncovering previously erased traumatic experiences is just one step towards a more resilient political unity. The rise in public awareness of the Holodomor in Ukraine, first heralded by diaspora scholarship in the 2000s, eventually contributed to the unity of the Ukrainian nation in its stance against Russian aggression. Ukrainian resolve shows how acknowledging historical trauma enables envisioning of a future unbound by imperial domination. The strength of decolonial perspective is its ability to understand the past outside of the metropole’s diktat.

The ultimate aspiration for those articulating the past independently of the metropole is to be free from the need to identify as ‘postcolonial’ or ‘decolonial’. The effort is contentious and may take decades, but a necessary step towards independence of the mind. In this regard, decolonial disruptions are indeed just a necessary moment in history and not the defining feature of Central Asia. Other monikers, such as ‘post-Soviet’ and ‘post-communist’, have similarly lost their relevance in describing the region. To move beyond these labels is to reclaim epistemic sovereignty.

This Element

Our work joins a growing effort to reclaim an independent sense of self, lands, and a way of life in Central Asia. It expands the burgeoning field of decolonial studies stemming from Central Asia and includes influential thinkers such as Kassymbekova (Reference Kassymbekova2016); Mustoyapova (Reference Moldagali2022); Kassenova (Reference Kassenova2022); Kudaibergen(ova) (Reference Akmbekov2013, Reference Krzykowski2024); Shelekpayev (Reference Shelekpayev2025); Doolotkeldieva (Reference Dadabaev2023); Ismailbekova (Reference Ismailbekova2017); Dadabaev (Reference Dadabaev2021); Bissenova (Reference Bashta2023); Sharipova, Bissenova, and Burkhanov (Reference Segalo, Manoff and Fine2024); and many others. We also contribute to discussions of similar processes taking place in nations formerly occupied by the Soviet Empire (Koplatadze 2019; Tlostanova Reference Tlostanova2022; Durdiyeva Reference Durdiyeva2023; Mälksoo Reference Malikov, Schröder and Stephan-Emmrich2023; Oksamytna Reference Oksamytna2023; Tsymbalyuk Reference Tlostanova2025). Many more decolonial scholarly and activist works are currently in production as well.

The Element consists of three sections and a conclusion. Section 1 outlines legacies of Soviet coloniality that have morphed into patron–client relations between the Kremlin and national elites. Both the Central Asian ruling regimes and the Russian government continue to exploit imperial autocratic institutions. Section 2 identifies the current scope of decolonial discourses among expert networks and country-level domestic initiatives. It analyses podcasts, accessible to broad publics, as a medium that allows spontaneous conversations. Section 3 explores the adoption of decolonial discourses and practices among different groups. It relies on interviews with scholars, artists, and activists in Central Asia at the centre of decolonial disruptions. The concluding section explores emerging visions for the future. The Element also analyses the pushback against decolonial thinking, market forces that commercialise decolonial products, and the rise of alternative hegemonic practices undermining decolonial processes.

Epistemological Imperialism

As hunger was ravaging Kazakhstan’s steppe in the early 1930s, Stalin was busy elevating the status of the Russian people as the ‘main nationality of the world’ (Nevzhin 2003, 42). In a series of public and private speeches he elevated Russians to a status above all other ‘backwards’ nations. Shortly after the end of World War II, in his address to the Soviet empire, Stalin publicly declared Russians as ‘the most distinguished nation of all nations’ among other Soviet members (Nauka i zhizn’ 2005). Stalin appointed ethnic Russians as the leaders of progress, delegating history and culture of other ethnic groups to the margins under the guise of eradicating ‘nationalisms’ (Saktaganova Reference Saktaganova2019). The regime subsequently curtailed the study of national histories across Central Asia and targeted local scholars who dared to study pre-Soviet histories.

As Ta-Nehisi Coates (Reference Castells2024) notes, such epistemic violence constrains the scope of future thought – limiting imagination, inquiry, and memory. This ideological surveillance stifled intellectual autonomy and established collective memory according to imperial hegemony. In the Soviets’ view, Central Asia lacked its own historic past, distinct cultural identities, or capacity to self-govern without Russian oversight. The imperial logic persists in Russia’s contemporary domestic politics today, from Russocentric education initiatives to the portrayal of Central Asian migrants in domestic media as subordinate labourers rather than equal participants of a shared past.

The colonial conception of Central Asia as a premodern entity requiring salvation from its own backwardness was reflected in frequent narratives within Western literature as well. For decades, Western scholarly work perpetuated common colonial views of the region as having been modernised under the Soviet regime’s affirmative action programs (Kassymbekova and Chokobaeva 2021). Even literature that critiques the Soviet modernisation project as colonial still posits that Central Asia benefitted from this experience more than other parts of the former empire. Common tropes include the notions that: (1) Soviet Russia endowed Central Asia with economic development and education; (2) collaborators in Central Asia welcomed the Bolshevik Revolution; (3) the communists emancipated local women; and (4) the Soviet secular regime saved Central Asia from radical Islamic practices.

Many Western scholarly works argue about the emancipatory element in the Soviet period, including the rise of literacy, healthcare, and agriculture. Soviets rewarded locals with tractors, saved them from radical Islam, and helped women join the workforce. As Kassymbekova observes, this intellectual paradigm arose from goodwill, whereby scholars perceived it as their mission to ‘de-demonise’ or ‘humanise’ Russia (a term used as a substitute for the Soviet Empire) for their Western audiences. According to this logic, the Cold War engendered anti-Russian sentiment in the West, prompting scholars to endeavour to present a more normalising depiction of Soviet state and society. Within this framework, Soviet colonies were either excluded from analysis or interpreted as entities that possessed the agency to shape their destinies or were violently integrated into Soviet ‘modernity’ (Marat and Kassymbekova Reference Marat2023).

One function of contemporary decolonial disruptions is to render colonial rule itself visible as a political accomplishment rather than as an inevitable condition of life (Mignolo and Tlostanova Reference Sport2009; Veracini Reference Vedomosti2016). The emergence of decolonial studies of Central Asia characterises Russia as a settler colonial power engaging in extractive practices alongside internal interventions in ‘the biopolitical and geopolitical management of people, land, flora and fauna within the “domestic” borders of the imperial nation’ (Tuck and Yang Reference Tlostanova2012, 4). Current decolonial disruptions thus challenge both dominant Russian and Western perspectives on Central Asia.

Beneath the surface of Russian tropes, the local population became landless, forcibly relocated, and employed within a managed economy. Like other settler colonialism of the time, the Soviet regime also unleashed extensive propaganda about the rationale of its occupation of land and the dispossession of indigenous cultures. Russian colonial projects never genuinely aimed at establishing cultural equality. The Russian settler population did not aspire to become indigenous (ex. Caroe 1953). Non-ethnic Russian populations displaced to Central Asia (such as Tatars and Ukrainians) from other parts of the Russian Empire adopted characteristics of Russian settlers. Populations forcibly moved to Central Asia, including nations from the North Caucasus and Koreans, assimilated aspects of Russian settler identity while retaining their own cultural heritage. Locals could only rise through the ranks if literate in the Russian language, often at the expense of their own mother tongue, and exhibit features of a culturally Russified Asian.

Historian Zhar Zardykhan sees how the Kazakh society today continues to suffer from cognitive dissonance between how foreign cultural norms of the metropole misrepresented the everyday reality during periods of colonisation (Dope Söz Reference Söz2022). The mimicking of the metropole’s Russo-centric standards of civility in language and conduct, while simultaneously lacking the facial appearance of the metropole, creates inherent confusion. Consequently, acts of resistance against colonial mimicry include self-care practices and the cultivation of creative expression free of colonial expectations.

Today’s pursuit of identities in Central Asia counters the Soviet-era shame of not being Russian enough. Instead, it has evolved into the embarrassment of not knowing, of never discovering one’s own roots. It is no longer regarded as regressive to yearn for one’s own language or to take pride in expressions of genuine local culture. This represents an act of decolonial resistance, a pathway to self-discovery, and the creation of an inclusive space for all marginalised groups, irrespective of language, ethnicity, or gender. These efforts honour ancestors and mourn those who perished in mass violence.

Political Colonialism and Extactionism

Russian colonial regimes employed the concepts of ‘progress’ and ‘development’ to legitimise their domination, often intertwining these notions with ideas of benevolence and cultural uplift. These dynamics in colonial relations were manifested institutionally and socially, arising from the internalisation of colonial hierarchies, values, and identities (Go Reference Go2009). Both the Tsarist and Soviet Russian empires subjugated local populations and extracted resources; however, the Soviets also violently codified local languages, cultures, and ethnic identities. The Soviet regime regarded nomadic peoples as inferior to the culture of the settled, Russified population. Russian colonial policies compelled nomads to adopt sedentary lifestyles, erasing local religious practices in the process. The Communist Party coerced Muslim women into removing their veils and integrating them into the proletarian workforce (Northrop 2019). Cultural and political elites were purged, and any resistance was met with severe repression.

The Soviet project of enforced modernisation in Central Asia dismantled traditional modes of life under the pretext of ‘progress’ (Abylkhozhin Reference Abylkhozhin, Abylkhozhin, Akulov and Tsay2019). Among the most devastating interventions was the forced sedentarisation of nomadic populations, which Soviet authorities justified as a civilising measure. Authorities confiscated livestock essential for survival in arid environments during the late 1920s and early 1930s. In Kazakhstan (then titled as the Kazakh Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic, Kazakh ASSR), where the effects were particularly acute, households owning 25–30 sheep were classified as ‘excessively wealthy’, leaving many families with only a few animals – far below subsistence levels (Abylkhozhin Reference Abylkhozhin, Abylkhozhin, Akulov and Tsay2019). The resulting famine claimed over a million lives in Kazakhstan alone and mirrored similar tragedies across Soviet Central Asia. These state-engineered famines were concealed in Soviet archives until recently.

Political repression accompanied these extractive policies. Resistance to grain requisitioning was criminalised as counter-revolutionary action. In southern Kazakhstan, authorities subjected villagers to exposure to freezing temperatures and beatings, even targeting pregnant women (Abylkhozhin Reference Abylkhozhin, Abylkhozhin, Akulov and Tsay2019). Despite widespread starvation, the region continued to supply vital resources to the Soviet economy – at the height of the famine, Kazakhstan contributed 33 per cent of Soviet wool, 20 per cent of small animal skins, 17 per cent of its wheat, and 10 per cent of its meat (Abylkhozhin Reference Abylkhozhin, Abylkhozhin, Akulov and Tsay2019). Mass arrests and executions followed any dissent, revealing the extent to which the rhetoric of progress masked a profoundly exploitative colonial enterprise.

Titular cultures were imposed from the top down, with local folklore reinterpreted through Eurocentrism and Soviet totalitarian aesthetics (Martin Reference Martin and Morton2000). For instance, as in other Soviet colonies, Moscow replaced local dance traditions in Central Asia with dances revolving in concentric circles and synchronised movements. Scarce video records from the early 1920s illustrate how nomadic dancing traditions were spontaneous and meditative prior to Soviet intervention. Similarly, traditional cuisine and attire were engineered – each titular ethnic group was assigned a set of standardised ‘traditional’ dishes and types of dress (Fitz-Gibbon 2004; Eisenberg Reference Durdiyeva2023). Elaborate forms of attire, suited to different lifestyles, climatic conditions, and social roles, were simplified into one standard outfit for each Soviet republic. Almost none of the Russian settlers learned local languages.

Regional economies depended on Moscow’s extractive and redistributive policies. Central Asian cotton, natural gas, hydropower, and grains underpinned the Soviet economy, while Moscow supplied manufactured and industrial products to Central Asia (Göksel and Huseynova Reference Goh2024). Extractive policies left the local population worse off than those in the metropole and devastated the environment (Spoor Reference Sodikov1998; Cameron Reference Cameron2020). The Aral Sea dried up to facilitate cotton irrigation. Kazakhstan was used as a nuclear testing site and a launch base for the Soviet space programme (Kassenova Reference Kassenova2022). Additionally, Ysyk Köl in Kyrgyzstan was employed for torpedo development (Krzykowski Reference Krzykowski2022).

Under Soviet rule, Central Asians lost contact with the outside world and became increasingly alienated from one another. By the 1920s, within a decade of Soviet governance, local scripts were altered from Arabic to Latin and subsequently to Cyrillic. Few schools educated in native languages. In their own countries, Central Asians were commonly referred to as nastionaly by Russians, a term meaning ‘ethnics’ in Russian. Peoples in North Asia became subjects of ridicule in popular culture. Coloniality embodied a process, in Lugones’s words, of the ‘active reduction of people, the dehumanization that fits them for the classification, the process of subjectification, the attempt to turn the colonized into less than human beings’ (2010, 745).

Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, along with Azerbaijan, began switching to the Latin alphabet in the 1990s to varying degrees of success. In Uzbekistan, the use of the Cyrillic alphabet can still be found today. Kazakhstan’s former president Nursultan Nazarbayev first spoke about the need to transition to the Latin alphabet in 2006 but only announced the official initiative in 2017. It is projected to be an ambitious project with a high budget and an estimated completion date that has been postponed from 2025 to 2031 (Koroleva Reference Koroleva2024). In September 2024, the Organization of Turkic States, consisting of Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, agreed on adopting a universal Latin Turkic alphabet. However, Kyrgyzstan is the only member-state that has not expressed interest in the transition from Cyrillic to Latin yet. In 2024, Kyrgyz president Sadyr Japarov said that such a switch is not a priority for the development of Kyrgyz language (Nadjibulla Reference Nadjibulla2024). In Tajikistan, while there have been discussions of switching to the Persian alphabet, they have not resulted in any consequential policy discussions (Sputnik Tajikistan Reference Sodikov2019). The Kremlin has been noticeably sensitive about this trend in the region. Putin continuously spoke about the importance of Russian language and its heritage in his meetings with Japarov (Shambetov Reference Segalo, Manoff and Fine2023) and Toqayev (Azattyq Reference Azattyq2022).

Colonising Memory

When the Soviet regime collapsed, the historical narrative as understood by most Central Asians was predominantly imaginative or had been constructed from a top-down perspective by the Communist Party. The most coherent imagery of this period emerged following Stalin’s death, with the most vivid recollections among survivors of the regime originating from the 1970s. Central Asians’ sense of cultural belonging was largely obliterated under the colonial settler regime. Particularly in formerly nomadic cultures, familial and tribal memories were primarily transmitted orally across generations. Aside from fragments of narratives in some families regarding the period preceding 1917, almost all traces of history were eradicated. Even those who managed to retain oral knowledge could not be entirely certain of their historical accounts. While patrimonial memory holds significant value, many individuals are either unable to identify or must imagine or reconstruct their patrimonial lineage extending back seven generations (Malikov Reference Malikov, Schröder and Stephan-Emmrich2018).

While ethnic majorities experienced a deprivation of their languages, minority languages have either perished or are now on the verge of extinction. The Oirat and Bukhori languages are nearly non-existent today, and the Chagatai and Kypchak languages became extinct in the early twentieth century (Brower and Johnston Reference Bitikchi2007). Minority groups such as the Karakalpaks and Pamiris have managed to preserve their languages; however, few literary works are available in translation. Additionally, many Central Asians share ancestral ties with Tatars, Turks, Chinese, Uyghurs, Jews, Germans, and other ethnic groups, yet none of their languages are widely spoken in the region today. A century after the Soviet conquest, a typical Russified Central Asian possesses limited knowledge of local authors (and is often unable to read in local languages) but is likely well-versed in Russian classical literature. A Central Asian who speaks their native language will likely attempt to communicate in Russian with the Russian-speaking populace.

It is not uncommon for postcolonial societies to begin developing decolonial discourses several years or decades after the ‘formal’ end of the colonisation period. Franz Fanon (Reference EUvsDisinfo2001) describes a ‘lethargy’ experienced by postcolonial societies following their attainment of independence. This lethargy is not a natural phenomenon; rather, it is a constructed condition perpetuated by the power elites who assumed control of the state after the demise of colonialism. As the decolonial way in the mid twentieth century showed, decolonisation often transferred power to local elites who inherited, and at times deliberately preserved, the administrative and coercive structures of colonial rule rather than developing genuinely decolonial forms of governance. These regimes reproduced the logic of domination under the guise of national unity and modernisation in times of uncertainty. The goal of postcolonial regimes become ‘putting people to sleep’ by using references to colonial times solely to remind citizens of the progress they have achieved but without interrogating the roots of own autocracy (Fanon Reference EUvsDisinfo2001). Consequently, the absence of a collective decolonial consciousness in the initial decades of independence is not coincidental nor does it indicate an intrinsic inability of postcolonial communities to self-govern. Rather, it is a primary component of the newly established autocratic regimes that prioritise their own political and financial gains over decolonial development.

Colonising Gender

Gender reforms under Soviet rule similarly blended emancipation with control. Women were mobilised into the workforce and targeted by literacy campaigns. Institutions such as the zhenotdely (women’s departments) promoted the image of the liberated Soviet woman, free from domestic and religious constraints. As Deniz Kandiyoti (Reference Kandiyoti2007) argues, the Soviet effort to ‘liberate’ Muslim women through workforce integration ultimately reinforced their subordination within rigid state hierarchies. Despite formal inclusion in public life, women were assigned roles that were carefully gendered. Zhenotdely were centrally controlled by the Party to enforce de-vailing of Central Asian women, promote literacy, and set up orphanages (Starodubets Reference Starodubets2021). Gregory Massell (Reference Martin and Morton1974) contends that, in the early Soviet period, women in regions lacking an industrial proletariat were mobilised as a ‘surrogate proletariat’, not to advance gender equality but to fulfil ideological imperatives in the absence of class-based revolution. The Soviet gender policy thus reflected a dual logic – promoting participation while reinforcing hierarchical boundaries (Northrop Reference Northrop2004).

Svetlana Peshkova (Reference Peshkova2021) notes that Soviet reforms in Central Asia reshaped local gender relations by attaching ideas of modernity and progress to Europeanised appearance, Russian language proficiency, and urban lifestyles. These reforms presented women’s emancipation as a political symbol of national development, yet they did not dismantle entrenched hierarchies of gender, age, and class. Instead, they produced a double bind for Central Asian women whose education and public participation were encouraged, while domestic obedience, motherhood, and modesty continued to be idealised as markers of moral virtue and cultural authenticity.

This top-down approach produced long-term effects on how gender and sexuality were forgotten – or deliberately erased. The Soviet state suppressed pre-revolutionary gender norms and criminalised same-sex relations, contributing to a profound rupture in local memory. Zarina Mukanova (2022) argues that Soviet homophobia in Central Asia represented a form of colonial imposition, tied to the portrayal of the region as deviant and backward in contrast to European norms. The violent stigmatisation of queer identities in Central Asia, according to Mukanova, is closely linked to colonial and carceral systems introduced by the Russian Empire and intensified during the Soviet era.

Similarly, Feruza Aripova (Reference Apirakvanalee and Zhai2022) demonstrates how Soviet authorities targeted indigenous queer communities, effectively erasing their histories and embedding homophobic ideologies into the fabric of Soviet modernity. These policies were justified within the Soviet civilising mission, casting Central Asia as a region to be reformed and disciplined through ideological intervention. Both authors describe how, in Central Asia, colonial ethnographers often fixated on practices such as bacha bazi (relationships between men and dancing boys) not only as proof of Eastern deviance but also as justification for civilising missions. Peshkova notes that the precolonial gender order in Turkestan was non-binary and included distinct social roles such as bacha – youth who danced and sang for male audiences in homes, teahouses, and public celebrations. While some bacha formed intimate relationships with older men, this role was not fixed or lifelong; it was a temporary social position tied to age, artistry, and beauty rather than to sexual identity. Russian colonial observers, however, recast bacha bazi as a marker of sexual deviance, stripping it of its artistic and social dimensions in imperial and later Soviet discourse. In Afghanistan, sexual exploitation of bacha bazi in the twenty-first century duly received widespread attention from both scholars and activists. Historical analysis of the phenomenon, however, point at a non-sexual nature of the relationship between teenage boy and men (Abdi Reference Abdi2023). Although these practices are problematic by today’s ethical standards, their visibility in urban life indicates that male same-sex relations were culturally legible before being reframed as socially deviant and nationally shameful during colonisation.

Russian Response: ‘It’s All Russophobia’

Decolonial disruption in Central Asia alarms Moscow, which is quick to label such movements as ‘Russophobia’, a ‘virus’ spread by Western influence (EUvsDisinfo Reference EUvsDisinfo2024b). In 2024, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs broadened the definition of Russophobia, equating the promotion of non-Russian languages with extremist behaviour. Terms such as ‘language hatred’ and ‘distortion of historical facts’ now fall under the scope of extremism, signalling a tightening grip on narratives that challenge Russia’s self-image. Russian media portrayed Kazakhstan’s ‘language patrols’ and Kyrgyzstan’s legislative reforms not as legitimate expressions of national identity but as threats to the rights of Russian-speaking populations (Baltnews Reference Baltnews2024). Such coverage reflects Moscow’s discomfort with losing influence, depicting Central Asia’s linguistic sovereignty as a betrayal.

Russian government frequently deploys orientalist tropes while positioning itself as equal – or even victimised – in relation to Central Asia. A 2021 article from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) portrayed Central Asians as embracing a shared Soviet legacy –an interpretation increasingly questioned following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine (Sodikov Reference Sodikov2021). In 2024, TV personality Tina Kandelaki criticised Kyrgyzstan for the demolition of the Soviet Museum of Military Glory named after General Panfilov, who had assisted the Soviets in occupying Central Asia and later fought in World War II. She perceived this action as an attack on the positive Soviet/Russian legacy in both modernising Central Asia and defending it from Nazi Germany.

Two months later, Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, reprimanded Uzbekistan following the release of a video depicting a teacher in Tashkent assaulting a sixth-grade student who requested that the lesson be conducted in Russian. She stated, ‘there is no and cannot be any place for any hostility, especially on linguistic “grounds”’ (RFE/RL 2024). Additionally, Yevgeny Primakov, head of Rossotrudnichestvo, referred to the situation as an example of ‘vile Russophobia’ (Eurasianet Reference Eurasianet2024). The term also emerged in the case of Kazakhstan’s national football team coach Stanislav Cherchesov, who was fined for dismissive comments regarding the Kazakh language. His joke, interpreted as reflective of a colonial mindset, triggered public backlash in Kazakhstan, highlighting tensions surrounding language and identity. Russian officials framed these events as evidence of anti-Russian hostility, while Central Asian governments defended their actions as sovereignty-driven and non-discriminatory.

In response to mounting decolonial discourse, Russia and Kazakhstan have initiated ‘joint historical’ projects, such as a 2024 roundtable at Al-Farabi University, advocating for shared memory rather than colonial critique. At the event, Alexander Knyazev, a senior researcher at MGIMO, claimed that ‘Western foundations’ and ‘organisations’ propagate decolonisation to influence public consciousness in Kazakhstan and other ‘post-Soviet states’. He stressed the importance of promoting a shared historical narrative as a basis for future cooperation, rather than ‘dwelling on the past’ (Respublika Media Reference Media2024). Similar conversations have taken place with MGIMO representatives in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, with plans to expand these efforts across the region. Ultimately, the Kremlin’s invocation of ‘Russophobia’ conflates decolonial efforts with Western interference, framing them as threats to Russian identity. This narrative sustains Russia’s imperial legacy by denying post-Soviet states the legitimacy of independent national identity formation.

Reinforcing Colonialism from Within

When the Soviet regime collapsed, the incumbent leaders in Central Asia were hesitant to witness the disintegration of the union. Kazakhstan was the last Soviet republic to acknowledge its own independence in December 1991. The modern borders of the entire Central Asian region were delineated less than a century prior by the Soviet regime. These borders were intentionally drawn to bisect ethnic groups and densely populated areas, such as those in the Ferghana Valley. The Soviet efforts to create homogenised ethnic republics in a profoundly heterogeneous area, characterised by unstable ethnic identities, resulted in shifting borders that persisted until the late 1930s (Reeves 2019). Various maps illustrated the ongoing reconfiguration of borders, particularly during the 1920s, which remains a source of contention among Central Asian countries today. In the 1990s, Uzbekistan laid landmines in disputed territories with Tajikistan, leading to civilian casualties. In 2021 and 2022, military confrontations occurred between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan over their disputed border areas, resulting in dozens of fatalities and the temporary displacement of over 100,000 individuals.

Central Asian leaders promulgated top-down ideologies regarding the newly established independent states. Post-Soviet ideologies emphasised the cultivation of new identities devoid of communism. Ironically, these ideologies continued to glorify their nations’ pasts within the confines previously sanctioned by the Soviet regime. In Kyrgyzstan, the leadership highlighted a traditional epic poem titled ‘The Epic of Manas’; in Uzbekistan, the emphasis was placed on the dynasty of Amir Timur; and in Tajikistan, the focus centred on Ismoil Somoni. Under President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan also constructed a vision of a glorious future predicated on a glorious past. Nazarbayev’s political initiatives, such as Rukhani Zhangyru (Spiritual Revival in Kazakh) and the Kazakhstan-2050 Strategy, were largely framed around issues of imperial and Soviet Russian domination over the country. In Turkmenistan, the leadership focussed on their own personalities. Gandhi perceives such state projects as manifestations of the ‘creative euphoria of self-invention’ (2018, 4), which monopolises identity-building in the aftermath of independence.

The state-driven ideologies of the 1990s encompassed the mass renaming of major streets and cities, replacing tributes to Soviet revolutionaries with those of state-sanctioned national heroes. Figures such as Manas, Amir Timur, Somoni, and Abay entered the vernacular. All ideologies in the newly independent Central Asian states centred around the ethnic majority while simultaneously promoting a Soviet relic – the ‘friendship of nations’, a concept that presumed minority ethnic groups coexisted harmoniously with the majority group yet displayed a lack of imagination and complexity (Bukrieieva, Skliarov, and Shpachinsky Reference Bitikchi2023; Zhussipbek Reference Zhussipbek and Mörner2024). While state projects avoided Russo-centrism, they nevertheless developed ethnocentric ideas within the parameters established by the Soviet regime.

Few individuals in Central Asia genuinely expressed enthusiasm for such top-down post-Soviet ideals of nationhood. In the 1990s, the Kyrgyz government invested in commemorating the Manas epic, but only the Kyrgyz-speaking population was motivated to explore the epic further. In Tajikistan, President Emomali Rahmon became increasingly self-centred in the first decade of the new millennium, following the country’s five-year civil war. In recent years, new leaders in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan have distanced themselves from the ideals of their predecessors. Over time, the initial state ideologies have diminished in significance for a substantial portion of the regional populace. Both Gandhi (Reference Gafar2018) and Fanon (Reference EUvsDisinfo2001) demonstrate that a lack of postcolonial and decolonial rhetoric does not imply the absence of coloniality in a country’s conceptualisation of national belonging. State efforts obscure the extent to which coloniality influences the country’s political and social present while insisting upon a homogeneous national identity.

When Central Asian governments selectively apply decolonial narratives and practices, they tend to align these with their pre-existing policy priorities. Kazakhstan permits revisions of the Asharshylyq and language politics, while Uzbekistan has come to symbolise a stance of Soviet resistance and independence by expanding research of anti-Soviet Jadids and Basmachi movements. Careful not to anger Russia, Kyrgyzstan promotes a sterilised version of the Russian tsarist repression of 1916 that portrays the Bolsheviks as saviours.

This colonial inertia in the context of independence is not unique to Central Asia. Emergent nation-states acquiring sovereignty for the first time in contemporary history often need to fabricate a national past. Such fabrication frequently coincides with the installation of colonial aphasia, a political tool described by Ann Stoler (Reference Steinman2016) as an intentional practice of failing to reflect on coloniality embedded in both the past and present. Both Fanon and Bhabha contend that colonial heritage remains deeply entwined with national identity, regardless of how inventive nationalism may become. Bhabha (Reference Bashta2003, 176), quoting Gellner (Reference Gafar1983), asserts that ‘the cultural shreds and patches used by nationalism are often arbitrary historical inventions’. He argues that nation-building involves imaginatively inventing national pasts to homogenise people. However, Bhabha cautions that an excessive narrative of homogeneity can result in ‘the archaic body of the despotic or totalitarian mass’.

Gandhi perceives the necessity for postcolonial studies as an antidote to the postcolonial amnesia that has developed in a rush to recover from colonialism. She defines postcolonial studies as ‘an attempt to allow the “people” finally to speak within the jealous pages of elitist historiography and, in doing so, to speak for, or to sound the muted voices of, the truly oppressed’ (Reference Gafar2018, 2). She discusses the inclination to forget often observed in postcolonial societies, which is subsequently followed by a process of historical self-invention to decentre years of subjugation. In this context, nationalism emerges as a tactic of forgetting, aligning with the strategies of Central Asian governments that prioritise the invention of a new identity over the colonial past. For Fanon, however, national culture represents the continual effort of the people to create and sustain it. National culture ‘rehabilitates the nation’ from its violent past while offering hope for the future (Fanon Reference EUvsDisinfo2001, 154).

Amid the inertia to create top-down ideologies, decolonial and postcolonial disruptions can formulate a more inclusive nationalism. Foundational theories of nationalism differentiate between ‘official nationalism’, a top-down model characterised by the ‘imposition of cultural homogeneity from the top, through state action’ (Chatterjee Reference Castells1993, 165). Decolonial movements challenge political elites who continue to align themselves with Moscow. This rift is already observable in Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, as well as among diaspora communities from North Asia. Diverse political imaginations for the post-war period can create conditions conducive to mass protests and the emergence of extremist factions. Conversely, closer alignments between decolonial resistance among the populace and governing elites may transition countries into new transboundary political alliances.

Decolonial discussions draw parallels between the oppressive tactics employed by contemporary rulers in Central Asia and those of the Soviet regime. In Kazakhstan, the protests of January 2022 coincided with an already heightened public interest in reassessing Stalin’s atrocities. President Kassym-Jomart Toqayev initially repressed the street protests brutally, and subsequent violence persisted in detention facilities. Critics of the regime have drawn comparisons between the killings and torture under Toqayev and the actions of the Gestapo and the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs during the Soviet era. On a regional scale, Russia expects and extorts loyalty from Central Asian states. Its regional security alliance, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), is primarily concerned with supporting incumbent regimes. Toqayev was able to maintain power in January 2022 in part due to Russia’s agreement to dispatch CSTO troops to Kazakhstan.

The ruling regimes in the region exploit colonial legacies. Autocratic leaders replicate the instruments of oppression employed by former metropoles while also creating new mechanisms of control. None of the incumbent leaders in Central Asia are likely to relinquish power through elections. Instead, transitions of power are expected to occur through death, inheritance, coups, and mass demonstrations. Sources of authoritarianism rooted in the colonial period include the modern states’ robust security apparatuses. Under Soviet rule, police and intelligence services maintained centralised control while presenting a façade of decentralisation across Soviet territory. The Soviet security apparatus lacked oversight mechanisms and was primarily loyal to the ruler (Marat Reference Marat2018). Practices of torture against civilians, first instituted under Stalin, persisted throughout the Soviet era. All suspects were presumed guilty until proven innocent under Soviet law. As Central Asians continue to live under the old colonial practices of law enforcement now perpetrated by ruling political regimes.

Conclusion

The colonial hierarchies established during the Russian and Soviet periods remained across Central Asia despite receiving formal independence in 1991. Russia naturalised colonial domination through the discourse of imported modernity and reinforced through violent transformations of local lifestyles, identity, and memory. Soviet rule did not merely impose a political order; it restructured the conditions under which history could be remembered, gender could be expressed, and national identity could be imagined. Colonialism in the region manifested as a layered structure that outlasted the Soviet Union. Incumbent political elites in Central Asia continue to align with Moscow for their own benefit. But following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine decolonial disruption identifying continuities of colonialism has spread across the region. Unlike before 2022, decolonial disruptions no longer linger at the intellectual margins but engage a wide range of participants discussed in the next two sections.

Challenging History Tropes

The perception that mainstream historical narratives in Central Asia remain incomplete and perpetuate a colonial understanding of the region underpins every decolonial discourse. Most podcasts promote a more inclusive understanding of the past. For instance, many in Kazakhstan were previously unaware of the resistance to Soviet rule led by the widely respected intellectual Murat Auezov. Featured in Armanzhan Baytasov’s podcast, Auezov recounted decolonial discourses among Kazakh youth during the Soviet period, dating back to the 1960s. Auezov helped organise an informal, student-led collective known as Jas Tulpar, which promoted Kazakh culture despite Soviet propaganda. According to Auezov, Kazakh youth in the latter half of the twentieth century aspired to a ‘decolonisation of consciousness’, as much of Kazakh society at the time exhibited a ‘colonised mindset’ (Armanzhan Baytasov Reference Bashta2022). Jas Tulpar translated works from Arabic, Hindi, and other languages into Kazakh. As he articulated, ‘Everyone needs to understand the special value of justice and knowledge’ (Armanzhan Baytasov Reference Bashta2022). Jas Tulpar framed the position of Kazakhs within the Soviet Union as colonial, with the land being exploited for resource extraction. ‘We couldn’t help but think that this is a country where the Aral Sea is dying, where there are nuclear tests every year’, says Auezov. The Kazakh youth at the time already saw the colonial nature of the Soviet regime, even if they lacked a theoretical decolonial vocabulary.

Participants frequently draw attention to novel perspectives in archival research. Among them is Ainash Mustoyapova, who advocates for a transformative re-evaluation of Kazakhstan’s history. She highlights the famine of the 1930s, nuclear and space technology tests, and the deportation and resettlement of ethnic groups in Central Asia as key events overlooked by colonial narratives. Where archives are absent or access is restricted by the governments of the twentieth century, Mustoyapova warns that Central Asians are deprived of a comprehensive understanding of colonial violence: ‘The threat of losing culture, identity, and language was real. I believe that if we had remained in the Soviet Union for two or three more generations, the process would have been almost irreversible. As we see, unfortunately, what is happening to Bashkirs, Tatars, and others today’ (Barys Media Reference Media2023). The pursuit of access to historical archives and the production of knowledge on coloniality are foundational to decolonial development, according to Zardykhan, who describes decolonisation as a process rather than merely a theoretical framework: ‘We, people from postcolonial context, should produce information and content to avoid the Eurocentric prism of knowledge’ (Dope Söz Reference Söz2022). He sees the goal of decolonisation as uncovering the impact of coloniality on the lives of individuals even after the collapse of the empire.

A decolonial view of history allows a sharper understanding contemporary political developments, according to journalist Aisana Ashim. When protests and violent unrest unfolded in Kazakhstan in January 2022, and the regime sought to cover up its actions. Ashim urged her audience to avoid relying solely on mainstream reports of the events and instead explore personal stories of the protesters themselves. Ashim’s call reflects a broader decolonial imperative: to question top-down narratives and seek knowledge from the very people who suffered from state violence.

Government propaganda around the January unrest reminded activists of similar ways Moscow tried to cover up violence during Jeltoqsan in December 1986. The mass protests erupted in Almaty, following the Soviet Politburo’s decision to replace the ethnic Kazakh First Secretary Dinmukhamed Kunayev with an ethnic Russian, Gennady Kolbin, who had no ties to the republic. These demonstrations, led primarily by Kazakh youth, were violently suppressed by Soviet forces and have since become a symbol of early national awakening in Kazakhstan. Like in 1986, the government responded ruthlessly to the 2022 unrest, Kazakh president Kassym-Jomart Toqayev deployed lethal force, killing at least 238 people. Hundreds more were hospitalised in critical condition. In the vernacular, January 2022 events are known as Qandy Qantar (Bloody January).

Smagulova connects the aftermath of Qandy Qantar to the surge of public interest in decolonisation: ‘The January protests turned into a very big tragedy for Kazakhstan. They pushed the society towards mobilization, rethinking of its own past and explanation of the present. Therefore, of course, [decolonization] will be mainstream, it is inevitable. But to say that it will become simply pop is not quite right because the label devalues the dialogue that is happening now’ (Asians of Russia Reference Arystanbek2023). This collective experience and ongoing conversations on how the events will be remembered set up a fruitful ground for decolonial reflections.

Recalling her participation in the 1986 Jeltoqsan protests, artist Saule Suleimenova describes the moment as a powerful awakening among Kazakh youth to the realities of colonial oppression. For her political activism, her university threatened her with disciplinary action. She later compared the Kazakh government’s forceful repression of the protests in January 2022 to the profound sense of injustice she experienced during Jeltoqsan.Footnote ⁵ While commenting on January 2022, she said, ‘I simply hate it with all the strength of my soul’ (Binocle Media Reference Beyer and Finke2022) when the Soviet era is portrayed nostalgically after the Soviet collapse (Bashtan Bashta Reference Bashta2024). Suleimenova situates herself within the broader historical trajectory of Kazakh decolonisation under Soviet rule. She critiques the exclusionary practices of Soviet cultural institutions, recounting how the works of herself and her peers were rejected from official exhibitions due to their critical stance. To promote artistic autonomy and inclusivity around events like Jeltoqsan, she pioneered independent exhibitions free from institutional oversight (Figure 2).

Figure 2

Sky above Almaty. Qandy Qantar/Bloody January. Saule Suleimenova

Between Language and Empire

Language lies at the heart of decolonial discourses in Central Asia. Across podcast episodes, participants consistently return to the complex role of Russian as both a tool for cross-national dialogue and a legacy of colonial imposition. As the dominant language of Soviet administration and education, Russian became deeply embedded in everyday life across the region. Unsurprisingly, most decolonial discussions on podcasts occur in the Russian language. As a lingua franca, Russian facilitates cross-regional dialogue and collaboration among diverse Central and North Asian communities, though more activists try to organise simultaneous translations for speakers from different countries. Most podcasters reside in urban centres – particularly in Almaty and Bishkek – where cultural and scholarly activity is concentrated. These cities simultaneously foster intellectual exchange on decolonial studies and risk producing perspectives that are detached from the lived experiences of rural populations.

This reliance on Russian as the primary language of decolonial dialogue, however, brings with it complex tensions surrounding linguistic identity and cultural loss. The loss of native languages and, by proxy, cultural identity emerges in every discourse of decolonisation, especially when conducted in the Russian language. As Mustoyapova explains, through the study of the repression of the Kazakh language, one can trace the history of forceful deportations of ethnic groups to Kazakhstan, and the decline of the native Kazakh population following the famine of the 1930s. With Moscow’s language policy came repressive politics of local identities and ideological indoctrination. Even in the independence, the dominance of the Russian language in Central Asia today closely correlates with pro-Russia sentiment prevalent among Central Asians, argues Temur Umarov, a political analyst from Uzbekistan (Kloop 2023). This Russian state media influence, readily available and entertaining, expands the Kremlin’s sphere of influence and perpetuates pro-Russian narratives. Central Asians have yet to achieve independence from Moscow’s propaganda dominance by creating their own unified informational discourses, posits Amrebayev.

For many in Kazakhstan, decolonisation begins with confronting the politics of language and the emotions attached to it. Nargiz Shukenova, co-founder of the Qazaq Roses, expresses her guilt about not speaking Kazakh more fluently and more frequently. ‘The decolonisation of consciousness will happen through language. I experience a powerful guilt complex that I do not speak Kazakh as fluently and confidently as I speak Russian. Therefore, I call for the recognition of different practices on the path to decolonisation and for making it more inclusive, allowing others into it’, she stated (TEDx Talks 2022). Shukenova’s introspection reveals how proficiency in the Russian language can signify privilege while simultaneously depriving individuals of the fullness of their native identity.

A prominent advocate for linguistic diversity, Kamila Smagulova, invites those unable to speak their native languages and who are processing their colonial past in the language of the metropole into a joint discourse. ‘I don’t call this a language issue, I don’t call it a conflict over language. I call this the consequences of Russification’ (Asians of Russia Reference Arystanbek2023). At the same time, Smagulova argues that individual language preferences should not lead to inter-ethnic tensions. Writing of national histories in Central Asia may use the Russian language, while still being independent from Russian influence. Today, the Russian language remains an important medium for cultural preservation, especially for archival material.

In her own podcast title Qazaq Roses, Smagulova advocates for the inclusive representation of Kazakhstani women in the historical discourse of art and music production, even though historical archives preserved predominantly in the Russian language.

The sentiment of exclusion based on language is decolonial, reversing the dynamics of the Soviet era. Suleimenova recalls being bullied on a bus in Almaty in the 1950s for speaking Kazakh: ‘Everyone was shouting: “shut up, stop speaking this bird language. Speak normally, like a human being, in Russian”’ (Binocle Media Reference Beyer and Finke2022). Her first language is now ‘unfortunately’ Russian, and she has been learning Kazakh in pursuit of her decolonial identity-building. This journey has not been easy for Suleimenova, but she aspires to speak Kazakh fluently (Binocle Media Reference Beyer and Finke2022).

Yuriy Serebryansky, who represents a Polish ethnic minority in Kazakhstan, offers a more expansive perspective on the role of the Russian language in decolonial discourses (TEDx Talks 2022). Like for other minorities in the region, the experience of the Polish people forcibly deported to Kazakhstan in the 1930s complicates the traditional coloniser–victim binary. Those displaced by the Soviet regime gradually lost their own native languages and did not learn the language of their new environment. They only spoke Russian. Such groups, too, deserve to advocate for their language rights, even if other local languages have been repressed, according to him. At the same time, Serebryansky argues that no language, including Russian, should be monopolised and that decolonial advocacy should be inclusive of Russian-speaking ethnic minorities.

Seeing Moscow’s continued politicisation of the Russian language, Serebryansky insists that ‘neither Russia nor any other state has a monopoly on the Russian language’ (TEDx Talks 2022). He rejects the notion of monopolisation of any kind, instead focusing how any language benefits from its dynamic use. Serebryansky insists that ‘It is generally impossible to monopolize language. It is a living, growing, developing tissue. Today, many scientists classify the Russian language as one of the so-called cylindrical languages, that is, having several independent centers of development’ (TEDx Talks 2022). He encourages the audience to focus on how any language benefits from its dynamic use. Thanks to its cultural diversity, Kazakhstan has been one of the centres for the development of the Russian language and literature. Instead of limiting Russian, Kazakhstanis today can foster academic, cultural, and economic ties with other countries using the Russian language.

For Moscow, promoting native languages is often construed as an expression of nationalism in Central Asia. Umarov observed that Central Asian leaders often face accusations of nationalism in Russian media simply for preferring or using their native languages over Russian (Kloop 2023). But even if it’s an expression of nationalism, it is a benign and utilitarian aspect of decolonisation, argues Mustoyapova. It is an expression of love for one’s country, culture, land, people, history, and heroes, she claims. When Turkic Central Asian speakers can speak their native languages, they often understand each other without translation. In such cases Russian is used as the last resort.

Debates on Political Issues

Podcasts frequently comment on state-level initiatives and their impact on the broader decolonial process in Central Asia. Most commentators agree that governments curtail free thought among their citizens, while the decolonial thinking in the region has largely been driven by grassroots initiatives (Mustoyapova, Barys Media Reference Media2023; Umarov, Kloop 2023). Central Asian political elites, who grew up and ascended to power under the Soviet system, maintain close political ties with Russia. Like Moscow, they continue to obstruct genuine decolonial discourse and action within the region. Ruling elites monopolise the construction of national identities through curated, sanitised, and idealised representations of Central Asian cultural heritage. This approach highlights selective narratives that emphasise historical greatness, noble warriors, and romanticised cultural figures. Simultaneously, women are depicted as beautiful accomplices surrounded by elegant greyhounds – representations which, according to Suleimenova, perpetuate a vision of Central Asian identity as neatly polished, heroic, and deliberately disconnected from contemporary social realities (Bashtan Bashta Reference Bashta2024).

The top-down sanitised history often ignores political resistance to colonialism. When state media presents Kazakh identity as timelessly noble and apolitical, focusing on heroic ancestors, traditional rituals, and romanticised imagery, it strips away any acknowledgement of Russian colonisation, Soviet repression, and their enduring impacts on inequality, governance, and resistance (Suleimenova, Azattyq TV Reference Suleimenova2022). This curated version of history disconnects present-day protesters from a lineage of anti-colonial struggle, rendering their demands as isolated, illegitimate, or even foreign. By omitting colonisation from official narratives, the state complicates society’s ability to perceive activism as a continuation of historical fight for autonomy and justice. Instead, government media framed the protests as disruptive or unpatriotic, rather than as a reclamation of suppressed histories. Suleimenova references the tragic events surrounding the Qany Qantar protests, as a stark reminder of the authorities’ reluctance to open to contributions from grassroots movements. The sanitisation of culture thus emerges as a political strategy to limit the visibility of critical social issues.

In response to the top-down sanitised historiography, Mustoyapova advocates for a paradigm shift in societal thinking, viewing democracy as a process of introspection, critical engagement, and the recognition of local contexts. Democracy cannot be achieved solely through economic prosperity, as most Central Asian leaders insist. ‘Democracy does not happen just because we have a high oil price. […] We have to go through the process of decolonization to discover confidence and faith in ourselves in order to move forward as equals. […] Otherwise, we will remain mentally enslaved to China, or Russia, or the West’, she asserts (Barys Reference Media2023). For governments to genuinely support democracy, they must also permit decolonial thinking.

Conversely, Amrebayev, speaking on Divannye Experty, does not regard decolonisation as essential for Kazakhstan’s future. He argues that as a postcolonial and post-Soviet society, Kazakhstan should look ahead and develop ‘ideologies of the future’ to inspire change. Janibek Suleev, in a discussion on ZonaKZ, also expressed scepticism regarding the utility of the decolonisation paradigm, highlighting potential harms such as propaganda and external influence from countries such as Russia and China. He questions whether Kazakhstan can assert its own agenda amid geopolitical pressures.

Podcast discussions also grapple with the question of whether decolonial discussions can coexist with modernity. Amrebayev contends that decolonisation does not imply a regression to archaic practices. He emphasises the importance of integrating diverse cultural elements to create a new synthetic reality that challenges binary notions of tradition and progress. Similarly, Zardykhan cautions against romanticising precolonial periods and advocates for a forward-looking approach to societal development (Dope Söz Reference Söz2022). However, while Amrebayev views the Soviet empire as a modernising force, Zardykhan’s call for self-exploration beyond the past is rooted in his understanding of the Soviet period as a form of colonialism.

Decolonial discussions also critique Central Asian governments’ emphasis on a Eurasian identity as a central theme. Some question whether Russia leverages Eurasianism as a new form of colonial construct for Central Asian countries. As Russia’s geopolitical and cultural doctrine, Eurasianism presents Russia not as a European periphery but as a distinct civilisational core that unites Slavic and Turkic cultures under a historically justified imperial mission (Dope Söz Reference Söz2022). Zardykhan argues Eurasianism appeals to leaders like Nazarbayev, who were educated by Russian systems. The concept holds great significance for Russia but resonates little with the Kazakh populace. Arsen Tussupbekov, one of the hosts, discussed how his own identity as Central Asian and Kazakh is distinct from the political Eurasian narrative, as he does not identify with being European. Such critiques reveal the limitations of imposed geopolitical narratives and highlight the growing desire among Central Asians to articulate identities outside of imperial frameworks.

In conversation with Bashtan Bashta, Abylbek urges the audience to not divorce decolonisation from its rich global history and connection to personal identities of postcolonial communities. ‘Decolonization is not some new word that everyone has grabbed onto. This is not a trend, not a fashion, this is just a new form of what people have always and everywhere talked about. This is freedom, internal freedom, a feeling of self-sufficiency and value’ (Bashtan Bashta Reference Bashta2023b). Thus, while decolonisation in Central Asia continues being an issue of policy debate, decolonial practices and discussions are multifaceted and cannot be contained.

Feminist Interventions in Decolonial Discourse

Gender introduces additional complexity to discussions surrounding decolonisation. Feminist scholars have long critiqued nationalism as a deeply gendered construct, one that often instrumentalises women as symbols of ethnic, religious, and cultural identity in ways that reinforce patriarchal norms. This gendered aspect of nationalism reveals the intersectionality within liberation movements and demonstrates how gender dynamics are inseparable from broader decolonial struggles, as discussed in the previous section. Here, we follow decolonial feminist theory, particularly the work of Maria Lugones (Reference Loginova2010) and Madina Tlostanova (Reference Sport2009), that elevates voices of marginalised groups under colonialism – including women, non-binary, trans individuals, and queer communities.

Reflecting on her own experience, Suleimenova describes the emotional resonance she felt upon first encountering the academic concept of decoloniality, finding new language to previously indescribable feelings of displacement she experienced growing up (Bashtan Bashta Reference Bashta2024). She was able to better understand how Soviet history erased the stories of ordinary Asian women who experienced a ‘double colonisation’ – facing both colonial oppression and gender-based discrimination. Her portrait of an unknown bride (Belgisiz Kelin) – which recreates a photograph of an unidentified young woman dressed as a bride from the early twentieth century – illustrates how women can easily become invisible in decolonial thinking (Figure 3). The image of the unknown bride reveals how archival representations often erase women’s identities.

Figure 3

Belgisiz Kelin/Unknown woman. Saule Suleimenova

Colonial photography rendered women invisible as individuals, portraying them instead as decorative elements or emblematic figures of local suffering. By contrast, archival representations tend to retain men’s identities and affirm their social status. Uncovering archival work requires an intentional search for women whose names whose stories have been forgotten. By embedding a gender perspective, Suleimenova demonstrates how decolonial movements can remain truly emancipatory – fostering intersectional approaches that uncover stories of women and other historically silenced communities.

Central Asian state-led practices continue to replicate patriarchal structures by depicting women simultaneously beautiful, docile, and empowered, much in the Soviet tradition. For instance, in an episode of Bashtan Bashta’s O’Decolon series, Ashim argues that the Kazakhstani government romanticises the image of a Kazakh woman by reimagining egalitarian gender dynamics of nomadic Kazakh tribes prior to colonisation to undermine feminism’s relevance for contemporary Kazakh society. At the same time Central Asian governments routinely shut down feminist demonstrations advocating for equal rights or public events featuring art and discussions. Central Asian governments also repress decolonial explorations of LGBTQ+ individuals. For instance, Mutali Moskeu’s project Selftanu, a Kazakh-language LGBTQ+ educational site, was blocked by the government on the grounds of being ‘harmful to children’, despite its role in offering critical information support to queer youth (Loginova Reference Loginova2024). While Mutali’s work – such as the documentary Queer in Kazakh – frames queerness as rooted in Kazakh cultural history, the response from both the state and anti-LGBTQ+ movements illustrates how deeply patriarchy and coloniality are still embedded in the society.

Decolonial Discourse Meets Its Critics

In July 2024, Bashtan Bashta organised a closed workshop on decolonisation in Ysyk Köl, Kyrgyzstan. The workshop was followed by a discussion regarding the emotions surrounding decolonisation in the region. It brought forth common concerns about identity, cultural preservation, and strategies for decolonisation. The composition of the audience – predominantly male Kyrgyz social media content creators – shaped the direction of the discussion. One participant expressed his sentiments about decolonisation: ‘I am already sick of decolonisation.’ His frustration was directed at the elitism prevalent in decolonial discourses. The blogger noted a top-down dynamic in decolonial discourses wherein a group of experts instructs the general public on how to practise decoloniality, likening it to the educational disciplining of the USSR. His comments resonated with other participants of Bashtan Bashta, who also felt alienated by the academic vocabulary and theories often featured in decolonial discourse. From this perspective, decolonial discussions also lack tangible goals, actionable strategies, and policies that could guide the decolonisation process.

The Kyrgyz bloggers highlight the blind spots within decolonial discourses and practices in the region, particularly the absence of political ideology and the embedded mechanisms that exclude the wider public and marginalised communities. Such critique is crucial for the development of decolonial discourses in Central Asia. While decolonial disruptions have revitalised the cultures of communities across the region, criticisms and dialogues facilitate what Fanon (Reference EUvsDisinfo2001) refers to as the uninhibition of culture and the creation of a movement within the discourse. However, without critique, new discourses risk becoming new hegemonies. To truly sever ties with colonial hegemony, decolonial discourses must confront their own criticisms, particularly when these arise from various Central Asian communities (Dope Söz Reference Söz2022).

Freire (2017) conceptualised liberation as a process of resisting dehumanisation – beginning with an unveiling of oppression and culminating in collective transformation of understanding colonial legacies. For Freire, such transformation required a rigorous pedagogy led by or in collaboration with those who were oppressed. Within this framework, liberation requires the presence of educators, theorists, and intellectuals. Antonio Gramsci (Reference Gramsci and Forgacs2000) similarly emphasised the dual role of intellectuals in either sustaining the hegemony of the ruling class or resisting it. He contended that the emergence of ‘organic’ intellectuals from the working class is essential for challenging bourgeois dominance. The role of intellectuals is therefore pivotal – individuals who critically examine history, policy, and prevailing power structures through the production of decolonial discourse. Decolonial contributors often hold advanced degrees or affiliations with academic institutions, digital media platforms, or policy think tanks.

Yet, for this work to achieve emancipatory outcomes, intellectualism must intersect with activism – ensuring that critical thought is grounded in praxis and responsive to lived experiences. Gramsci (Reference Gramsci and Forgacs2000) acknowledged the structural barriers to this emergence: intellectual roles are typically reserved for specific social groups and reproduced through unequal educational systems. While subaltern intellectuals do exist, the attainment of intellectual status often entails upward social mobility, distancing individuals from their class origins. This dynamic limit the marginalised from cultivating sustained intellectual traditions within their own communities, as exemplified by the early co-optation of decolonial discourse by Kazakhstani individuals discussed in Section 3. Like Paulo Freire, Gramsci cautioned that intellectual participation alone does not guarantee liberation; rather, intellectuals must remain grounded in the struggles of the oppressed and align their work with transformative, emancipatory praxis.

Defining the subjects of struggle represents a significant concern among Central Asian activists. A collective of young contemporary Uyghur artists, Sultan Kizlar, has published a manifesto titled We Are Sick of Decolonization: Manifesto for Asian Art (Sultan Kizlar Reference Suleimenova2025). Sultan Kizlar’s critique of current decolonial discourses in the region arises from their divergence from leftist political interventions. They advocate for establishing an explicit connection between decolonisation in Central Asia and the struggles of other oppressed communities, including the working class, Palestinians, and Uyghurs. Sultan Kizlar warns that if decolonial discourses are disassociated from global struggles for liberation and leftist ideologies, decolonisation risks devolving into ethnonationalism. In many respects, Sultan Kizlar’s manifesto critiques not decolonisation itself, but rather ethnonationalism and the fragmentation of struggles. Over 11 million Uyghurs reside within what is currently Chinese territory, while Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkey, and Kyrgyzstan host some of the largest Uyghur populations outside of China. Uyghurs continue to face intense persecution in China. Consequently, Sultan Kizlar’s advocacy against exclusions and inconsistencies in decolonial discourses within Central Asia aligns with their unique experiences of living in diaspora and enduring ongoing marginalisation.

Government Reaction

The Central Asian regimes are beginning to pay attention to the decolonial turn in public discourses. The Kazakh government has ventured into the podcast industry to discuss decolonisation, ethnic identity, and linguistic divisions. On 21 February 2024, Kazakhstan’s Institute of Applied Ethnopolitical Research, established in 2020 to monitor ‘the state and dynamics of social well-being of ethnic groups, social and political processes’ (IAER 2020), launched its own podcast Tamyrlas. The institute’s podcast announcement stated that it was dedicated to discussing topical issues related to interethnic relations, ethnopolitics, and sociopolitical processes in Kazakhstan. The podcast promises listeners ‘unique knowledge and insights to understand the current state and development prospects of civil society’ in Kazakhstan. Government-ran podcasts underscore the medium’s impact on public opinion and the ruling regime’s desire to insert itself into the conversation.

In other podcasts, the Kazakh government attempts to shape – and potentially exploit – the decolonial turn for its own political purposes. For instance, a podcast by the Kazakhstan Institute of Public Development interviewed researcher Kamila Smagulova on issues of decolonisation of language and history (KIPD 2023). The selection of Smagulova was intentional. Fluent in Kazakh, she has been a public thinker on issues of decoloniality in Central and North Asia. The interview was conducted in the Kazakh language and illustrated how, amid rising cultural nationalism and intensified Russian aggression, Kazakhstan’s government employs the decolonisation narrative to subtly promote its brand of patriotism. The discussion was steered from the reckoning with the Soviet past towards the importance of promoting Kazakh language and culture as envisioned by the state. Although public discourse increasingly reflects a desire for critical engagement with national identity and memory, the state’s approach to decolonisation reduces it to a depoliticised framework, undermining its foundational aims and curtailing its potential as a unifying regional project.

Conclusion

Podcasts have emerged as a rich medium for decolonial discourse in Central Asia. This section analyses the most popular podcasts, which are predominantly in Russian. Common themes include uncovering the various forms of imperial violence inflicted on the local population. For instance, podcasts such as Bashtan Bashta and Dope Söz challenge sanitised official histories by revisiting events such as the 1930s famine, Soviet nuclear testing, and the Jeltoqsan uprising. Historian Ainash Mustoyapova has underscored the necessity of reassessing Kazakhstan’s past by acknowledging colonial violence and archival silences. Similarly, artist Saule Suleimenova’s public recollections of protest and repression during Jeltoqsan contest dominant portrayals of national history and reveal Soviet-era censorship in cultural production. These efforts displace imperial narratives and foster historical consciousness among listeners considering previously marginalised perspectives. Decolonial discourse in Central Asia also features debates on diverging interpretations of the Soviet legacy, methodological disputes, and competing priorities between nationalism and globalism. Participants grapple with the challenge of preserving local cultural practices while engaging with global standards of economic development – balancing cultural originality against aspirations for cosmopolitan modernity. The next section explores how decolonial discourses shape practices.

Three Categories of Practices

Decolonial discourses and practices intersect, yet practices encompass a broader spectrum of activities. In this analysis, we situate decolonial practices in Central Asia within three continuums: epistemological-imaginative, intentional-spontaneous, and collective-individual. Although each practice may incorporate elements from all three continuums, these distinctions exemplify the richness of decolonial disruptions. The following section expands on each of the three continuums.

Dismantling Colonial Histories

Decolonial discourses and practices challenge predominant Western and Russian narratives regarding Russian expansion and the collapse of the Soviet Union. This articulated understanding of Russian colonialism is based on analyses of local language archives and exploration of personal histories. Central themes that have emerged from decolonial academic research include the costs of resistance to Russian colonialism. For instance, Central Asians perished while attempting to evade conscription into the military, endured imposed hunger, faced forced dispossession, were subjected to forced labour, and encountered imprisonment and execution.

Much of the research in this field is primarily conducted by Central Asian scholars who, in contrast to their Russian and Western counterparts, derive different interpretations from the same archival data, emphasise sources in local languages, and investigate familial and oral histories of repression. This fresh perspective on the colonial conquest of Central Asia often fundamentally alters the prevailing interpretations. For example, Nikolay Przhevalsky explored Central Asia in the late nineteenth century, focusing on geographical areas and species of interest to Russian and European audiences. The Soviet authorities praised him for contributing to the establishment of Russian control over the region. Przhevalsky infamously regarded Central Asians as uncivilised aborigines, stating, ‘The Kirghiz are a lazy, thieving people. You can hunt them, but you can’t eat “them”’ (Bitikchi Reference Bitikchi2023). What has remained unexamined during the Soviet regime is that, in his expeditions to Central Asia, Przhevalsky routinely killed local populations, including children.

On a personal level, to counter pervasive racist and orientalist views, Bitikchi is rewriting the history of Russia and its interactions with nomadic peoples by blending research, work in historical archives, and his imagination. Like others in Central Asia, Bitikchi received a secondary education in the 1990s that valorised Russian colonialism. When studying the history of Russia, he recalls, ‘I used to root for the Russian side’ in its conquests of nomadic tribes (Interview 2025). However, as he travelled across Central Asia and encountered local communities in the Pamir Mountains, he recognised that their relationships with space and nature are far more intricate than the representations offered by Russian narratives.

Bitikchi summarises the Russian narrative as propelling four major myths about nomads. First, it posits that Russia saved European civilisation from nomadic ‘barbarians’, thereby preserving humanity itself. Second, it claims that Russia paid a high price for Europe’s survival: by ruling over the nomadic tribes left by the Golden Horde, Russia fell behind in its development compared to Europe. Third, Russia characterises nomads as possessing a decentralised and chaotic nature, while paradoxically asserting that it inherited a form of centralised despotism from a collective label, the ‘Tatars’. Finally, there is an entrenched belief among Russians that they civilised the nomads.

According to Bitikchi, unable to understand nomadic lifestyles, the Russians saw them as inherently backwards and placed nomads slightly above hunter gathers and prior to feudal societies (Interview 2025). They ‘perceived’ us as slightly above ‘savages’, he states. Because nomads traversed vast territories, Russians often viewed them as aggressive warriors incapable of building cities, developing agriculture, or fostering innovation. Russian and European conceptions tended to overlook the inherent creativity of nomadic societies – jaratman, the creators. Russian colonial officers portrayed themselves as benevolent modernisers, imposing sedentarism on nomads under the guise of benefitting the very people they sought to control.

Central Asians internalised the belief that nomads lived solely destructive lives, even though nomadic tribes left behind cities and agricultural fields. Sympathy for Russian colonial expansion permeated the everyday self-perception among the Kyrgyz, who agreed with the image self as lazy, disorganised, and perpetually tardy. This perception of nomadism legitimised everyday racism and fostered notions such as ‘we taught you how to piss standing’, which reinforced the idea that nomads interrupted peaceful existence of sedentary societies (Interview 2025). Russia perpetuates a reductionist image of nomadic life as mere cattle breeding, devoid of scientific innovations and land husbandry. Beyond Russia, the bias towards sedentarism is prevalent in both Europe and China.

Processing Trauma and Violence

Understanding the scope and depth of colonial violence requires both epistemological approach and a good measure of imagination. Academically, researchers must unearth concealed archives, find sites of mass graves, and collect interviews with survivors (as well as perpetrators). But when the traces of violence are meticulously concealed both by the metropole and by current political regimes, scientific fieldwork inevitably intersects with imagination. The imaginative realm deals with imaginative practices among survivors who still hold on to bits of material and oral memory of those perished. In this section we bring several examples of how decolonial discourses around trauma generate academic and activist practices, and how a new understanding of colonial violence emerges as a result.

The remembrance of the Ürkün repression in Kyrgyzstan, which resulted in the loss of approximately 40 per cent of the Kyrgyz population, showcases such epistemological-imaginative intersection. Public discourse surrounding Ürkün has been prevalent since the conclusion of the Soviet regime. However, in recent years, a proliferation of commemorative practices has emerged in the northern regions of Kyrgyzstan, where the impact of the exodus was most pronounced. Gulzat Alagoz of Esimde conducted a survey around Lake Ysyk Köl and discovered that nearly every village surrounding the lake maintains its own memorial site dedicated to Ürkün.Footnote ¹³ Some memorials are dedicated to women victims. Researcher and museum curator Asel Rashidova connects historical facts from Ürkün and personal stories to explore the feelings and dreams of those who fled for survival. She is one of the founders of an interactive museum ‘Caravan along the Roads of Memory’ (Es tutum zholdorundagy kerben, Kyrgyz) that encourages visitors to ‘explore own land and look inside oneself’ by asking four questions: Who are we meeting along the way? What lost objects do we find? What sounds we hear? And, after all this, what do we learn about ourselves?Footnote ¹⁴ Imagination played a central role in the remembrance of Ürkün within a museum context; it established a connection between the artistic representation of Ürkün in cinema, rooted in the Soviet era, and the interpretations offered by scholars who have examined the exodus.

While Ürkün unfolded in present-day Kyrgyzstan, Bakhrom Irzaev, the lead researcher at the Museum of Remembrance of Victims of Repressions in Tashkent, examines the Jizzakh Uprising of nearly 3,000 individuals in July 1916. This uprising was triggered by the Tsarist appropriation of land from the local population for the benefit of Russian settlers, as well as the conscription of Uzbeks into the Russian army. Irzaev documents that ‘the tsarist government allocates 14 battalions, 33 Cossack military units, 42 cannons, and 69 machine guns to suppress the “uprising”’.Footnote ¹⁵ The troops encircled the rioters and opened indiscriminate fire, resulting in the deaths of men, women, and children. A minimum of 347 individuals were sentenced to death, while over 10,000 were subjected to hard labour. Upon the Bolsheviks’ ascent to power, Irzaev thinks that the Uzbeks harboured a greater fear of the Russians compared to other nationalities within the territories under Soviet authority.

The mythmaking on Lenin saving Central Asians from Ürkün or other Tsarist repressions is another pervasive colonial trope now dismantled. New studies uncover how more Central Asians died during the Russian Civil War and Stalinism. Famine and emigration across Central Asia took lives of anywhere between 500,000 and 1,300,000 people from 1917 to 1926 (Bahridinov Reference Azattyq2022; Penati Reference Penati2024). Buttino (Reference Burbank and Cooper1990) discusses how dependence on Russian grain exports to Central Asia, forced conscription into the army for World War I, and an inhospitable climate created conditions conducive to famine in the Ferghana Valley. Following the Bolshevik takeover, access to grain was restricted, leading to widespread starvation among the local populace. This resulting instability enabled Soviet power to maintain Russian control over the region (Buttino Reference Burbank and Cooper1990). The management of resources disrupted local agriculture and livestock farming, thereby ensuring compliance among the non-Russian population. Nomadic societies experienced greater hardships than settled communities in more urban areas. The Russian population in Central Asia benefitted from preferential economic provisions from the Bolsheviks. Consequently, more Central Asians fled to China, which Kapalova refers to as subsequent waves of Ürkün. Buttino writes:

Decolonial research currently explores how Soviet officials employed similar methodologies to instigate famine across Central Asia. The principal architect of this famine was Philipp Goloschekin, who served as Chairman of the Samara Provincial Executive Committee and Secretary of the Kazakh Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party. In 1919, he reported to the Turkic Commission of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars of the RSFSR regarding his propaganda initiatives in Turkestan, asserting: ‘Soviet power in Ferghana is the power of Europeans over the natives.’Footnote ¹⁶ There, he observed how famine in the Ferghana Valley instilled fear and loyalty to Soviet power among locals. As Soviet authority expanded through famine in Fergana, the Bolsheviks later replicated this method during the Kazakh famine of 1932–1933.

In Kazakhstan, historians and activists have long adopted a decolonial perspective regarding the famine of the 1930s. The emerging public understanding posits that Asharshylyq constituted genocide against the Kazakhs by the Soviet authorities (Zhussipbek Reference Zhussipbek and Mörner2024). Soviet officials deliberately neglected the Kazakh population during a period of mass starvation. Ivan Tobolin, in charge of the Turkestan ASSR, regarded the Kazakhs as inherently unsuited for Marxist modernisation, ‘economically weak’, and, consequently, ‘doomed to extinction’ (as translated and cited by Shildebay Reference Shildebay2025). In the early years of independence, the Kazakh government attempted to suppress critical discourse surrounding the famine due to its relationship with Russia (Zhussipbek Reference Zhussipbek and Mörner2024). However, akin to the discussions surrounding the Holodomor in Ukraine, pro-Russian authorities and Kremlin operatives are no longer able to contain this discourse. Kazakh researchers and political commentators have recently published a wide range of books exploring Asharshylyq.

In the art community, the theatre company Täuelxsız (Without a Doubt) organised a series of contemporary art events titled Zherge Tabyn Adam Endi (Man, Bow Down to the Land Now, Kazakh), which were staged across seven cities in Kazakhstan in 2025 (Kurmangazinova Reference Kudaibergen(ova)2025). The event, divided into four parts, dedicates two sections specifically to the tragedies of Asharshylyq and the nuclear testing at Semey. Central to Täuelxsız’s production is the exploration of the enduring trauma and environmental degradation associated with these historical events. These segments draw explicitly from scholarly works by Sara Cameron (Reference Bitikchi2018) and Togzhan Kassenova (Reference Kassenova2022). Täuelxsız’s artistic practice brings scholarly narratives to life, prompting audiences to critically reassess historical events and their ongoing implications. Additionally, the company collaborates with activists and artists to create widely accessible video pieces, such as the short film The Hungry Steppe (referencing Cameron’s book, 2018), a poignant exploration of the Kazakh famine of the 1930s, which is available freely online, thereby expanding its reach beyond traditional theatregoers.

Other examples of contemporary decolonial practices with Asharshylyq include Shahmardan Comes Out of the Well, a play by the Transforma theatre company (Lillis Reference Lillis2023); Suleimenova’s art project Qaldyk Estelik: Residual Memory (Reference Suleimenova2020); the 2023 Өмә exhibition in Berlin (FATA Collective 2023); and Almagul Menlibayeva’s installation The Tongue and Hunger: Stalin’s Silk Road (2023).

When researchers from Esimde initially commenced interviews with residents of the Ysyk Köl region regarding their recollections of Ürkün, they were consistently directed to another significant atrocity – the Soviet deportation of Kyrgyz individuals to Ukraine. In 2021, Esimde submitted requests to all archives in Ukraine and were notably surprised to receive assistance from most of these archives, including one located at the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). Esimde subsequently uncovered that orders to forcibly displace 6,000 households from Central Asia to Ukraine and the Caucasus were issued as early as 1924. By late 1931, a total of 14,914 Central Asians were reported to be residing in Ukraine (Kuzovova Reference Kuzovova2023). Approximately half of this population was employed in agriculture, with around 10 per cent being allocated to cultivate cotton fields in Ukraine. Central Asians were permitted to return to their homeland following the conclusion of World War II, although many were accused of feudalism, excessive wealth, and anti – Soviet propaganda.Footnote ¹⁷ Entire families with young children were forcibly boarded onto trains. In a documentary by Esimde, members of the Takyrbash family, whose grandfather was deported to Ukraine, recount how young children were separated from their parents during the journey to Ukraine and subsequently placed in orphanages in Tashkent. Some did not survive the two-month journey, which was characterised by a scarcity of food, while others went missing during the transfer, and some managed to escape Soviet territory.Footnote ¹⁸

When the Central Asian repressed arrived in Chalbasy and Khlebodarovka, located in the Kherson province, they were greeted by Ukrainian women and children, who offered them food. The Ukrainian women expressed their sorrow, as their husbands had been forcibly boarded onto trains and deported to Siberia shortly before, as noted by Volodymyr Narozya, the Chairman of the Ukrainian Community Council in Kyrgyzstan.Footnote ¹⁹ Shortly after the peak of deportations in 1930, Ukraine was subjected to the Holodomor, a man-made famine imposed by Stalin. The hunger took lives of Ukrainians, repressed Central Asians and other nations. Nevertheless, some individuals managed to flee back to Central Asia, while others sought refuge in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. In 1938, numerous Central Asians residing in Kherson were accused of counter-revolutionary activities and subsequently executed.Footnote ²⁰ A total of 293 Central Asians deported to Ukraine were executed during the 1930s. Further archival research is likely to identify additional repressed nations in Ukraine that were subjected to purges in the same period. In Kyrgyzstan, families of those repressed in Ukraine harboured hopes that their loved ones remained alive, albeit far from home. However, following the dissolution of the Soviet regime, an increasing number of these families discovered that their relatives had been executed under Stalin’s orders. To date, scholarly literature on Central Asia, in any language, has not addressed the issue of transregional repressions.

The theme of imprisonment in Central Asia is receiving renewed scholarly attention. The region functioned simultaneously as a site for imperial salvation of backwards people and as a location where individuals could be removed from Soviet life and incarcerated in a gulag. ‘[Gulags] estranged the commonsense perceptions and everyday experiences of ordinary citizens. They could only be “rehabilitated” through a double estrangement – from actual Soviet everyday life and from the official state fiction that supplanted it’ (Boym Reference Boym, Yassa and Emery2021, 327). The punitive system of the USSR was distributed throughout its territory, with specific clusters creating its largest camps in designated locations. The largest gulags spread across the Siberian region and Central Asia, with the steppe serving as a terrain for punishment.

Historian Baktygul Akunbaeva investigates the fates of Soviet prisoners of war, a taboo subject during the Soviet period. The regime stripped POWs of their identities and assigned only a number, rendering their relatives unable to locate them. Lacking access to Russian archives, she studied German to uncover records in Germany. Another historian, Saltanat Asekova, examines detention centres for women in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. She notes that while ALZhIR (Akmolinsk Camp of Wives of Traitors to the Motherland) is widely recognised in Kazakhstan, the remnants of a similar prison, Jany Jer (New Land), on the outskirts of Bishkek are just beginning to attract historians’ interest. She managed to collect approximately 681 names of imprisoned women from the 1930s to the 1950s across Kyrgyzstan. Most of these imprisoned women were ethnic Russians, Ukrainians, Germans, and Jews, with at least two of them being 15-year-old girls.

Forced labour is another significant theme of Soviet revisionism. Women and children were essential for harvesting the highest quality cotton, as their smaller hands were better suited to extract the inside of the flower.Footnote ²¹ Through an exploration of Soviet art and interviews with women involved in the cotton industry, Baktygul Midinova illustrates how both local and Russian artists romanticised women cotton pickers in Central Asian. Artworks from the mid twentieth century depict women as beautifully dressed, healthy, and content with hard labour under the scorching sun, some accompanied by young children. These women were required to meet a planned quota for cotton while being undernourished and prohibited from leaving their villages. Contrary to these artistic depictions, Midinova notes that photographs from the era show how ‘women picked cotton, but they didn’t wear cotton because it was an expensive pleasure, cotton was used for other purposes, with the highest quality cotton used by the military’.Footnote ²² Instead, they wore cheaper synthetic garments. Interviewing former cotton pickers, Midinova noticed how it took time and familiarity with her interlocutors to elicit stories of humiliation and deprivation under the Soviet regime. ‘If there’s a man in the room’, women convey the official narratives.Footnote ²³

On the ‘Peaceful Soviet Collapse’

The revision of Russian colonialism challenges a pervasive academic trope: that the Soviet Union collapsed peacefully and that Central Asians were ‘gifted’ independence. This perspective is further reinforced by the notion that the Soviets were uniformly welcomed and even deemed necessary in Central Asia. For decades, the history and memory of the Jeltoqsan protests of December 1986 in Almaty remained a private discussion in isolated circles of those who still remembered. The protests commenced after the Kremlin dismissed Dinmukhamed Konayev, a long-serving Kazakh leader, and appointed Gennady Kolbin, an outsider with no ties to Kazakhstan. This decision, issued by then-State Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, was perceived in Kazakhstan as a blatant act of national repression. It ignited mass protests, particularly among students, who gathered in the city’s central square to express their outrage at Moscow’s disregard for local leadership. While the Soviets responded swiftly, the precise level of violence employed to disperse the demonstrators remains unclear, as records are scarce and memories are fragmented (Tyan and Thompson Reference Tyan and Thompson2022). Western media at the time reported on Jeltoqsan as a rare instance of dissent behind the Iron Curtain but failed to fully comprehend the nationalistic and anti-colonial undertones of the protest. Instead, coverage focused on the Soviet state’s violation of civil liberties, rather than its suppression of Kazakh identity (Qalam Reference Peshkova2024).

The Soviet regime suppressed the significance of Jeltoqsan, portraying participants as hooligans and drug users, and framing the unrest as a local disturbance rather than a broader political rupture. Over time, this erasure has contributed to the fragmented memory of the event. In public discourse, Jeltoqsan is often ambiguously referred to as ‘the events of 1986’, reflecting ongoing discomfort with how to describe its political and historical significance (Tyan and Thompson Reference Tyan and Thompson2022). Smagulova (Reference Smagulova2023) notes that although Jeltoqsan expressed fundamentally anti-colonial sentiments, official commemorations have depoliticised the protest, obscuring its connection to broader decolonial narratives in Kazakhstan. Despite the state’s attempts to contain its meaning, Jeltoqsan continues to resonate with contemporary activists. Groups such as Oyan Qazaqstan have drawn symbolic connections to 1986 in their protests, staging performances in the same square and invoking the bloodshed of the past as a critique of present-day authoritarianism (Smagulova Reference Smagulova2023). While the protests remain largely excluded from school textbooks and national narratives, for many, Jeltoqsan stands as a foundational, yet unsettled, act of resistance, an early demand for dignity, representation, and self-determination.

Beyond Jeltoqsan, contemporary Central Asian scholars are examining how Perestroika catalysed new anti-colonial activism, encompassing movements that advocate for local land rights and language policy. Kyrgyz intellectuals debated issues pertaining to language and literature. Journalists and academics commenced the translation of foreign texts into the Kyrgyz language. In 1990, approximately a dozen new Kyrgyz-language media outlets emerged, including the short-lived newspaper Maidan, which reported on debates surrounding independence. The new movement Asaba was established to demand independence from the Soviet regime and to oppose totalitarianism.Footnote ²⁴ The movement organised small pickets in central Frunze (the former name of Bishkek), as well as long marches across the country. The movement primarily communicated in the Kyrgyz language, although it also translated some of its materials into Russian. Certain events attracted as many as 100 participants.

Recent research reveals that the 1980s in Kyrgyzstan included protests, hunger strikes, marches, and land grabs. Few involved in these events documented them in writing, leaving evidence primarily in collective memory. Anthropologist Madeleine Reeves explores the Ashar movement, which emerged in 1989, and ‘was predominantly composed of Kyrgyz youth who had relocated from rural areas to Frunze (now Bishkek) but were unable to secure residency (propiska)’ or access opportunities in real estate and education.Footnote ²⁵ She notes that these youths linked the restrictions on housing to their inability to establish families. They congregated on the outskirts of the capital city to advocate for social justice. Subsequently, they appropriated land as an act of anti-colonial resistance. As researcher Murakam Toktogulova reports, the prevailing sentiment among these communities was, ‘We are taking back the occupied lands of our ancestors, and we will build new cities here.’Footnote ²⁶

As the socioeconomic conditions of deprived Kyrgyz rural youth deteriorated, the broader public, particularly Russified urban residents, exhibited a lack of preparedness for the grassroots anti-colonial movements that emerged. Russian-language newspapers in Frunze reported on land seizures as predominantly negative occurrences, while Kyrgyz newspapers framed these actions as acts of justice (Reeves Reference Reeves, Heathershaw and Schatz2024). The limited circulation of Kyrgyz-language newspapers resulted from inadequate financing and a scarcity of print paper. To this day, Russian-language sources, which fail to acknowledge local resistance movements, continue to dominate mainstream research on Central Asia. Scholars have also begun to uncover more nuanced forms of decolonial practices during the Soviet era. For example, historian Gulrano Ataeva has identified how local mass media in the late Soviet period saw women writers exploring traditional attire and religious customs.Footnote ²⁷

Another parallel theme between the Uzbek decolonial discourses and practices is the repression experienced by Central Asians during Perestroika. Uzbek intellectuals are re-examining the ‘cotton affair’, which was initiated against Uzbek political elites under Leonid Brezhnev and persisted until 1989. In collaboration with 200 investigators, Moscow officials Telman Gdlyan and Nikolai Ivanov instituted criminal cases against 25,000 ordinary individuals in Uzbekistan, including women and children, as well as dozens of senior officials. Approximately 3,600 individuals received various degrees of punishment.Footnote ²⁸ Moscow attempted to discredit Sharof Rashidov, the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan, by labelling him a state criminal. Rashidov, who had been in power since 1959, allegedly died by suicide in 1983 rather than face arrest (Keller Reference Keller2020). Collectively, this pushback reframes colonial Russia as a corrupt extractivist power rather than a benevolent moderniser.

Memory as a Medium for Activism

Efforts to recover and study erased memories have significantly shaped various decolonial practices, including the reconstruction of personal histories, archival work, the establishment of new museums, the reconfiguration of existing museums, the creation of memorial sites for those repressed during Soviet and Tsarist rule, and numerous other examples explored within this section. All memory-cantered practices encompass three dimensions: imaginative, spontaneous, and collective. The recovery of memory requires imagination as much as the discovery of new research methods for retrieving archives.

Abylbek was among the first to explore memory as a medium for decolonial discourse and practice in the mid 2010s. Some of her fellow political scientists expressed confusion regarding her obsession in what they labelled as ‘necrophilia’ (Interview 2025). Her Esimde project immediately attracted a diverse audience, ranging from like-minded academics to pro-Russia members of the public. The desire to explore what had previously been silenced was palpable within society, as she recalls. The Esimde office is frequently visited by elderly citizens eager to share their own memories of purged ancestors. Esimde travelled across the region along the trails of tragedies throughout Kyrgyzstan, particularly along the Ürkün map, with dozens of members of the public joining the march, often in the hope of finding their lost relatives. Abylbek found that memory studies can alter contemporary wordview.

Her motivation was not solely academic; rather, it stemmed from a profound sense of injustice shaped by her personal and professional experiences. As Abylbek illustrates through her lived experience, her liminal position between a privileged life in Russified Bishkek and a repressed Kyrgyz culture instilled within her a deep sense of injustice (interview 2025). As a government employee, she witnessed the country perpetually oscillating between autocracy and fragile democracy. In the late 2010s, she resolved to create her own space for civic engagement, leading to the birth of Esimde. Her personal liberation and reflection on colonial legacies found an outlet through her own reflexive view of her surroundings, as well as Kyrgyzstan’s experiments with democracy.

As Esimde expanded the boundaries of how memory can alter the understanding of history and contemporary political realities, the group also transformed the discourse of Kyrgyz political elites regarding the past. During his visit to the newly exposed mass burial site in Uzgen, the head of national security, Kamchybek Tashiev, commemorated his repressed grandfather and employed the language associated with Esimde in his speech.Footnote ²⁹ In late 2024, the parliament opened additional archives despite pressure from Russia. The legislation itself openly challenges Russia’s preoccupation with the glorification of the Soviet regime. ‘Esimde is a codeword for any politician or “bureaucrat”’, explains Abylbek, ‘as there is a collective desire to explore the unknown and the erased’ (Interview 2025).

The exploration of historical events often originates from unexpected sources. Former KGB Colonel Bolot Abdrakhmanov has dedicated himself to the task of uncovering sites of mass graves. The initial tip about the graves came from Byubura Kydyralieva, a woman whose father served as a watchman at an NKVD facility in Chong Tash, located on the outskirts of Bishkek. She informed Abdrakhmanov about numerous bodies that had been clandestinely interred in the vicinity. In response, Abdrakhmanov commenced excavating with his own hands, leading to the discovery of the remains of victims associated with the agency for which he had previously worked.Footnote ³⁰ In the 1930s Ata Beyit operated as a sanatorium for NKVD officers coming back from Russia with tuberculosis. A nearby brickyard was used to build the sanatorium, and, thanks to its close location, its industrial oven was used to decompose bodies of the victims of repression.Footnote ³¹ Upon their discovery, NKVD documents were found beneath layers of material detailing the identities of the repressed individuals. The brickyard now has become as a sarcophagus, entombing 137 individuals who were executed on 5 November 1938. All those repressed played a pivotal role in the establishment of the Kara-Kyrgyz Autonomous Republic in 1924 within the Soviet Union, including Jusup Abdrakhmanov, the First Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, and Imanaly Aidarbekov, the head of the Kara-Kyrgyz Revolutionary Committee.

The 137 individuals were reported as having been deported to Soviet prisons in 1938; however, they were in fact executed days after their arrest. The discovery of the remains of Torekul Aitmatov, the father of Chyngyz Aitmatov, brought significant attention to the burial site. Various presidents subsequently established additional memorials in the area, commemorating the victims of the Ürkün, the protesters killed during the ousting of the Bakiev regime in April 2010, the civilian casualties during the border conflict between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, as well as Chyngyz Aitmatov and other prominent public figures. In the 2010s, Ata Beyit became what Abylbek describes as a site of ‘wholesale mourning’, suggesting that the memory of the fallen is devalued. This top-down state project has deprived the site of a clear historical significance.

Recognising the contradictory meanings inherent in the Soviet experience presents a challenge for decolonial discourses and practices. Throughout Central Asia, when uncovering the names of those repressed under Stalin, historians and the public contend with the complex legacies of numerous Soviet leaders. State mythology in Kyrgyzstan has portrayed the fallen at Ata Beyit as the ‘fathers of the nation’ (with one woman’s remains still unidentified), indicative of Soviet Kyrgyzstan. Nevertheless, prior to their own executions, these ‘fathers’ participated in the repression of real and suspected anti-Soviet resistance. The state-led memorialisation of the purged selectively emphasises aspects of the past that align with contemporary political needs, particularly the celebration of the current borders of Kyrgyzstan as delineated during the Soviet era. Given that the ‘fathers’ contributed to the establishment of the state territorial unit for the Kyrgyz, their own participation in repressions of the local population may be overlooked.

Following the discovery of the first mass grave, many individuals across the country subsequently pointed to areas that may conceal further mass graves.Footnote ³² According to Abdrakhmanov, it is probable that numerous mass graves, previously unknown to the public, exist throughout Central Asia. In Kyrgyzstan, hundreds of human remains have been discovered, dating back to the 1920s and 1930s, with estimates indicating that up to 4,000 individuals were murdered and interred across the region. Abdrakhmanov continues to investigate sites associated with mass repression and is spearheading the creation of ‘zones of sorrow’ throughout the country. He is also examining poorly documented gulags across Central Asia.

Irzaev has identified a significant resonance in the symbolism of Ata-Beyit, especially in light of Uzbekistan’s rehabilitation of over 1,000 individuals who were repressed under Stalin, including religious scholars and ‘Basmachi’ independence fighters, in the past three to four years. He remarked, ‘Every year, on August 31, the president and government officials visit our main museum to honour the victims of repression by reciting the Quran, and the following day, we celebrate Independence Day. This has become an annual tradition.’Footnote ³³ Today, there is a pronounced public demand for the recovery of memory, as evidenced by discussions in mass media. In recent years, Uzbekistan has established more than a dozen new museums dedicated to the victims of repression. This reflects a ‘burgeoning movement’ aimed at rediscovering national identity.Footnote ³⁴

Unlike official memory projects that sanitise the past for political purposes, personal and artistic narratives explore erased histories. On a familial and personal level, the lack of knowledge regarding familial history, particularly beyond three generations prior to 1917, can be disorienting. Suleimenova uses plastic bags to reproduce archival photographs, thereby highlighting the beauty of Kazakh culture and subverting the inferiority complex inherited from the colonial past. Approximately two decades ago, Suleimenova encountered a photograph of three Kazak brides taken in 1879, which was displayed in a gallery in Saint Petersburg.Footnote ³⁵ She has subsequently reinterpreted images of women from the Tsarist and Soviet eras. Her own grandmother experienced repression under Stalin. In her collection entitled Residual Memory, she highlights girls and women who remain invisible to the public, including dancers, brides, and ordinary women using public transport. This collection also features individuals fleeing Asharshylyq, surviving children, prisoners from Karlag (the Karaganda corrective labour camp), as well as participants and victims of the Jeltoqsan and Qantar protests.

Academics Azamat Alagoz and Murakam Toktogulova conduct an analysis of oral history and written memoirs. They reveal that, even during the most prosperous periods of the USSR, intellectuals documented experiences of homelessness, food and clothing shortages, challenges associated with residence permits (propiska) for non-Russians migrating from rural areas to urban centres, and unemployment.Footnote ³⁶ The absence of stable housing was linked to unemployment and a lack of fluency in the Russian language. These inequalities emerged against the backdrop of Soviet socialist propaganda. Toktogulova illustrates how the daily challenges related to employment were exacerbated by a division among Kyrgyz intellectuals: some endeavoured to preserve Kyrgyz literature, while others shifted towards writing that aligned with Soviet propaganda, often dismissing local literature as inferior. The experience of colonisation was distinctly felt in the initial decades of Soviet expansion.

The intersection of individual and collective memory is explored in the online exhibit 100 Objects of Stalinist Central Asia, created by historian Botakoz Kassymbekova. She encouraged contributors not only to narrate the histories of specific objects linked to the repressive era or to individuals’ personal histories, but also to imagine what the owners of those objects might have felt at the time. One contributor, Marat, shared a story about her paternal grandfather, of ethnic Sart-Kalmak background, who rose to prominence in Soviet Kyrgyzstan but forged documents for his fellow villagers to protect them from Stalin’s purges. Other contributions included a piala (teacup) from Soviet Uzbekistan with Ali Shir Navai inscriptions revealing the Soviet’s appropriation of his work in a propaganda campaign among UzbeksFootnote ³⁷ and a Ukrainian vyhyvanka shirt from Tajikistan’s Pamiri region commonly worn during the Khrushchev era.Footnote ³⁸

Several initiatives contribute to postcolonial digital humanities by digitising and providing access to decolonial materials from the region. All these initiatives are centred on exploring and preserving memory. Esimde has established an open online archive that documents the collected stories of the repressed in Ukraine. The archive encompasses both statistical data on the repressed and individual and familial narratives.

At the Central Asian level, the Tselinny Centre of Contemporary Culture was founded by Kazakh entrepreneur Kairat Borunbaeyv in Almaty in 2018, aiming to unite the intellectual and arts community. The centre regularly publishes books related to decolonisation, such as Madina Tlostanova’s Decoloniality of Being, Knowledge, and Perception (2020) and Qazaqstan, Казахстан, قازاقستان: The Labyrinths of Contemporary Postcolonial Discourse (2023) edited by Alima Bissenova. It also hosts various workshops and conversations with notable artists from the region, including Saodat Ismailova and Almagul Menlibayeva. Tselinny has digitised printed and video archives and collects personal stories of public figures. Ultimately, by amassing archives, both Esimde and Tselinny reimagine what Central Asia signifies beyond colonial frameworks.

In September 2025, the centre launched Barsakelmes exhibition that engages with Turkic heritage and precolonial history from a decolonial perspective. Taking as its conceptual anchor the former island of Barsakelmes in the Aral Sea and the ancient myth of Nurtole, the project reimagines local ritual practices that predate Russian and Soviet colonial influence. Rather than a simple commemoration of ancient practices, the exhibition is a part of collective intellectual and artistic effort to breathe life into Central Asian heritage and examine how it can connect to contemporary decolonial consciousness.

In addition to efforts aimed at decolonising digital memory, new challenges have emerged – particularly from generative AI, which complicates the visual imagination and representation of Central Asia. AI-generated content often reinforces cultural stereotypes, producing standardised and overly familiar depictions that echo Soviet-era coding, particularly in its portrayal of women’s national dress. Women continue to be depicted in Soviet-standardised outfits. Concurrently, AI frequently appropriates visual elements from unrelated cultures, amalgamating them into representations designated as ‘Central Asian’. These distorted images are not limited to digital spaces; they are increasingly entering public view through retail and marketing. For instance, one of the largest shopping malls in Bishkek features a prominent mural of a woman in an AI-generated ‘ethnic’ outfit intended to symbolise Kyrgyz identity; however, the costume amalgamates elements drawn from diverse Asian and African traditions, thereby erasing the specificity of local heritage.Footnote ³⁹ Thus, rather than rectifying past misrepresentations, generative AI introduces a new layer of distortion – substituting algorithmic invention for cultural originality.

Promoting Indigenous Languages

The two most Russified countries – Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan – grapple with the continuing dominance of Russia over local languages, which extends colonialism and influences perceptions of Russia. The film Why Do We Speak Russian? (Біз Неге Орысша Сөйлейміз?), directed by Kazakh cinematographer Aliya Ashim, was inspired by a personal encounter with another individual born in 1992 whose life trajectory, shaped using the Russian language, contrasted starkly with her own. The film poses a central question: Why have so many Kazakhs lost fluency in their native language? Ashim traces this loss across three generations of Russified Kazakhs, documenting how many were either unable or unwilling to reclaim the language in the decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union. She introduces the term orystandyruu (Russification) to describe what she perceives as a deliberate, fifty-year-long process. It involved shifting Kazakhstan’s demographic composition by settling other ethnic groups, conscripting young Kazakh men into military service where they learned Russian, and establishing large-scale industrial and agricultural sectors where Russian was the language of operation. As a consequence, most families prioritised sending their children to Russian-language schools, viewing fluency in Russian as essential for success in Soviet society. Among the educated, there even emerged a drive to master Russian to the extent of surpassing native Russian speakers.

Language activists view the expansion of the use and status of the Kazakh language as a central decolonial task (Smagulova Reference Smagulova2023). Initiatives such as QazaqGrammar, Tildes, KazakhBubble, and the Kalka Stop campaign promote the Kazakh language and the transition from Cyrillic to Latin script on social media, directly countering decades of Russification (Smagulova Reference Smagulova2023). Through humour and entertainment, the founders of these platforms popularise Kazakh vocabulary and rectify colonial-era biases in speaking the language. Linguistic and memory activism are intertwined in the country. In Almaty, local activists organised an exhibition titled ‘Mausym Art’, where children of those killed in the January 2022 protests displayed artworks that address their families’ trauma (Smagulova Reference Smagulova2023). The Erkin Adamdar (‘Free People’) community – a network of journalists and civic activists – co-organised this exhibition and launched ‘Tany Shai’ (‘Morning Tea’) salons, which host open lectures in Kazakh during breakfast discussions (Smagulova Reference Smagulova2023). Art institutions are also supporting decolonial art discourse.

A similar effort is unfolding in Kyrgyzstan, where the effects of Russification have profoundly shaped generational identities. Bitikchi demonstrates how the Kyrgyz language continues to be influenced by Russian. English words are first Russified before entering the Kyrgyz vernacular. For instance, the concept of ‘hate speech’ is translated into kastyq tilil, mimicking the incorrect Russian translation yazyk vrazhdy (enmity) rather than yazyk nenavisti (hate). This Russo-centric bias inevitably imposes Moscow’s interpretation of English terms in discourse within the Kyrgyz language.Footnote ⁴⁰ Bitikchi is proposing his own Kyrgyz translations of external terminology. Other initiatives include replacing the extensive market of books offering Russian children’s stories by publishing narratives in the Kyrgyz language. Entrepreneur Gulnaz Asakeeva created a children’s series, Bereke Books, upon realising that she could not find any Kyrgyz-language books for her young daughter.

Since 2008, language activist Chorobek Saadanbek has dedicated himself to creating an online Kyrgyz language dictionary that later formed the basis for Google Translate in Kyrgyz. ‘We take a lot from the internet; what is it that we bring to the internet?’ said Saadanbek.Footnote ⁴¹ His efforts commenced with the digitisation of Kyrgyz texts and their subsequent publication online, including the Manas epic, to render them accessible to a wider audience. At a certain juncture, he recognised that there were no additional texts originally written in Kyrgyz to be uploaded and initiated fundraising efforts to translate significant works into the Kyrgyz language. He later discovered that, even prior to the publication of scientific research, the latest developments were disseminated and extensively read on Wikipedia.Footnote ⁴² Over the years, he and students from local universities contributed nearly 80,000 articles to Wikipedia. Another initiative, the Bizdin.kg site, archives all major published works, handwritten manuscripts, and audio and video materials produced in Kyrgyzstan. Saadanbek collaborated with the Kyrgyz Academy of Sciences to digitise their archives.

Decolonial practices focus on areas where Russification has become so pervasive that it is often unrecognised even by individuals who are not Russified. Following the transition to the Cyrillic script, the Kyrgyz language became closely aligned with Russian grammar and syntax. Elsozduk (People’s Dictionary) illustrates how any individual’s name – ranging from renowned authors such as Kasym Tynystanov, who lived prior to the Soviet era, to ordinary citizens – can reflect the impact of Russification, particularly through the -ov suffix.Footnote ⁴³ The collective highlights how Tynystanov and other figures in the early twentieth century employed Kyrgyz phonetics and resisted Russification, despite potential support for the Bolshevik regime. Their resistance was ultimately undermined by Russian scholar Konstantin Yudakhin, who developed a new system of Kyrgyz grammar based on his understanding of the language. Yudakhin introduced Russian phonetics through the addition of eight new letters, including the /ц/ and /й/ sounds. The Kyrgyz language was ‘spoiled’ by the imposition of the letter /ю/ for words that were originally pronounced with /ы/. The restoration of precolonial phonetics became a significant topic of national debate, particularly following Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan’s transliteration of their titular languages into Latin script.

Explorations of Space

Exploring the intersections of history, physical space, and art is another expanding trend in decolonial practices across Central Asia. These spaces both house and embody memory. In Almaty, the ‘[non]-museum’ designed by Archcode Almaty was established in a building that previously belonged to the NKVD. Upon discovering the site, Anel Moldakhmetova and her colleagues began to uncover its layers of historical violence, revealing traces of torture and executions. The non-museum is designed to be intentionally interactive: architects deconstruct the urban infrastructure of repression, while visitors are encouraged to share their own personal memories.Footnote ⁴⁴ The exhibition delineates the architecture of the Cheka, subterranean tunnels, and other locations associated with Soviet state violence. Visitors, including participants of the Jeltoqsan protests, articulate the profound emotional resonance that the building continues to evoke.Footnote ⁴⁵ The virtual and physical experiences aim not only to reveal trauma but to create space for collective healing and rebirth.

Space can be both expansive and mobile. Caravan on the Roads of Memory unites artists and researchers from Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. Accompanying the caravan in Jalal-Abad and Karakol, artist Suleimenova documented historically overlooked women in archival photographs, who are often unnamed and reduced to mere symbols. She observes, ‘When visiting museums, I noticed that in archival photographs, women are frequently depicted without names … Women become symbols, decorative elements.’Footnote ⁴⁶ Adopting her distinctive cellophane technique, she depicted Central Asian women occupied with everyday activities – on buses, trains, and in bazaars, – thereby reclaiming their visibility and subjectivity.

Journalist Sabyr Abdumomunov from Batken, Kyrgyzstan, examines the challenges faced by societies residing in rural and mountainous areas in overcoming colonial perceptions perpetuated by capital cities. Attributes of local culture are overshadowed by the fashion trends originating from Bishkek, inducing internalised shame among Batken natives when traversing the country.Footnote ⁴⁷ Activists in Bishkek have developed a collection of simplified symbols like apricots and area prone to conflict about Batken, which emphasise the perceived ‘foreignness’ of Batken in relation to the capital city, rather than its affiliation with the nation. In his presentation at Esimde conference, Abdumomunov instead wore a signature piece of Batken fashion: a black woollen coat, warm enough for any weather and roomy enough to nestle a child or a kitten in its folds. Although Bishkek may now exhibit a greater openness towards non-Russified compatriots, significant effort is still required to overcome the prevailing shame associated with Russian-speaking groups.

Across Central Asia, museums have emerged as sites of contestation among decolonial thinkers. These scholars critique colonial museums for representing Central Asia through an orientalist lens, which perpetuates a homogenised and primitive portrayal of local cultures. According to museum curator Maksud Askarov from Uzbekistan, Central Asians perceive their spaces through the networks of roads and pathways that traverse the region. This imaginative conception of Central Asia is characterised by exploration, constant movement, and interconnectedness among various nations.

In Kyrgyzstan, by contrast, the government demonstrates greater allegiance to Moscow and possesses insufficient resources to establish new museums. In the absence of state support, grassroots initiatives emerge organically, with activists and intellectuals engaging in the recovery of artefacts and narratives related to colonial atrocities. Asel Rashidova, a museum worker and researcher from Kyrgyzstan, views museums as interactive spaces that embody ‘active memory’, wherein joint co-creation and dialogue are facilitated.Footnote ⁴⁸ Similarly, Anel Moldakhmetova, co-founder of Archcode Almaty and the ‘non-museum of architecture’, challenges state-curated museums in Kazakhstan. During the Esimde discussion in 2024, she critiqued state initiatives for failing to facilitate spontaneous exchanges of ideas among the citizenry: ‘Any museum in Kazakhstan is constructed in a standardised manner, with standardised exhibits; there is a lack of living history.’Footnote ⁴⁹ This group, like many other decolonial cultural curators in the region, is rethinking museum spaces, moving away from flat colonial representations towards a paradigm in which each artefact embodies its own subjectivity and conveys its own narrative.

Queer Decoloniality

Decolonial disruptions in public expressions of queerness are especially effective in provoking government response. In the summer of 2024, Kazakh choreographer Alisher Sultanbekuly gained widespread attention for a video in which he danced inside a traditional kïiz üy – Kazakh yurt. Dressed in stiletto shoes, shorts, and figure-hugging kamzols (vests adorned with Kazakh ornaments), he performed alongside two women to a Kazakh song. Through his performance, Sultanbekuly explores Kazakh history from a queer perspective. While many celebrated this artistic expression, others accused him of undermining traditional Kazakh values. The controversy intensified when government officials intervened in the public discourse. Samat Musabayev, a member of parliament, described the video as ‘an attack on the honour of our nation’ (Vlast Reference Vlast2024). Similarly, Minister of Culture and Information Aida Balayeva deemed it ‘provocative’ and ‘harmful to the upbringing of the younger generation’.Footnote ⁵⁰ By mid July, the Almaty police department initiated a criminal case against Sultanbekuly, charging him with ‘incitement of social, national, tribal, racial, class, or religious hatred’, an offence that carries a potential penalty of up to seven years’ imprisonment (Azattyq Reference Azattyq2024). The case was eventually dismissed later the same year Sultanbekuly emigrated and is currently residing outside of Central Asia.

Alisher’s performance exemplifies a broader trend in Kazakhstan and the rest of Central Asia to reclaim and reinterpret ethnic traditions within the framework of decolonial resurgence. However, his approach – integrating queerness into the reimagining of Kazakh heritage – diverges from dominant activist narratives of cultural revival, which frequently centre on heteronormative and state-sanctioned expressions of identity. The backlash against him reveals that while some individuals reclaim Kazakh traditions as a means of resisting Russian colonial influence, others define queerness in exclusionary terms as antithetical to national identity. The Kazakh government asserts control over the production of national identity, thereby reinforcing specific gender norms and social hierarchies in the process. The state perceives any deviation from prescribed cultural norms as a threat, not only to tradition but also to national cohesion itself. This selective endorsement of what constitutes ‘authentic’ Kazakh culture allows the state to marginalise cultural expressions that do not conform to its political vision.

Alisher’s performance also exposes the complexities of decolonial solidarity in Kazakhstan. While the momentum to challenge Russian imperial legacies is accelerating, the boundaries of this challenge remain unsettled. The exclusion of queer identities from dominant decolonial narratives suggests that decolonisation, as currently framed by many cultural and political actors, remains constrained by normative ideas of gender and sexuality. Such exclusions raise the question of whether genuine decolonial thinking is achievable without reckoning with the systemic erasure of queer subjectivities. The backlash against Alisher, therefore, is not merely about one performance; it tests the boundaries of Kazakhstan’s decolonial future.

As activist and researcher Mutali Moskeu noted in an interview with Vlast (Reference Vlast2024), the anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric gaining traction in Kazakhstan is not an organic expression of traditional Kazakh culture but rather a product of colonial influence. Moskeu points out that while the government frames homophobia as a defence of national values, this discourse has its roots in Soviet-era policies and legal frameworks that criminalised queerness, as well as in contemporary Russian political strategies that depict LGBTQ+ rights as a foreign imposition. The rejection of queerness as ‘un-Kazakh’ thus paradoxically mirrors the very colonial legacies that many decolonial efforts seek to dismantle. This complicates the notion that reclaiming Kazakh identity necessarily entails reinforcing rigid gender norms or excluding queer voices.

Furthermore, Moskeu highlights that Kazakhstan’s political elites have used anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments to consolidate power, employing moral panic as a tool to redirect public frustrations and reinforce social hierarchies. The selective targeting of figures such as Alisher reveals how the state co-opts decolonial practices by promoting national revival at the expense of minority groups. This dynamic suggests that the struggle for LGBTQ+ inclusion in Kazakhstan is not separate from decolonial efforts but is, in fact, deeply intertwined with them. Expanding decolonial solidarity, therefore, requires a critical interrogation of how colonial frameworks have shaped contemporary attitudes towards gender and sexuality, rather than uncritically reproducing exclusionary notions of tradition.

As Central Asians draw parallels between their own postcolonial experiences and global imperial structures, they begin to forge solidarities with other marginalised populations in the Global South. One notable example is Feminist Translocalities, a decentralised network of activists, researchers, artists, journalists, and cultural workers from Central and North Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe, who operate from a queer feminist and decolonial perspective. Their work reimagines solidarity as a collaborative, anti-oppressive practice that dismantles intersecting structures of racism, colonialism, patriarchy, and ableism. Similarly, Ruyò Journal, an artist-run platform based in Central Asia, advances cultural discourse through critical reflection in the fields of art, film, and theory. By uniting a community of artists and intellectuals across borders, Ruyò functions as both a site of resistance to cultural marginalisation and an incubator of grassroots epistemologies. These emerging transnational forge coordinated resistance to systemic injustices and for advancing collective goals of justice, equity, and liberation amid escalating global crises.

Intersectional activists continue to link gender justice with decolonial emancipation. The feminist collective KazFem and the initiative Feminita explicitly challenge both patriarchal norms and colonial legacies in culture (Kravtsova Reference Koroleva2022). Co-founded by activist-scholar Zhanar Sekerbayeva, Feminita embraces decolonial feminism, critiquing how Soviet/Russian rule has shaped discourses surrounding gender and sexuality. Sekerbayeva argues that Western feminist frameworks must be adapted to local contexts, as Central Asian women are developing their own paradigms of liberation, informed by indigenous histories and languages (Konurbaeva 2023). Female artists and researchers, such as members of FemAgora or the Davra Collective, use performance and visual art to interrogate Soviet-era gender roles and recover suppressed narratives of Central Asian women. Kyrgyz groups like Bishkek Feminist Initiatives, Labrys, and Indigo are recognised for advocating gender and sexual equality; however, they expose how Russian/Soviet domination has impacted local gender norms and minority rights (Kravtsova Reference Koroleva2022). These activists form transnational links by participating in regional forums and global South conversations, often citing decolonial feminism as a key component of their framework. These efforts exemplify collaborative movement-building: feminist NGOs, community centres, and independent artists create a loose network that advances decolonial thinking in conjunction with women’s rights activism.

Joy and Celebration

Becoming one’s own is a joyous practice in Central Asia. The Bukhara Biennial is a vivid representation of the celebration of history and culture as learned and imagined by local scholars, activists, and artists. First held in September 2025, it embraces all elements of decolonial practices – epistemological and imaginative, organised and spontaneous, individual and collective. Commissioned by Uzbek government official Gayane Umerova, the biennial featured a ‘fusion of art, architecture, crafts, music, and culinary arts’ curated by Uzbek, Central Asian, and international artisans in the historic parts of Bukhara (Bukhara Biennial Reference Boym, Yassa and Emery2025). For weeks, the event hosted masterclasses in folk crafts, dance troupes, art exhibitions, and public discussions in open air. Memory work in the arts and discussions was channelled through the contemporary bending of tradition in cooking and dressing. Contemporary art installations and video productions featured local fabrics, rituals, and historical narratives.

The official description of the biennial never referred to the notion of decoloniality or mentioned the history of colonialism that had repressed this type of curated experience. Yet it incorporated collective discourses about local traditional ways of life, advancing them even further. Instead of promoting its events as a practice of excavating or reliving trauma, it used the language of moving forward: ‘mending’ history, ‘culinary activation’, and ‘recipes for broken hearts’ (Bukhara Biennial Reference Boym, Yassa and Emery2025). The intent was to create shared spaces beyond one ethnicity or medium. The avoidance of directly confronting traumatic experiences might have been strategic since the event was focused on inviting foreign audiences. Umerova brought her international experience in promoting Uzbek culture in major cities back to Uzbekistan. But unlike previous government-led events in Central Asia that combined local traditions with commercial intent, the Bukhara Biennial also featured decolonial content.

Decoloniality Meets the Market

Like other regions of the postcolonial world, the remnants of colonialism in Central Asia have been supplanted by new hegemonies. Central Asians are manufacturing new rituals that incorporate elements of existing traditions, yet these are often embellished with idealised representations of the past. The search for religious practices, cultural traditions, national symbols, attire, and cuisine intersects with capitalist practices. An increase in the availability of traditional clothing in stores and the presence of art galleries showcasing local talent are indicative of this trend. Bazaars now feature locally produced crafts. Textiles such as ikat, suzani, and shyrdak have gained popularity as fashionable decor in both public and private spaces.

The marketplace has also adapted to accommodate the needs of practising Muslims. Religious literature, halal food, and headscarves for women are now widely accessible. The marketing of religious practices has become increasingly creative, encompassing improvised religious medicine and guides to prosperity. Private, and at times underground, schools provide religious education separately for girls and boys. Market forces have transformed life cycle celebrations and rituals, prompting families to strive to meet communal expectations; some even incur debt to organise extravagant weddings, kyz uzatuu (a bridal send-off ceremony), and funerals.

Other similar state-led decolonial practices include Kyrgyzstan’s launch of the World Nomad Games, which attract hundreds of participants from across the world. The biannual event, first launched in 2012 by President Almazbek Atambayev, glorifies nomadism as a distinct cultural heritage of the Central Asian region and reimagines how nomads played Kök Börü (an equestrian sport), Toguz Korgool (logic contests), martial arts, Arkan Tartuu (team tug-of-war), archery, and eagle hunting. As Sheranova (Reference Shelekpayev2021) argues, Atambayev invented the games to attract foreign tourists and distract domestic audiences from political instability. The games achieved as much: thousands of foreigners visit the country to watch the competitions, and most Kyrgyzstanis seem to enjoy the attention. His successors have continued to expand the games with similar intentions in mind.

State-Imposed Decoloniality: Tensions, tropes, and contradictions

Central Asian states also partake in forms of imagination – often within deeply entrenched Soviet frameworks that essentialise and mythologise. Projects such as Asman City in Kyrgyzstan draw upon indigenous cultural aesthetics while consciously rejecting Soviet and Russian influences. Similarly, the National History Museum offers a selective narrative, reproducing colonial aesthetics and modernisation tropes even as it aims to resist them. One of the most prominent state-led initiatives, the Nomad Games, first introduced by Kyrgyz president Atambayev and subsequently adopted by neighbouring states, presents a tightly choreographed representation of nomadic heritage. While framed as an indigenous celebration, it functions as a state-curated spectacle with limited space for alternative or pluralistic narratives.

Some states have offered symbolic gestures towards transparency. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan allow partial access to archives related to the Stalinist purges. Kazakhstan additionally permits research into the Asharshylyq, Soviet nuclear testing, and the Aral Sea disaster. Uzbekistan has invested in more than a dozen state-led museums commemorating Soviet repression and local resistance.Footnote ⁵¹ Meanwhile, Tajikistan cautiously permits discussions regarding the civil war trials that occurred from 1992 to 1997 and the controversial border redistributions that positioned Tajik-speaking populations under Uzbek administration.

The revision of colonial legacies under the auspices of an authoritarian government loyal to Russia reinforces dependence on the metropole. Domestically, it tames public demand for confronting past trauma and in foreign policy, it pedals a careful critique of imperial violence without directly implicating the metropole. The Ürkün memorial, for instance, acknowledges historical suffering – but only within the parameters deemed acceptable to Russia, the very power responsible for this suffering and still reluctant to confront its legacy. Murals at Ata Beyit depict faceless suffering without identifying a perpetrator. The final mural is the most contentious – it attributes the return of the Kyrgyz refugees to Soviet salvation. This mural features the returnees surrounded by conventional images of modernisation: a glowing lightbulb in a yurt and a tractor ploughing the land (Figure 6). In 2016, Atambayev invited Putin to the opening, where hundreds of trees were planted – some hurriedly painted green to conceal their withered state.

Figure 6

A plaque at Ata Beyit.

Photo by Erica Marat, February 2025.

As Abylbek observes, state-led memory projects reproduce inherently patriarchal norms. They glorify male figures – baatyrs, kagans, and founding fathers – while reinforcing conservative gender roles and erasing women’s contributions (Interview 2025). President Akayev in Kyrgyzstan exemplified this obsession with imagined anniversaries: a millennium of the Manas epic or 3,000 years of Kyrgyz statehood, all grounded in speculative historicism. Even while acknowledging Soviet atrocities, Kyrgyz leaders maintain monuments such as that of Feliks Dzerzhinsky, suggesting unresolved contradictions within the memory regime. Discussions of collective loss may be permitted to surface, but only within a narrow scope that avoids offending geopolitical alliances.

The overlapping narratives of state and activist decolonial discourse often produce dominant themes that inhibit more experimental thinking. Both governments and civil society tend to define colonialism through stories such as the Alash Orda in Kazakhstan, Ürkün and the burial of 137 men in Kyrgyzstan, and the Jadid movement in Uzbekistan. Abylbek critiques how explorations of memory inevitably intersect with the Soviet-era borders of Central Asia, giving rise to new internal divisions. Both states and activists concentrate on distinct aspects of the Tsarist and Soviet periods. Such disunity, she argues, was an integral part of the colonial strategy. The Jadids operated across Turkestan, and experiences of repression, famine, and displacement affected all communities. Yet memory today remains fragmented. Civil society reflects these divisions; for instance, the ongoing dispute between Kazakh and Kyrgyz intellectuals regarding the fate of Kenesary Khan, the last Kazakh khan, is emblematic. Kenesary, who resisted the Russian Empire, was killed following an incursion into Kyrgyz territory. Some Kazakh scholars accuse the Kyrgyz of betrayal, alleging they sent Kenesary’s decapitated head to the Tsar. When Kyrgyz singer Kairat Primberdiev publicly apologised, he was arrested for inciting ethnic hatred (Auespekova Reference Auespekova2025).

Despite these tensions, voices such as Abylbek advocate for regional scholars and institutions to collaboratively reconsider the concept of memory. A collective reckoning with colonial histories, transcending nationalist mythmaking and patriarchal glorification, can help foster healing from a shared experience of colonialism. A joint exploration can lead to greater unity among scholars and activists. However, as long as the Central Asian governments continue to instrumentalise memory and intellectuals remain constrained within postcolonial boundaries, such a possibility will remain aspirational.

Conclusion

Decolonial practices disrupt dominant narratives of Soviet benevolence and postcolonial inertia by reclaiming silenced memories, reconfiguring of public space, and mobilisation of imagination as a legitimate epistemic tool. While some of these interventions manifest as scholarly inquiry or artistic production, others emerge through spontaneous acts of remembrance, the reconstruction of family histories, or the reinterpretation of ritual and material culture. These practices do not merely supplement official histories; they contest them. In doing so, they reposition the region not as a periphery of colonial legacies but as a site of critical knowledge production and creative resistance. From grassroots memorialisation projects to reimagined museum spaces, Central Asian actors enact a decolonial politics of memory that is as much about reclaiming the past as it is about envisioning futures no longer tethered to imperial epistemologies.

Simultaneously, the section has traced the tensions between grassroots and state-led memory initiatives, revealing how official projects often reify colonial tropes even as they claim to dismantle them. These contradictions are particularly evident in selective archival access, patriarchal nation-building narratives, and symbolic gestures that avoid implicating the former metropole. However, the increasing visibility of individual and collective decolonial efforts – from artistic reworkings of historical trauma to transregional solidarities and language activism – shows how memory as a medium is a powerful tool of decolonial knowledge creation. As scholars, activists, and cultural producers reclaim authority over historical narratives, they forge new frameworks for justice, belonging, and epistemic autonomy. The decolonial turn in Central Asia is thus both a corrective to imperial historiography and a transformative praxis, one that insists on the legitimacy of plural memories and the necessity of reshaping how history is narrated.

Beyond Decoloniality

Decolonial discussions and practices, as well as the search for new identities, remain largely confined within the political borders established by the Soviet Union. Most physical state borders in the region are less than a century old. Central Asian countries and the places within them are internationally recognised by their Russified names. For instance, Kazakhstan is closer to the Russian pronunciation than Qazaqstan in Kazakh, Issyk Kul in Kyrgyzstan is Ysyk Köl in Kyrgyz, and Gorno-Badakhshan is referred to as Badaxşon in Tajik. As a growing consensus emerges in Central Asia that the Soviet regime functioned as a colonial oppressor rather than a benevolent power, the common use of toponyms – among other words – is likely to change in the region as well.

However, the decolonial processes currently unfolding in the region will not resolve the fundamental dilemma of the postcolonial world – namely, fostering grassroots self-determination within externally imposed borders, governmental institutions, and economies. To discover their identities, former colonial subjects must also critically re-evaluate their internationally recognised colonial legacies. A genuinely radical proposition in Central Asia involves reimagining – and potentially reshaping – the region’s current borders. However, for many Central Asians, articulating the notion that ‘we are all from Central Asia,’ which is now divided into entities called Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, etc. is treacherous. Retaining Soviet ethnonyms helps preserve the strong, top-down ethnic identities instilled during the Soviet era, particularly in the face of an uncertain future. States reinforced country names and borders; however, decolonial disruptions are yet to explore what imagined consolidated future societies can embrace.

Unlike countries in Africa and South Asia, the populations in Central Asia grapple with a profound historical amnesia. In contrast to Ukrainians, Central Asians lack a significant diaspora in the West capable of preserving cultural heritage under conditions of genuine political freedom. The Turkic peoples in Western China are notably oppressed under Beijing’s colonial regime, while in Afghanistan, both Turkic groups and Tajiks have endured decades of imperial conflicts. Will societies become increasingly divided along various identities, or will they unite further as a region? One outcome is certain, however; grassroots initiatives aimed at rethinking the Soviet past will inevitably alter Central Asia’s relations with Russia.

Shelekpayev offers yet another alternative to decolonial thinking by ‘zooming out’ the understanding of Central Asia beyond the region’s Soviet boundaries (2025, 150). Recognising the profound differences among Central Asian countries and cultures, rather than grouping the ‘stans’ into Soviet-imposed geographic or historical categories, scholarship should instead approach the area through global historical comparisons. Such an approach can yield unexpected insights into how, contrary to Soviet claims of being the sole modernising force, Central Asian modernity was shaped by globalising influences in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Research into environmental, cultural, economic, religious, and political developments over the past two centuries can likewise benefit from being examined beyond the confines of the Soviet past. Finally, studies of trauma, servitude, and healing are global, too.

What the Future Holds

As of the writing of this Element, two significant dimensions of decolonial disruption are unfolding. Firstly, new terms are emerging within Central Asia to capture novel understandings of the region. Although not yet fully crystallised, these terms are gradually entering the vocabulary of contemporary discourse. Notably, memory studies, the rethinking of distinctive aspects of Russian colonialism, and the intersection of gender and national identity are particularly vibrant areas of exploration. For instance, Kazakh and Kyrgyz scholars are now grappling with notions of simultaneously erased, imagined, and fleeting memories of their family and community members. Other initiatives include the development of new research methodologies that acknowledge gender roles while understanding repression when interviewing women who worked in cotton fields during the Soviet period. These new concepts also emerge in collaboration with scholars and activists from North Asia, the Caucasus, Ukraine, the Baltic States, and other regions formerly occupied by Soviet power. Potentially, these ideas will contribute to global decolonial studies, alongside concepts of orientalism and the subaltern.

The second significant area of discussion involves escaping the decolonial trap of self-victimisation. Articulating personal and group colonial trauma, perpetrated and subsequently silenced by Tsarist/Soviet power, displaces the metropole’s view of its former subjects. Past traumas can be distressing for groups that were both affected by and complicit in them. Often, past colonial violence and colonial collaboration coexist within a single family – one generation may suffer from Stalin’s purges and dispossession campaigns, while the next assists in building the Soviet regime and oppressing others within the community. When metropole’s cover-up of past atrocities fades into the background, new space frees up to build collective resilience, shared political identity, and, above all, envision a future beneficial to the very people who inhabit the region.

Conversely, clinging to a perpetual victim identity and dwelling condescendingly on past wrongs are not emancipatory. Many decolonial intellectuals fall into this trap, including Russian thinkers responding to their regime’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine or calls to acknowledge Russia’s violent past. Agency to create own present and future must be fuelled by collective resilience at the individual, community, and national levels. Surviving trauma as a nation after fully interrogating the damage created for generations can be a powerful foundation for a political and civic identity. In Ukraine, public awareness of Holodomor and survival of the nation of both Nazi and Russian occupations in the twentieth century fuels current national resistance against Russia. In Russia, the Kremlin’s veneration of Stalin fuels a public sense of entitlement to violent conquests of other nations.

The effort to emancipate from the victim identity in Central Asia or elsewhere should not be confused with imperial epistemologies that attempt to silence local decolonial memory work in other parts of former Soviet occupied territories like Belarus and Ukraine.Footnote ⁵² The common reaction to decolonial thinking from this community of scholars is predictable and echoes the colonial propaganda of the time: the Soviet regime was said to be emancipatory for the indigenous populations, it brought industrial development, and its aesthetics were unique. Instead of appreciating the so-called glorious legacies of modernity, Central Asian decolonial thinkers seek to distance themselves from Soviet and Russian imperial influence. Such criticism is regressive; it seeks to recentre Russian cultural dominance as the civilising force that should be welcomed by ‘lesser’ peoples.

As this Element has shown, decolonial disruptions in Central Asia do not provide easy resolutions. They resist singular narratives or linear progress. Instead, they create space for conceptual multiplicity, friction, and remembrance. The label ‘decolonial’ itself signifies a refusal to simply mark time after empire, as it emphasises unlearning, refusal, and the reclamation of epistemic, linguistic, and emotional sovereignty. Decolonial discussions grapple with understanding whether what comes to replace Russianness is hegemonic or colonial, as it often reproduces Western knowledge or radical religious practices of the East, and whether local cultures become appropriated by those seeking political or economic influence. Such debates are particularly intense around language, religion, and gender. As discourses and practices unfold, they gradually move away from the notion of decoloniality and turn to countless new ways of interpreting the past and present through self-exploration and external influences.

In this contested terrain, the work of decolonisation is as much about unlearning as it is about countering imperial inheritances worldwide and creating new knowledge. What emerges from this study is not a singular decolonial movement, but many intersecting efforts: some fragmented, some institutionalised, and many informal and improvised. Their power lies not in coherence but in convergence – in the way they unsettle inherited ideologies and open new political imaginaries. Whether through a podcast recorded in Bishkek, an art exhibition in Almaty, a film festival in Tashkent, or speculative fiction envisioning nomadic utopias, each gesture resists the inevitability of imperial permanence. Our work thus contributes to a larger project in which Central Asians reclaim authorship over their pasts and futures, not by communicating in the former master’s language, but by creating space for their own.