The Image of the Turkestan Region's Youth and the Independence Period Society in the Novel “Not Afraid” by Javlon Jovliev

Abstract

For the past thirty years, writers of post-Soviet Central Asia, in addition to touching on various topics in fiction, have paid particular attention to presenting historical topics, thereby trying to show the causal relationships of traumas caused by (post)colonialism. Even though states have declared farewell to colonial power, the traumas preserved in society’s memory, remaining from the colonial trace, cause post-colonialism syndrome in various spheres of society. As its apparent signs can be highlighted, the facts that to this day, the Russian language dominates in society, representatives of the people have separated from their inherent national and historical identity, as globalization has grown, mixed identity, cultural and intellectual backwardness in sections of society, weakening of common values due to divisions of language and religion and that members of the society initiated to seek happiness in other parts of the world. Apart from colonialism, it has also been greatly affected by the causes and factors of globalization. Similarly, some writers, with the aim of decolonizing colonial thinking, present victorious events of history through their literary products as role models. In the twentieth century, to “awaken” the Turkestan region - the contemporary Central Asian region - representatives of the Jadidist direction made great efforts to promote sectors of society. Some contemporary writers interpret the reform activities of the Jadids through the novel to decolonize people’s minds by addressing the social problems of modern society. In the twentieth century, the Jadids raised funds to strengthen national potential and decided to train seventy students from the Turkestan region in Berlin. The students wanted to use the knowledge gained in the West in their homeland. The Jadids sought to develop Central Asia by supplying it with educational resources. The efforts of the patriotic Jadids on the path to enlightenment influenced the Uzbek writer Javlon Jovliev to write the novel “Not Afraid.” The novel depicts seventy students from the Turkestan region who were subjected to Stalinist violence for studying in Berlin and serving their country, and parallel scenes of a society consisting of “people who have been exposed to liver disease” describe images of students in an independent state in the 21st century. Since the novel is multifaceted, the context of the text points to different meanings. When the novel was published, many readers, the literary area, and the research community paid attention, but the novel’s discourse was not considered from a postcolonial perspective. This article examines the novel “Not Afraid” from the perspective of postcolonial criticism, receptive aesthetics, and new criticism.

Key words: Javlon Jovliyev, contemporary Uzbek literature, novel, Not Afraid.