Language and Identity in Tajikistan: A Literary Approach (Research Brief)

My research focused on the figure of Sadriddin Aini, often hailed as the “father of Tajik literature”, and the literary efforts which he, his colleagues, and his mentees undertook in an effort to help solidify and, in many ways, craft a sense of a national Tajik identity in the early days of the Tajik SSR. My primary finding is that language was of paramount importance to this project, and that without the identification of a corpus of national Tajik literature and the publication of new literary works in a more accessible Tajik, the transition of Tajikistan from autonomous republic to union republic would never have occurred. The implications of this conclusion for contemporary Tajikistan – in which linguistic identity is still very much fluid and contested – are extensive.

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Zenia H. Tompkins, an Independent Scholar, was a 2009-10 Embassy Policy Specialist (EPS) fellow.