Life in the USSR was effectively turned upside down by the package of reforms known as “perestroika” initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985. This was equally true in Central Asia: although some observers have noted that certain reforms came slowly and hesitantly to Central Asia, there is no doubt that their aggregate impact was transformative, a source of hope and trepidation there as elsewhere. Younger Central Asians in particular took advantage of the new opportunities for debate, criticism, and entrepreneurship, questioning the certainties of the previous era and staking out political careers and nascent businesses. Some even founded new political parties or movements. This roundtable invites two of the era’s prominent individuals, Davlat Khudonazarov and Zamira Sydykova, to reflect on their respective experiences in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Isaac Scarborough, the author of a forthcoming book on perestroika in Central Asia, will provide commentary and place their perspectives in dialogue with recent academic work.
Ambassador Zamira Sydykova served as Kyrgyz ambassador to the United States and Canada from 2005 to 2010, after a career as an opposition journalist, including imprisonment by the government of then-president Askar Akayev. After the Kyrgyz Revolution of 2010, Ambassador Sydykova served as a trade advisor, scholar at the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. She was the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Kyrgyzstan’s first independent newspaper Res Publica, and taught as an associate professor in the Journalism department at Kyrgyz National University. Ambassador Sydykova has received awards from the International Women’s Media Foundation, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International.
Davlat Khudonazarov is a filmmaker known for feature and documentary films, a human rights activist, historian, and public figure. During perestroika he was elected a People’s Deputy of the USSR and became a member of the Inter-Regional Group of Deputies. In the summer of 1990 he was elected Chairman of the Union of Cinematographers of the USSR. In 1990-1991 he was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. During the years of the Civil War in Tajikistan Khudonazarov was actively involved in negotiating a peace agreement. Since 1996 he has lived in Moscow and cooperated with various organizations to protect the rights of refugees from Tajikistan and Afghanistan. Khudonazarov is also the author of books and articles about the presence of Russians in the Pamir in the late 19th and early 20thcenturies.
Isaac Scarborough is University Lecturer in Russian Studies in the Institute for History, Leiden University, and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the School of Humanities and Social Science, Liverpool John Moores University. His research focuses on the disintegration of the Soviet Union, with a forthcoming book, Moscow’s Heavy Shadow: The Violent Collapse of the USSR, highlighting the harsh consequences attendant for Tajikistan and elsewhere in the Soviet periphery.ttings.