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Dushanbe, Tajikistan
- July 12 to 14, 2004
Directory of Archives and Collections:
A Quicktime version of the presentation given by John Vallier at the Archive Project for Central Asia Workshop is available here.
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Association of Cultural Archives and Collections
to Be Formed
- originally published in the newpaper "Adabiyot
va Sanat" - Summer 2004
For several decades beginning the early Soviet period, a number
of Academy of Sciences departments, university and other teaching
faculties, musicians and other individual collectors with strong
interest in regional cultural matters have amassed valuable and
often unique collections of the traditional and regional music and
folklore of Tajikistan and its neighbours. This material forms a
precious part of the national heritage and history of the nation.
During his recent years as Director of the Aga Khan Humanities Project
for Central Asia in Dushanbe, the anthropologist and educaton development
expert Dr. Rafique Keshavjee met prominent Tajik scholars in the
fields of folk literature and music, such as Rajab Amanov, Nizom
Nurjonov, Faayzullo Karamatov, Ravshan Rahmoni and others. The survival
of their archives and the publication of their collections became
a priority also for him. In 2003 Dr. Rafique Keshavjee met with
American folklorist, Professor Margaret Mills and the Regional Director
of international organization Internews Network, Mr. Ivan Sigal,
to try to devise a project to support the entire body of endangered
collections. Professor Margaret Mills is a prominent scholar of
the folklore of Persian-spoken peoples. She has collected, researched
and published Dari folklore of Afghanistan for many years. She has
come to Tajikistan several times since 1999 when she joined the
Aga Khan Humanities Progran to design and teach part of the Program
on Oral Traditions for AKHP's scholars and students.
In collaborative discussions, these and other scholars have decided
to organize a program for preservation and use of traditional cultural
materials, to support moral and social intervention for positive
social change. The problem of preservation and effective use of
cultural materials, even with limited economic resources, is recognized
as a world cultural heritage need. The American Christensen Foundation
agreed to provide funding to begin to plan a program in this area
of need for Tajikistan and Kyrgyzistan. Professor Margaret Mills
worked with Professor Lorraine Sakata, senior ethnomusicologist
of the University of California at Los Angeles, USA, who has exensive
research experience in the traditioan music of Afghanistan and Pakistan
and who has also begun to do research in Tajikistan, to begin designing
the program and its contents.
It was most important to begin with a general assessment of the
situation and problems of the field. Thus the first step was a project
entitled "Archive Assessment Project for Central Asia",
focused first on Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, carried out since February
2004. It was funded by Christensen Foundation and administered and
technically supported by Internews Network - Tajikistan. First evaluation
interviews with representatives of different archives and collections
from around Tajikistan as well as with certain Kyrgyz colleagues,
confirmed that the field has a complex of problems, each of which
connects with the others. The work continues with ongoing and productive
support and consultancy of the Research Supervisors, Margaret Mills
and Lorraine Sakata. The team of researchers, headed by Munira Khudoba,
included Sanavbar Gurukova, Dilshod Rahimov, Sino Mahmudov and Hafiz
Boboyorov.
The research part of the Project was launched in April of this year
and finished in early July. The main goal of the research was to
identify archives of folk culture including verbal art and musical
materials and learn more about their contents. The researchers learned
that both in Tajikistan and in Kyrgyzistan a huge amount of materials
have been collected and there are many archive institutions and
private collections of interest. Some materials are kept in the
form of exhibits in museums and archives while other recorded and
written materials are used for research and teaching in academic
and scholarly institutions. These materials are thus useful for
different purposes and used in different ways. But fundamentally,
these materials belong to the social life of the people, where they
play or have played an important role as a source of moral and esthetic
experience, and of practical information as in the fields of folk
medicine and traditional agriculture. Cultural heritage materials
are the basis for the positive identification of people with their
home place and their nation, and for their moral life, but they
are also the basis for international cultural participation and
enjoyment. The research has argued that physical preservation of
cultural materials and collections in archives is not the only urgent
problem, but effective return of endangered cultural property to
the people is also highly desirable. Because the stored materials
are fragile and special facilities are needed to let people use
them, few collected materials are accessible to the public. After
the collapse of the Soviet Union cultural institutions, especially
archives and related institutions, have not been sufficiantly funded
by the state budget. Consequently, the archives now face very unfavorable
conditions from a technical point of view. Besides the need for
physical preservation and proper facilities for storage and use,
there is also a lack of specialist archivsits because low salaries
discourage able people from joining the work.
The Archive Assessment Project yielded the following observations:
1. We should search for means and opportunities of widening public
access to the materials locked in archives and collections. We need
to consider the experiences of the advanced societies and their
practices in the field, and adapt them to our own conditions. In
our history, there have been two kinds of approach to usage of the
cultural archives and their collections. Because such materials
have nationalist qualities, during the Soviet State the policy-makers
and decision-makers paid less attention to them and limited their
use. Thus we inherit the idea that archives should not be accessible
to a broad audience. Such an approach is more noticeable in the
psychology of Tajik people. Other nations of Central Asia, such
as the Uzbeks, even during the Soviet period worked for development
of their national culture. Thus far we have for the most part kept
cultural materials in the locked and darkened buildings of archives
and do not seek to return them to their primary owners, i.e. people.
2. The work of the Project should not end with this assessment.
The Archive Project conducted a Workshop for representatives of
participating archives during July 12-14 in Dushanbe. Scholars and
specialists of the field gathered and shared their opinions, experiences,
concerns and recommendations. This working group decided to establish
an independent association of the archives and collectors to support
their needs and activities and help give them greater social roles.
Such a civic organization can work permanently on the problems of
the field, to bring needed resources to the member institutions.
The center can help bring employees, specialists, performers and
scholars of folk culture together to find ways to resolve the existing
problems.
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