Remembering Soviet Past: Recording and Compiling Audio-Video Materials on
Everyday Life Experiences and Public Memory in Post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan1
Timur Dadabaev, Associate Professor, University of Tsukuba
Adjunct Associate Professor, University of Tokyo
Throughout the history, Central Asian states have experienced a number of historical changes whichchallenged the basis of their traditional societies and life-styles. The most significant ones are brought
about by the revolution of 1917 in Russia and 1918 in Central Asia, incorporation of this region into theSoviet Union and gaining of independence as a consequence of the collapse of the USSR. However,impartial and informed public evaluation of the past and its understanding has always been a complicatedissue in Central Asia over Soviet and post-Soviet periods under various influences.
Two the most important and detrimental factors shaping public perception and opinion regarding theirpresent and their past have been “official” historical discourse and everyday life experiences of populations.
“Official” historical discourses can take many forms and every often exemplified by official historiography,
which characterizes what was “politically correct” to consider to be “good” and “bad” among the events ofthe past. There has been a long tradition of history construction in Central Asia when political pressures andofficial ideology always had a decisive say in how the history is interpreted and eventually constructed.
Such approach to constructing history was practiced both in the Soviet period with the aim of beautifying
Socialist society (well documented by the Communist-era archives) and in post-Soviet period, criticizing
Soviet past and praising post-Soviet society building (demonstrated by current literature on history in
Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan).
These “official” descriptions of the past sometimes confirmed but more often contradicted interpretationsof the past, when made when past is analyzed through the lenses of the everyday experiences of ordinary
people.
It is this contradiction in depicting the history which lies at the center of this project. This project
attempts to collect, record, preserve and make public the views of public regarding their Soviet-days
experiences and memory of the Soviet past using the case-studies of Kyrgyzstan. In particular, this project
aims to contribute to understanding of relationship between the governmentally-endorsed history of Central
Asian people in the Soviet era and their private lives and believes. In order to do so, this study attempts tocontribute to academic knowledge on how people remember their Soviet past and what were their

1

While this report has been made available both in Japanese and English languages, it should be mentioned that these were
not manual translations of one another but written separately, in both languages to accommodate the specificity of
expressions and styles of each language. Therefore, while the content of the reports in Japanese and English is the same,structurally these two reports do not necessarily copy each other. This has been done in order to facilitate easiercomprehension of the essence of the project and for the sake of cultural flexibility required in explaining comprehensive
notions in various languages.

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memories of their experiences of that time. This also leads to a better understanding of how these memories
relate to the Soviet and post-Soviet official descriptions of the Soviet life.
This project attempts to achieve its goals through the collecting, recording and analyzing the narrativesof ordinary people, their views regarding political practices (repressions, staff indigenization,
administration of things, etc), economic policies (collective farm formation, industrialization, economic
cadre education, etc), social life (forms and shapes of community and religious life in the Soviet times) andmany others.
As a methodological tool, this study is part of the data-collection project of the “Memory of the past”(co-organized by the Universities of Tokyo, Tsukuba, World Economy and Diplomacy in Tashkent andTurkish-Kyrgyz Manas University in Bishkek) over the period of 2005 to 2010 in Uzbekistan andKyrgyzstan. Thematically, the project focused on the recollection of memories on the people’s everyday
experiences in the times of the Soviet Union. Therefore, the project aims to use the recordings of thememories of everyday life in Soviet Central Asia and relate those to the official recordings of history. The
project targeted ordinary people of the 75 years of age and over with questions regarding their everyday life
experiences in the various period of their lives. By doing so, the project aimed to collect information about
how ordinary people regarded and understood the reality of their time and how this understanding related to
official policy of the Soviet government in Central Asian region. The choice of the everyday life
experiences of people as the main focus of this study is considered to be one of those instances which
presents relatively apolitical picture of the societal life of that time, which was largely ignored in Soviet andpost-Soviet studies. In addition, the information provided by the interviewed in the older age grouprepresents a unique data which, if not collected and recorded now, can be lost due to rapid decrease of those
who remember the social environment of the Soviet times. The loss of such data will result in false
interpretations, assumptions and speculations without an opportunity to check these against the reality of
everyday lives of that time.
1. Research team
Timur Dadabaev, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences,
University of Tsukuba, Research Leader
Collaborators
Hisao Komatsu, Professor, University of Tokyo
Ilkhan Sahin, Professor, Kyrgyz-Turkish Manas University（Kyrgyz Republic）
Guljanat Kurmangalieva, Senior Lecturer, Kyrgyz-Turkish Manas University（Kyrgyz Republic（From 2009, Associate Professor, Maltepe University, Turkey）－ 52 －

T.Dadabaev（Tsukuba）
H.Komatsu（Tokyo）①Theoretical Formulation / Planning②Questioner Drafting/Interview③Drafting the guidelines of survey④Contacting Kyrgyz Univ./Institutes

Discussionofsurveyplan,
implementation, wording and logistics
with Kyrgyz counterparts

G.Kurmangalieva,
I.SahinKyrgyz Turkish-Manas
University (Bishkek)

B.Saidov
Kyrgyz Turkish-Manas
University (Bishkek)⑤ Logistics of field research,selecting interviewees, correcting
the surveys, analysis, hiring andcoordinating research assistants,
providing guidance on researchmethodology⑥Conducting interviews,
recording of interviews on thevideo camera, taping andde-shifrating⑦ Analyzing, Workshop, Presentations( T.Dadabaev, H.Komatsu, G.Kurmangalieva, I.Sahin)

2. Sampling method and respondents
The process of sampling for collecting, recording, storing and analyzing the data used in this article has
been one of the most difficult tasks as it had the potential for influencing and in certain cases, shaping theanswers to the questions asked. In order to cover the conceptual gap in the literature regarding the views of
the ordinary citizens regarding their societies in the Soviet time, the interviewees were collected mostly－ 53 －

from the older generations and especially those beyond their retirement age. This is done to cover the
memories of the Soviet time by those who spend the most active years of their lives in the Soviet culturaland social environment. These recollections were then either recorded on the audio-tapes (in the case of
Uzbekistan), video-records (in the case of Kyrgyzstan), put into the script, translated and are in the processof being archived.
Out of the four possible alternatives for sampling, namely, deviant case sampling, homogenous sampling,maximum variation sampling and network sampling, authors decided to avoid as much as possible theconvenience sampling and homogenous sampling in order to avoid the situation when the outcomes of theinterviews are similar and predetermined in their content. On the contrary, the project attempted to locate
people who led very diverse life-styles, based on diverse regional, ethnic, educational, social, professionaland other affiliations.
In terms of regional representation, in the overall sample size of 75 people, the utmost effort has been
made to select more interviewees (5-6 people) from capitals, larger, hence more densely populated regions,while ensuring that interviewees from the demographically smaller regions are also represented.
The network sampling has been applied to overcome difficulties associated with political restrictions andself-restrains on the side of interviewees for a fear of repercussions while in Kyrgyzstan, the network
sampling has been used to locate people from remote areas which are difficult to gain access to.
3. Interviewing
In order to facilitate open and interviewee-friendly environment, the project used the following four
techniques in the process of interviews. Firstly, the cultural flexibility and proper wording of the questions
was paid special attention. While given the choice of structured (with strictly defined questions),semi-structured and open-ended options for formulating questions, the study opted to use semi-structured
method due to its better applicability to the realities of the region. Using structured interviews in Central
Asia often results in short, non-inclusive, incomprehensive answers because of the lack of rapport between
interviewee and interviewer. On the one hand, using open-ended interview might have also potential risk ofdeveloping into an extensive exchange of opinions and develop into a direction unrelated or distant fromthe topic of everyday life experiences of Soviet times due to the broad spectrum of issues. Therefore, thesemi-structured interview, which includes clearly defined question and some sub-questions to clarify themeaning of the main questions were used with interviewees given the opportunity to develop their story as
far as it does not move away from the main topic of the interview.
Secondly, interviewers attempted to establish rapport with the interviewees by discussing some unrelated
to the project topics such as the general well-being of those being interviewed, discussion of weather andother topics. In addition to establishing trust between interviewers and interviewee, such long introduction
has deep cultural meaning in Central Asia where people are used to use relatively long, introductory－ 54 －

conversations before proceeding to the heart of the issue that they are interested to talk about. This, within
the course of this project and in daily life in general in Central Asia, develops a basis for a smootherconversation and offers a chance for interviewees to get to know the other side and shape their own attitude
to them.
After such an introductory entry into conversation, the interview proceeded with the questions asked
about the topics related to the everyday life experiences of Soviet time. In order to facilitate an open
discussion, the project employed an approach when in the course of interview, interviewees’ assumptions
were on several occasions critically assessed or even challenged in order to provoke them to offer a deeper
insight into how they came to the assumptions and conclusions they were operating. Yet, the carefulattention has been paid to not radically challenge the flow of the talk and not to discourage the interviewee
from laying down his/her assumptions.
And thirdly, project members attempted to make the process of interviewing more “participatory” forboth interviewee and interviewer by not simply listening to the memories recalled by interviewees but also,
on several occasions, having the family members of interviewees and those close neighbors listen and thensometimes make their own comments which father encouraged the process of remembering and forced
interviewees to use more detailed recollections of the past in order to support their own logic. It was
especially so with older generation of interviewees who seemed at times to have problems with
understanding the essence of the question or having problems remembering the periods in which certain
events took place.
4. Challenges, limitations and biases
There were few conceptual and logistical problems in the course of interviews. Firstly, the mentality ofthe ordinary people has influenced the outcome of the interviews both in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. In
both cases, interviewers observed the situation when respondents are often reluctant to speak about
negativities of the Soviet times. This can be explained by several reasons. In addition to potential politicaland related pressures which will be discussed later in the text, many of respondents are bearers of theculture when taking about one’s problems and criticism outside of the society is considered to be shamefuland needed to be avoided as much as possible. In both societies, people shared the logic of local saying that“Garbage should not be taken out of the house”. Therefore, in many cases, interviewees were inclined to
speak more about positive sides of the issues than negativities. In addition, the attitude of interviewees
towards interviewer differed significantly depending on the developed or underdeveloped rapport between
interviewee and interviewer. For many of them, interviewees were “strangers” and it is not an accepted
norm to speak about negativities to the “strangers”.
In order to encourage the interviewees to be more open about various aspects of their Soviet past, theinterviews were often joined by the members of the family or grandchildren in front of whom many elders－ 55 －

could not misrepresent the realities of their past lives. When there were such few attempts, members of thefamilies listening to the interviews often intervened correcting and clarifying certain issues both to theinterviewer and interviewee.
Another challenge was encountered with the language in which interview should be conducted. Due tothe multiethnic nature of the societies in Central Asia, Kyrgyz was used for those belonging to the titularethnic group and preferring to answer in their own language. For the Russian and Russian-speaking groups(like Koreans, etc), Russian language questioners have been used. In certain instances, questioners inalternative languages (Turkish-language one for Turks, etc) were drafted and used. But diversity of thelanguages used for questioners, did not present a technical problem, except for the logistical concerns
relating to translation.
Much bigger problem was the obvious correlation between the language of the questioner and the patternof asking questions and answers to these questions. In Kyrgyz, interviewee had to go through the longprocedure of first explaining in length the background of the issue and then asking the question. Otherwise,
the answers were either inadequate or too short and mostly shallow. In Russian language, however, suchprocedure of going into the long discussion of the background of the issue and its details resulted in an
irritation of the respondents and desire for clear and short questions without preceding long interpretationand explanation of the problem. In the same manner, the answers in local languages were softer, long andextensively descriptive with few short and clear-cut answers. Those responding in these local languages
preferred “middle-ground” answers which can largely be attributed to the mentality of people. Even when
respondents answered in a straight and very critical manner, they still preferred to do so after extensive
explanation and after “preparing the ground” for it. On the contrary, Russian language responses were more
direct, more critical or clear in their message leaving the background information out or offering very little
explanation. In addition, in certain interviews, respondents responded to only one part of the interview
regarding their lives and experiences in local language and then preferred to switch to Russian when theywanted to be more direct or blunt about their attitude to certain events or happenings.
Secondly, in the case of Kyrgyzstan, majority of those approached have decided to cooperate with the
project and to be video-taped. Yet such cooperation with the project also resulted in the situation thatsometimes respondents were attempting to provide interviewers with the information that they believed
interviewers wanted to hear from them. This, instead, influenced the outcomes of the project because thisinformation did not always reflect real life-time experiences of people but rather their interpretation of thehistory that they learned from other sources.
5. Outcomes and follow up
As indicated above, the task of recording, preserving and disseminating the qualitative data on what
people experienced in their daily lives and on their relations to the ideology and political structure of the－ 56 －

Soviet government Communist party is very urgent and important one. The urgency of this task comes fromthe fact that many of those who experienced Soviet life and those who have in-depth and detailed
knowledge about how people lived at Soviet times are getting older with many of these people passing
away. With them, they take away the data which, if properly collected, preserved and distributed, can serveas an essential supplement to the archival and other written sources of history. As indicated above, theselection method, number of interviewed and disparity in their economic, social, ethnic and religious status
impacts the outcome of the interviews. Nevertheless, this kind of project provides a new source of
information for understanding Socialist life and political structure.
The major outcomes of this project were presented during international workshops in Istanbul (EurasianStudies conference, March), South Korea (IICAS annual conference), Oral History Workshop in Stockholm,
Oral History Workshop in Cambridge University (Department of Social Anthropology) and many others.
These workshops, conference and seminars presented the data and served as venues for receiving feedback
on how to preserve and disseminate this data. Therefore, the next challenge and task of this project is todesign, build and functionalize the data-base on the oral history of everyday life in Central Asia.
The lion part of the academic outcomes of this project is being prepared for publication and cannot yet
be made available in this report. They will be published in the next couple of years in the form of few
separate volumes and a number of academic papers. Once the essence of interviews is analyzed and madeready for publication, they will also be compiled into a final report of this project and be disclosed in the
JFE 21st Century foundation’s website with due recognition of a significant contribution made byfoundation through the JFE 21st Century Foundation Grants-in-aid for “Asian History Research for
FY2008”.

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