2017/05/22 by Katherine L. Hughes · 2 citations
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Architecture and Cultural Influences #Byzantine Studies and History #Eurasian Exchange Networks
paper · doi:10.1080/02634937.2017.1319796
openalex publication_date 2017/05/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2025/11/06
This article focuses on the iconicity of contemporary Dushanbe’s capitol complex, with its state-sponsored architecture and memorial culture, part of the government of Tajikistan’s national identity construction. Dushanbe’s architecture post-independence is actant, a mnemonic and iconographical bridge between the present and favoured historical periods in a quest for national origins. A bricolage of historical symbols, including those of Achaemenid Iran and the early Islamic Samanids, is displayed here in a city with Soviet foundations. Together with pan-Iranian iconography is a desire by the government of Tajikistan for monumentality for its own sake. The capitol complex evokes the natural world, connected to a Central Asian conception of sacred space, suggesting an interlacing of power and religious authority. These monumental building projects are taking place against the backdrop of the destruction of Dushanbe’s ‘authentic’ Soviet architecture and built heritage in the capitol complex, itself a container for collective memory.