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The future of traditional art of Central Asia: strategy of a survival

Elmira Gyul (Academy of Arts of Uzbekistan,Tashkent)

Email: egyul@yahoo.com

 

ABSTRACT:

Destruction of totalitarian system and creation of the independent states in Central Asia has caused essential transformations in the culture sphere. Traditional values were sent on the foreground. The new ideological policy has proclaimed the value of a national heritage. The priority of traditional art confirms conclusions of culture scientists that , with finding independence in a society, ethno-cultural values are established, art experience of the last centuries.

Traditional art plays today a role of a national symbol: it is involved as one of the means of revival of cultural memory and strengthening of spiritual bases of independence, as the stabilizing factor, giving the sensation of security in an uneasy century of social changes, forms identity of the nation learning its own forgotten history and reviving national values. Prospects of traditional art are connected and with more prosaic aspect: the more the culture is original, the easier it finds demand on the world market. Preservation of household traditions, clothes, jewelers, utensils, local customs and holidays diversify programs in the market of tourism and entertainments.

The attitude to an art heritage in the different countries of Central Asia, its interpretation and vision of its prospects have various character. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan show a more free attitude to tradition, its dynamical realization in unexpected, new forms. The attitude to traditional art in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan is more careful, connected with aspiration to follow its classical samples. These distinctive features depend of the mentality in the past nomadic (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan) and settled--agricultural (Uzbekistan, Tajikistan) cultures.

At the same time, the future of traditional art is connected with a number of serious problems. First of all, it is a problem of ecology of traditional art, shortage of finance; a problem of total approach of a masscult, the Internet-culture, etc. Preservation of the original beginnings in an atmosphere of updating is the basic perspective purpose of traditional forms of art during a globalization epoch.