“Turkomstaris, in View of Its Inactivity, Due to Lack of Funds Will Be Destroyed....”: to the History of the Formation of Scientific and Cultural Policy in Soviet Central Asia in the First Half of the 1920s

Abstract

After the October coup d’êtat of 1917, formation new authorities began, which were supposed to develop and implement the policy of the new power in the field of science and culture. On the territory of the former Russian Turkestan (Turkestan ASSR as part of the RSFSR), this process was complicated by the fact that the new policy had to meet the expectations of the local Muslim population, respectively, the measures taken had to guarantee its loyalty. Not least in the development of policy in the field of science and culture, in particular, in the field of restoration of historical and cultural monuments, is to be pointed out, that the world scientific community followed their fate. The scientific community represented by the Permanent Turkestan Commission of the Russian Academy of the History of Material Culture (PTC RAIMK) under the directorship of Academician V. V. Bartold claimed a leading role in determining the directions of scientific and cultural policy in Soviet Central Asia. The struggle for influence on the Turkestan institutions responsible for policy in the field of science and culture, in particular, for the restoration of architectural monuments, primarily Turkkomstaris, which functioned under the People’s Commissariat for education of the TASSR and had its own branches, ended in failure for representatives of the scientific environment. The PTC RAIMK was disbanded, the decisive word always remained said by the central authorities, which, lacking professional competencies, were guided solely by political considerations in the development of scientific and cultural policies in Central Asia. The model of scientific and cultural policy in Central Asia developed by the mid-1920s, was generally characteristic for the periods of large-scale reforms throughout the country: science remained subordinate to state authorities and did not have decisive powers.