Why should we study the jadids?

On March 6-7, an international conference entitled “Educational activities of jadids: ideas, goals, tasks and contribution to the development of Turkestan” was held in Tashkent. Citizens of all Turkic countries and the USA, Russia, Sweden and Germany took part in it.

In recent years, the state and society of Uzbekistan have been paying great attention to the jadidism phenomenon. So, why is it happening?

In my opinion, the people of Uzbekistan, the state, and the Turkic-Muslim identity of Uzbeks want to analyze a great era and a great space through the jadidism phenomenon.

The 20th century was a difficult period for the Turks of the world, including Uzbeks, it was a period of colonialism, it was a period of losses and defeats. In fact, this tragedy began in the middle of the 19th century, and the crisis began much earlier.

Today, Uzbekistan, as an independent state and nation, has the opportunity to travel to the recent past, to “return to the past”, to that period, to understand the problems and find solutions to them.

In the modern thinking of Uzbekistan, fundamental doubts, insecurities, and negative attitudes towards our past and identity have been formed. Colonialism, of course, said: “Your situation was very difficult, we came to develop you”.

Therefore, under colonial control, the glorious history was forgotten and the problems of the past were exaggerated. It is for this reason that we are a nation whose identity, future have been partially injured through its history. Knowing the past well allows us to know the mistakes of the past. Moreover, it creates an opportunity to know and feel our past potential.

The statehood of Uzbekistan should do great things in terms of an impartial study of our history, which is full of doubts about our past and our future. A very large group of historians should work in Uzbekistan. Our historians should play a big role in treating our national thinking and restoring confidence.

Our history is long, conflicted, full of glory and tragedy. But what we currently know about our history seems to me to be very superficial and very one-sided.

In particular, according to the history written by imperialism, it is inculcated that in the recent past, Turkic peoples and thinkers were in constant conflict with each other. Czarist Russia and the Soviets are portrayed as liberators.

In the globalized world, the competition and clash of identities and ideas will be global rather than borderline as before. Knowledge of history is a means of education of national identity and maintenance of national confidence. History tells not only about achievements, but also about mistakes and tragedies.

Accordingly, history can answer the following questions in the most objective way: “who is a friend?”, “who is an enemy?”, “who is an invader?”, “who is interested in our independence?”. The answer to these questions will be a very necessary spiritual food in today’s era of propaganda, geopolitical struggles, and thought manipulations.

Jadidism is a very interesting phenomenon. They, in my opinion, stood between two rocks. On the one hand, conservatism, formed over centuries and opposed to any modernism. On the other hand, there was imperialist, colonial modernism.

The jadids tried to achieve a moderate and enlightened modernism based on it, without extinguishing our identities. But colonialism, realizing how attractive their powerful idea was, completely repressed them...

Knowing this period means knowing the greatest crimes, tragedies of the recent past; it shows how great and precious a gift our independence is...