The Idea Is Taking Shape – Article by Mikhail Rozhansky

History and identity are not interrelated by themselves the way we integrate these concepts into a common formula. History is not only memory of the past, but also transformation of the past into archive, and not everyone uses it. Historians often say that they deal with the past to better understand the present, but for some reason they do not deal with the present until it becomes the remote past. A distinctive feature of our project is that its participants focus on history in progress, which is not yet archived, as their subject matter and topics of articles to be written. The task being fulfilled by each participant is to present in a joint almanac how everyday life has changed at the turn of the 20th century at a place where he lives or which knows well, understand the changes in human relations, if any, identify rules followed by people, which are usually not recognized as they are as natural as the air we breathe. This work is based on the oral history method and other “intelligent” methods of social sciences envisaging a dialog between people.  

The challenges associated with this work are obvious: the participants are of different age, have very different experience as researchers and authors, different education, cultural traditions and they even think in different languages. However, these challenges become advantages if we try to present the history of present-day Uzbekistan in terms of its human dimension as completely as possible. And the point is not only in a variety of topics and geography, although this also counts. The most important thing is stereoscopic vision which results from a variety of experiences, cultural worlds, difference in education and professional background of the prospective almanac authors.

The project was launched in March 2009 when the representative office of dvv international organized in Tashkent a four-day workshop, which at the same time was not only educational (biographical method, “oral history, family interviewing method and research interviews), and project-based (discussion of possible topics with every participant), but also a team-building experience. The almanac preparation has become not only the objective of dvv international, but also a common task for the workshop participants. Agenda of the second workshop timed to coincide with the project week “History and Identity” (May 2009) focused on studies of the social space, observation and description of urban and rural daily life. Within the collective laboratory format, the workshop participants discussed plans, methods and first results of their individual research. The workshop in May has already outlined the future team work. Since each participant relied on his own experience and personal interest when searching for the topic, naturally, there were gaps in topics, and the overall picture was fragmented. These problems were discussed as well, and proposals and initiatives were offered to shift from the “portfolio” with separate articles to an almanac as a diverse but holistic book representing not only the authors’ native cities and villages, the variety of worlds in Uzbekistan, but also the country as a one whole world. The workshop in late August was based on draft articles. This made it possible to see the work through prospective readers’ eyes – what was not convincing enough and needs further research and justification, and help each other find the individual style, composition and genre elements of the future article.

The project is approaching its final stage – about forty articles are being prepared for the almanac. I will not elaborate on this – everything is as usual: at this stage editors will work with authors individually; the structure and visual presentation will be determined; and publishing operations will begin. I would like to draw attention to another point: work on the almanac is not only performing a research task and a book preparation process. The project aimed at “intelligent” research techniques and involving search for an individual style by each participant, identification of a personal topic, has become a form of adult education. This form is effective thanks to several components. The key one is a variety of participants’ experiences, generations, education, characters and beliefs, which becomes an educational environment during workshops on dialog-based methods and helps each person get an outside perspective of his own experience and develop it. The second one is a close link between the workshop content and undertaking a task which is new, but topical and interesting to a participant. The third one means that each person is not only to contribute to the joint result, but also can influence the overall concept.

Mikhail Rozhansky,

Ph.D. in Philosophy

Director,

Irkutsk Center for Independent Social

Research and Education,

(on the left)