Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 48 (2) 2020   DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2020.48.2.122-129

Annotation:  A Multidisciplinary Study of Finds from Suchu Island (1973 Season, Excavation II, Dwelling 1) A Zoomorphic Antler Staff from an Early Neolithic Burial at Pushkinsky, the Orenburg Region Cultural Attribution of Early Bronze Age Tombs Under Kurgans in Azerbaijan Two Rare Finds from the Maikop-Novosvobodnaya Sites in the Black Sea Region The Marfa Kurgan in the Stavropol Territory: An Example of an Ancient Architectural Structure On the Earliest Use of Plate-Formed Cheekpieces and the Emergence of Horse Riding (Based on Finds fr Wooden Constructions in Bronze and Iron Age Burials in Japan and Korea The Southeastern Sindica Frontier: The Raevskoye Fortifi ed Settlement Polychrome Style in Mangystau, Kazakhstan Metal Artifacts from a Newly Discovered Cemetery in the Severnaya Sosva Basin, Northwestern Siberia The Ethnoarchaeology of Russians in the Syro-Palestinian Region (18th–19th Centuries) Traditional Buryat Beliefs About Birds Bridal Symbols in the Don Cossack Wedding Celebration of Nowruz in Bukhara and Samarkand in Ritual Practice and Social Discourses (the Second Architectural and Archaeological Studies in the Tobolsk Kremlin During the 1950s (Based on Photograp Trepanations in Sauromato-Sarmatian Crania from the Lower Volga A Case of Surgical Extraction of the Lower Third Molars in a Cranial Series from the Pucara de Tilca   

Celebration of Nowruz in Bukhara and Samarkand
in Ritual Practice and Social Discourses
(the Second Half of the 19th to Early 20th Centuries)

A.M. Malikov

Palacky University Olomouc, K i kovskeho 511/8, Olomouc, 77147, Czech Republic

Celebration of Nowruz across a vast territory from the Ottoman Empire to Xinjiang had both common features and differences. This study focuses on distinctions between the festive traditions of two major cities of the Zerafshan Valley (Bukhara and Samarkand) in the late 1800s and early 1900s, when, after Russia’s annexation of the region, the Nowruz ritual practices were transformed and subjected to critical discourses among theologians and enlighteners. On the basis of unpublished archival sources, memoirs, and studies of Imperial Russian history, I analyze two types of Nowruz: official and folk. In the Emirate of Bukhara, a broad official celebration of Nowruz was started by Emir Muzaffar, who sought to strengthen the image of the Manghit dynasty during the crisis of political legitimacy. This gave rise to disputes among Islamic intellectuals about the need for a large-scale and prolonged celebration of Nowruz, which they felt went beyond the borders of Islamic tradition. In Samarkand, closer contacts between the settled Tajiks and Uzbeks, on the one hand, and the semi-nomadic Turkic-speaking population, on the other, enhanced the synthesis of agricultural and pastoral elements in the ritual practice of Nowruz. The festival was legitimized by prayers at mosques, and visits to the mazars of Muslim saints and to sacred streams. In Samarkand, following its annexation by the Russian Empire, there was no official celebration of Nowruz, and the scale of popular celebration decreased.

Keywords: Islam, Zerafshan Valley, ritual practice, discourses, legitimation