Cultural Change in Central Asia: Brezhnev, Modern Sports, and Memories in Uzbekistan, 1964 to 1982

Abstract

The Cold War Soviet leaders Nikita Khrushchev (d. 1971) and Leonid Brezhnev (d. 1982), between1953 and 1982, continued with Vladimir Lenin’s (d. 1924) and Joseph Stalin’s (d. 1953) physicalculture policy designed to create healthier citizen-workers and soldiers. The underlining concept wasto construct a communist society. In the process, the Soviet culture and sports culture played a role inintegrating the different ethnic groups into the multinational Soviet Union. Leonid Brezhnev(Communist Party leader from 1964 to 1982) consolidated and expanded the Soviet sports system,albeit in a changing historical context. Our paper, firstly, describes the concept of Soviet modernityand physical culture. Secondly, in the context of Brezhnev’s tenure, we investigate the developmentof the modern sports infrastructure in Tashkent, and the numerical growth of the ordinary and the elitesportspeople in Uzbekistan. Thirdly, to explain what this meant to the everyday Central Asian, wehave incorporated their oral histories into our study. This inclusion of the people’s memories willprovide us with a bottom-up perspective of Soviet sport, and enrich our understanding of the ordinarycitizen’s relationship with the Soviet Union’s sports culture.