Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
07ASHGABAT1166
2007-10-30 04:32:00
UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Embassy Ashgabat
Cable title:
TURKMENISTAN: "DECISIVE STEP" CLOSES ANOTHER
how-toVZCZCXRO2506 PP RUEHAG RUEHAST RUEHBI RUEHCI RUEHDBU RUEHDF RUEHIK RUEHLH RUEHLN RUEHLZ RUEHPW RUEHROV RUEHVK RUEHYG DE RUEHAH #1166 3030432 ZNR UUUUU ZZH P 300432Z OCT 07 FM AMEMBASSY ASHGABAT TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 9616 INFO RUCNCLS/ALL SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIA COLLECTIVE PRIORITY RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE PRIORITY RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES COLLECTIVE PRIORITY RUEHAK/AMEMBASSY ANKARA PRIORITY 2917 RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING PRIORITY 0737 RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO PRIORITY 0613 RUEHIT/AMCONSUL ISTANBUL PRIORITY 1190 RHMFIUU/CDR USCENTCOM MACDILL AFB FL PRIORITY RUEHVEN/USMISSION USOSCE PRIORITY 1849 RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC PRIORITY RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC PRIORITY RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC PRIORITY RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHDC PRIORITY
UNCLAS ASHGABAT 001166
SIPDIS
SENSITIVE
SIPDIS
STATE FOR SCA/CEN
E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV SOCI SCUL TX
SUBJECT: TURKMENISTAN: "DECISIVE STEP" CLOSES ANOTHER
DOOR ON THE NIYAZOV ERA
REF: ASHGABAT 1164
UNCLAS ASHGABAT 001166
SIPDIS
SENSITIVE
SIPDIS
STATE FOR SCA/CEN
E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV SOCI SCUL TX
SUBJECT: TURKMENISTAN: "DECISIVE STEP" CLOSES ANOTHER
DOOR ON THE NIYAZOV ERA
REF: ASHGABAT 1164
1. (U) Sensitive but unclassified. Not for public Internet.
2. (U) On Sunday evening, October 28, as the capital relxed
after the successes of its Independence Day events, Turkmen
television aired a surprising film from the old Soviet film
vaults that captured our attention. "Decisive Step" was
produced during the Soviet era. The film takes place just
before the Russian revolution, and follows a young Turkmen
who allies himself with a local warlord who is opposing the
tsarist forces. Lauding the arrival of the Soviet power and
SIPDIS
the rescue of the Turkmen people from their feudal past, the
movie was regular television fare in Turkmenistan in the
1980s.
3. (U) The plot is from a book by noted Soviet Turkmen
author Berdy Muradovich Kerbabayev. A well-respected Turkmen
author, poet, and translator who belonged to the Turkmen SSR
Academy of Sciences from 1951 until his death in 1974,
Kerbabayev published "Decisive Step" in 1940, in Russian, but
a Turkmen language version was published within a few years.
Kerbabayev is also known for his well-executed translations
into Turkmen of traditional Russian works by Pushkin,
Tolstoy, and Gorkyy.
4. (U) When Niyazov became president of Turkmenistan at
independence in 1991, he made clear he disapproved of the
story's portrayal of ethnic Turkmen as backward, uneducated
nomads who benefited from absorption into the Soviet state.
The film covers a period of history that is still altogether
avoided in the public school system, either to avert
discussion of the Soviet occupation or to avoid highlighting
the Turkmens' historically well-deserved propensity for
rebellion. In the early 1990s, Niyazov ordered Kerbabayev's
family home demolished, and in a 2001 interview said the
author's works were not part of the Turkmen conscience and
that ethnic Turkmen had never accepted them. In the same
interview, he used his disapproval of the plot line of
"Decisive Step" to underscore the need to finish and
circulate his Ruhnama, to achieve what he said Turkmen
writers of the Soviet era had not: proudly showcasing the
Turkmen people, their culture, language, and religion.
5. (SBU) COMMENT: Presenting this classic Soviet realist
film to the Turkmen public at a time when President
Berdimuhamedov has announced a "rebirth of the country" and
is re-emphasizing Turkmen cultural heritage (reftel) is open
to interpretation. Perhaps he is allowing the film to be
shown to demonstrate Turkmenistan's more objective
acknowledgement of the past. Just as likely, it may have
been another effort to close the door on the Niyazov era.
END COMMENT.
HOAGLAND
SIPDIS
SENSITIVE
SIPDIS
STATE FOR SCA/CEN
E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV SOCI SCUL TX
SUBJECT: TURKMENISTAN: "DECISIVE STEP" CLOSES ANOTHER
DOOR ON THE NIYAZOV ERA
REF: ASHGABAT 1164
1. (U) Sensitive but unclassified. Not for public Internet.
2. (U) On Sunday evening, October 28, as the capital relxed
after the successes of its Independence Day events, Turkmen
television aired a surprising film from the old Soviet film
vaults that captured our attention. "Decisive Step" was
produced during the Soviet era. The film takes place just
before the Russian revolution, and follows a young Turkmen
who allies himself with a local warlord who is opposing the
tsarist forces. Lauding the arrival of the Soviet power and
SIPDIS
the rescue of the Turkmen people from their feudal past, the
movie was regular television fare in Turkmenistan in the
1980s.
3. (U) The plot is from a book by noted Soviet Turkmen
author Berdy Muradovich Kerbabayev. A well-respected Turkmen
author, poet, and translator who belonged to the Turkmen SSR
Academy of Sciences from 1951 until his death in 1974,
Kerbabayev published "Decisive Step" in 1940, in Russian, but
a Turkmen language version was published within a few years.
Kerbabayev is also known for his well-executed translations
into Turkmen of traditional Russian works by Pushkin,
Tolstoy, and Gorkyy.
4. (U) When Niyazov became president of Turkmenistan at
independence in 1991, he made clear he disapproved of the
story's portrayal of ethnic Turkmen as backward, uneducated
nomads who benefited from absorption into the Soviet state.
The film covers a period of history that is still altogether
avoided in the public school system, either to avert
discussion of the Soviet occupation or to avoid highlighting
the Turkmens' historically well-deserved propensity for
rebellion. In the early 1990s, Niyazov ordered Kerbabayev's
family home demolished, and in a 2001 interview said the
author's works were not part of the Turkmen conscience and
that ethnic Turkmen had never accepted them. In the same
interview, he used his disapproval of the plot line of
"Decisive Step" to underscore the need to finish and
circulate his Ruhnama, to achieve what he said Turkmen
writers of the Soviet era had not: proudly showcasing the
Turkmen people, their culture, language, and religion.
5. (SBU) COMMENT: Presenting this classic Soviet realist
film to the Turkmen public at a time when President
Berdimuhamedov has announced a "rebirth of the country" and
is re-emphasizing Turkmen cultural heritage (reftel) is open
to interpretation. Perhaps he is allowing the film to be
shown to demonstrate Turkmenistan's more objective
acknowledgement of the past. Just as likely, it may have
been another effort to close the door on the Niyazov era.
END COMMENT.
HOAGLAND