Ala-Too as the Main City/Country Square: Changing Forms, Uses, and Meanings

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between reformatting of Bishkek’s central square “from above” and mosaics of meanings, claims, and practices produced by different social actors “from below” in response to the ongoing transformation of this space. Drawing on narratives of long-term Bishkek residents and recent internal migrants to the city, we investigate commonalities and divergences in their perception of Ala-Too’s changing image. It is shown why the square, despite its planned multifunctionality, does not fulfill the needs of various segments of the city population. We also analyze political meanings of the “emptiness” of the square and the ambivalent public reaction to the ways it is being “filled.” The square becomes a spatial mirror of society—a society that remains in constant flux, searching for social stability and for unifying national symbols, heroes, and slogans.

The nation in bronze and granite: Creating national monuments in post‐Soviet Bishkek

“…Attention to the processes of creation illustrates that even initiatives of the central government are not able to actualise monuments as reflections of their ideological programmes in unproblematic ways. Just as scholars advocating for bottom-up approaches have complicated understandings of symbolic state power (e.g., Scott, 1998) by demonstrating the diverse understandings of national symbols (e.g., Kosmarskaya et al, 2017), this discussion of the dynamics impacting the final material forms of national monuments demonstrates how processes of construction are contested and contingent and do not straightforwardly reflect elite ideologies.…”

“…Second, it demonstrates that, in the creation of national symbols, meaning making and materiality are related to one another both as component and consequent before and after the monument has been created. This connects and builds on literature that views national monuments as outcomes of ideological agendas of the elite (Cummings, 2013) or as sites through which non-elites participate in an active discursive construction (Güçler & Gür, 2021;Kosmarskaya et al, 2017) by illustrating how meaning making and materiality are intimately linked. Finally, it suggests that a critical aspect of these material symbols is that they are necessarily incomplete representations and that it is the particularity and 'imperfection' of the material representation that provide a context for the nation as a category of discourse to emerge.…”

“…Studying the efforts of elites, scholars have understood national symbols as reflective of national narratives and ideologies, demonstrating how changing urban landscapes and national rituals reflect new and sometimes competing conceptions of national culture and identity (Adams, 2010; Cummings, 2013; Diener & Hagen, 2013a, 2013b; de Freitas & Carvalho, 2022). Another line of scholarship has argued for the necessity of understanding the nation ‘from below’, illustrating the myriad ways the nation and its symbols are understood and contested (Güçler & Gür, 2021; Kosmarskaya et al, 2017; Liu, 2012; Rohava, 2020). While scholars have sought to bridge this epistemological divide by studying how national symbols are discursively constructed from above and below (e.g., Fox & Miller‐Idriss, 2008; Fox & Van Ginderachter, 2018; Liu, 2012; Nora, 1989; Sakki & Hakoköngäs, 2020), the processes that go into the production of national symbols are often left obscured.…”

The ludic lives of memoryscapes: Skateboarding post-Soviet peripheries

“…Kosmarskaya et al (2017: 147) refer to Ala-Too square as ‘the most politically and symbolically charged space of contemporary Bishkek’, following political protests in 2005 and 2010. They write, The appearance of new monuments in the central square provides a great deal of material for reflection on the role of the state in urban transformation; on the search for a new ideological basis for the developing new state; on how modern Kyrgyzstan is re-evaluating its Soviet past; and on how the concepts of patriarchy and modernity are competing in different versions of the “national idea” (Kosmarskaya et al, 2017: 157).…”