A woman’s agency in the USSR: Kodirova Tulkinoy Fazildjanovna and her ambitions for a contemporary Uzbekistan.
Kodirova Tulkinoy Fazildjanovna stands in a position of authority, navigating her micro and macro impacts on the city of Tashkent, Uzbekistan. In the foreground is a new proposal for a civic building; in the background, a city-scale urban plan for Tashkent, suggesting a vision for the future. Around Fazildjanovna stand three unidentified men, likely fellow government officials who worked alongside her. Yet in this seemingly staged image – a common technique used in the USSR for propaganda – she occupies the central position. [1]
Fazildjanovna’s authority translated into agency, allowing her to determine the future of her home city. Fazildjanovna was an Uzbek architect, educator and planner. Her position as a woman in the USSR afforded her professional opportunities beyond what other women experienced at the time. She took full advantage, and navigated the communist system to her benefit in order to realise a contemporary urbanism for Tashkent.
Fazildjanovna was born in the former USSR state of Uzbekistan on 27 July 1935. She completed her architectural studies at the Central Asian Polytechnic Institute, and soon after began climbing the ranks of the Institute of Culture. [2] Following this, she was elected – democratically or not – to the Supreme Soviet. [3] The communist ideology of the USSR believed all civilians to be equal, seemingly making Fazildjanovna equal to her male colleagues. [4] She held high positions in the government, which was unheard of in other countries at the time. Despite her presence, the professional realm was still heavily male dominated. As such, perhaps it is reasonable to assume Fazildjanovna was determined to succeed no matter what. By 1995, she became the deputy director-general for Construction in Uzbekistan.
These high positions granted her the ability to develop her vision for Tashkent. Her vision focused on modernising the city, using a meaningful understanding of the past to inform the future. On the micro level, she designed, wrote [5] and taught [6], focusing on developments within Tashkent at the time.
Her continual efforts over her career to better the city accumulated into large-scale changes. In her books, she wrote in great depth about the history of her country, outside of the USSR’s hold. Today, her books remain significant references for architectural history in Uzbekistan [7].
On the macro level, Fazildjanovna had a large vision for architecture and urban planning beyond her governmental roles. In 1980, she founded the Union for Architects of Uzbekistan. Her ambition in creating such a union shows us how much she was committed to sharing her agency with others. Though the Union no longer exists, it was still a highly significant act. Fazildjanovna used her agency to mobilise other architects and planners to continue the work that she started. She understood that she could achieve more through community and collaboration than if she worked alone.
Kodirova Tulkinoy Fazildjanovna’s career shows us that agency is relative. As a woman in the USSR, she was simultaneously liberated by policy but bound by bureaucracy. How we understand her urban agency cannot be removed from the mutually-beneficial relationship she maintained with the political system within which she operated. For Fazildjanovna, she understood her context, acted upon given opportunities and manifested an agency placing her in a central position to decide Tashkent’s urban future.
Image Credit: ‘Тулкиной Кадырова. Letters from Tashkent’, 5 Dec. 2016.
1. Such photos were used by the communist regime to control the image of the USSR for the people. Women were often placed alongside men, appearing equal, as this aligned with their vision for society. However, women were not equal, and were instead used to perpetuate falsehoods and strengthen the grasp of the regime over the people. Macdonald, Fiona. “The early Soviet images that foreshadowed fake news.” BBC News, 10 Nov. 2017. Web. (Accessed 20 July 2022) Link.
2. The Institute of Culture oversaw the organisation of culture and leisure activities within the USSR. “Palace of Culture.” Wikipedia, n.d. (Accessed 20 July 2022) Link.
3. The Supreme Soviet was a legislative body, and the only one to approve constitutional changes. This gave Fazildjanovna a significant appearance of power; in reality, it is unclear how much agency this legislative body had within the superstructure of the USSR at the time. She was one of 300,000 people elected, but the selection process is also unclear. The first certified free elections did not take place until the late 1980s, so perhaps it is reasonable to assume that, as Fazildjanovna was already esteemed within her field before the nomination, she knew the right people and understood how to work the system. “Supreme Soviet.” Wikipedia, n.d. (Accessed 20 July 2022) Link.
4. This is not to say that women were truly equal to men, as they still had responsibility for childcare and domestic life; however, there were more opportunities than elsewhere for them to have higher positions of power, like Fazildjanovna. In the USSR, women were given equal rights to men in 1917. By comparison, the UK only granted this in 1928. “Women’s Suffrage.” Wikipedia, n.d. (Accessed 20 July 2022) Link.
5. During her lifetime, she published twelve works in twenty-nine publications between 1965 and 1998. “Кадырова, Т. Ф (Тулкиной Фазылджановна).” OCLC WorldCat Identities, n.d. Web. (Accessed 20 July 2022) Link.
6. She became a professor at the Tashkent Institute for Architecture and Construction (TASI), where she taught until she died in 2014. Lavrova, Violetta. “Тулкиной Кадырова.” Письма о Ташкенте, 5 Dec. 2016. (Accessed 20 July 2022) Link.
7. They remain a comprehensive first-hand source of information on Tashkent and Uzbekistan architectural history, written originally in Russian.
