A woman’s agency in the USSR: Kodirova Tulkinoy Fazildjanovna and her ambitions for a contemporary Uzbekistan.
Kodirova Tulkinoy Fazildjanovna (Кадырова Тулкиной Фазилджановна) 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, wrote5 and taught6, 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 Uzbekistan7.
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.
