Fabio de Leonardis - Nation-Building and Personality Cult in Turkmenistan: The Turkmenbaşy Phenomenon

Nation-Building and Personality Cult in Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan is a country which is almost sealed off from the rest of the world but it has attracted foreign attention due to the eccentricities of its late president Saparmurat Niyazov Trkmenbay, whose ideological construction and dynamics of power have remained in place after his death.

This book offers a thorough analysis of why this personality cult developed in Turkmenistan in a way that has not been seen in other newly developed Central Asian countries. In assessing the Trkmenbay phenomenon, this book explains the causes and origins of the personality cult by drawing a comparison with Qadhdhafis Libya. The author understands the Niyazov cult not as a discrete phenomenon but as a system deriving from specific historical functions and functioning in a determined social and historical context. Using accounts of the Trkmenbay and Qadhdhai cults and the speeches and books written by these personalities, this book focuses on the institutional side of the personality cult.

A fascinating analysis of the political situation in Turkmenistan under Saparmurat Niyazov, this book will be of interest to scholars of Political Science, Comparative Politics and, in particular, Central Asian Studies.

Fabio De Leonardis received his PhD from University of Bari, Italy. He was previously a visiting scholar at the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, Stanford University, USA, and is currently a teacher at Academy Union Education, Shenzhen, the Peoples Republic of China.

Routledge Advances in Central Asian Studies

For a full list of titles please see www.routledge.com/Routledge-Advances-in-Central-Asian-Studies/book-series/RACAS

Identity and Politics in Central Asia and the Caucasus

Edited by Murad Ismayilov and Mohammed Ayoob

Turkish-Azerbaijani Relations

One NationTwo States?

Edited by Murad Ismayilov and Norman A. Graham

US Policies in Central Asia

Democracy, Energy and the War on Terror

Ilya Levine

E-Government in Kazakhstan

A Case Study of Multidimensional Phenomena

Maxat Kassen

Uzbekistans Foreign Policy

The Struggle for Recognition and Self-Reliance under Karimov

Bernardo Teles Fazendeiro

Nation-Building and Personality Cult in Turkmenistan

The Trkmenbay Phenomenon

Fabio De Leonardis

Nation-Building and Personality Cult in Turkmenistan

The Trkmenbay Phenomenon

Fabio De Leonardis

First published 2018

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2018 Fabio De Leonardis

The right of Fabio De Leonardis to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identiication and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: De Leonardis, Fabio, author.

Title: Nation-building and personality cult in Turkmenistan: the Trkmenbay phenomenon / Fabio De Leonardis.

Description: First published 2018. | Oxford; New York: Routledge, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017034749 | ISBN 9781138576834 (hardback) |

ISBN 9781351268684 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Turkmenistan-Politics and government1991-|

Trkmenbashy, Saparmyrat, 19402006. | PersonalityPolitical

aspectsTurkmenistan. | Nation-buildingTurkmenistan.

Classification: LCC DK938.8657.D45 2018 | DDC 355.02/809585dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017034749

ISBN: 978-1-138-57683-4 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-351-26868-4 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman

by Sunrise Setting Ltd, Brixham, UK

Niyazovs Turkmenistan: yet another mystery wrapped in an enigma?

Few countries in the world are so little known as Turkmenistan. Almost sealed-off from the rest of the world, cultivating self-exclusion even from most regional trans-national organizations (Bohr 2004: 4856, 488), Turkmenistan has attracted foreign attention mostly for the eccentricities of its late president Saparmurat Niyazov Trkmenbay (Leader of the Turkmen) and his hyperbolic personality cult, the most visible manifestation of an extremely repressive regime (Denber 2002; Saidazimova 2006; Denison 2009); however, a thorough analysis of why such a personality cult had developed and why it had done so in Turkmenistan and not (or not to the same extent) in the other newly-independent Central Asian countries is still lacking. The Trkmenbay phenomenon has been rather described than explained, as so often happens to personality cults (see Kurtov 2007: 7783; Plamper 2012: 1), while its causes and origins have been tendentially overlooked or simplified. Personality-centred approaches have suggested that the cult was just the outcome of the countrys backwardness coupled with state capture by a psychopathological personality (see Hiro 2009: 215), and consequently predicted that Turkmenistan would almost certainly face chaos when leadership change is forced upon it (Brown 2003: 217), an expectation that was widely disproved when, upon Niyazovs death in 2006, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Health Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov accomplished a smooth succession (Rousselot 2007). Even more to the point, despite some adjustments the Niyazov cult, though downsized, has not been abandoned after his death: most of his ideological construction and dynamics of power have remained in place (Saidazimova 2008), the only difference being that a relatively less flamboyant cult of personality has been developed around the figure of the new president (Peyrouse 2010: 7880); nor has the repressive attitude of the current regime towards its opponents changed (Mjedlova 2010a).