Central Asia is commonly known as the region comprising five ex-Soviet Central Asian republics: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Much of today’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China also shares Central Asian culture.
Surrounded by China and East Asia to the east, Russia’s Siberia to the north, the Indian Subcontinent to the south and the Middle East to the west, Central Asia is often considered as a passage way of trade and culture. But it is more than that, it is a center of culture in its own right.
Central Asian traditional culture is made up of two important elements: the culture of sedentary Iranic people who have inhabited the area since antiquity, and the successive waves of mainly Turkic nomadic tribes who moved southwards into the region throughout history.
The Arab conquest in the 7th and 8th centuries, at the time of the Tang dynasty, made Islam the dominant religion in the region, replacing earlier faiths such as Buddhism and Zoroastrianism. However, among nomadic communities, shamanistic beliefs and practices persisted to varying degrees even to this day in tandem with Islam.
The Mongolian conquest in the 13th century, during the Yuan dynasty, brought immediate terrible devastation to Central Asia as well as the Middle East. However, in the longer term, Mongolian rule also brought about an unprecedented political integration of Eurasia, facilitating the flow of people as well as trade and culture. It set the scene for the flowering of a new Central Asian high culture as well as emergence of new ethnicities that became the main nations of the region today. Its effects on the region were evident all the way up to Russian rule in the late 19th century.
Music
The traditional musics of Central Asia’s various nations are shaped by their traditional modes of living and the cultures that they entail. The Tajiks, Uyghurs and Uzbeks are traditionally city dwellers, and they have a courtly classical music culture centered around the singing of Sufi mystical poetry, predominantly performed in groups. Their musics are linked to those of other settled nations in the Islamic world. As for the Kazakhs, the Kyrgyzs and the Turkmens, who are traditionally a nomadic people, their preference is for solo singing of narrative poetry glorifying heroes of the past. Their instrumentarium is dominated by a wide variety of lutes that are considered representative of different nations, supported by frame drums, fiddles and other instruments, traditionally played in small ensembles for classical music and solo among the nomads.
Costumes
Central Asia’s landscape consists mainly of harsh deserts and mountains. It has an extreme continental climate where temperature can vary widely over a short period of time. Costumes in the region therefore respond to the needs in these conditions: tailored garments such as shirt and wide trousers that facilitate travel on horseback across this landscape, as well as a various vests, jackets and robes that provide multi-layer insulation. They are mostly made of silk, cotton and wool that are plentiful in the region.
Spiritual and cultural aspects are also reflected in the costumes: headwears and overcoats serve as the sign of Islamic modesty, which requires covering the head and concealing body forms. At the same time, their individual design reflects the wearers’ ethnic and tribal affiliations as well as social and even marital status. Embroidery patterns consists not only of abstract geometric patterns, but also stylized floral, animal and other natural patterns, which are rich in symbols with shamanic roots.