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International Journal Of History And Political Sciences

Peer Reviewed | Open Access | E-ISSN: 2771-2222
Published Article

The Visual Construction of Women Leaders in Soviet Uzbekistan: A Source-Critical and Gender Analysis of Official Photographs (1946-1991)

The Visual Construction of Women Leaders in Soviet Uzbekistan: A Source-Critical and Gender Analysis of Official Photographs (1946-1991)

Authors

  • Lutfiya B. Qodirova
    PhD, Associate Professor, Academy of Public Policy and Administration under the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37547/ijhps/Volume06Issue03-20

Keywords:

women’s history in Uzbekistan Soviet period women leaders

Abstract

This article examines official photographs of women who held leadership positions in Party, state, Soviet, and public institutions of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. Photography is treated not as a neutral illustration of historical events, but as an independent historical source produced within specific political, editorial, and ideological frameworks. The analysis focuses on how official Soviet photography constructed the figure of the woman leader and encoded political and gender meanings through representations of appearance, setting, dress, spatial positioning, and accompanying captions. The core corpus covers 1946-1991; a small number of pre-1946 images are used only as contextual precedents for the postwar visual canon. The study identifies the principal models used to represent women leaders in Soviet Uzbekistan and examines how official photography linked femininity, nationally coded identity, political authority, and Soviet ideology.

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