Culture, Identity and Literary Representation in Uzbek And English Literature: A Comparative Study

Abstract

Culture and identity are among the most significant categories through which literary texts represent individuals, communities, historical experience, and systems of social values. Literature does not merely reproduce culture as a collection of customs or traditions; it actively interprets cultural experience and participates in the formation, preservation, negotiation, and transformation of collective identities. This article examines the relationship between culture, identity, and literary representation in Uzbek and English literature from a comparative perspective. Particular attention is given to the representation of national identity, historical memory, family and social values, language, religion, gender, colonial experience, and modernization. Uzbek literary representation is discussed primarily through the historical and cultural significance of Abdulla Qodiriy, the Jadid literary movement, and the development of modern Uzbek prose. English literary representation is considered through broader traditions of English cultural writing and through theoretical perspectives developed by scholars such as Raymond Williams, Benedict Anderson, Stuart Hall, Edward Said, Homi K. Bhabha, Mikhail Bakhtin, Clifford Geertz, and Richard Hoggart. The study employs comparative literary analysis, historical-contextual analysis, close reading, and cultural interpretation. The results indicate that both literary traditions represent identity as a historically situated and socially mediated phenomenon, although their particular forms are shaped by different political, linguistic, and cultural histories. Uzbek literature frequently associates identity with national awakening, historical memory, family structures, moral values, language, and resistance to cultural and political domination. English literature, particularly in the context of cultural studies, demonstrates the importance of class, regional belonging, imperial experience, modernization, and changing forms of social identity. The comparison demonstrates that literary representation is neither culturally neutral nor merely descriptive: it is a process through which societies imagine themselves, remember their past, negotiate cultural differences, and construct possible futures.