Kruzhok - Zulfiya's Intimate Publics

The Kruzhok-REEES Reading Group presents Professor Claire Roosien, Yale University

Title: "Zulfiya's Intimate Publics: Lyric, Politics, and Persona"

This article examines the shifting configurations of lyric persona and political representation across the remarkable life of Zulfiya, Uzbekistan's most famous woman poet. Over the course of her 70+-year-long career, Zulfiya occupied roles as women's activist, wartime mother, grieving widow, Cold War intermediary, grieving secondary victim of the Great Terror, and post-Soviet national hero — many at the same time. Tracing her life and lyric in tandem, the essay aims to theorize the relationship between lyric and politics in a context far removed from the romantic ideals that shaped many common assumptions about the lyric. Along the way, it offers new perspective on established narratives about wartime in the Soviet peripheries, Central Asian intermediaries in South Asia, and the construction of post-Soviet nationhood. 

Date: Friday, February 20, 2026 | 6:00 pm ET

Not Open to the Public; for more information on the kruzhok and to get involved, please visit it's webpage.
 

This co-sponsored by the Central Asia Initiative and The Edward J. and Dorothy Clarke Kempf Memorial Fund.