Restoration of histlrical, cultural heritage

Uzbekistan is a country of an ancient civilization and profound culture. None of other Central Asian republics has such a large quantity of monuments as Uzbekistan.

The land of Uzbekistan is a peculiar precious achievement, preserving unique historical and archaeological monuments of various epochs from evolution of the Homo sapiens to formation of large ancient states.

It is no mere chance that large archeological explorations in Uzbekistan have made archeology a separate field of historical science, a development marked with a series of remarkable discoveries of international significance.

In line with obtaining the state sovereignty, revival of spirituality and culture, restorations of true history have become one of the priorities for the country.

"Rehabilitation of spiritual values we consider as an organic and natural growth of national identity, return to spiritual origins of the nation, to its roots," says Islam Karimov, the president of the country.

Having realized importance of spiritual and cultural values as development and powerful impetus to national identity, the government of Uzbekistan began widely advocating customs, traditions and national values of the Uzbek people.

All national and religious holidays ― Navruz, Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha ― have been reinstated.

Holy religion of our ancestors Islam has been resurrected.

Old mosques have been reconstructed with newly built ones.

A number of religious institutions, including Tashkent Islamic University, have been established.

Memorial of Remembrance and Tribute, Imam al-Bukhari, Al-Ferghani, Amir Temur and Temurids Museum and many others were restored, encompassing traditions of oriental and modern developments of architecture and at the same time.

The Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO) decided to nominate Tashkent the capital of Islamic culture and civilization in 2007, an acknowledgment by the international community for Uzbek's great contribution to both Muslim and world civilizations.

Speaking of integration of the country into the world community, President Islam Karimov once noted, "We stand, above all, for integration in spiritual sphere, science, culture, education and information."

That undoubtedly contributes to broad demonstration of historical and cultural heritage of the Uzbek people on international level, and guarantees the success of social-economic and political reforms in the country.

In the course of the country's integration into the world spiritual community, Uzbekistan has joined the UNESCO in October 1993.

Commemoration of anniversaries of Uzbekistan's ancient cities and great ancestors play a special role in revival of spiritual heritage of Uzbekistan and its international recognition.

Upon the resolution of the government of Uzbekistan, it widely celebrated 600th anniversary of the great scholar and ruler Mirzo Ulugbek (1994), 660th anniversary of the great statesman, military commander Amir Temur (1996), 1225th anniversary of the great thinker, soltan of hadith Al-Bukhari and 1200th anniversary of a famous scientist Al-Ferghani (1998), 2700th anniversary of "Avesta" (2001), 1000th anniversary of heroic epos of "Alpomish," 800th anniversary of the great son of Uzbek nation J.Manguberdi (1999), 1300th anniversary of Imam Moturidiy and 910th anniversary of Al-Margiloni (2000).

Those festivities were included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage and widely celebrated on international level.

Besides, a number of cities whose age was determined based on archeological research celebrated their anniversaries: Samarkand celebrated its 2750th anniversary (2007), Karshi 2700th anniversary (2006), Bukhara (1997), Khiva (1997) and Termez 2500th anniversary (2002), Tashkent 2200th anniversary (2009), and Marghilan 2000th anniversary (2007).

Why are these anniversaries　commemorated so widely?

As a matter of fact, in research papers of foreign scholars the activity of our great ancestors is covered ambiguously, sometimes biased.

Holding these international conferences has fully, comprehensively and objectively covered the activity and creation of those persons and defined new priorities of our country, which undoubtedly is a big success of the Uzbek diplomacy and scholars of our country.

The 2200th anniversary of Tashkent has been celebrated with cultural and scientific programs at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris in April 2009.

A number of academic conferences have also been held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

Hence, the anniversary celebrations have focused the attention of international cultural and academic community on Uzbekistan, and not only promoted the studies on great ancestors and cities and their contribution to world civilization, but also encouraged world community's awareness about the achievements in the sphere of revival of the national cultural and historical values.

It is also pertinent to mention that with collaboration of foreign and local scholars a number of fundamental works have been published, dedicated to the personalities of Amir Temur, Al Bukhari, Al Farghani, and the cities of Khiva, Bukhara, Samarkand and Tashkent.

In these works, for the first time the great heritage of our ancestors and cities has been studied in the light of socio-economic developments and cultural processes of those ancient epochs.

The concrete outcome of the project "The Silk Road ― the Road of Dialogue" has become the foundation of the International Institute for Central Asian Studies (IICA) in Samarkand in 1996 with the participation of 12 countries of the world.

The mission of the Institute is to study the Central Asian history, and to give its objective assessment to processes going on in Central Asian countries on their modern path of development.

An important outcome of the studies on the history of Central Asia, jointly carried out by the different scholars around the world, has been the publishing of "The history of civilizations of Central Asia" in six volumes, which gives overall picture of historical and cultural processes in Central Asian region, stretched from Mediterranean Sea to China.

With the efforts of the IICA well-known cities of Bukhara, Khiva and Shahrisabz, the collection of oriental manuscripts at the Institute of Oriental Studies of Uzbekistan's Academy of Sciences, and unique Usman's Koran were included to the "World Heritage List."

It serves as the recognition of their importance and belonging to the whole humanity and responsibility of the world community for their preservation.

Thus, the revival of spiritual, historical and cultural values of Uzbekistan is the foundation for the self-determination, formation and development of National statehood as well as the spiritual and moral impetus for wide-scale developments and the aspirations of the country for the future.