The Many Nationalities of Tamara Khanum: Friendship of the Peoples at Home, Abroad, and Within

Abstract

Inspired by scholarship on empire and historical biography, this article examines the life of Soviet entertainer Tamara Khanum (1906–91) and her formation as a socialist intermediary. First, it considers how an ethnic Armenian born in the Uzbek SSR came to represent an image of liberated Eastern femininity to domestic audiences. Then it considers her genre of song, dance, and costume of various nationalities as a technology of Soviet cultural politics, suited to mediate interethnic harmony at home and as a weapon of Cold War cultural diplomacy. It proposes her genre as a linking strand between various eras of Soviet internationalism, helping to define a distinctive emotional dimension to Soviet Central Asia’s role as model for the Third World. Integrating autobiographical, biographical, and archival sources, the article contends that one of the byproducts of a career spent facilitating interethnic connection was Khanum’s adoption of firm but heterodox convictions on nationality and the Soviet doctrine of Friendship of the Peoples.