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Earthquakes in Pakistan, hurricanes in America, riots in Andijan: it seems that the world is crumbling around us, disintegrating before us on the seven o'clock Russian news.  But so far we are safe here in Samarkand, quiet Samarkand of the blue minarets and the deep blue skies, of the ancient rambling tombs and the ruined city walls.  They say here that these things protect us: God averts his wrath from the city where the spirits of so many great and holy men linger.  For God must spare the final resting place of Tamerlane, of his wife and children and teacher, and according to old, old tradition, of the prophet Daniel. 

 

These distant, transcendent names adorn the classroom walls of Uzbekistan, echo in the lines of poems declaimed haltingly in auditoriums, show up scrawled in blue pen in students' essays and dictations.  They are first on the lips of those who try to explain this people to strangers, first in the destinations of those who embark on pilgrimages:  Ulugbek, the philosopher-king who built an eerie brick telescope on a hill outside the city;  Ibn Sino, or Avicenna, the scientist whose medical works touched even medieval Europe; Al Beruniy, inventor of the first globe; Daniel, ruler of the satrap of Samarkand; Alisher Navoiy, the first true Uzbek-language poet.  All of these saints and scholars and their bones, many of which rest here in Samarkand, are the relics of a long-past, more prosperous age.

 

It has not always been this way; for many years the mausoleums were mere pretty buildings, devoid of their symbolism.  The Soviets denounced backward religious superstition like the pilgrimages to the tomb of Daniel, buried in a long brown vault in case his bones grow over the years.  And why revere Tamerlane, the mass-murdering tyrant, who employed slave labor to build his own elaborate tomb and is said to have executed his own wife?  No, the Communists provided their own history and their own canon of national idols, far more worth emulating than the tradition-shrouded medieval legends.  If Lenin loved the little children, Stalin worked for the good of all, and Communism is the one true party, then let them provide a spiritual history for the people.  Pilgrims, leave your ancient architecture and your dead tyrants, and come worship at the tomb of Lenin and his host of Communist poets.  

 

But Communism is gone now, and again the Uzbeks are reaching out desperately for their lost national identity.  No longer did Tamerlane kill seventeen million people; he is now a just leader with delicate taste, and the schoolchildren celebrate his birthday on February 9.  On the downtown boulevard stands a massive statue of Tamerlane, who presides beneficently over the city.  The Lenin and Stalin posters are mostly removed, replaced now with Ibn Sino, with Al Beruniy, with the poets who were evil just twenty years ago. 

 

Both Communism and modern democracy understand something true: these people need their history to define and legitimize them.  The prophets and scholars and rulers entombed in this city are the Uzbeks' "ota-bobolar," their fathers and grandfathers.  If they are evil, so are the people of this city; and if they are noble, the people must have magnificent prospects in store for them.  "The country whose history is great also has a great future," reads the slogan.  So we turn mass-murderers into national heroes and poets into champions of the people.  Or is it vice-versa?  Perhaps the regime changes do not really bring truth, but simply another foundation myth, like King Arthur to England or Squanto to America.  How do we know the true history when the fashion changes every decade?  Should it be this important?

 

The fact is, it is important, and when I ask an Uzbek woman for advice for a topic on this column, she answers immediately: Tell them about Tamerlane, about Ulugbek, about the ancient buildings; that is what you say about our country.  The official accounts of these people may change with each regime, but we still have these buildings, these blue-tiled domes, and they must attest to something.  And there is something else: in this crazy world of disaster, Samarkand remains, so far, safe and peaceful.  Perhaps, after all, the spirits of these fathers do linger mysteriously in the air of Samarkand; perhaps it is they who, somehow, really do shape the future of this land.

 

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