Show Us Your Papers: Performing post-Soviet National Identity in Talgat Batalov's Uzbek

This article considers the staging of documents and national identity in Talgat Batalov’s 2012 theatre production Uzbek, an autobiographical solo show that recounts Batalov’s experience emigrating from Tashkent to Moscow at the age of nineteen. Through its close reading of Uzbek in performance, this study illustrates how the author uses irony and humor to both embody and elucidate the sociospatial discourse that posits Russia as the “modern center” to Central Asia’s “pre-modern periphery.” Additionally, this article explores how by presenting his audiences with his actual immigration records, and undermining their credibility, Batalov activates the unreliable status of documents in contemporary Russian culture.