THE NEW UZBEKISTAN: UNIQUE CULTURAL INITIATIVES MEDIA EVENT IN WASHINGTON
On September 27, 2019, in Washington, DC, as part of the New Uzbekistan: Unique Cultural Initiatives media event, a meeting was held at the Library of Congress with representatives of the Cultural Legacy of Uzbekistan in the World Collections project led by Firdavs Abdukhalikov and Joan S. Wicks, Head of the Middle East and Turkic Department of the Library of Congress.
A unique facsimile copy of the Katta Langar Koran was donated to the Library of Congress. As project leader F. Abdukhalikov noted, “The main idea and goal of our work towards publishing a facsimile copy of this manuscript is to bring to the general public the ideas of civilizational and enlightened Islam as a religion of peace, goodness and tolerance. We believe that this copy will be a rich source for further research."
“The Cultural Legacy of Uzbekistan in the World Collections project is a truly fantastic project, which the whole world has already heard about! For the first time I see such a large-scale work that has educational goals not only in their own country, but also abroad. There are many manuscripts in our library, and the donated Koran will be very useful for our visitors and researchers. This is a unique example of how the rarest manuscripts really become public and can be of great benefit from the point of view of science and further research work. We are very grateful to the project for donated book-albums of the Cultural Legacy of Uzbekistan in the World Collections,” said Joan S. Wicks.
During the meeting, representatives of the Cultural Legacy of Uzbekistan in the World Collections project got acquainted with the activities of the Library of Congress and discussed promising areas of cooperation. In the near future of the project is the publication of a book-album on historical photographs from the collection of Prokudin-Gorsky who traveled to Turkestan and took exotic photographs of Central Asia.
