Drawing on archival documents and on the work of Russian and Western scholars, this article analyzes the socio-political processes associated with the establishment of sanitary enlightenment in Uzbekistan in the 1920s–1930s. It traces how sanitary enlightenment developed from anti-epidemic measures on the Turkestan Front into an institutional system built around a sanitary enlightenment department and a network of houses of sanitary enlightenment. The article examines the means of propaganda – leaflets, posters, brochures, agitation trains, mobile units and films – and their distribution across languages and territories. It argues that the Soviet authorities regarded sanitary enlightenment not as a purely medical-hygienic task but as an ideological and political project, using it, among other things, as a means of combating religion and the traditional customs of the population. It also shows that financial constraints and the gap between town and countryside limited the practical effectiveness of this policy. The study identifies three stages in the development of the sanitary enlightenment system.

public health, Soviet medicine, sanitary enlightenment, infectious diseases, cultural revolution.

Qarang: Виноградов Н.А. Теоретические основы советского здравоохранения. – М., 1962; Бородулин В.И. История медицины России: клиника внутренних болезней во второй половине XIX – первой половине XX века: цикл лекций. – М., 2011. – С. 68; Мирский М.Б. Медицина России X–XX веков. – М., 2006. – С. 361–363; Starks T. The Body Soviet: Propaganda, Hygiene, and the Revolutionary State. – Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008.

Glass R.I. The Sanepid Service in the U.S.S.R. // Public Health Reports. – 1976. – Vol. 91, No. 2. – P. 154–158.

Cavanaugh C.M. Backwardness and Biology: Medicine and Power in Russian and Soviet Central Asia, 1868–1934: PhD dissertation. – New York: Columbia University, 2001. – P. 145.

O‘zbekiston Milliy arxivi (O‘z MA), R.40-fond, 169-yig‘ma jild, 11-varaq.

Starks T. The Body Soviet: Propaganda, Hygiene, and the Revolutionary State. – Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008. – P. 32.

O‘z MA, R.40-fond, 1-ro‘yxat, 392-yig‘ma jild, 1–2-varaqlar.

ITTHMA, 1-fond, 1-ro‘yxat, 5-yig‘ma jild, 12–13-varaqlar.

Cavanaugh C.M. Backwardness and Biology: Medicine and Power in Russian and Soviet Central Asia, 1868–1934. – P. 215.

ITTHMA, 1-fond, 1-ro‘yxat, 456-yig‘ma jild, 97–98-varaqlar.