The Concept Of Perfection In Uzbek Prose And The Synthesis Of Transformations

Abstract

This article examines how contemporary Uzbek prose conceptualizes komillik (“perfection,” moral-spiritual completeness) through a synthesis of transformations at the levels of ethics, narrative form, and cultural memory. Building on classical virtue paradigms and Sufi anthropology (e.g., al-insān al-kāmil), the study argues that Uzbek prose resemanticizes perfection not as a static ideal but as a dynamic, metamorphic process shaped by historical rupture (Soviet/post-Soviet), globalization, and dialog with world poetics. Using narratological categories of modality (mood, voice, focalization) and emplotment, the article outlines how protagonists undergo ethical and existential trials—oscillating between “rebellion” and “obedience,” solitude and community, tradition and innovation—thereby converting adversity into self-knowledge and civic responsibility. Intertextual engagements with Qur’anic and mythic motifs (creation, exile, temptation, repentance) are shown to function as transformational engines that re-configure character, plot, and value systems. The paper further situates Uzbek prose within East–West comparative frames: Western metaphor-driven models of self-making meet Eastern metonymic “trace” thinking and Sufi imaginal poetics, yielding hybrid forms that sustain both national identity and universal ethical inquiry. The conclusion posits that Uzbek prose presents perfection as a pathway—a disciplined overcoming of the lower self, a cultivated humility toward community, and a literarily mediated openness to the sacred—achieved through continuous metamorphosis across text, context, and readerly reception.