Ruhnama

The Ruhnama, or Rukhnama, translated in English as Book of the Soul, is a two volume work written by Saparmurat Niyazov, the president of Turkmenistan from 1990 to 2006. It was intended to serve as a tool of state propaganda, emphasising the basis of the Turkmen nation. The Ruhnama was introduced to Turkmen culture in a gradual but eventually pervasive way. Niyazov first placed copies in the nation's schools and libraries but eventually went as far as to make an exam on its teachings an element of the driving test. It was mandatory to read Ruhnama in schools, universities and governmental organisations. New governmental employees were tested on the book at job interviews. After the death of Niyazov in December 2006, its popularity remained high. However, in the following years, its ubiquity had waned as President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow removed it from the public school curriculum and halted the practice of testing university applicants on their knowledge of the book. Epics had played multiple important roles in the social life of Central Asia across centuries. Pre-modern rulers of these regions usually appropriated the text and invented a connection between themselves and the epic-cast, to seek legitimacy for their new order. Stalin had considered these epics to be "politically suspicious" and capable of inciting nationalist feelings among the masses; almost all significant Turkmen epics were condemned and banned by 1951–52. These epics would be rehabilitated back into public (and academic) discourse only with the onset of Glasnost. Ruhnama built on this rehabilitation phase. Niyazov apparently received a prophetic vision where Turkmen ancestors of eminence urged him to lead Turkmens to the "golden path of life". The first version was released in the 1990s but soon withdrawn because it did not fulfill Niyazov's expectations. Preparations for the revised book were underway as early as April 1999, when Niyazov declared that Mukkadesh Ruhnama would be the second landmark text of Turkmens, after the Quran.