Uzbekisation or Uzbekization is the process of forcing or inducing an Uzbek identity on people or cultural heritage through a variety of administrative means. The term refers to the specific forms of indigenization (korenizacija) that took place in Uzbekistan during the process of national delimitation in Central Asia in the 1920s and early 1930s.
Because of assimilation pressures that began in 1924 with the creation of Uzbek SSR, ethnic Tajiks often chose to identify themselves as Uzbeks in population census forms and preferred to be registered as Uzbek in their passports to avoid leaving the republic for the less developed agricultural and mountainous Tajikistan.[1] While official Uzbek statistics place the total Tajik population in Uzbekistan at about 5%,[2][3] subjective expert estimates suggest that the Tajiks may account for as much as 25%-30% of the total population of the country.[4]
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the term "Uzbekization" has been applied to the processes in Uzbekistan that reverse the results of Sovietization and Russification. Among these are restoring the importance of Uzbek language, which replaced the Russian language in obligatory education, promotion of Uzbek tradition and culture.[citation needed]