The Concepts of ‘Minimalism’ and ‘Psychological Realism’: Dynamics of Transfer from European Literary Theory to Uzbek Texts

Abstract

This article explores how the European theoretical constructs of minimalism and psychological realism travel into Uzbek literary practice and criticism. Treating concepts as portable repertoires rather than fixed taxonomies, the study analyzes how stylistic reduction, subtext, and ellipsis associated with minimalism, as well as interiority, motivation, and causal psychology associated with psychological realism, are adopted, hybridized, or resisted in Uzbek prose. A focused comparative reading of twentieth- and twenty-first-century European and Russian exemplars alongside selected Uzbek short prose and novellas informs the discussion. Attention is paid to narrative economy, focalization, dialogic texture, and closure. The results suggest that Uzbek texts selectively appropriate minimalist “surface discipline” while re-anchoring it in culturally salient ethical frames, and that psychological realism is adapted through dialogized inner speech in which private cognition is refracted by communal idioms and moral axioms. The article argues that transfer dynamics operate through translation series, curricula, and editorial paratexts, producing a situated poetics where the two repertoires co-exist as complementary rather than antagonistic modes. Implications are proposed for translation practice, criticism, and syllabus design.