THE INTERNATIONAL STATUS OF THE "LAZGI" DANCE AS AN INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE OF HUMANITY: A STATISTICAL AND DOCUMENT-BASED ANALYSIS

Lazgi, a dance of the Khorazm Region of Uzbekistan, was inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity on 12 December 2019, yet few studies explain what this status means in practice or place it within the statistics of UNESCO’s lists. This article examines the legal basis of the status, the position of Lazgi in global and national inscription statistics, and changes in Uzbekistan’s inscription pattern after 2019. A mixed design was used, combining document analysis of the 2003 Convention, Committee decision 14.COM 10.B.41 and the nomination documents with descriptive analysis of secondary data. At the 14th session, 35 of 42 nominations were inscribed (83.3%). Lazgi is one of 272 elements (32.0% of 849) tagged as dance, and it is the only dance among Uzbekistan’s 16 elements on the Representative List. Uzbekistan’s inscription rate rose from 0.50 per year (2008–2019) to 1.67 per year (2020–2025; p = 0.017), and the multinational share rose from 1 of 6 to 8 of 10 elements (p = 0.035). The Committee found that all five criteria were met and that viability was not under serious threat. The study concludes that the status is a framework of commitments rather than enforceable protection, and that Lazgi is typical of UNESCO’s lists but unusual within Uzbekistan’s portfolio. Because no data on practitioners exist in the public sources, indicators for monitoring are proposed.