Abdurauf Fitrat

Abdurauf Fitrat on a 15 So'm postage stamp from Uzbekistan issued in 1996 for his 110th birthday

Abdurauf Fitrat ^Note [ æb.d̪u.ræ.uɸ ɸit.ræt ] (* 1886 in Bukhara ; † in October 1938 in Tashkent ) was a Central Asian writer, journalist and politician from today's Uzbekistan and a Bucharian representative of Jadidism .

In his initially Persian-language writings Fitrat called for innovations in social and cultural life in Central Asia, later his program was based on Pan-Turkism . After the end of the Emirate of Bukhara, Fitrat took over various ministerial posts in the government of the People's Republic of Bukhara . After the Soviet seizure of power , he became a university professor in the Russian and Uzbek SSR and later a victim of the Great Terror .

Fitrat's literary work includes both lyrical and prosaic works that show influences from traditional Islamic and Central Asian literature as well as an approach to "modern" genres. His non-fiction and textbooks are dedicated to topics such as Islam , literary history and linguistics. Many of his works were banned for decades after Fitrat's death, but today both Tajiks and Uzbeks claim his literary heritage.

Name variants

Fitrat's name appears in many different forms and spellings: Most of the time he himself used Fitrat as his artist name (فطرت, DMG Fiṭrat , from the Arabic فطرة / fiṭra  / 'instinct, creation'). His first known pseudonym was Mijmar .

Fitrat's Arabic name isعبدالرؤوف بن عبدالرحيم, DMG ʿAbd ar-Raʾūf b. ʿAbd ar-Raḥīm (sometimes differentعبدالرئوف), with Abdurauf as a proper name and sometimes with the Nisba Buchārāī . In Reformed Arabic script Fitrat was calledفيطرەت or فيترەتreproduced. The Turkic variant of the Nasab is Abdurauf Abdurahim oʻgʻli .

Among the Russian variants of his name are - among others - Абдурауф Абдурахим оглы Фитрат Abdurauf Abdurachim ogly Fitrat and Абд-ур-Рауфъ Abd-ur-Rauf ; Fitrat's Soviet, Russified name is Абдурауф Абдурахимов Abdurauf Abdurachimow . In Uzbek- Cyrillic script his name is to be reproduced with Абдурауф Абдураҳим ўғли Фитрат .

Fitrat was sometimes called " Hoji " and "Professor". His first name can also be found in Latin transcriptions as Abdurrauf , Abdulrauf or Abdalrauf .

Life and work

Training in Bukhara

The Mir-i-Arab madrasah in Bukhara

Fitrat was born in Bukhara in 1886 (according to his own statements, 1884). His father Abdurahim boy , a devout Muslim and well-traveled trader, performed Hajj with the young Abdurauf and finally left the family in the direction of Marg'ilon and later Kashgar . After training at a maktab , he began studies at the Mir-i-Arab madrasah in Bukhara in 1899 , which he finished in 1910; Between 1907 and 1910 Fitrat traveled extensively through Russian Turkestan and the Emirate of Bukhara . Fitrat received his secular education largely from his well-read mother Mustafbibi, who brought Abdurauf closer to the works of Bedil , Fuzuli , Alisher Navoiy and others.

Fitrat wrote in his autobiography , published in 1929, that Bukhara was one of the darkest religious centers, that he was a fanatical Muslim and that he had initially rejected the reform movement of Jadidism ( usul-i jadid 'new method'). Under his mentor Mahmudxoʻja Behbudiy , he finally joined the reform movement and criticized the incompetence of the mullas and imams and the emir, whose policies he rejected.

Stay in Istanbul and Jadidist leader

Fitrat himself received no basic training in that “new method”; thanks to a grant from the secret "Society for the Education of Children" (Tarbiyayi atfol) founded by reformers, however, he spent four years in Istanbul ( Constantinople ) from 1909 , which he reached via Persia .

During his stay in Istanbul, the penniless Abdurauf worked, among other things, in restaurant kitchens, studied at the Vaizin Madrasa and worked for various cultural organizations. He got to know other Middle Eastern reform ideas, came into contact with the Panturanism movement and developed into the spokesman for the representatives of Jadidism in Istanbul. Fitrat wrote the first writings in which he - always in Persian  - called for innovations in social and cultural life in Central Asia and the will to progress. His first texts appeared in the Islamist magazines Hikmet des Şehbenderzâde Filibeli Ahmed Hilmi and Sırat-ı Müstakim des Mehmet Âkif Ersoy , as well as in Behbudiys Oyina and in the Turkish newspaper Türk Yurdu .

Title page of the Turkish translation of مناظره/ Munāzara (Munozara) , 1913

Title page of the Russian translation of Bayonoti sayyohi hindi , 1913

Two of his three books published during his stay in Istanbul, a "Dispute between a European and a university professor from Bukhara in India on various questions, including those of the new teaching methods " ( Munozara for short , 1911) and the "Tales of an Indian Traveler" ( Bayonoti sayyohi hindi) , gained great popularity in Central Asia: Munozara, for example, was translated into Turkestan Turkish by Hodschij Muin from Samarkand in 1911 and published in the tsarist newspaper Turkiston viloyatining gazeti and later as a book. In contrast to the Persian version, the Turkish edition, which was expanded to include a comment by Behbudiy, also circulated in Bukhara. Bayonoti sayyohi hindi was translated into Russian by Behbudiy . At his instigation, Fitrat Munozara added an appeal to learn Russian.

From the Emirate of Bukhara to the Soviet Republic

In view of the outbreak of the First World War , Fitrat and many other Bucharian students returned to Transoxania . In 1915 Fitrat wrote in Oila ("Family") as the first of the reformers to write about the hard life of women in Turkestan. He became a member of the group of Young Bucharians and the leader of the Bukhara Jadid movement. Their activities were extensively monitored by the Okhrana and the Soviet secret police in the Tsarist, Bolshevik and Soviet times . In 1917 he wrote a reform agenda together with Usmonxoʻja oʻgʻli , which later, after the overthrow, was to be implemented. In August 1917 (issue 27) he became a columnist and editor of the Samarkand magazine Hurriyat .

In 1917, Fitrat had to flee to Tashkent ( Turkestan ASSR ) due to the increasing repression by the Bucharian emir Alim Khan (Uzbek: Olimxon) , where he worked in the Afghan consulate and was the organizer of the nationalist intellectuals. Fitrat began to publish mainly in a purist Turkic language in 1917 and founded the multiethnic literary circle Chigʻatoy gurungi ("Tschagataischer Discussion Circle"). This was the breeding ground for a rising Chagata nationalism for the next two years. His first dramatic work, Begijon or Muqaddas qon ("holy blood"), also dates from 1917. Temurning sogʻonasi (" Timur's Mausoleum", 1918) shows Fitrat's swing to Pan-Turkism: a "son of a Turkic people" and " Turan border guard " at the tomb of Timur begs for his resurrection - the Timurid Empire should be rebuilt.

The events in Russia and the Ottoman Empire in the years 1917 to 1919 showed Fitrat, “who the real enemies of the Islamic, and especially the Turkish, world are”: The British, with the exception of the Hejaz, would have all of Arabia under their control and would now be 350 Making millions of Muslims their slaves. Since it was their duty to be friends of the enemies of the English, Fitrat supported the Soviets. Within the group of young Bucharians , however, he encountered partial resistance from Behbudiy, Ayni and others. In an analysis of Asian politics ( Sharq siyosati , “Ostpolitik”, 1919) Fitrat spoke out in favor of the policies of the Soviet Union and against those of the European powers that controlled India, Egypt and Persia, especially England.

Fitrat's signature (in the form فيطرەت) on a 2,500 So'm banknote from the People's Republic of Bukhara (1922)

Between 1918 and 1924 Fitrat was a member of the Bukhara Communist Party in the hope of his homeland's independence, and in June 1919 he was elected to the Central Committee at the first party congress . After the young Bucharians were able to overthrow the Bukharian emir in September 1920 with the help of the Red Army and other communists, Fitrat headed a state waqf until 1921 , after which he served as Foreign Minister (1922), Minister of Education (1923), Deputy Chairman of the Council for the Work of the People's Republic of Bukhara (1923) and was briefly in the Ministerial Office for Military and Finance (1922). In 1921, at Fitrat's instigation, the language of instruction was changed from Persian to Turki, and Turkish became the state language of Bukhara. In 1922 Fitrat sent 70 students to Germany so that they could teach at the newly founded University of Bukhara on their return.

In Qiyomat (“The Last Judgment”, 1923), Fitrat showed his displeasure in the face of wrong Bolshevik decisions in Central Asia. Together with the head of government Fayzulla Xoʻjayev , Fitrat, as foreign minister, sought alliances with Turkey and Afghanistan in order to preserve Bukhara’s independence, but was unsuccessful. When the Bolsheviks took control of Bukhara in 1923, the previous leading political forces, including Fitrat, but not Xo'jayev, were expelled to Moscow on June 25, 1923. In 1922 they had put an end to Chig'atoy gurungi .

Teachers and victims of Stalinism

The Lazarev Institute in the 19th century, today the seat of the Armenian Embassy

After Bukhara lost its independence and moved from nationalism to communism , Fitrat wrote a series of allegories in which he criticized the new political system in his homeland, but then withdrew from politics and devoted himself to teaching. He taught at the Lazarev Institute for Oriental Languages in Moscow, and later at the Institute for Oriental Studies at the University of Petrograd (St. Petersburg). In 1924 he received the title of " Professor ".

After his return to Tashkent and Samarkand in 1924, he worked at various universities in the Uzbek SSR , from 1928 until his arrest at the University of Samarkand. In the same year he became a member of the Scientific Council of the Uzbek SSR. In his teaching as a literary historian Fitrat remained committed to his own principles and preferred factual loyalty to conformity with the line of the CPSU , from 1925 Fitrat expressed intellectual criticism of the communist theory of national cultures in the supra-ethnic structure of Central Asia. The communists believed they saw hidden messages in Fitrat's works and accused Fitrat of political subversion .

In 1927 and 1928 Fitrat wrote two compendia on Central Asian Turkic languages ​​in which he negated the need to subdivide what was now Soviet Central Asia on the basis of sub-ethnic criteria. This and his way of presenting Chagatan classics earned him criticism from communist ideologues and proletarians, who described his writings as "nationalistic", that is, non-Soviet. This "Chagataism" later became one of the most serious allegations against Fitrat.

Despite his panning to Pan-Turkism, Fitrat wrote his last political work about the Emir Alim Khan in Persian ( Tajik ) in 1930 . After 1932 Fitrat acted as a powerful monitor of political and social events in his home country. In his last play, To'lqin ("The Wave", 1936), he resisted censorship .

In 1937 Fitrat was arrested as a result of the Great Terror. There was uncertainty about his future fate for over 40 years. It was only when archive material was released during perestroika that the circumstances of Fitrat's disappearance became clear: he was executed in Tashkent in early October 1938 without charges being brought against him. The secret files reveal that Fitrat collapsed in the course of the interrogations and, in his confusion, was ready to admit any ideological crime.

Afterlife and reviews

The Soviet Union initially tried to fade memories of Fitrat and his followers. After the celebrations for Navoiy's 500th birthday according to the Islamic lunar calendar in 1926, she organized a second celebration for his 500th birthday according to the solar calendar in 1941. Instead of the master of Chagatai literature , the “father of Uzbek literature” was commemorated, the celebration as a “triumph Leninist-Stalinist nationality policy ”.

Although Fitrat was posthumously rehabilitated in 1956 or 1957 at the instigation of the literary critic Izzat Sulton and recognized for his achievements in the field of literature and education, the Soviet press continued to condemn him for his liberal tendencies and Tajiks for his Turkophile inclinations. Almost all of his works were banned until perestroika, but some copies of Fitrat's dramas were kept in academic libraries. For a long time Fitrat was described as an Uzbek or Turkish nationalist. Even though Fitrat's prose works came back into the focus of Uzbek literary studies in the 1960s and 70s and various stories and one-act acts were reissued, devastating comments remained in circulation until the 1980s. Even in the 1990s it was hardly possible to find sources on Fitrat in Uzbekistan. From 1989 onwards, several of Fitrat's works were published in Soviet magazines.

Authors such as Sadriddin Ayni and Mikhail Zand stressed Fitrat's importance for the modernization of the Tajik language, especially the Tajik literary language. Ayni also called Fitrat a “pioneer of Tajik prose”. Not only the Tajiks, but also the Uzbeks claim (since the Uzbek Socialist Encyclopedia of 1979) Fitrat's literary heritage for themselves. Izzat Sulton even classified Fitrat as an important advocate of Soviet socialism ; Ahmad Aliev pointed to the “unconventional complexity” in Fitrat's dramas - on the other hand, Fitrat did pioneering work in the field of a simple, Persian literary language that avoided traditional ornamentation. An award Hind ixtilolchilari s (“Indian Rebels”, 1923) from the Azerbaijani People's Commissariat for Education in 1924 shows that his works were also recognized outside of Transoxania .

In 1996, Fitrat's native Bukhara dedicated the Abdurauf Fitrat Memorial Museum to "the outstanding figure from the public and politics, [the] publicist, scholar, poet and expert on the history of the Uzbek and Tajik nations and their spiritual cultures" . In several Uzbek cities, including Andijon , Samarkand, and Tashkent, streets are named after Fitrat.

ideology

Islam scholar Adeeb Khalid describes Fitrat's understanding of history "as a record of human progress". As with other reformers, Fitrat was interested in both the glorious past of Transoxania and the state of degradation that he perceived - for example using the example of pederasty . Similar to Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani , Fitrat searched in all of his works for reasons for the spiritual and temporal decline of the Muslim world, Fitrat especially using the example of Bukhara. In addition, both al-Afghani and Fitrat believed that the necessary changes should be made by the Muslims themselves. Fitrat saw the state of Bukhara as being based on the fact that Islam had developed into an ideology of the rich. As a solution, he suggested reforming the educational system and introducing a dynamic form of religion, freed from fantasy, ignorance and superstition, in which the individual individuals would be more important. Fitrat criticized the clergy ( ulama ) as well as the secular rulers and the masses: he accused the former of having divided and thus weakened the Muslim community, but also emphasized the guilt of those who followed the clergy and emir “like sheep”.

« [...] روی وطن ز ناخنی قفلت جریحه‌دار آنها به یاد روی باطن کرده جان نثار [...] » «[…] Ruy-i watan ze nāchon-i ghaflat jarihe-dār Ānhā be yād-i ruy-i bātan karde dschān nesār  […]" "[...] The face of Watan is scratched by the fingernails of negligence the face of your loved ones they give their lines [...]" - Abdurauf Fitrat : fragment from the Tajik-language poem Tāziyāne-yi taʾdib /تازیانه‌ای تأديب / 'The scourge of admonition' (1914)

Fitrat was against an orientation towards Western cultures; According to Fitrat, the size of the West originally came from Islamic principles. In Bayonoti sayyohi hindi , Fitrat quotes the words of the French historian Charles Seignobos about the greatness of medieval Muslim civilization; in Sharq siyosati he wrote: “To this day, European imperialists have given the East nothing but immorality and destruction.” Fitrat also refused to maintain scholasticism , which, according to Fitrat in Munozara , “is not helpful for people in the modern world” . He propagated innovations in intrafamily relationships, where he called for an improvement in the status of women . Fitrat's nonviolent reform path consisted on the one hand of changes from above and on the other hand of personal initiative in the form of a necessary political and social revolution. He described participation in these Jadidist activities as the "duty of every Muslim".

What Fitrat called for was less a compromise between Western and Islamic values ​​than a break with the past and a revolution in human concepts, structures and relationships with the ultimate goal of liberating Dār al-Islām from the hand of the infidels. Fitrat was well aware that the path to social progress and overcoming tyranny and stagnation would be complicated and difficult. He articulated this "by projecting the revolutionary intentions and efforts onto historical attempts at upheaval, the results of which did not justify the efforts" ( Sigrid Kleinmichel ).

The frequent use of India as a setting in Fitrat's plays is striking. The Turkologist Sigrid Kleinmichel names the possible motives for this: the anti-English orientation in the anti-colonial struggle of the Indians (while the Bucharian emir was friendly to England), the broad alliance of the movement, the emerging Indian national consciousness, and unanimous ideas for overcoming backwardness (e.g. with Muhammad Iqbal ) and the Turkish-friendly attitude of part of the Indian liberation movement.

While Soviet ideologues called Fitrat's "Chagataism" as nationalistic, Edward A. Allworth saw in him an internationalist who had been convinced since his young adulthood and who always remained true to his beliefs, but who had been forced to deny it. Kleinmichel describes the nationalism and pan-Islamic accusations against Fitrat as “always sweeping, never analyzing”, Hisao Komatsu sees Fitrat as a “patriotic, Bucharian intellectual”. Khalid, on the other hand, sees a connection between the measures of the local ulama and an "ethnic nationalism" that is tangible, especially in Fitrat's work.

Work analysis

Statistical and thematic developments

A list of Abdurauf Fitrat's works, compiled by Edward A. Allworth, comprises 191 texts from a creative period of around 27 years (between 1911 and 1937). Allworth assigns these writings to five subject categories: culture, economics, politics, religion and society. An analysis of all 191 texts results in the following temporal-thematic grid:

Number of texts written by Fitrat by period and category

category	1911-1919	1920-1926	1927-1937	total
Culture	24	48	50	123
economy	2	0	4th	6th
politics	28	9	2	39
religion	7th	1	5	13
society	9	0	1	10
total	70	59	62	191

Thus, almost two thirds of Fitrat's works deal with the topic of “culture”, about 20 percent of his writings deal with political matter - in the early phase of his work, politics was the most common topic in his texts. Most of the political writings were created during his active involvement with the Jadidist movement, the Young Bukhars and the government of the Bukhara People's Republic. After the establishment of the Uzbek SSR and the Tajik ASSR in 1924/25 and when the Communist Party exercised strong control over culture and society from 1927, Fitrat devoted himself less to writing political texts. Even if Marxists accused Fitrat of deviating from the party line in some of his works on cultural issues, which he wrote after 1927, these writings are far less politically colored than his earlier texts.

Allworth believes that the almost disappearance of writings on social problems after 1919 is due to the lack of a sure way of addressing points of view that do not agree with the party line. Fitrat reacted to the restriction of the freedom of the press by completely stopping to formulate his political views openly in print works and choosing topics that corresponded to Bolshevik ideas. Fitrat dealt with family and educational issues almost exclusively before 1920. Among the most important works of Fitrat from the 1920s are above all poems on group identities.

Similar categorizations of Fitrat's works are a jointly compiled list of 90 works in 9 categories from 1990, a list of 134 titles by Ilhom Gʻaniyev (1994) and a list by Yusuf Avci from 1997. The problem is that more than ten fit ratchet Works have been lost and the date of several is unclear, such as Muqaddas qon (between 1917 and 1924). For Munozara there are dates between 1909 and 1912, but According to Allworth, Hisao Komatsu "convincingly" determined 1327 AH (1911/12) as the date of origin.

Like many Central Asians, Fitrat began writing poetry in order to gradually expand his oeuvre to include prose, drama, journalism, comedies, political commentary, studies of literary history and educational policy, as well as polemical, ideological writings. Fitrat published several early works later, revised or translated into other languages ​​again.

Language and writing

Fitrat's first language, according to Allworth, was Central Asian Persian (Tajik) - typical of an urban Bukharan of his time; Arabic was common as the language of education . Ottoman (a Turkic language ) and Persian were in use in Istanbul during Fitrat's time . Fitrat hated the broken turki (Uzbek) used in Tashkent; he appropriated the turki from a dictionary. Contemporary analyzes describe Fitrats Turki as "special" and assume that Fitrat would have learned the language without constant contact with native speakers. Fitrat also spoke Urdu and Russian . Habib Borjian, on the other hand, sees the question of Fitrat's first language as not yet resolved.

Until the beginning of the political upheavals in Bukhara, Fitrat had published almost exclusively in the Persian (Tajik) language, but in 1917 he switched to a highly purist Turki, in which he even explained individual words in footnotes for better understanding. Fitrats Chigʻatoy gurungi set themselves the goal of establishing a unified Turkish language based on the Chagata language and literature by eliminating the classical works of Navoiy and other widespread and foreign-language influences (from Arabic, Persian and Russian) on Turki. At that time Fitrat denied that Persian was a language native to Central Asia. Borjian sees his partial return to Tajik language in the mid-1920s as a result of the end of Jadidism and the beginning of the suppression of Turkish nationalisms. The emergence of the Tajik SSR in 1929 (from the Tajik ASSR , which was part of the Uzbek SSR) “might” have encouraged Fitrat to take this step, according to Borjian. Fitrat himself named as a motive to want to advance the Tajik drama. Bedil (1923) is bilingual, with Persian and Turkish language passages.

At the time of Fitrat's work, primarily Arabic scripts were common: the Arabic script of Arabic, Persian , Ottoman and, from 1923, a Reformed Arabic script in Turkestan in which vowels were better marked, but still did not meet the requirements of the vowel diversity of the Turkic languages .

According to the Central Eurasia scholar William Fierman, Fitrat “obviously” did not regard the Arabic alphabet as sacred or as an important link to Islam : at a congress in Tashkent in 1921, he advocated all forms of the Arabic characters with the exception of the initial form do without what, according to Fitrat and his colleagues, would have accelerated learning to write and made printing easier. He also advocated deleting those letters from the alphabet that, in contrast to the Arabic language, did not represent a sound of their own in Uzbek (for example the Ṯāʾ  /ث). Ultimately, diacritical vowel marks were introduced and the "foreign" letters were abolished, which can have up to four different forms of appearance (for exampleﻍ ، ﻏ ، ﻐ ، ﻎ) but remained. For Fitrat, the distinction between “hard” and “soft” sounds was the “soul” of Turkish dialects. The requirement to adapt the spelling of foreign words to the rules of vowel harmony was implemented in Bukhara and the ASSR Turkestan in 1923, although many dialects no longer recognized this distinction.

Excerpt from Qiyomat (here: Qjamat ) in a version published in 1935 - apparently heavily modified by the Soviet Union - in Uzbek Latin script (2nd version)

By 1929 the alphabets of the Central Asian Turkic languages ​​were latinized - Fitrat was represented on the committee for the new Latin alphabet in Uzbekistan and played a decisive role in the latinization of Tajik, whose Latin script he wanted to match that of Uzbek as much as possible. Uzbek and Tajik only got a Cyrillic alphabet - as usual in Russian - after Fitrat's death.

Non-fiction

Fitrat's work also contains a number of non-fiction and textbooks: Rohbari najot (“The Guide to Redemption”, 1916), for example, is an ethical-didactic treatise to justify Jadidist admonitions through quotations from the Koran. Another book was devoted to Islamically correct housekeeping, raising children, and the rights and duties of spouses. In this work he spoke out against polygyny . Other textbooks cover the history of Islam , the grammar of the Tajik language, and music.

The anthologies Eng eski turkiy adabiyot namunalari ("Examples of the oldest Turkish-language literature", 1927) and Oʻzbek adabiyoti namunalari ("Examples of Uzbek literature", 1928) deviated greatly from the line of the CPSU in nationality politics : Fitrat refused to separate historical “purely Uzbek” literature and general Central Asian literature. To the article Eski maktablarni nima qilish kerak? (“What do we have to do with the old schools?”, 1927) became aware of the OGPU , which then said the reformer was close to the Basmatschen movement, but the Fitrat rejected it. Other well-known non-fiction books are Adabiyot qoidalari ("literary theory", 1926) and Fors shoiri Umar Hayyom ("the Persian poet Omar Chayyām ", 1929).

poetry

Like Sadriddin Ayni, Fitrat was shaped by classical poetry during his first creative period. He probably wrote Persian-language poems since his youth, initially on religious subjects, later he also wrote poetry for educational purposes and in Turki. Masnavi and Ghazal were among the traditional forms of verse Fitrat used .

In Shaytonning tangriga isyoni, Fitrat was one of the first Turki poets to frequently use Turkish suffixes as the end rhyme syllable in addition to internal rhymes .

Dramatic works

Allworth recognizes four different types of dialogue and drama in Fitrat's work: discussions with strangers (1911–1913, e.g. Munozara and Bayonoti sayyohi hindi ), consultation with heroes of the past (1915–1919, e.g. Muqaddas qon and Temurning sogʻonasi ), allegorical exchange ( 1920–1924, for example Qiyomat and Shaytonning tangriga isyoni - “the devil's rebellion against God”, 1924) and dialectic (1926–1934, for example To'lqin ).

In his dramatic works, Fitrat often used the passive as the gender verbi in the prose part - with this stylistic device Fitrat avoided having to name real characters. According to Allworth, this and the use of homonymous words serve the purpose of mystification and are related to Allah's sole knowledge of all motives and actions.

Conflict avoidance in dialogue form

The controversy (generic term Uzbek munozara , 'discussion') is a traditional, Islamic literary genre that occurs both prosaically and in verse and was a preliminary stage to theater in Central Asia. Fitrat's form of a dispute in Munozara , in which the author's intention is “clearly recognizable”, was less valued in classical poetry. Classical Turkic-Persian literature, as well as drama and short stories, did not recognize dialogue as an independent literary genre; Illiterate people, unfamiliar with the genre, sometimes equated performance with reality.

In Munozara , Fitrat confronts a progressive European with a complacent, condescending university professor from Bukhara. The European argues objectively and instructively and is also superior to the mudarris in the field of Islamic studies . Finally, the mudarris is convinced and wants to recognize the “new method” - but how this conversion came about is not shown. The classical Turkic-Persian literature knows no real conflict, but only a discourse between a master and his student - the conversation therefore remains calm, even if the mudarris shows himself annoyed a few times. In order to underpin his message, Fitrat added an epilogue to the dialogue in which he called on the emir to act - many other “reform dialogues” had no epilogue. That Fitrat let criticism of the social condition of Bukhara come from “outside”, a European and in neutral India, was one of the few accepted possibilities. Fitrat proceeded in a similar way in Bayonoti sayyohi hindi - here Fitrat lets an Indian tourist talk about his experiences in Bukhara - a work that stylistically is reminiscent of the first Iranian novelist, Zayn al-Abedin Maraghei .

Dramas of ambiguity

Fitrat's dramas from 1922 to 1924 - especially Qiyomat , Bedil , Shaytonning tangriga isyoni - are, according to Allworth, characterized by subtlety and deliberate ambiguities due to political and cultural circumstances. Because of his choice of words, subversive messages were only understandable for those in the know in contemporary Central Asian literature, and he let his anger flow in the form of indirect, entertaining criticism.

Bedil combines elements of "allegorical exchange" and discussion with strangers. Shaytonning tangriga isyoni is described partly as a short stage work, partly as an epic poem ( Dastan ). In this work, his polemics against Stalinism are allegorically packaged in a dialogue between angels and the devil. Allworth cites the use of the term Shaitan (instead of Iblis and next to Azazil ) for the devil as an example . The word Shaitan sounds close to the name Stalin and was actually used in private for Joseph Stalin in Central Asia .

The historical drama Abulfayzxon (“ Abulfaiz Khan ”, last ruler of the Bukharian Janid dynasty of the Uzbek Khanate , 1924) drew parallels between historical and current upheavals and absolutisms in Bukhara and is considered the first Uzbek tragedy .

Satire and Nasreddin Figures

Nasreddin statue in Bukhara

Like Abdulla Qodiriy and Gʻafur Gʻulom , Fitrat increasingly used satirical sketches in his stories from the 1920s. Only a few years before that, prose had gained a foothold in Central Asia; By incorporating satire, reformers like Fitrat increasingly succeeded in gaining audiences. These mostly short stories were also used in literacy campaigns, where familiar characters and ways of thinking were presented to the reader in a new, socio-politically relevant context. With regard to the traditional anecdotal structure , the renunciation of direct agitation within the narrative was retained; the didactic qualifications that were often added were, however, not common in the traditional structure, which included the summarized joke as the end. In addition to fallible ideologues and clumsy bureaucrats, the Soviet rulers were also “victims” of Fitratsch satire from the 1920s onwards.

Title page to Shaytonning tangriga isyoni (شه‌يتان‌نڭ ته‌ڭريگه عسيانی), Reformed Arabic alphabet of Uzbek (1924)

Similarities to Nasreddin stories can be found in Fitrat's work in Munozara , Qiyomat and Oq mozor (“The White Tomb”, 1928), even if the Nasreddin figure itself is missing in the latter text. In works like Qiyomat, Fitrat traditionally mixed fantastic elements with the fairytale and the present or the past. According to Sigrid Kleinmichel, the fact that the main character Pochamir, a Nasreddin-type opium smoker , faces the trials of the Last Judgment in a feverish dream in Qiyomat , “can” be “accepted” as an allusion to Karl Marx 's words about the people's opium . Qiyomat was revised for the first time in 1935, whereby the reference to the present was lost: Fitrat moved the plot to the pre-revolutionary period. Instead of pointing out the colonial oppression of the Tsarist era and depicting aspects of life in the Soviet Union in a satirical way, the Soviet versions focus on criticism of religion. The Soviet Union later had the play translated into many languages ​​because of its “atheism”, but the satire in the play was originally based on communist dogmas. According to Edward A. Allworth, Fitrat displayed a particular sense of humor and puns in Qiyomat .

Integration of older Islamic literature

In Shaytonning tangriga isyoni Fitrat presented Shaitan , the devil, as in the Koran and in Dīwān literature , but this led to a “justified resistance” against the despot Allah . In Zayid va Zaynab ("Zaid and Zainab", 1928) the Koranic characters Zainab bint Jahsch , a wife of Mohammed , and Zaid ibn Haritha are at the center of the plot; the angels Harut and Marut are the basis of Zahraning imoni ("Zahra's Faith", 1928). Meʼroj (" Miʿrādsch ", 1928) contains quotes from the Koran and from Mohammed biographies in Arabic, and Rohbari najot is also interspersed with Koran quotations . In Qiyomat Pochamir meets Nakir and Munkar , but Qiyomat only received the numerous allusions to the Koran and disrespect for Allah under Soviet rule.

In Bedil Fitrat quoted the Indo-Persian Sufi and poet Bedil , but dispensed with exclamations such as In shā'a llāh and the Basmala despite the religious theme .

Works (selection)

Non-fiction

• 1916: Rohbari najot
• 1916: Oila
• 1919: Sharq siyosati
• 1926: Adabiyot qoidalari
• 1927: Eng eski turkiy adabiyot namunalari
• 1927: Eski maktablarni nima qilish kerak?
• 1927: Oʻzbek classic musiqasi va uning tarixi
• 1928: Oʻzbek adabiyoti namunalari
• 1929: Fors shoiri Umar Hayyom
• 1929: Chigʻatoy adabiyati
• 1934: Abulqosim Firdavsiy

Dramatic works

• 1911: Munozara
• 1911/12: Bayonoti sayyohi hindi
• 1916: Begijon
• 1916: Abu Muslim
• after 1917: Muqaddas qon
• 1918: Temurning sogʻonasi
• 1920: Chin sevish
• 1923: Hind ixtilolchilari
• first in 1923: Qiyomat
• 1923: Bedil
• 1924: Shaytonning tangriga isyoni
• 1924: Abulfayzxon
• 1926: Arslon
• 1927: Isyoni Vose
• 1934: To'lqin

literature

• Edward A. Allworth : Uzbek Literary Politics . Mouton & Co., London / The Hague / Paris 1964.
• Edward A. Allworth: The Modern Uzbeks. From the Fourteenth Century to the Present. A cultural history . Hoover Institution Press, Stanford 1990, ISBN 0-8179-8731-2 .
• Edward A. Allworth: The Preoccupations of ʿAbdalrauf Fitrat. Bukharan nonconformist: an analysis and list of his writings . The Arab. Book, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-86093-268-3 . (ANOR; Volume 7)
• Edward A. Allworth: Evading Reality. The Devices of ʿAbdalrauf Fitrat, modern Central Asian reformist . Brill, Leiden / Boston / Cologne 2002, ISBN 90-04-12516-7 ; ISSN  1566-7162 (Brill's Inner Asian Library; Volume 4)
• Habib Borjian: Feṭrat, ʿAbd-al-Raʾūf Boḵārī . In: Encyclopædia Iranica ; Volume 9: Ethé – Fish. Routledge, London / New York 1999, ISBN 0-933273-35-5 , pp. 564-567.
• Hélène Carrère d'Encausse : Fiṭrat, ʿAbd al-Raʾūf . In: The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition ; Volume 2: C-G. Brill, Leiden 1965, ISBN 90-04-07026-5 , pp. 932f.
• William Fierman : Language Planning and National Development. The Uzbek Experience . Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1991, ISBN 3-11-012454-8 . ( Contributions to the sociology of languages , Volume 60)
• Adeeb Khalid : The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform. Jadidism in Central Asia . University of California Press, Berkeley CA et al. a. 1998, ISBN 0-520-21356-4 . (Comparative studies on Muslim societies; Volume 27)
• Sigrid Kleinmichel: A departure from oriental poetry traditions. Studies of Uzbek drama and prose between 1910 and 1934 . Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest 1993, ISBN 963-05-6316-9 . (Bibliotheca orientalis hungarica; Volume 39)
• Sigrid Kleinmichel: The Uzbek short story writer Fiṭrat's adaption of religious traditions . In: Glenda Abramson, Hilary Kilpatrick (Eds.): Religious Perspectives in Modern Muslim and Jewish Literatures. Routledge, New York 2006, ISBN 0-415-35021-2 , pp. 121-133. (Curzon studies in Arabic and Middle-Eastern literatures; Volume 8)
• Charles Kurzman (Ed.): Modernist Islam, 1840-1940. A sourcebook. Oxford University Press, New York 2002, ISBN 0-19-515468-1 .

Web links

Commons : Abdurauf Fitrat  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Abdurauf Fitrat in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Allworth 2002, p. 359.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x} Borjian 1999, pp. 564-567
3. ↑ ^{a b} Allworth 2000, p. 7
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Rustam Shukurov, Muḣammadjon Shukurov, Edward A. Allworth (eds.); Sharif Jan Makhdum Sadr Ziyaʼ: The personal history of a Bukharan intellectual: the diary of Muḥammad- Sh arīf-i Ṣadr-i Ẕiya . Brill; Leiden 2004, ISBN 90-04-13161-2 (Brill's Inner Asian Library; Volume 9) ; P. 323
5. ↑ Allworth 2000, p. 6
6. ↑ Allworth 2000, p. 6f
7. ↑ ^{a b} Allworth 2000, p. 13.
8. ↑ Allworth 2000, p. 8
9. ↑ Khalid 1998, p. 111
10. ↑ Allworth 2000, p. 10
11. ↑ Allworth 2000, p. 12.
12. ↑ ^{a b} Khalid 1998, p. 108.
13. ↑ ^{a b c} Khalid 1998, p. 111f
14. ↑ Allworth 2000, p. 21
15. ↑ ^{a b c} Kleinmichel 1993, p. 30
16. ↑ Allworth 1990, p. 144
17. ↑ Allworth 1990, p. 145
18. ↑ Kleinmichel 1993, p. 33
19. ↑ Dilorom Alimova: The Turkestan Jadids' Conception of Muslim Culture . In: Gabriele Rasuly-Paleczek, Julia Katschnig (Ed.): Central Asia on Display. Proceedings of the VII. Conference of the European Society for Central Asian Studies; Volume 2 (pp. 143–147; from the Russian by Kirill F. Kuzmin and Sebastian Stride). LIT; Münster 2005, ISBN 3-8258-8586-0 (Vienna Central Asian Studies) ; P. 145
20. ↑ Sherali Turdiev: The Activity of Turkestani Jadids as Reflected in the Records of the Tsarist Secret Police (1905-1907) . In: Gabriele Rasuly-Paleczek, Julia Katschnig (Ed.): Central Asia on Display. Proceedings of the VII. Conference of the European Society for Central Asian Studies; Volume 2 (pp. 148-154). LIT; Münster 2005, ISBN 3-8258-8586-0 (Vienna Central Asian Studies) ; P. 152f
21. ↑ Allworth 2000, p. 35
22. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Khalid 1998, p. 291f
23. ↑ ^{a b c} Allworth 1990, p. 301
24. ^ ^{A b} Edward A. Allworth: The Changing Intellectual and Literary Community . In: Edward A. Allworth (Ed.): Central Asia, 120 Years of Russian Rule (pp. 349-396). Duke University Press; Durham, London 1989, ISBN 0-8223-0912-2 ; P. 371
25. ↑ Allworth 1990, p. 151
26. ↑ Allworth 1990, p. 174
27. ↑ ^{a b} Khalid 1998, p. 293f
28. ↑ Allworth 1990, p. 163
29. ↑ Kleinmichel 1993, pp. 155f
30. ↑ ^{a b} Allworth 2000, p. 14
31. ^ Hélène Carrère d'Encausse: The National Republics Lose Their Independence . In: Edward A. Allworth (Ed.): Central Asia, 120 Years of Russian Rule (pp. 254-265). Duke University Press; Durham, London 1989, ISBN 0-8223-0912-2 ; P. 255
32. ↑ Allworth 1990, p. 217
33. ↑ ^{a b} Allworth 2000, p. 15
34. ↑ ^{a b c d} Allworth 2000, p. 17
35. ↑ Allworth 2002, p. 176
36. ↑ ^{a b c d} Carrère d'Encausse 1965, pp. 932f
37. ^ ^{A b c} Edward A. Allworth: Fitrat, Abdalrauf (Abdurauf) . In: Steven Serafin: Encyclopedia of World Literature in the 20th Century: EK (pp. 119f). St. James Press; 1999, ISBN 1-55862-375-2 ; P. 119
38. ↑ ^{a b} Allworth 2000, p. 18
39. ↑ Allworth 2002, p. 16
40. ↑ Allworth 1990, p. 226
41. ↑ ^{a b} Allworth 2000, p. 26
42. ↑ Kleinmichel 2006, p. 130; Allworth 2002, p. 32f
43. ↑ ^{a b} Kleinmichel 2006, p. 128
44. ↑ Allworth 2002, p. 31
45. ↑ Allworth 1990, p. 229.
46. ↑ ^{a b c} Shawn T. Lyons: Abdurauf Fitrat's Modern Bukharan Tragedy . In: Choi Han-woo (Ed.): International Journal of Central Asian Studies ; Volume 5 (PDF; 179 kB). The International Association of Central Asian Studies, 2000, ISSN  1226-4490 .
47. ^ Edward A. Allworth: The Changing Intellectual and Literary Community . In: Edward A. Allworth (Ed.): Central Asia, 120 Years of Russian Rule (pp. 349-396). Duke University Press; Durham, London 1989, ISBN 0-8223-0912-2 ; P. 390
48. ↑ Kleinmichel 1993, p. 16f
49. ↑ ^{a b c d} Bert G. Fragner: Traces of Modernization and Westernization? Some Comparative Considerations concerning Late Bukhāran Cronicles . In: Hermann Landolt, Todd Lawson (Eds.): Reason and Inspiration in Islam: Theology, Philosophy and Mysticism in Muslim Thought. Essays in Honor of Hermann Landolt (pp. 542-565). IB Tauris; New York 2005, ISBN 1-85043-470-0 ; P. 555
50. ↑ Kleinmichel 1993, p. 132
51. ↑ Kleinmichel 2006, p. 128f
52. ↑ Kleinmichel 1993, p. 144
53. ^ The Bukhara Museum: Abdurauf Fitrat Memorial Museum . Retrieved March 18, 2011
54. ^ ^{A b} Hélène Carrère d'Encausse: Social and Political Reform . In: Edward A. Allworth (Ed.): Central Asia, 120 Years of Russian Rule (pp. 189-206). Duke University Press; Durham, London 1989, ISBN 0-8223-0912-2 ; P. 205
55. ↑ Khalid 1998, p. 145
56. ↑ Allworth 2002, p. 55
57. ^ Edward A. Allworth: The Focus of Literature . In: Edward A. Allworth (Ed.): Central Asia, 120 Years of Russian Rule (pp. 189-206). Duke University Press; Durham, London 1989, ISBN 0-8223-0912-2 ; P. 425
58. ↑ Khalid 1998, p. 110
59. ^ Hélène Carrère d'Encausse: Social and Political Reform . In: Edward A. Allworth (Ed.): Central Asia, 120 Years of Russian Rule (pp. 189-206). Duke University Press; Durham, London 1989, ISBN 0-8223-0912-2 ; P. 206
60. ↑ Kleinmichel 1993, p. 199
61. ↑ Kleinmichel 1993, pp. 145f
62. ↑ Allworth 2002, p. 28
63. ↑ Kleinmichel 1993, p. 146
64. ↑ Allworth 2000, pp. 29-33
65. ↑ Allworth 2000, p. 23, p. 30
66. ↑ Allworth 2000, p. 23f
67. ↑ Allworth 2000, p. 24
68. ↑ Allworth 2000, pp. 33-35
69. ↑ Allworth 2000, pp. 20f
70. ↑ Allworth 2002, p. 357
71. ↑ Allworth 2000, pp. 44-68
72. ↑ Allworth 2002, pp. 6-10
73. ↑ Fierman 1991, p. 73
74. ↑ Allworth 2002, p. 107
75. ↑ Fierman 1991, p. 153
76. ↑ Fierman 1991, p. 63, p. 65
77. ↑ Fierman 1991, pp. 67f
78. ↑ Allworth 2002, p. 105
79. ↑ ^{a b} Khalid 1998, p. 175
80. ↑ Khalid 1998, pp. 226f
81. ↑ Khalid 1998, p. 174
82. ↑ Reinhard Eisener: On the trail of Tajik nationalism . The Arab. Buch, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-86093-000-1 (ethnicity and society occasional papers; Volume 30) ; P. 18
83. ↑ Allworth 2000, p. 16; Allworth 1990, p. 226
84. ↑ Allworth 2000, pp. 27f
85. ↑ Allworth 2002, p. 189
86. ↑ Allworth 2002, p. 24f, p. 358
87. ↑ Allworth 2002, pp. 19f
88. ↑ Turaj Atabaki: Enlightening the People: The Practice of Modernity in Central Asia and its Trans-Caspian Dependencies . In: Gabriele Rasuly-Paleczek, Julia Katschnig (Ed.): Central Asia on Display. Proceedings of the VII. Conference of the European Society for Central Asian Studies; Volume 2 (pp. 171-182). LIT; Münster 2005, ISBN 3-8258-8586-0 (Vienna Central Asian Studies) ; P. 173
89. ↑ Allworth 2002, p. 14
90. ↑ ^{a b} Kleinmichel 1993, p. 31f
91. ↑ Turaj Atabaki: Enlightening the People: The Practice of Modernity in Central Asia and its Trans-Caspian Dependencies . In: Gabriele Rasuly-Paleczek, Julia Katschnig (Ed.): Central Asia on Display. Proceedings of the VII. Conference of the European Society for Central Asian Studies; Volume 2 (pp. 171-182). LIT; Münster 2005, ISBN 3-8258-8586-0 (Vienna Central Asian Studies) ; P. 175f
92. ↑ Allworth 2002, p. 25, p. 30, p. 37
93. ↑ ^{a b} Allworth 2002, pp. 120f
94. ↑ Allworth 2002, p. 179
95. ↑ Allworth 2002, pp. 186f
96. ↑ Allworth 2002, pp. 190f
97. ↑ Kleinmichel 1993, p. 95
98. ↑ Kleinmichel 1993, pp. 103f
99. ↑ Allworth 2002, pp. 20-22
100. ↑ Kleinmichel 1993, p. 104
101. ↑ Kleinmichel 1993, pp. 114-118; Allworth 2002, pp. 41-58
102. ↑ Allworth 2002, p. 38
103. ↑ Kleinmichel 1993, pp. 119-123
104. ↑ Allworth 2002, p. 55, p. 57
105. ↑ Allworth 2002, pp. 114f

^NoteIn this article, the modern Uzbek Latin script is used for the names of Turkestan people and the titles of their works . Various Arabic scripts, Cyrillic and Latin alphabets are used as original spellings; There are sometimes large differences between the Latin transcriptions of these alphabets.

This article was added to the list of excellent articles on August 31, 2011 in this version .