Mahmudxoʻja Behbudiy

Mahmudxoʻja Behbudiy ( Cyrillic Маҳмудхўжа Беҳбудий; in Arabic script محمود خواجه بهبودی, DMG Maḥmūd Ḫwāǧa Beḥbūdī ; Russian Махмудходжа Бехбуди Machmudchodscha Bechbudi ; born as Machmud Chodscha ibn Behbud Chodscha ; * 1874 ; † March 1919 in Qarshi ) was a Jadidist writer from what was then Turkestan in what is now Uzbekistan . He was the most prominent and most respected representative of the jadidism that emerged in Central Asia at the turn of the 20th century before the October Revolution .

Life

Behbudiy came from the old cultural elite of Turkestan: His father was a judge ( Qādī ) in a village near Samarkand . Behbudiy was taught at a madrasa college . When his father died, at the age of twenty, Behbudiy was forced to work as a clerk for an uncle, who was also a qadi. Behbudiy eventually became Qādī himself and served as a Mufti in Samarkand.

In 1899, Behbudiy set out from Samarkand on an eight-month trip to Istanbul , Cairo and Mecca , which was to mark a turning point in his life. On this trip he observed the current developments in the education sector in the Ottoman Empire and Egypt and came into contact with the leaders of the cultural reform movements. When he returned, he subscribed to the Tercuman newspaper by the Crimean Tatar reformer İsmail Gazprinski . In accordance with the Tatar zeitgeist, he changed his name from ibn Behbud Chodscha to Behbudiy .

Title page of the first edition of Oyina

Behbudiys first own publication, an essay in the newspaper was Turkiston viloyatining Gazeti in 1902. He supported a school where after Gasprinskis teaching methods literature was taught. Over the years Behbudiy wrote about the "schools of the new method" and published a newspaper ( Samarqand ) and a magazine ( Oyina ). Oyina contains, according to the Turkish-language label, Turkish and Persian texts, and according to Russian labels , Uzbek and Persian texts . His theoretical writings were later considered standard works and elementary books.

Behbudiys literary circle also included Saidahmad Siddiqiy , Abduqodir Shakuriy and Hodschij Muin . He became the first playwright in Central Asia when his work Padarkush was first performed in Samarkand in 1913. Padarkush yohud oʻqimagan bolaning holi (“the parricide or what happens to a son who has learned nothing”; subtitle: “first national tragedy from the life of Turkestan in 3 lifts and 4 pictures”) was important as the work was done by the population In contrast to Tatar guest performances, it was popular with the Turkestan population because the piece represented their own life.

In 1914, Behbudiy opened a bookstore, in which works from the entire Islamic world - in Tatar , Ottoman , Arabic and Persian languages as well as on historical, geographical, general scientific, medical and religious topics, including dictionaries, atlases and diagrams - were collected. Since there were many Ottoman and Tatar translations of European works among them, thus giving the Central Asians a glimpse of Europe, Behbudiy said that anyone who knows Turkish knows the world. Until his death he called on his compatriots to wake up "from the sleep of ignorance" and to acquire the knowledge that the new age presupposed.

When a first executive committee was formed on March 5, 1917 after the February Revolution in Samarkand, Behbudiy was one of two Muslim members. In the dispute over the question of territorial autonomy for Turkestan, Behbudiy spoke out in favor of it, in contrast to most of the Jadidists, who feared too great an influence of the ulama as a result.

In March 1919 Behbudiy, like almost all other important representatives later, was the first jadidist to be killed. He was tortured to death by officials of the Emir of Bukhara in Qarshi after they arrested him while traveling through the emirate. Behbudiy was probably on the way to the Paris Peace Conference . Hodschij Muin published Behbudiys political testament, which contains a request to continue his work in the field of popular education.

In honor of Behbudiy, the city of Qarshi was named after him from 1922 to 1937.

literature

• Marianne Kamp: The New Woman in Uzbekistan. Islam, Modernity, and Unveiling under Communism . University of Washington Press, Seattle & London 2006. ISBN 978-0-295-98644-9
• Adeeb Khalid : The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform. Jadidism in Central Asia . University of California Press, Berkeley & Los Angeles 1998. ISBN 0-520-21356-4
• 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

Individual evidence

1. ^ Khalid: pp. 81, 94
2. ↑ ^{a b} Khalid: p. 80
3. ^ Khalid: p. 214
4. ↑ Kleinmichel: p. 30
5. ^ Khalid: p. 109
6. ^ Khalid: p. 250
7. ^ Khalid: p. 258
8. ^ Khalid: p. 300
9. ↑ Kleinmichel: p. 33
10. ↑ Karschi on tourism.uz