What explains the success of O’tgan Kunlar among the intelligentsia? How did Qodiriy influence the Uzbek literary school? Great question. I think O’tgan Kunlar is well known primarily among the intelligentsia. Everyone knows the novel—just as, maybe, most American children know Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. It is taught in schools throughout Uzbekistan, but it really takes a specialist to capture the aspects of the novel that go deeper than the romantic love between Otabek and Kumush.
Many descendants of the Jadids are still alive today. Khonadmir Qodiriy still lives in his grandfather Abdulla’s home. Among the descendants of reformers— historians, actors and actresses who knew Cholpan and acted out Othello for audiences in Tashkent in the 1920s—can be counted patrons of the arts in Uzbekistan. In Kokand, the son and grandson of Abidjanov, who established the first printing press in that city and agitated for the Kokand Autonomous Republic, are both alive and well.
In many senses, the intellectual elite of all former Soviet republics—both descendants of the Jadids and otherwise—found themselves engaged in an extremely dangerous balancing act.
The tragedies of Soviet history were still very much a part of collective memory. Bad things could happen to good people. Most of the young people in the states of the former Soviet Union only know these moments of pain through history books, but their ancestors paid a very real price to maintain a system as interlocutors and intermediaries in a game that was often zero-sum. In many respects, the Jadids are symbolic of the first generation of Central Asians to articulate that pain. I therefore view the Jadids as one of the many groups of intellectuals that paid the ultimate price for the free expression of ideas. In Qodiriy’s case, he set the benchmark for Uzbek literature and standardized Uzbek prose for the generations to follow.
Miniatures by Kamollidin Mirzaev and Qahramon Shoislomov. Copyright protected, not for reproduction or distribution Otabek and Qumush meet
Death of Otabek
What difficulties (if any) did you face in translating O’tgan Kunlar? Did you receive any support? How do you like the film versions of the book produced during the Soviet era and during independence? I honestly think that I must be mentally ill to have pursued this project for so long…The language is dense and archaic, for one. Qodiriy himself admits that he is experimenting with a new medium; in the prologue and a note just before Volume Two titled “Apologies,” he even apologizes for his mistakes and the delay in producing Volumes Two and Three. So on a technical level, the opaque language used is a real pain to put into the proper context and intent of the author.
The translator Edith Grossman, who rendered the definitive translations of Don Quixote and Gabriel García Márquez’s novels into English, really helped me out in terms of translation theory: Read the book, get a sense of the story, but more importantly know when to “break the rules.” A translator has to sort of retell the story in the spirit of the author. If you don’t know the author’s culture or mindset, you are lost. I’ve seen attempts by Westerners to translate snippets of the novel, and they all try to create a majestic Shakespearean language. That’s a mistake, really. Qodiriy was first and foremost a humorist: he tried to capture both common language on the street and the irony of court life. He was a modernist and a realist—if I can use those terms—and he wanted to create something that encapsulated the loss of all aspects of Central Asian culture. So a translator has to capture that spirit but know when to break the rules and when to follow them!
In terms of help: dozens and dozens of people have helped me over the past 15 years—some wittingly and some unwittingly—and some represent a cautionary tale. I am grateful to all of those who rendered aid. The book will have a huge acknowledgements page, but for now, the two editors— Umida Khikmatellaeva and Umida Hashimova—are first and foremost in my mind for immediate thanks. They held different roles as editors. Umida Khikmatellaeva worked with me from the very beginning, even giving me grammar lessons in Tashkent in 2002; she has been the Oi Mullah of the project, offering advice and corrections. She is an institution and has helped legions of students over the years. Umida Hashimova has a genuinely scary level of persistence and talent. She would be the female Yigit of the project.
You must always, always, always take an “inside out” view of translation or any research. You must always remain humble about and suspicious of your work.
Instead of viewing Qodiriy and O’tgan Kunlar the way I want to see them, I need to place greater weight on how Uzbeks see them. That is the great challenge.
