Theme: uzbek writers

Independence And Beyond

The Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991 and Uzbekistan’s subsequent independence transformed the Uzbek literary landscape. The literature written but banned by the Soviets (e.g., Fitrat’s plays, Cholpán’s novels) became widely available, but the independent press that had existed for a short time in the late 1980s vanished: newspapers were banned and their editors-in-chief put into prison or exiled. Soviet-style censorship became widely applied, and a number of prominent writers were arrested and tortured (e.g., Mamadali Mahmudov, Emin Usmon, Yusuf Jumaev, Muhammad Salih, and Safar Bekjon). Some, such as Usmon, died in prison.

Uzbek authors and critics were forced to engage in a serious debate as to what Uzbek literature should be. Demoralized by the repressive measures being used in independent Uzbekistan, they argued about possible ways out of the post-Soviet chaos. Links to past literary styles and themes remained very strong throughout the 1990s, and the habits of Socialist Realism proved hard to shake, especially in the novel. One group of writers (Abdulla Aripov, Erkin Vahidov, Adil Yakubov, Said Ahmad, and Utkir Hashimov) in order to survive began to praise the country’s president, Islam Karimov, in their poems and articles, and very soon three of these writers (Aripov, Vahidov, and Ahmad) were named Heroes of Uzbekistan, the country’s highest award.

Most of the best work published in the postindependence period was in prose. Toghay Murad’s lyrical novel Otamdam qolgan dalalar (1994; “Fields Which Remained from My Father”) describes the 19th-century Russian invasion of Central Asia. Tohir Malik’s novel Shaytanat (1992–96; “Devilry”) was read by Uzbeks with great interest, because many saw their local political leaders (so-called “new Uzbeks”), whom they thought to be behaving like criminals, as the “heroes” of this novel.