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The Beginnings of the Modern Turkestanian Theater

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Edward Allworth
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Extract

The pre-Soviet introduction of modern Turkestanian theater, long flatly denied by Communist officials, gave vigorous expression to social and political ideas current among local groups of enlightened private citizens in Western Turkestan just before the outbreak of the First World War. The innovation also strongly affected developments in the state-sponsored dramaturgy which appeared later. This new theater, differing radically from the old folk art, was inaugurated before a responsive audience at Samarkand early in 1914 with a performance of Mahmud Khoja Behbudiy's Padarkush (“The Parricide“).

Padarkush presents the spectacle of a father's willful refusal, despite repeated warnings, to meet specific religious and social obligations by giving his illiterate, adolescent son an education. This fatal error inevitably leads to the parent's violent death and the destruction of his family.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , December 1964 , pp. 676 - 687
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1963

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References

1 Western Turkestan, or Russian Turkestan, was approximately coextensive with today's Soviet Central Asia and Kazakhstan. “Turkestan” as used in the twentieth century by inhabitants of Khokand, Samarkand, or Tashkent usually comprised Western Turkestan less the Emirate of Bukhara and the Khanate of Khiva. The Turkic and Persian languages of the area were referred to by local intellectuals as “Turki” and “Farsi.” They did not then conventionally employ the present linguistic or political distinctions (Kazakh, Tajik, Uzbek, etc.). The attributives “modern” or “new” are used in this article to designate theater resembling the European stage art of this century, as distinct from the old religious mystery known in Persia and Azerbaijan and the popular theatricals seen throughout the Near and Middle East as well as Western Turkestan before the “modern” theater was adopted in the area.

2 I. Trainin, an important spokesman for early Soviet nationality policies and author of many works on the subject, wrote that the Uzbeks and other Turkestanians “knew nothing of the theater” before 1917. See , No. 9 (15) (May 5, 1922), p. 3. Similar misinformation later appeared repeatedly in the Soviet press in connection with the theater in Western Turkestan.

3 Padarkush, subtitled Oqumagan balaning hali (“The Situation of the Uneducated Child“), was published by Behbudiy in Samarkand. It was printed in the Arabic script by the Tipo-litografiia T-va B. Gazarov i K. Sliianov in 1913. On the title page the author described his play as “an edifying example taken from contemporary Turkestan life.“ Although Padarkush was the earliest Turkestanian play to see the stage, it was not the first to be published. A drama by Shashudilin entitled Mahramlar (“Those Who May Not Marry One Another“) was published in Namangan by the Tipografiia Ishakiya in 1912 “in the Sart [Russian designation for Uzbek] dialect.” See , No. 3 (Jan. 19, 1913), entry No. 2388, p. 24.

4 Behbudiy, Mahmud Khoja, Padarkush, pp. 16–17Google Scholar.

5 Khoja, Mahmud (Behbudiy), “Tiyatr nadur?,” Ayina, No. 29 (May 10, 1914), pp. 550–51Google Scholar.

6 (later retitled (Moscow, 1934), p. 3; , II (Moscow, 1946), 291.

7 More than thirty years after Padarkush came out, scholars conducting field research in the Farghana Valley around Marghilan, Farghana, Assake (Leninsk), Andijan, and Khokand found a still-vigorous qoghirchaq (puppet) theater, and were also able to collect oral texts for many of the ribald plays from the repertoires of various qiziqchis (comedians) whose troupes had improvised or performed them from memory. See , I (1937), 163-64. The performance of the askiyachi (a wit), which is occasionally reflected in modern Uzbek literature, has continued to the present time in the Farghana Valley, notably on the vaudeville stage or at special occasions such as the anniversary celebration for the Russian (Bolshevik) Revolution held in 1960 at Khokand, where a “gala evening” was organized with the participation of a good many askiyachis from surrounding regions. See Rasul, Muhammadiev, Askiya (Tashkent, 1962), p. 58 Google Scholar.

8 Ozbekistan SSR tarikhi, I, Book 2 (Tashkent, 1957), p. 368.

9 Duncan B., MacDonald, “Emotional Religion and Islam as Affected by Music and Singing,” trans, from “Ihya ‘Ulum al-Din” by al-Ghazzali, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain ajid Ireland, No. 53 (N.S. 33) (Apr., 1901), pp. 211–12 ffGoogle Scholar.

10 Al-Islah, No. 21 (Tashkent), Nov. 15, 1915, cited by (Tashkent, 1960), p. 71.

11 op. cit., p. 203.

12 Mirzä Fätäli Akhundzadä, “Mirzä Aghanϊ'n pyesläri haggϊnda kritika, ” Mirzä Fätäli Akhundov äsärläri, II (Baku, 1961), 233. For other information regarding Akhundzade's contribution to the Turkic theater, see Brands, Horst Wilfrid, Azerbaidschanisches Volksleben und modernistische tendenz in den Schauspielen Mirzä Feth ‘AH Ah∨undzäde's (1812- 1878) (The Hague : Mouton; Wiesbaden : Harrassowitz, 1958)Google Scholar.

13 Namik Kemal (preface to his drama) Celaleddin Harzemşah, cited by Nihad Sami Banarh, Resimli Türk Edebiyat Tarihi (n.p., ca. 1948), p. 260.

14 op. cit., p. 29.

15 “Samarqanda tiyatr,” Ayina, No. 15 (Feb. 1, 1914), p . 263.

16 (3rd ed., supplemented; Tashkent, 1908), p. 73. Kulub is the Turkicized form of the English “club” taken through the Russian klub

17 Mahmud Khoja Behbudiy, Padarkush, p. 1.

18 Ilmiy asarlar, Orta Asiya Dawlat Universiteti, LVII (1954), 86.

19 “Turkistanda birinchi milliy tiyatr, ” Ayina, No. 14 (Jan. 25, 1914), pp. 227-30.

20 “Hisab, ” Ayina, No. 21 (Mar. 15, 1914), pp. 300-301.

21 See “Matbu'at wa islah, ” al-Islah, No. 6 (Apr. 16, 1915), pp. 320-23. These periodicals appeared mainly in “Turki” (Uzbek) but included considerable material in Arabic and Persian as well.

22 Stephen, Graham, Through Russian Central Asia (London : Casell, 1916, p. 61 Google Scholar.