The Imperialist Revolution in Bukhara

THE IMPERIALIST REVOLUTION IN BUKHARA Muhammadjon Shakuri Bukhara’i Edited by Payvand Gulmurodzoda Introduced by Payvand Gulmurodzoda and Abdunnabi Sattorzoda Translated by Anvar Shukurov and Bahriddin Alizoda Dushanbe Shujaiyan 2013 BBK 63.3 (2 Tajik)+83.3 (2 Tajik) Sh – 20 Muhammadjon Shakuri Bukhara’i. The Imperialist Revolution in Bukhara. Dushanbe: Shujaiyan, 2013. 79 pages. The last book by the eminent scholar Academician Muhammad- Deleted: renowned jon Shakuri Bukhara’i (1926–2012), The Imperialist Revolution in Bukhara represents a new look at the contradictory, crucial, and destructive events that took place at the beginning of the 20th century. Based on published and archival documents, val- uably enhanced by his own reminiscences and experiences, it endeavours to break stereotypical thinking about what is known as the Bukharan revolution of 1920 and events that followed. ISBN 978-99947-69-25-4 © M. Shakuri (M. Shukurov), 2013 English translation © A. Shukurov, 2013 Deleted: Translation copy- right ii CONTENTS P. Gulmurodzoda, A painful and bitter story from not-so-distant past iv Deleted: a A. Sattorzoda, The shade and light of the ‘Bukharan revolution’ xi Deleted: d Translator’s foreword to the English edition xxii Field Code Changed List of maps xxiv Field Code Changed List of illustrations xxv Field Code Changed Chapter 1 1 Deleted: xxi Chapter 2 2 Chapter 3 4 Deleted: xxii Chapter 4 9 Deleted: xxiii Chapter 5 11 Field Code Changed Chapter 6 21 Field Code Changed Chapter 7 23 Field Code Changed Chapter 8 25 Field Code Changed Chapter 9 27 Field Code Changed Chapter 10 31 Field Code Changed Chapter 11 33 Field Code Changed Chapter 12 38 Chapter 13 42 Field Code Changed Chapter 14 45 Field Code Changed Chapter 15 68 Field Code Changed Field Code Changed Field Code Changed Field Code Changed Field Code Changed Field Code Changed iii A PAINFUL AND BITTER STORY FROM A NOT-SO-DISTANT PAST Some time ago, our interpretation of the recent events of our history was that of a brilliant page of the Tajik people’s past and our ancestor’ lives were considered to be a period of dark- ness and gloom. On the one hand, we were proud and boasted about our great peoples’ services and hardships. On the other hand, however, we threw stones of disdain at them. All of the achievements and successes are considered to be due to the re- muneration of the October Revolution and the prosperity of the Soviet era, which, in fact, brought forth significant progress and changes in the social life of the Tajik people. After a millenni- um of statelessness, history granted us an independent state and established a state by the name of Tajikistan on the map of the world. It laid a solid foundation for the revival and development of our science and education, and our ancient literature and culture that our grateful people never forget and scholars working in various fields always speak about in their works. An opportunity to cast a fresh, new glance appeared in our history upon gaining independence and caused us to speak not only about our gains, but also about our losses during the Soviet period. Furthermore, it allowed us to recall the flaws and shortcomings of our not-so-distant past and to ask, “What is the value of all these achievements?” Academician Muhammadjon Shakuri Bukhara’i is one of the first scholars who regularly discussed this issue in his writ- ings during recent years and who tried to find an answer to those still unanswered questions. He published a book every year following the independence, and those provide a new look at important issues of the Tajik people’s science, education, literature, culture, and history. Every one of them is a painful story about history, particularly during the last one hundred or two hundred years. Again, in 1997, in his book This is Horasan, he deliberated about important issues such as intellectual values and national revival, cultural essence during the era of globali- zation, independence, and the social and moral self- consciousness of the Tajik people that our famous poet Loiq in “Entry into the World of this Book” emphasized with his unique emotion and a rapture, as well as a subtle opinion: iv Oh, if we knew all of these. If we thought highly about the deep agonies and valiant actions of Ahmad Donish! If we appreciated greatly the heroism of Allomah1 Sadriddin Ayni, who calls the Tajik people “a great nation” and proves their standing through his scholarly research and singular poetry and prose! After him, until today, we have not added any greatness to the grandeur of this people. Muhammadjon Shakuri courageously and reasonably took every effort to write the book that you hold in your hands. But, because in the course of over three thousand years our nation did not learn sufficient or ample lessons from the mythologies of ancient Iran, the Avesta, the Ko- ran, or from all of the books on philosophy, records of war, poetry and prose, scientific and historical works, or it forgot them, or did not apply them, and sometimes its progress regressed, because of that lacuna, Shakuri felt the need to write this kind of a book . Shakuri, a generous and virtuous man, is one of the selfless persons in the field of Tajik civilization and culture who saw with his own eyes the burning of books, the curling smoke of the conflagration (namely, the painful sigh of the Tajik people!), the plundering of the libraries of Bukhara, including the library of his father Sharifjon Makhdum Sadri Ziyo where Sadriddin Ayni had breathed “the dust of an inn” during seventy years of his life and fifty years of writing and suffering from hearing the laud- atory words of rulers high and low. He saw the unprinci- pled nature of the people and the times with his own eyes, and the Tajiks of Bukhara officially becoming Uzbeks. He felt the humiliation of every syllable, every word, and every phrase of the Tajik language, and in the book Every Word has its Place and Every Point has its Position ex- pressed his intention to purify the language and clarify writing with the tip of his pen. He is a man whom I be- lieve clenched his teeth, breathed the lantern’s smoke, and while composing the present book burned within himself over every sentence, every phrase, every thought, and every point, and, again, went on to continue another sentence, another hypothesis or opinion, and like the Phoenix from its ashes, he rose to life again and strove to fly to the space of a higher subject and purpose. He is a man who cut from the day and sewed it to the night and made his nights longer and broader out of the cloak of his patriotic and cultural thoughts. He is a man who seems born to burn, to burn only for the benefit of the people, the homeland, the word, intellectual values, identity, spir- ituality, that is, entirely for the integrity and unity of his lost and unknown nation. He is a man who today is stand- 1 Said Nafisi was the first to call him Allomah Sadriddin Ayni (the learned Sadriddin Ayni) in his article “The Pure Country of My Ancestors.” v ing firm as a rock in our culturally purposeless and col- ourless environment. He is a man who goes to work and returns home walking through the dirty, barren streets of today’s Dushanbe with a cast down head, but with a sack full of high thoughts and dignity, and who says in his heart, “I have a God too!” He is a man who sees beggars for bread in the street who extend their hands toward him, but the spiritually indigent request nothing from him and do not even know that they are poor in spirit. He is a man who believes in the perfection of the national faith, cour- age, dignity, self-awareness, self-consciousness, and in those of his nation who raise their heads to heaven. He still has faith in the connection between nations with common roots and their three-part language. After the world famous morals and instructions given by Rudaki, Ferdowsi, Mawlavi, Sa’di, Hafiz, Ahmad Donish, and others, he also admonishes his people, you, and me to be our own masters. It is as if he is reciting this simple verse to me: Deleted: for Once you are not the master of your own language, You will not become the master of your own world!2 He is a man who always considers the sun as proof of the sun and repeatedly calls us to return to the shining resi- dence of coming back to the Self. He wants to return the Deleted: with him lost water to the stream, and he repeatedly emphasizes that if we fall from the horse, we should not fall from our origin….” What interesting discoveries our great poet has made! We see that even today, on the eve of his 85th year, and having gradual- ly placed the nation’s pains and sufferings on paper while using his small and large microscopes to spy on history’s pages, Shakuri has warned us not to be ignorant of history’s games. “Long after the demise of the Samanid state and over the course of centuries, the Turks and Mongols conquered the Tajik people and oppressed them. The Tajik people have lost an enormous amount in lives and material. The Mongol conquest was a campaign for killing Tajiks. That ‘campaign’ continued through Timur’s reign and after the fifteenth century.

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