THOMAS LOY

BERLIN HUMBOLDT UNIVERSITY, DEPARTMENT OF CENTRAL ASIAN STUDIES

RISE AND FALL: BUKHARAN JEWISH LITERATURE

OF THE 1920S AND 1930S

RÉSUMÉ
Dans cet article je suivis les traces de la littérature juive de Boukhara et des
littéraires dans la première période soviétique. Avec d’autres activités culturelles
séculaires, la langue et la littérature juives de Boukhara – poésie, prose et drames –
étaient fortement soutenues et utilisées par les organismes d’état comme un moyen
de propagation de l’idéologie soviétique. A partir de la moitié des années ’20 et
jusqu’à la fin des années ’30, dans l’Ouzbek SSR furent imprimés différents
journaux et livres dans la langue des Juifs de Boukhara, et le nombre d’auteurs
augmenta vite. Beaucoup des matériaux et des publications présentés ici n’ont pas
été discutés auparavant jusqu’à ce qu’on n’arrêta en Union Soviétique la publication
et l’enseignement en judéo-tadjique / bouxori, et que la langue même ne fut déclarée
un dialecte du tadjique.
Mots-clés : Juifs de Boukhara, Asie Centrale, Union Soviétique, poésie, prose,
Almanax-i adabiët-i nafis-i yahudiho-yi mahali

ABSTRACT
In this article I follow the traces of Bukharan Jewish literature and literati in the
early Soviet period. Along with other secular cultural activities, Bukharan Jewish
language and literature – poetry, prose and plays – were heavily supported and used
by the state organs as a vehicle for propagating Soviet ideology. From the mid-
1920s until the late 1930s various newspapers and books in the language of the
Bukharan Jews were printed in the Uzbek SSR, and the number of authors grew
rapidly. Many of the materials and publications presented here have not been
discussed since publishing and teaching in Judeo-Tajik / Buxori was stopped in the
Soviet Union, and the language itself was declared a dialect of Tajik.

3 CAHIER DE STUDIA IRANICA XX, 2014, p. 307-336.

6 T. L O Y

Keywords: Bukharan Jews, Central Asia, Soviet Union, Poetry, Prose, Almanax-i
adabiët-i nafis-i yahudiho-yi mahali
*
* *
Bukharan Jewish literature of the 1920s and 1930s, both poetry and
prose, can be seen at once as a renewal and a dead-end street for Judeo-
Persian literature in Central Asia. Over the course of the first twenty years of
Soviet rule the Bukharan Jewish branch of Soviet literature was built up and
in the end erased from the cultural map of the Soviet Union.1 Aron Šalamaev
(aka Ahar n Šalam ev),2 a Bukharan Jewish author, playwright and publicist
who had left Uzbekistan shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union for
Israel recapitulated:
Many of us have dreamed for 50 years (from 1940 to the 1990s) to read
or see on stage a truthful play or novel about the life and the history of the
Bukharan Jews – be it in our mother tongue or in any other language. We
wanted that people of different nationalities learn the truth about us, the
Bukharan Jews. They should learn that this small ethnic group of Jews
has a history of their own, a literature, a specific language, art and
outstanding personalities.3
Aron Šalamaev (b. Bukhara 1917; d. Tel Aviv 2004) was twenty years
old, when he witnessed the demolition of Bukharan Jewish cultural activities
in the Soviet Union. In a revision of the Soviet nationalities policy of the
1920s and early 1930s, according to which “the [Communist] Party
demanded the widest possible use of the largest possible numbers of

1
Most of the publications used in this article are kept in Moscow at the Russian State
Library (Reading room of the Centre of Oriental Literature). I am grateful to Katja Doose
and Zeev Levin for their help in acquiring copies of these materials, and to Lydia
Bačaeva for giving me access to her private library.
2
Many of the Bukharan Jewish names and terms used in this article originally appear in a
variety of languages (Buxori, Tajik, Russian) and in different scripts (Hebrew, Cyrillic,
Latin). To complicate things, names of authors are often written differently in the
publications of the 1920s, 1930s and in those of the Post-Soviet period. If not indicated
otherwise, I follow the Cyrillic spelling used by Bačaev 1988, 2007a & 2007b. In Tajik
and Buxori [y] stands for [й] and [-yi / -i] is used for the izofa. In the translitteration of
Russian words [ĭ] stands for [й] and [y] stands for [ы].
3 Šalamaev 2005, pp. 75-76. In 1998, Aron Šalamaev published a collection of Bukharan
Jewish literature from the 16th century to the present (Gulčine az adabiët-i yahudiën-i
Buxorii “Collection of Bukharan Jewish Literature”) with short biographical information
on the authors; see Shalam ev and Tolmas 1998.
 RISE AND FALL: BUKHARAN JEWISH LITERATURE 5

languages, the aggressive promotion of ‘national cadres,’ and the tireless

celebration of ethnic differences, peculiarities, and entitlements,”4 the Soviet
authorities abandoned the socio-cultural endorsement of the Bukharan Jews,
just as they did with all other “national minority groups” (Rus. nacional’noe
menšinstvo, Taj./Bux. mayda millat) inhabiting Soviet territory. Between
1938 and 1940 all Bukharan Jewish cultural institutions and activities that
had previously been encouraged and supported by the state were now
banned and criminalized. Publications and teaching in Judeo-Tajik were
halted and the language itself was declared a dialect of Tajik. During the
Stalinist purges of the late 1930s almost the entire intellectual elite of the
Bukharan Jewish community – writers, journalists, and teachers – fell victim
to the purges. Many of those who had participated in creating a Soviet
Bukharan Jewish language and literature were persecuted, arrested and
imprisoned.5
Since the end of the 1930s all Jews in the Soviet Union have been
regarded as forming a single Jewish nationality (nacional’nost), thereby
ignoring and denying their cultural, linguistic, and regional distinctions.
Scientific publications on Bukharan Jews were removed from the libraries
and research on this group was stopped.6 Between 1940 and 1990, the period
Aron Šalamaev refers to, it was all but possible in the Soviet Union to write
and publish about the culture, history or even existence of non-Ashkenazi
Jewish communities under Soviet rule, not alone Bukharan Jews.7 Only
during Khrushchev’s short “Thaw,” the epoch in Soviet history that spans
from Stalin’s death in March 1953 to the Mid-1960s and which allowed

4
Slezkine 2004, p. 250.
5
Pinxasov (2005, pp. 172-181) provides a list of about 200 Bukharan Jews who were
arrested in 1937 and 1938. On the destruction and self-destruction of the Bukharan
Jewish cultural activities and elite, see Loy 2013.
6
The Ashkenazi ethnographer, historian and bibliographer Zalman L’vovich Amitin-
Šapiro (1893-1968), who had published more than ten authoritative articles and books on
the Bukharan Jews in the 1920s and 1930s, was arrested and sent to the GULAG. In the
mid-1940s Zalman Amitin-Šapiro returned from Siberia to Frunze (which was then the
capital of the Kyrgyz SSR), worked on Dungan history and compiled bibliographies of
Kyrgyz culture and history. On Amitin-Šapiro, see Germanov and Lunin 2004.
7
The Soviet census of 1926 shows five different Jewish nationalities: Georgian Jews
(evreĭ gruzinskie), Mountain Jews (evreĭ gorskie), Krymchaks (evreĭ krymskie), Central
Asian Jews (evreĭ sredne-aziatskie) and European or Ashkenazi Jews (evreĭ). In the
census of 1939 all these groups were united in one category and listed as “Jews” (evreĭ).
On the culture of Non-Ashkenazi Jewish communities under Soviet rule, see Zand 1991.
6 T. L O Y

some freedom in media and culture, were a handful of articles and chapters
that deal with Bukharan Jews published in the Soviet Union.8
Up until the end of the Soviet Union, Bukharan Jewish writers and
publicists who were spared from the fate of being repressed in the late 1930s
and some of those who survived their prison terms or time in the labor camp,
worked as journalists, publicists, and translators in the Uzbek- and Tajik
SSR. Others concentrated on their first professions as teachers and scientists.
Those who continued to write about Bukharan Jewish topics did so in
private, without any hope of ever seeing these works be published.9 When
the Soviet Union partially opened her gates for Jewish emigration in the late
1960s, many took the chance and left for Israel and the United States. Until
the early 1980s, about 15.000 Bukharan Jews turned their back on the Soviet
Union, among them many of those who had been active in the cultural field
during the 1920s and 1930s.10 In Israel and the United States they revived
and continued Bukharan Jewish literary production. These emigrants
founded newspapers and journals, ran radio-programs and published books
in Bukharan Jewish – both poetry and prose (written in the Cyrillic script) –
in Hebrew and in Russian or English.11 In 1987, those who had remained in
the Soviet Union made an attempt to revive Bukharan Jewish literature and
established a Bukharan Jewish section in the Writers’ Union of Uzbekistan.
Yet for several reasons their efforts “to reestablish the Bukharan Jewish
culture ex nihilo,” as Michael Zand has put it, failed.12 Firstly, they failed to
receive financial funding for their undertaking from the state organs.13

8
The most renowned publications were Yakub I. Kalontarov’s article Sredneaziatskie
evreĭ “Central Asian Jews,” included in an ethnographic anthology on the “Peoples of the
World” (Kalontarov 1963, pp. 610-630); moreover, Ol’ga Suxareva’s chapter Evreĭ
“Jews,” included in her book on pre-Soviet Bukhara (Suxareva 1966, pp.165-178).
Whereas Suxareva’s chapter only touches the pre-Soviet period, Kalontarov even
mentions some Bukharan Jewish poets and authors of the 1920s and 1930s, of course
without mentioning their bitter fate connected to the Great Terror at the end of that
decade. Šalamaev (2005, pp. 74-75) mentions a few more publications.
9
See Mordexay Bačaev’s critical response to an article of Y noton K raev published in
Haqiqat-i zbekiston in 1980, in which K raev praised the Soviet Union as “the beloved
socialist homeland of Bukharan Jews” (Bačaev 2007a, pp. 298-301; for Y noton
K raev’s article, see pp. 293-297). Citation is from ibid., p. 297. On Y noton K raev see
also further below.
10
Pinxasov 2008, p. 29.
11
Šalamaev (2005, pp. 77-81) provides a list of such publications and activities.
12
Zand 1991, p. 408.
13
Šalamaev 2005, p. 77.
 RISE AND FALL: BUKHARAN JEWISH LITERATURE 5

Secondly, and more importantly, after the collapse of the Soviet Union all
Bukharan Jewish cultural activists from the 1980s, among them Aron
Šalamaev, joined their compatriots’ mass exodus from Central Asia, leaving
for Israel or the United States.

FROM JUDEO-PERSIAN TO BUKHARAN JEWISH LITERATURE

Judeo-Persian literature – that is New Persian literature written in the
Hebrew alphabet – has a long history. Vera Bash Moreen describes Judeo-
Persian literature as “the product of the confluence of two mighty literary
and religious streams, the Jewish biblical and postbiblical heritage and the
Persian (Muslim) literary legacy.”14 According to her, Jewish authors from
Bukhara and other cities of Central Asia, such as Xwājah Buxārā’i (early
17th century) and Y suf b. Ishaq b. M sā (18th century), were simultaneously
influenced by Persian classical poetry and familiar with the works of Judeo-
Persian writers from Iran, such as Šāhin-i Širāzi (14th century), ‘Imrāni (15th
century) and contributed a great deal to Judeo-Persian literature. These early
Judeo-Persian writers were to have a great influence on their literary heirs in
the subsequent centuries. One of these Central Asian Jewish authors
deserves special mention: Šim‘un Hāxām (b. Bukhara 1843; d. Jerusalem
1910). Along with many other Jews from Central Asia, Afghanistan, and
Iran, Šim‘un Hāxām had emigrated to Jerusalem in the late 19th century,
which quickly became the main centre for Judeo-Persian literary production.
In Palestine Šim‘un Hāxām and his circle authored, edited, and published
books in Judeo-Persian, both sacred and profane, which heavily influenced
the new generation of Jewish men of letters in Central Asia.15 In an
interview I conducted with Mordexay Bačaev (b. Marv 1911; d. Petakh
Tikvah 2007)16, the most renowned Bukharan Jewish author of the late 20th

14
Moreen 2000, pp. 11-12. For an introduction to and a representative selection of Judeo-
Persian literature translated into English and a rich bibliography on the subject matter,
see Moreen 2000.
15
Rypka (1968, p. 739) mentions Judeo-Persian translations of Thousand and One Nights
(1915, translated by ‘Azar’ë Yusupov) and Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors and Romeo
and Juliet (1903, both translated by David Kaylakov) by the Central Asian emigrants in
Palestine. Literary works of Persian poets and Hebrew authors were also printed. Šim‘un
Hāxām translated Mapu’s famous novel Ahavat Zion from Hebrew to Bukharan Jewish.
For a translation of one of Šim‘un Hāxām’s biblical commentaries, see Moreen 2000, pp.
198, 200-205.
16
Mordexay Bačaev worked for Bayroq-i Mihnat from 1927 until 1937. In 1938 he was
arrested and spent the following fifteen years in Soviet prisons, labour camps, and
6 T. L O Y

century paid his respect to the most outstanding figure of Bukharan Jewish
literary history:
Šim‘un Hāxām printed books in Jerusalem and sent them to Bukhara and
Samarkand. In Bukhara and Samarkand he had deputies. In every town he
had one representative. These deputies distributed the books among the
subscribers, among those people whose names had been registered in
advance. People were reading these books written in the buxorii language
of that time! When I was a little child we also had these books in our
house. My father very much liked the books published in the language of
the Bukharan Jews. That is why I developed a passion for reading the
books of Šim‘un Hāxām already in my childhood days. My father always
guided and encouraged my efforts, telling me ‘Read these things, my son,
it is very beneficial and it is wonderful!’ He praised these books a lot.17
In the 1930s however, after the introduction of a new Latin-based
alphabet for the language of the Bukharan Jews, the writings of Šim‘un
Hāxām, as well as all other publications in the Hebrew script, were banned
by the state (just like those books written in the Persian-Arabic alphabet of
the Muslims in Soviet Central Asia). Those who still kept these books at
home were considered foes of the modern and progressive Soviet system,
and were faced with the threat of discrimination and persecution.
That’s why people burned their books. They wanted to avoid punishment.
Many books were destroyed. Most of them were shredded, burned, or
thrown into the rubbish. Only very little of these books survived. I also
had a lot of these books. I had collected a lot. It really was a rich
collection. When they arrested me [in July 1938], they confiscated all of
my books as well.18

NEW BEGINNINGS – BUKHARAN JEWISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE IN THE

1920S
Over the course of the early Soviet nationality policy and language
reforms of the 1920s and early 1930s, much effort was expended in
distinguishing and separating out the vernaculars of different Persian- and

banishment. In 1973 Bačaev and his family migrated to Israel. On Bačaev, see Bečka
1988 and Loy 2008. All biographical data provided in this paper is taken from the online
edition of Pinxasov 2013 (www.asia-israel.co.il./111.html).
17
Interview with Mordexay Bačaev (2005, Petakh Tikvah).
18
Interview with Mordexay Bačaev (2005, Petakh Tikvah).
 RISE AND FALL: BUKHARAN JEWISH LITERATURE 5

Turkic-speaking communities in Soviet Central Asia.19 Alongside literature,

numerous kind of texts – newspapers, journals, textbooks, translations
political pamphlets – were published in the language of Bukharan Jews,
which in Russian was known then as evreĭsko-tadžikskiĭ “Judeo-Tajik,”
tuzemno-evreĭskiĭ “native Jewish” or mestnie-evreĭskiĭ “local Jewish.” The
“local Jews” tended to call their language zabon-i yahudiho-yi mahali
“language of the local Jews,” zabon-i yahudiho-yi buxorii “language of the
Bukharan Jews,” zabon-i yahudiho-yi Osië-yi Miëna “language of the
Central Asian Jews,” or simply yahudigii “Jewish.”20
In 1925 Bukharan Jewish intellectuals from Samarkand established a
Judeo-Tajik language newspaper named Roşnaji21 “Light/Enlightenment.”
The newspaper, which started up as a weekly on a low budget and with a
very small print run, was published in Hebrew script. Initially the founders
of Roşnaji aimed at reviving the tradition of Rahamim “Mercy,” the first
Central Asian Jewish newspaper, which had been published in Skobelev
(today’s Ferghana in Uzbekistan) from 1910 to the end of 1914 in Judeo-
Persian.22 Roşnaji soon became the leading voice and platform of pro-Soviet
Bukharan Jewish intellectuals. From 1927 onwards it received financial
support from the Soviet government. From then on the Communist Party’s
expectations and claims for being an organ “to raise the cultural and political
level of the Bukharan Jewish workers”23 became stronger, too. The volume
of circulation jumped from 750 copies per week at the beginning of 1927 to
2,000 issues by the end of that year. In addition, from 1929 to 1932 the
newspaper’s staff increased from 29 to more than 230 people.24 In 1929 the

19
On the impact of Soviet language policy on Turkic languages, see Baldauf 1993. For the
development from Persian to Tajik, see Rzehak 2001.
20
Nowadays the language is usually called buxorii “Bukharan.” On the Soviet nationality
policy and its effects on the development of “Judeo-Tajik,” which was regarded as a
language in its own right capable of being distinguished from the so-called modern
literary Tajik, see Rzehak 2008, pp. 37-55.
21
I give here the original Bukharan Jewish spelling in its Latin script.
22
The owner of Rahamim was the Jewish entrepreneur Rahmin Dovidboev. Rahamim was
sporadically continued in Samarkand until 1916 (I am grateful to Yefim Yakubov for this
information). On Bukharan Jewish mass media, see Aulov 2005.
23
According to Bačaev (1988, p. 471) the Party used this formulation when they explained
the closure of that newspaper to Y noton K raev in 1938.
24
Amitin-Šapiro 1933, pp. 81-82. The first cohort of Bukharan Jews raised in Soviet
educational institutions entered the ranks of the recently created cultural and political
institutions of their national minority group.
6 T. L O Y

Latin alphabet was introduced, but it was not until 1931 that the Hebrew
script was completely replaced.25 In 1930, Roşnaji was renamed Bayroq-i
Mihnat “The Banner of Labour,” and its editorial office moved from
Samarkand to Tashkent, the new capital of the Uzbek SSR. A bi-monthly
Bukharan Jewish literary and sociopolitical journal Haët-i Mihnatii “The
Toiling Life” was established in 1931. Together with the “Literary
Supplement” (Varaqa-i adabiët-i nafis) of Bayroq-i Mihnat, it became “the
most important publishing platform for Bukharan Jewish literature.”26 Most
of the Bukharan Jewish literati who published books in the 1930s either
worked for Bayroq-i Mihnat or were closely connected to the newspaper.
In the 1920s the number of books published in Judeo-Tajik was still
rather small. Michael Zand only mentions two publications: P. Pardozov and
M. Boruxov’s Hukumat-i padar dar duxtar “A father’s power over his
daughter” (Tashkent 1921), was a play on the theme of women’s rights,
which was a major topic of Soviet Central Asian and Bukharan Jewish
literature throughout the 1920s and 1930s. The second publication was
Yahiel ‘Oqilov’s Dad-i “Her father” (Tashkent 1927), which is usually
described as “the first collection of poems in Judeo-Tadzhik to be published
in the Soviet period.” Yet a quick glance at the book’s list of contents shows
that it is far more than a collection of poems by Yahiel ‘Oqilov (b. 1900; d.
Tashkent 1972), renowned though he is as “the most outstanding poet of the
[nineteen-]twenties.”27
Dadi is divided into three parts and only partially conforms to what in
the 1930s became known among Bukharan Jews as belles-lettres (adabiët-i
nafisii).28 The first part (p. 1-22) recounts “The old life” (zindagoni-yi
k hna) and provides the first ethnography of Bukharan Jewish daily life and
life circle rituals (food, handling of the dead, education of the sons, material
culture, wedding rituals, healing) published in Bukharan Jewish.29 Part two
(p. 23-48) is dedicated to the new Soviet period, its foundations and its new
understanding of history and society. Subchapters are “What is freedom?”

25
In 1929 only a few headers and some articles dealing with Latinization were written in
the Latin script. In 1930 about one third of the newspaper (mostly translations from
Russian or articles dealing with language issues) were written in the Latin script.
26
Zand 1991, p. 404.
27
All citations are from Zand 1991, p. 403.
28
‘Oqilov 1927.
29
In 1934 one of Amitin Šapiro’s ethnographic works on Bukharan Jews was published in
Bukharan Jewish: Paydo šudan-i ‘idho va ‘urfu odatho-yi yahudigii “The origins of
Jewish festivities and traditions,” translated by Menaše Yishoqboev.
 RISE AND FALL: BUKHARAN JEWISH LITERATURE 5

(Či hast ozodii?), “The defenders of the Soviet government” (Muhafizatčiën-

i hukumat-i šuro), and “Again the women of the East” (Digar zanon-i šarq).
In the third part (p. 49-66) ‘Oqilov translates statements of Lenin and
Lenin’s wife and explains to the readers who they are and what they stand
for. His poem Duxtar-i Buxorii “Bukharan girl”30 concludes the book, which
aimed at spreading the new Soviet ideas and ideology among the Bukharan
Jews.

FROM CULTURAL REVOLUTION TO GREAT TERROR

During the “Cultural Revolution” of the late 1920s in Soviet Central Asia
all spheres of life changed. The struggle against religion was intensified;
synagogues were closed down or converted into secular “culturally
enlightening institutions” (muassisaho-yi madani-yi ravšannamoii) – a term
that encompassed chemist shops, post offices, hospitals, warehouses, and the
like. In Samarkand, for example, the Gumbaz Synagogue – which had been
the spiritual and intellectual centre of the local Jewish community for more
than 50 years – was converted into a hospital for venereal diseases, referred
to as kalxona “scab-house” by the local Jewish population.31 In 1927 the
women’s liberation campaign, the so-called hujum “assault,” aimed at
changing the legal and social status of women.32 In order to put a stop to the
relatively liberal New Economic Policy (NEP), trade and other private
businesses were closed down, and the first so called Five-Year Plan (1929-
1932) was inaugurated. In the course of the Union wide collectivization
campaign, Bukharan Jewish collective farms (kolkhozes) were created.
Thousands of Bukharan Jews were thus deprived of their private-run
workshops and businesses and forced to engage in agriculture or industrial
labor.33 Others decided to flee from the Soviet Union. From the late 1920s
onwards, the numbers of Bukharan Jews escaping the Soviet Union sharply
increased. By the mid-1930s, when Soviet authorities sealed their southern
borders for good, an estimated four thousand Bukharan Jewish refugees

30
In 1934, this poem was included in The Belletristic Almanac of the Local Jews. On this
publication see further below.
31
All quotations are from Bačaev 1988, p. 317. The qchi-synagogue in Tashkent was
transformed into the editorial and printing office of Bayroq-i Mihnat and accommodated
its staff and their families. In 1936, when the newspaper moved out, a factory for
weighing-machines moved in (see Bačaev 1988, pp. 236-237, 356).
32
On the hujum and Bukharan Jewish women, see Levin 2008.
33
Amitin-Šapiro and Yuabov 1935, pp. 126-135.
6 T. L O Y

(about one-tenth of the whole community) had left. Almost everybody had
relatives or friends among the refugees.34
In the early 1930s, the economic situation of many Soviet citizens went
from bad to worse. At the same time efforts to spread Bolshevik ideology
among the Central Asian Jewish population grew considerably. Anti-
religious and pro-Jewish agriculture propaganda was translated from Russian
into Bukharan Jewish.35 In 1932 the authorities launched a campaign across
the entire Uzbek SSR to “build up Socialism,” in the course of which
primarily private property was confiscated by the state. Among Bukharan
Jews and other Persian/Tajik speakers, this campaign became known as the
infamous tillogirii “taking the gold.”36 In the mid-1930s the political
situation in Soviet Central Asia also deteriorated and the climate within the
Bukharan Jewish intellectual elite steadily worsened as violence from the
central regions of the Soviet Union extended into the southern periphery.
In the two years following Kirov’s assassination [in December 1934], in
particular, the situation became more critical and dangerous by the day.
Everybody felt like an acrobat with a balancing pole in his hand,
stumbling along a thin tightrope and barely keeping his balance.37
The Bukharan Jewish population and even individual families were split
into several camps. While some still supported Communism and sincerely
believed in it, others were untouched by or even antagonistic to the rhetoric
of emancipation and the building up of Socialism. The majority, presumably,
were simply concerned with trying to live a normal life, which became more

34
Bačaev 1988, pp. 223-234, 291-292, 302-304. For a first-hand account of such a flight,
see Kalontarov 1974, pp. 330-341.
35
Many journalists and prose-writers, such as Menaše Yishoqboev, Rahim Badalov and
Aharon Saidov were engaged in translating and writing these works. In 1931 such
publications were the following: M. Šaxnovič’s Din-i Yisroel ba ki xizmat mekunad
“Who gains profit from the Jewish religion?;” F. Veytkov and B. Poliščuk’s Yahudiho va
kor-i zamin “Jews and agriculture;” Ščerbinovskaya’s Pioner va talabaho-yi maktav dar
g štin bo hamroh-i zararbiërandaho-yi paxta “The struggle of pioneers and pupils
against cotton-parasites” or Xrest matiya-yi bexudoyi “The atheist textbook” edited by
Yaq b Kalontarov. For two publications of Aharon Saidov see footnote no. 71.
36
For Bukharan Jewish recollections of this Soviet confiscation drive, see Bačaev 1988, pp.
248-257 and Arabov 1998, pp. 41-52.
37
Bačaev 1988, p. 416. The assassination of Sergeĭ Mironovič Kirov, Politburo member
and one of the leading party functionaries, on 1 December 1934 was followed by mass
arrests, deportations of past oppositionists and “social aliens,” and led to purges within
the Communist Party (CP) which found its peak in the mass-persecutions of the so-called
Great Terror of 1936-1938.
 RISE AND FALL: BUKHARAN JEWISH LITERATURE 5

and more difficult as time went on. Bukharan Jewish writers and poets of the
1930s experienced these critical developments, yet it is small wonder that in
most of their publications only an affirmative perspective is to be found.

POETRY, PROSE, AND PLAYS – BUKHARAN JEWISH BELLES-LETTRES OF THE

1930S
In the 1930s, against the backdrop of political and social changes,
Bukharan Jewish belletristic writing (or adabiët-i nafisii in the terminology
of the time) was published in great numbers.38 Drama, Poetry and Prose
make up the largest part of that literary production. In recent years, a small
amount of Bukharan Jewish Soviet literature from the 1920s and 1930s has
been republished in Israel and the United states, most often in an effort on
the part of the authors’ children to preserve and make accessible their
fathers’ forgotten poetry and prose.39 Yet the majority of this literary
heritage remains largely unknown and unstudied.40
According to Michael Zand, principal subject-matter of 1930s Bukharan
Jewish literature responded directly to the political and ideological demands
of the day: women’s rights, the new settlements of Bukharan Jews on the
land, class conflict (often within a single family), atheism, and the
participation of Bukharan Jews in the Revolution and in Soviet life. Drama
(known by its Russian term p’esa41), poetry (nazm or še‘r), short stories
(hikoya), and documentary feature stories (known by its Russian term očerk)
were the most frequent and characteristic genres of Bukharan Jewish
literature of the 1930s, which had yet to see the introduction of the novel
(roman or r man). Only three works of Bukharan Jewish prose of the 1930s
deal with the life of the community before the Soviet era. These short stories
(hikoya) are Gavriel Samandarov’s Xomlo-yi k hna “The Old School”

38
Pinxasov 2013 mentions “almost 750 book titles and brochures” published in the
language of the Bukharan Jews until 1940, including textbooks and official materials as
well as political pamphlets and literary translations from Russian.
39
See for example Bačaev 2007a, vol. VI (Qadamho-yi avvalin “First steps”) and Kuraev
2009, vol. I (Stixi, poėmy, p’esy 1929-1940 “Verses, poems, plays 1929-1940”). For a
compilation (gulčine) of Bukharan Jewish literature and short information on the
respective authors, see also Šalam ev and Tolmasov 1998.
40
Only Zand (1991, pp. 400-408) gives a short but concise introduction to Bukharan
Jewish literature of the Soviet period. Zand 2006 is a slightly revised (but poorly edited)
version of that text.
41
In the Bukharan Jewish language p’esa was adopted as piyesa.
6 T. L O Y

(Tashkent 1934); M.D. Yahudoev’s Tuhmat “The Blood Libel” (Tashkent

1935) and M.Y. Yishoqboev’s Pisar-i ’Ališo “Elisha’s son” (Tashkent
1939).42
As Katerina Clark has shown in her groundbreaking study of the
development of the Soviet novel, literature in the Soviet Union was not
intended to meet “Western ‘highbrow’ literary criteria.” Instead, it can be
best understood as a highly didactic and formulaic form of popular writing
which was first and foremost intended to serve an ideological and political
function.43 Soviet literature was required to fulfill three major goals: firstly,
to act as the official repository of old and new state myths; secondly, to
translate Bolshevik rhetoric into literature; and thirdly, to make Soviet
ideology attractive and accessible to the masses.44 Clark’s concise analysis
of the Soviet novel is also applicable to all genres of Bukharan Jewish Soviet
literature. However, there are some (stylistic) considerations that had no
parallel in the Russian works described and deconstructed by her.
In November 1933 Mordexay Bačaev published an article in Bayroq-i
Mihnat about the revival of Bukharan Jewish rhymed prose writing
(nasrnavisi) which he directly connected to the publication of that
newspaper.45 In this article Bačaev who by that time had already published
two anthologies of poetry (nazm), praises rhymed prose (nasr)46 as an
important genre of Soviet belles-lettres (adabiët-i nafisii): in contrast to
poetry (še‘r), its language, construction, and meaning are much easier to
understand for the majority of readers. Rhymed prose, Bačaev continues, can
be easily adapted to any literary genre and should be used much more
extensively by young Bukharan Jewish literati, especially for writing epics
(doston) and short stories (hikoya). A good example of rhymed prose would
be Yahiel ‘Oqilov’s Qumri (“Qumri”), which had been published in the
Literary Supplement of Bayroq-i Mihnat only a couple of weeks previously
(Varaqa-yi adabiët-i nafis, no. 4; 7 November 1933).47 Thematically, Qumri

42
Zand 1991, pp. 404-406. On Pisar-i ’Ališo see further below.
43
Clark 2000: pp. xi-xii.
44
Ibid., pp. 43-44. On the ideological use of language in early Soviet Tajik literature see
Rzehak 2002.
45
Bačaev 2007a, pp. 148-150.
46
Here nasr stands for nasr-i mussaja‘ “rhymed prose.” Bačaev distinguishes between
rhymed prose (nasr) and simple prose (ravona or pr za). For every line (rajah) of
rhymed prose Bačaev suggests seven to ten syllables (hijo or buġun). See Bačaev 2007a,
p. 150.
47
Bačaev 2007a, p. 149. Bačaev himself did not publish rhymed prose in the 1930s.
 RISE AND FALL: BUKHARAN JEWISH LITERATURE 5

engages with one of the main topics of Central Asian / Bukharan Jewish
literature: women’s liberation and rise of status, and the new forms of labour
organisation. Qumri is the name of an impoverished young Jewish orphan
who works as a servant in a rich Jewish house. A young Jewish man (a
communist) who was visiting the house feels attracted upon glimpsing her.
But due to the pre-revolutionary social conditions and norms there is no
opportunity for him to get in contact or speak with her. After the Revolution,
the grown-up man has become a leading cadre and inspects the cotton
production. In a cotton field he sees Qumri again. The former servant has
now become the head of a women’s brigade. She also recognizes him, but
this time she doesn’t run away but turns towards him:
…I’ve been what I’ve been, now look who I am. Now I don’t run away
from men, because equipped with rights I became. I am like you and you
are like me, come follow me.
…Har či budam – budam, bin ki či šudam. Aknun az mard nameguzaram,
ki huquqdor šudam. Man čun tuyam, tu ham čun man, bië qator-i man.48

THE BELLETRISTIC ALMANAC OF THE LOCAL JEWS

‘Oqilov’s Qumri was reprinted in an anthology that can be regarded as
the show-piece of Bukharan Jewish Soviet literature: The Almanax-i
adabiët-i nafis-i yahudiho-yi mahali “The belletristic almanac of the local
Jews” which was published in 1934 by the Bukharan Jewish (or, to use the
official Soviet terminology of the 1930s, by the “local or indigenous
Jewish”) section of writers in Tashkent on the occasion of the first Congress
of the Soviet writers of Uzbekistan and the Writers’ Union. It includes 58
works (or parts of works) of the fifteen most important or representative
Bukharan Jewish poets and prose-writers of the time:
Yahiel ‘Oqilov, Mordexay Bačaev “Muhib”, Pinhos Abromov (b.
Bukhara 1906; d. Dushanbe 1963), Menaše Aminov (b. Samarkand 1890; d.
1974), Aharon Saidov (b. Samarkand 1902; d. Tashkent 1954), Y noton
K raev “Korgar” (b. Samarkand 1908; d. Tashkent 1985), Menaše
Yishoqboev (b. Samarkand 1906; d. Dushanbe 1965), Ya‘q v Haimov (b.
Kokand 1909), Gavriel Samandarov (b. Kokand 1910; d. Dushanbe 1987),
‘Azar’ë Yusupov (b. Bukhara 1881; d. possibly in the 1960s)49, M she

48
Yahiel ‘Oqilov, “Qumri,” in Almanax 1934, p. 21.
49
‘Azar’ë Yusupov (aka Habib-i Buxori) was a nephew of Ši‘m n Hāxām. He worked for
the newspaper Rahamim (see footnote no. 22) and later, in Soviet times, for Roșnaji and
6 T. L O Y

Yagudoev (b. Kokand 1902; d. Tashkent 1963), Ya‘q v Hoxomov “Rahib”

(b. Bukhara 1905; d. Tashkent 1982), A. Qalandarov, H. Kaikov, and G.B.
Aronov.50

Fig. 1. Frontpage of The Belletristic Almanac of the Local Jews (Courtesy of Lydia
Bačaeva).

In the introduction to this almanac, its editors Aharon Saidov, Pinhos

Abromov and Menaše Aminov divide post-revolutionary Bukharan Jewish
literature, which they described as “the fruit of the successes at the cultural
front,”51 into three periods: the years between 1919 and 1926, dominated by
the poetry of Yahiel ‘Oqilov; the second period from 1926 to 1932, in which

Bayroq-i Mihnat. In 1934 he published the book Bayroq-i Mihnat (Tashkent, Našri. Dav.
UzSSR). On ‘Azar’ë Yusupov see also footnote no. 15.
50
I listed these authors in the same order as they appear in Almanax 1934, pp. 3-6. The
authors’ names given in the original Latin script in the almanac are as follows: I. J.
Əoqilůf, M. Bacajůf, P. Abromůf, Menașe Aminůf, A. Sajidůf, J. Kůrajůf, M.
Jishoqbojůf, Jaǝqův Hajimůf, Gavriel Samandarůf, Ə. Jusupůf, M. Jagudojůf, Ja.
Hoxomůf, A. Qalandarůf, H. Kaikůf, G. B. Aronůf. For the last three of them I could not
find biographical information.
51
Almanax 1934, p. 4.
 RISE AND FALL: BUKHARAN JEWISH LITERATURE 5

young authors opened up new fields of literary production (drama and prose)
and further developed poetry, which in these years still dominated Bukharan
Jewish literature; the third period of Bukharan Jewish literature, which is
described as the most progressive era started in 1932 and witnessed the
appearance of prose-writers (pr začiho) and the rise of prose-writing
(ravona or pr za). According to the three editors of the almanac, this latter
period began with a resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist
Party from 23 April 1932 and the newly formed Writers’ Union regarding
the development of Soviet literature.52
As Katerina Clark has shown, within the next two years “Soviet literature
became centralized and placed under Party dominance,”53 and the canon of
Socialist Realism was established. The editors of the almanac formulated the
new program of Bukharan Jewish literature (namely, “to erase capitalist
habits and superstitions from the economy” and “to transform all Soviet
workers into activist founders of socialism”) and proposed Soviet classics as
shining examples for how to apply Socialist Realism (realizm-i socialisti) in
their works. The new concept of Socialist Realism was explained to the
readers in Bolshevik rhetoric as “…writing the truth, but writing it from the
viewpoint of Leninist-Stalinist teachings, of Dialectic-Materialism and
combined with Marxist analysis.” Knowing that this elaborate program was
poorly understood by the Bukharan Jewish writers of the time, and hardly to
be found in the works presented in the almanac, the editors, in their
introduction to the volume, offer apologies and point to shortcomings which
would have to be overcome in Bukharan Jewish literature: the concentration
of the literary circle in Tashkent; the lack of theoretical books for teaching
the new generation of writers how to translate the theoretical program into
actual literature; the fact that most writers had not yet internalized the new
vocabulary and cultural techniques of “criticism and self-criticism,” and had
too little contact with the working class and the literary movements of the
other Central Asian nationalities.54 The role models proposed by the editors
were Maksim Gorki (1868-1936), Aleksander Serafimovič (1863-1949),
Mixail Šoloxov (1905-1984) – all three of them were part of the Soviet

52
Ibid. Bačaev recollects that after 1932 all developments of Bukharan Jewish literature
were ascribed to that resolution (Bačaev 1988, p. 293).
53
Clark 2000, p. 43.
54
See also Bačaev 1988, p. 263. Along with examples of three Tajik and two Uighur poets
poems of the Bukharan Jewish poets Muhib and Yahiel ‘Oqilov were included into
Literaturnyĭ Uzbekistan “Literary Uzbekistan,” an anthology published by the Uzbek
Writers’ Association in Tashkent in 1934. See Bačaev 1988, pp. 298-300.
6 T. L O Y

socialist realist canon described by Katerina Clark, and Abulqosim Lohutī

(1887-1957). The editors also listed the most important topics to be tackled
by Bukharan Jewish literati: “the struggle for cotton, the culture of the
proletariat, the new life, resistance to religion, the creation of socialism and a
new economy of the Jewish community.”55

POETRY
An excessive proximity to the pre-revolutionary Judeo-Persian literary
heritage (which was declared to be “written in the language of the upper
class of the Bukharan Jews” and to have “served as a tool to preserve and
spread the goals and ideology of the bourgeois and the mullahs”)56 was a
criticism leveled at the poetry of Mordexay Bačaev (Muhib), whose literary
and journalistic activities began in 1927, and lead to him being esteemed as
“the vanguard of the new generation of Bukharan Jewish Soviet poets.” In
the introduction to Bahor-i surx “The Red Spring” (Tashkent 1931),
Muhib’s first published anthology of poetry his political and literary advisor,
Pinhos Abromov,57 criticized those poems which Bačaev had composed
between 1927 and early 1929, still in his teens then, for “still being under the
influence of the old style of writing poetry” which he “used to read” in the
1920s.58 In a short note by the author, Muhib expresses his deep gratitude to
Abromov “the lover of proletarian literature and mentor of the new poets …
for having corrected the political and literary shortcomings of the book in
hand”.59 The poems Az inqilob-i Oktyabr “About the October-Revolution”

55
All citations are from Almanax 1934, pp. 4-5. In 1933, Mordexay Bačaev was directed to
translate Aleksander Serafimovič’s early Soviet novel “The Iron Flood.” See Bačaev
1988, p. 263.
56
See the introduction by Pinhos Abromov to Muhib 1931, pp. 3-4.
57
Pinhos Abromov graduated from the Moscow Institute of Eastern Affairs and worked as
political advisor (politruk) and chief editor for Roşnaji/Bayroq-i Mihnat from 1928 until
he was arrested in 1935. From 1943 Abromov worked as a senior researcher at the
Ministry of Education in Dushanbe. In 1936 and 1937 Muhib’s poetry was criticized for
political mistakes, a lack of class consciousness, and a whiff of nationalism (see Loy
2013, pp. 81-84).
58
All citations are from Pinhos Abromov’s introduction to Muhib 1931, pp. 3-4.
59
Muhib 1931, p. 5. In his memoirs, Bačaev (1988, pp. 244-246, 324-327) described his
problematic relation with Pinhos Abromov “whose poems, in general, had no rhythm
(musiqa) and most of the time also lacked meaning (ma‘ni)” and “who with his red
pencil edited my (Bačaev’s) poems without respect and without taking care of poetic
metre (vazn) or rhyme (qofiya).” On the circumstances of Abromov’s arrest, see ibid.,
 RISE AND FALL: BUKHARAN JEWISH LITERATURE 5

and Omad-i bahor “The Arrival of Spring,” from Muhib’s first published
book of poetry, were included in the almanac, together with poems from his
second anthology Sado-yi Mihnat “The Voice of Labour” (Tashkent 1932)
and three pages of the first part of his uncompleted doston Panino60, in
which he describes the everyday life in the Bukharan Jewish quarter of
Samarkand of the time.
Muhib’s early poetry – as noted above – was influenced by classical
Persian poetry both from Muslim and from Jewish authors. Despite not
having been formally introduced to the classical way of composing “aruz” at
the beginning of his career, many of Muhib’s poems show his familiarity
with that classical heritage. He composed in all kinds of classical forms,
such as ghazal, muxammas, qit‘a, masnavi, dubayti, and rubo‘i. Motivated
by the Russian (Soviet and pre-Soviet) literary avant-garde and by Lohutī’s
new Tajik poetry he also started to use new forms of poetry (še‘r-i nav).61
Yet the two poems from Bahor-i surx “The red spring” (1931) are examples
of classical forms. Az inqilob-i Oktyabr “About the October-Revolution”
(dated 1 October 1929) is a typical muxammas or panjtoi which in contrast
to the more sophisticated ghazal is less lyrical and was used in classical
poetry to treat political themes. Omad-i bahor “The Arrival of Spring”
(dated 18 March 1929) is a ghazal in which Muhib describes the beauty and
joy that spring brings back to nature and the farmers (dehqon) and shepherds
(šubon) which are supported now by women and technology (tirakt r) of the
new era: “And Muhib plays the surnay: Hurray spring has come.”62
Recollecting Bukharan Jewish poetry of the late 1920s and early 1930s
Bačaev explained that the young poets had no idea of how to apply the aruz
system properly and all of them, including himself, “only counted the
syllables in their poetry and thus the poems didn’t sound.”63 According
Michael Zand, the language, structure, and content of Bukharan Jewish

pp. 328-332. In 1936 and 1937 Muhib’s poetry of the early 1930s was criticized for
political mistakes, a lack of class consciousness, and nationalism (see Loy 2013, pp. 81-
84).
60
Panino, which was named after its woman protagonist, was serialised in Bayroq-i Mihnat
and in Haët-i Mihnati between 1933 and 1935, but remained uncompleted and
unpublished. For a reprint of Panino (part one), see Bačaev 2007a, pp. 43-72.
61
Bačaev mentioned Abulqosim Lohutī and the Russian classics Lermontov and Puškin as
important influence in these days. Interview with Mordexay Bačaev (2005, Petakh
Tikvah).
62
Muhib 1931, p. 62.
63
Bačaev 1991, p. 283.
6 T. L O Y

poetry of the 1930s was very similar to contemporaneous Tajik poetry.64 The
last of the seven pieces by Mordexay Bačaev presented in the almanac is the
short story Man pir-i be xudo mebošam “I am the atheist Pir,” in which he
describes the estrangement of the Bukharan Jewish simple men from religion
and their former religious leaders.65
Y noton K raev (Korgar)66 was after Muhib, the second up-and-coming
Bukharan Jewish poet of the early 1930s. Until 1940, many collections of his
poems were published as books, such as Meva-yi inqilob “Fruit of the
Revolution” (Tashkent 1932), Dah sol “Ten years” (Tashkent 1935),
Bayroq-i zafar “The Banner of victory” (Tashkent 1935), Haët-i nek “The
good life” (Tashkent 1938), Deputat “The Deputy” (Tashkent 1940),
Qahramoni “Heroism” (Tashkent 1940).67 In contrast to Muhib, whose last
publication of an anthology of poems in the Soviet Union, Sado-yi Mihnat
“The voice of labour,” dates back to 1932, Korgar’s publishing career as a
Soviet poet took off in that year.68
The next three authors presented in the almanac were its editors: Pinhos
Abromov, Menaše Aminov, and Aharon Saidov. Until his arrestation in
1935, Pinhos Abromov worked as the political advisor (politruk) and chief
editor of Bayroq-i Mihnat. His poems, especially Šiš šart-i rafiq-i Stalin
“The Six Conditions of Comrade Stalin” (1932) are striking examples of
what was expected from Soviet poetry in the 1930s, namely “the
versification of official ideology.” Abromov’s poem was “a synopsis in
verse form of Stalin’s ideas of 1931 on ‘the success of the construction of

64
Zand 1991, p. 407.
65
Almanax 1934, pp. 31-39. Menaše Aminov’s hikoya “The atheist Pir” (Pir-i bedin; ibid.,
pp. 60-66), also touches upon the political struggle against religion, superstition, and
religious powerbrokers.
66
Y noton K raev started to work as a typesetter for Bayroq-i Mihnat. Later he became
editor for Haët-i Mihnati and Adabiët-i Soveti and was a member of the Union of Soviet
Writers. In 1938 he became the last chief editor of Bayroq-i Mihnat before the newspaper
was closed down. On Y noton K raev see Kuraev 2008. The “Complete works” of
Korgar have been published in six volumes by his son Grigoriĭ (Kuraev 2009).
67
For a complete list of works, see Kuraev 2008, pp. 532-533.
68
Ya‘k v Hoxomov and H. Kaikov were upcoming poets, whose work samples were
presented in the almanac. None of them has ever published a book of their own poems.
Hoxomov (aka Rahib), was a teacher and linguist, who also published textbooks and
teaching manuals for Tajik and Bukharan Jewish.
 RISE AND FALL: BUKHARAN JEWISH LITERATURE 5

the Soviet socialist economy,’ known in contemporary Soviet jargon as ‘The

Six Heroic Conditions of Comrade Stalin’.”69

PROSE
According to Mordexay Bačaev, Aharon Saidov70, the chief-editor of
Bayroq-i Mihnat was mainly engaged in writing documentary feature stories
(očerk). Three chapters from one of these stories Meva-yi ktiabr “Fruits of
October” were included into the almanac. This extensive belletristic očerk
(očerk-i nafisi-i kalon) treats the newly established Bukharan Jewish
kolkhozes (collective farms) and describe the efforts of the Soviet state to
turn over the urban communities of Bukharan Jews – mostly artisans, petty
traders, shopkeepers and artisans – into agricultural laborers.71 They were to
leave their city-quarters (mahalla), settle on newly irrigated lands and build
up their own collective farms. Throughout the 1930s this topic plays a
prominent role in Bayroq-i Mihnat, since it was one of the main aims of the
newspaper to motivate the Bukharan Jewish population to engage in
industrial and agricultural work.72 Transforming the old society into a Soviet
one, and thereby creating the “Soviet man,” was a principal duty of the
Soviet literati, as well. Mordexay Bačaev recalls a huge banner displayed at
the first Congress of the Soviet writers of Uzbekistan with Stalin’s famous
slogan directly addressing the participants: “You, writers, are engineers who
construct the soul of man!”73

69
Zand 1991, p. 406.
70
Aharon Saidov apprenticed as a butcher (qassob) in his childhood days and became one
of the leading Bukharan Jewish intellectuals in the Soviet period. He studied in Moscow
at the University of the Youth of the East and at the Institute of Communist Journalism
before taking over the post of chief-editor of Bayroq-i Mihnat. He was elected member
of the Supreme Soviet of the Uzbek SSR several times and worked as deputy director of
the publishing house of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan.
71
Two early works of Aharon Saidov touching the same issue were Kištu kor-i bahori ë
vazifaho-yi Yahudiho-yi mahali “The spring sowing or the responsibilities of the local
Jews” (1931) and Komzetu ozet dar zbekiston “Komzet and Ozet in Uzbekistan”
(1932).
72
See Bačaev 1988, p. 295. Information about the successes of realizing that land-
resettlement program was also given on the first page of the introduction to the Almanax
1934, p. 3.
73
Bačaev 1988, p. 300 (“Šumo, navisandaho, inženerhoe hasted, ki r h-i insonro bino
mekuned”).
6 T. L O Y

The new generation of young Bukharan Jewish prose-writers

(pr zachiho) is best characterised by three talented authors who received
their education in Soviet institutions and started to publish in the 1930s:
Menaše Yishoqboev, a journalist,74 and Gavriel Samandarov, a literary critic
and lecturer in Persian and Tajik literature, both graduated from the “Native
Jewish Institute of Education – (Inpros)”75 in the late 1920s. The third,
M she Yagudoev, graduated from Samarkand State University in 1934 and
became a renowned Physicist who also translated many textbooks from
Russian into Bukharan Jewish and Tajik.76
Both M she Yagudoev and Gavriel Samandarov contributed two short
pieces of prose to the almanac. Samandarov’s Bovojon “Bobojon” was
published in 1933 as a forty-eight page book and describes the struggle of
the hero, the Bukharan Jew Bobojon, to establish Soviet rule in Central Asia.
As a Red Army soldier, Bobojon fights against the enemies (bosmačiho) of
the young Bolshevik state in Central Asian towns, such as Sharisabz and
Hisor (both with Jewish population) before getting killed in action.
Samandarov’s second hikoya forms part of Xomlo-yi k hna77 “The old-
fashioned school” (1934) which he describes as marking a contrast to the

74
In 1931 Menaše Yishoqboev became the head of the agrarian division of Bayroq-i
Mihnat. Between 1938 and 1940 he worked for the local Jewish division of the
Učpedgiz. In 1940 he started to work for the Tajik Radio Committee and other Tajik
language media.
75
The Tuzemno-evreĭskiĭ institut prosvyščeniya was founded in Tashkent in 1921 and
transferred to Kokand in 1930. In 1937 the Inpros was “reorganised” and became the
Uzbek Pedagogical College for Women. In 1935 Aron Fuzaylov (b. Samarkand 1906; d.
Tashkent 1989), a teacher for natural sciences who had graduated from Inpros in 1927,
published the hikoya “At the Inpros” (Dar Inpr s) in Judeo- Tajik (na mestno-evreĭskom
yazike). Dar Inpr s tells the story of two Bukharan Jewish boys, one poor and the other
rich, who enter the Bukharan Jewish educational institute in the mid-1920s. They
develop in two different directions: while the poor fatherless boy becomes the positive
hero, seizing the opportunities offered through Soviet education, the rich man’s son
(boybača) joins a group of lazy (korgurez) and destructive (vaĭronkor) students. He quits
studying and engages in the illegal business of his father but finally gets arrested and
convicted. As far as I know, Dar Inpr s remained Aron Fuzaylov’s only work of
literature.
76
According to Šalam ev and Tolmas (1998, p. 227), Yagudoev was born into a religious
family and received comprehensive religious education by his father.
77
xomlo, the short form of xona-yi mullo “house of the mullah,” stands for a Jewish
primary school, usually held at the mullah’s (i.e. rabbi’s) house (equivalent to a Muslim
maktab in Central Asia).
 RISE AND FALL: BUKHARAN JEWISH LITERATURE 5

modern European type of schools first introduced in Central Asia by the

Jadids.78
M she Yagudoev contributed one očerk and one hikoya. In Kolx z-i
namuna “The model collective farm” the author accompanies the reader – a
typical introduction for an očerk – to a newly established Bukharan Jewish
collective farm. Sir-i nog yon “The untellable secret” is a hikoya written in
the form of a witty dialogue and clearly shows the talent and the humor of its
author. Compared to Samandarov and Yagudoev, A. Qalandarov and G.
Aronov are less well-known prose-writers. Qalandarov’s hikoya “Debate
among friends” (Munozira-yi rafiqho) takes place in a Soviet club, where
young men and women spend their leisure-time after work playing chess,
reading newspapers and discussing cultural, ethical, and philosophical
topics, such as the difference between science and religion, and the question
of whether there is such a thing as a soul or if man is a machine. Aronov’s
intentions are very similar. In his hikoya “The disenchantment of the rabbi”
(Foš šudan-i sir-i duoxon) he recounts the sad story of a pregnant woman
who loses her child because she does not go to a doctor, but rather asks the
rabbi for help. After seeking out a Soviet doctor she gives birth to a child
and the rabbi is brought before a court.
Menaše Yishoqboev’s works included in the almanac deal with the life of
Bukharan Jewish workers at the newly established collective farms. The
hikoya “Zulayxo the cotton-shock-workwoman” (Zulayxo udarnica-yi paxta)
and the očerk “Zeev and Adina’s wedding” (T y-yi Zaev va Adino) deal with
the difficulties and struggles of Bukharan Jewish working men and women
who succeed in surpassing the required state norm. The third piece included
is chapter one of the hikoya “The silk factory” (Fabrik-i barešum) which
was separately published as a book in 1934. Fabrik-i barešum describes how
the hooting of the siren (avoz-i durmadaroz-i gud k) of the silk-factory,
which is situated next to the Jewish quarter in Samarkand, structures the
daily lives of Bukharan Jewish (mostly women) workers. Early in the
morning they leave the old quarter without sparing a passing glance at the
dilapidated synagogues on their way and enter the new world of Socialist
work and recreational activities instead. Compared to the old “deceased
world” (dunë-yi murda) the new Soviet world of industrial labor offers them
meaning, joy, earnestness, and technological progress. Yet for someone who

78
As far as I know, so far there is no comparison of Samandarov’s rather unknown Xomlo-
yi k hna with Sadriddin Aǐnī’s famous Maktab-i k hna “The old school” (1935), which
was written shortly after Samandarov’s book has been published.
6 T. L O Y

read between the lines, the inexorability of the siren’s hooting on the first
two pages of the hikoya can easily be understood as something threatening.
And as we will see at the end of this paper it was the same author who, in
one of the last Bukharan Jewish literary publications, Pisar-i ‘Ališo “Elisha’s
son” (1939), complained about the oppressive Soviet policy of the 1930s
under a very thin veil of acceptable criticism of the late Czarist era.

DRAMA
In the early Soviet period, drama was regarded as the ideal medium to
spread and teach Soviet ideology and politics among the masses.79 Amateur
and professional Bukharan Jewish theatrical groups were to be found in
almost every town in Central Asia. Some of them toured the country and
performed at kolkhozes or during cotton harvest to educate and entertain the
farm-workers. Many educational institutions, such as the Inpros had their
own students’ theatrical ensembles. Drama “continued to be the most
important literary genre in the 1930s” and there was a constant demand for
new material to be put one stage. Menaše Aminov80 and Ya‘k v Haimov,
two of the most prolific writers of plays contributed to the almanac as well.
In the realm of Bukharan Jewish drama (piyesa) Michael Zand has seen
“serious aesthetic weaknesses: melodrama, a pathos often identical in tone
and vocabulary with ‘leading articles’ in Soviet press, and a naïveté of
dramatic devices and plot.”81 Menaše Aminov’s play Haët-i haqiqi “The real
life” (1933), for example is a play for sixteen protagonists, propagating the
Soviet policy of settling Bukharan Jews in rural collective farms. “All
figures on stage,”82 to use Lutz Rzehaks characterization of a Tajik play
from the same period “are from the start defined as representatives of ‘the

79
For a characterization of Tajik drama in the same period, see Rzehak 2002, pp. 34-40. On
Bukharan Jewish theatrical groups performing biblical sujets in pre-Soviet times, see
Zand 1991, pp. 402-403.
80
Menaše Aminov worked for the OZET (Society for Land Settlement of Toiling Jews) in
Samarkand and studied at the Communist Institute for Journalism in Moscow from 1928
to 1929). On his return to Samarkand he started to work for Roşnaji.
81
Zand 1991, p. 405.
82
In the case of Aminov’s Haët-i haqiqi, the family and neighbours of a petty-trader
(rezavor fur sh), a factory worker, a treacherous trader (savdogar-i firebgar), a student, a
mullah, a gaboy (responsible for financial matters in a synagogue), a member and a head
of a kolkhoz, representatives of KOMZET (Committe for Land Settlement of Toiling Jews)
and OZET .
 RISE AND FALL: BUKHARAN JEWISH LITERATURE 5

old’ or ‘the new’ and do not develop in the course of the plot” and “stand for
a social role, derived from a Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist understanding of
history.”83 Zafar-i Dino “Dino’s victory” repeats the proclamation of
women’s liberation in Soviet Central Asia. Yakub Haimov’s play Ozodi-yi
zanho “The freedom of the women” also touches upon this popular Soviet
topic.84 Haimov who also engaged in prose writing (hikoya and očerk) had
grown up in a Soviet orphanage where he joined the orphanage’s theatrical
group. In the early 1930s he joined the editorial staff of Bayroq-i Mihnat and
became a close friend of Mordexay Bačaev.85
In order to reach their audience, Bukharan Jewish playwrights, more than
poets and prose-writers made ample use of the colloquial language. Thus,
Bukharan Jewish plays are a valuable source for studying the spoken
varieties of Judeo-Tajik of the 1920s and 1930s. Without delving deeper into
this aspect of Bukharan Jewish drama, I want to give one short example here
from the first act of Ya‘k v Haimov’s play Ozodi-yi Panir “Freedom for
Panir” (Tashkent 1934), when the orphan girl Panir opposes the wishes of
her aunt Baxmal, in whose house she lives during the 1920s, to marry her
off:
Baxmal: Či gufsodi tu? Devona šudi či? Gav-i gufsodageta famisodi?
Panir: Hov-hov gapoma judo naghz fahmida, gav zasodin. Man hole
xurdam. Moneton ki ba yak Xomlo daromada xonda šavam, a ‘ilmu ‘aql-i
dunyo xavardor šavam, ba šu rasida či kor mekunam, hama man borin
duxtarbačaho xonsodin. Man čuva ba durun-i xona ġ tida, ba kor-i
ošxona fit šuda megaštim?
Baxmal: E! aħmaq, nodon, početa čuva ba po-yi diga zanoyu duxtaro
daroz karsodi. Tu či-yi dunyoya didi? A mohu tu, xov raftan, xeztan,
zistan va murdan da. Duxtaram ne nag yi, a joniv-i tu man ba ‘amakat
rizogeta doda biyom. (Baxmal čoyniku piyolahoro girifta meravad).86
Baxmal: What are you saying? Are you crazy? Do you understand what
you are saying?

83
Rzehak 2002, pp. 35, 37.
84
In the same year a slightly revised version of Ozodi-yi zanho was published as the first
act of Haimov’s play Ozodi-yi Panir “Freedom for Panir” (Tashkent 1934).
85
On Ya‘k v Haimov, see Bačaev 1988, pp. 300, 438. Haimov’s best known drama is
Najot “Deliverance” (Tashkent 1938) in which he also depicted the struggle for women’s
rights, this time embedded into the play’s main theme of class conflict, which has to be
solved within the families. In this case Haimov portrays a brother and a sister as the
opposing Soviet and anti-Soviet poles.
86
Haimov 1934, p. 8.
6 T. L O Y

Panir: Yes, you understand quite well what I am saying. I am still a child.
Let me go to school in order to learn about the world’s knowledge and
reason. What can I do when I am married? All girls in my age are
studying. Why am I stuck inside the house wasting my time in the
kitchen?
Baxmal: Oh stupid! Why do you point at the other women and girls?
What do you know about the world? All we have to do is to sleep, to get
up, to live and to die. My daughter, don’t say no. I will go and tell your
Uncle that you agree [to marry]. (Baxmal takes the teapot and the cups
and leaves).
Both the content of this scene and the language used by Panir and
Baxmal could be found in any Tajik play of the 1930s (for example the
forms of present progressive [such as gufsodi; famisodi; gav zasodin;
xonsodin; karsodi],87 participial-constructions [such as daromada xonda
šavam; ba durun-i xona ġ tida, ba kor-i ošxona fit šuda megaštim and ba
‘amakat rizogeta doda biyom], post-positions [čuva instead of baro-yi či],
verbal endings [xonsodin instead of xonsodaand], the preposition az reduced
to a and the reduced suffix object-marker [-a/-ya] instead of [-ro]) with only
some exceptions in pronunciation and writing: in some words the consonants
[p] and [b] are pronounced soft as [v] (e.g. gav instead of gap, xov instead of
xob, joniv instead of jonib). The glottal [h] is noted (e.g. in aħmaq). The
voiced guttural plosive [‘] was kept at the beginning of a word (e.g. ‘ilm
instead of Tajik ilm) and the [h] of the plural [ho] was omitted. Yet these
differences were rather marginal, and in 1935 two significant markers of
Bukharan Jewish (the glottal [h] and the use of [ů] instead of [ ]) were
declared irrelevant and their use in literature was forbidden, in order to
assimilate Judeo-Tajik to Tajik.88

LITERATURE, CENSORSHIP AND THE END

For authors who were not completely in line with Party policies,
censorship was another problem to be dealt with. In his memoirs Mordexay
Bačaev writes about a musical play (drama-yi musiqavi)89 by his close friend

87
gufsodi etc. is the reduced spoken form of the present progressive gufta istodai – a
grammatical form which is commonly used by all Tajik/Persian speakers in Central Asia.
88
Rzehak 2001, pp. 287-289 and 2008, pp. 53-54.
89
Musical plays were a popular genre in Bukharan Jewish literature. According to Bačaev
(1988, p. 306) the Mulloqandov brothers were running a Bukharan Jewish theatre for
 RISE AND FALL: BUKHARAN JEWISH LITERATURE 5

Ya‘k v Haimov which did not pass this final politico-literary hurdle.90 In
1934 Haimov came up with the idea of writing a play about the sensitive
issue of Bukharan Jewish “runaways” (gurezaho); that is, those people who
in the early 1930s fled in great numbers from the Soviet Union.91 Haimov
asked Bačaev to contribute the ghazal for that three-act play, and the
Mulloqandov brothers to compose the music. The two friends conferred with
each other on how to write such a play without betraying the refugees
(among those were Mordexay Bačaev’s mother, his brothers and sisters with
their families), and at the same time not getting into trouble with the
authorities: in such a way that “the wolves get satisfied and the sheep don’t
get harmed.”92
Yet how could he convey that, from the author’s point of view the real
motivation of the refugees was “to escape from the violence (zulm) and
injustice (javr)” of the Soviet system, without being accused of being “anti-
Soviet” and “counterrevolutionary” himself? A kind of double-talk seemed
to offer “the only solution” of reaching that goal. According to Bačaev, his
friend “intended to shape the topic in a way that showed the injustice and
tyranny (sitam) of the government towards the poor people which was in fact
a consequence of its cruel (zolimona) and plundering (ġoratgarona) policy,
as the injustice, tyranny, and stubbornness (xudsari) of many officials and
some public authorities. At the end of the play these ‘culprits’ (gunahkoron)
were to be held responsible and punished by the government which thereby
tuned out to be without guilt (begunoh).”93 In the end, the play was not
realized, because friends and colleagues advised Haimov “to refrain from
writing that play” and his superiors “strictly forbade him to touch upon that
sensitive issue.”94
Nonetheless there is one striking example of Bukharan Jewish literature
of the 1930s which can be read as a realization of that double-talk strategy:
Menaše Yishoqboev’s hikoya “Elisho’s son” (Pisar-i ‘Ališo) was one of the
last publications in Bukharan Jewish altogether. When the 52-pages book

musical plays (teatr-i drama-yi musiqavi) in Samarkand and toured the country with their
productions.
90
Bačaev 1988, pp. 300-315.
91
On that wave of Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union, see footnote no. 34.
92
“…ham gurgho ser mešavand, ham g sfandho salomat memonand.” (Bačaev 1988, p.
305).
93
Bačaev 1988, p. 305.
94
Ibid., p. 315.
6 T. L O Y

was published in 1939, most Bukharan Jewish institutions had already been
closed down (like the newspaper Bayroq-i Mihnat for which Menaše
Yishoqboev used to work) and many of his friends and colleagues had been
arrested and were sitting in jail. In contrast to Ya‘q v Haimov, Menaše
Yishoqboev situated his hikoya in pre-Soviet times, but readers (if there
were any left at the end of the 1930s) most probably understood it as a
critique of the repressive Soviet politics, and a description of their own
situation at the end of the 1930s. The books subtitle Az hodisaho-yi
tilovoygiri-yi sol-i 1916 “About the phenomenon of taking the gold in the
year 1916” directly relates to the Soviet confiscation drive of the early
1930s. But in Yishoqboev’s hikoya the Czarist officials do not confiscate the
gold of their subjects but they take away their sons.95

MENASHE YISHOQBOYEV’S STORY OF ‘ALISHO’S SON

As the First World War progressed, a point was reached, in the autumn of
1916, when the Czarist regime resorted to rounding up young Muslims and
Jews from all over Russian Turkestan and forcing them to join the army.
Poor people in particular, who were unable to buy their sons out, were
afraid, and tried to hide the young adolescent boys from the Czarist
catchpole. Yishoqboev divided the hikoya in three parts. Part one takes place
in the house of the poor Jewish couple ‘Ališo and Siporo. Some boys from
the neighborhood have already been taken away by armed governmental
officials, who patrolled the streets or searched the houses day or night. Now
the old parents are worried about their seventeen-years-old son Ari. People
in the streets complain about the bačagiri (“kidnapping of the boys”) and
blame the community leaders (kalonho, boyho, muloho), their henchmen
(pešxizmatho-yi boyho) and their informants (kosales-i boyu muloho) for
betraying their own people.96 One evening the officials come to Ališo’s
house to get Ari. But they do not find him. He escapes and hides with two

95
On the Soviet tillogiri of the early 1930s, see footnote no. 36. Whether Yishoqboev’s
book was a courageous act or a commissioned work to rewrite history, discredit the
Czarist era and whitewash the Soviet rule, can not be solved here. In retrospect, at least,
the parallels are evident.
96
In his book Očerk pravovogo byta sredneaziatskix evreev (Tashkent-Samarkand:
Uzbekskoe gosudarstvennoe izdatel‘stvo, 1931), Z.L. Amitin-Šapiro described the
cohesion and solidarity of the Bukharan Jewish communities as one reason why only
very few Bukharan Jews were actually drafted in 1916 (I am grateful to Zeev Levin for
that comment).
 RISE AND FALL: BUKHARAN JEWISH LITERATURE 5

other boys in a house belonging to relatives. In the second part the police
officers (politseyskiho) threaten to comb all houses of the neighborhood and
finally detect the boys. All three are taken away like criminals and brought
to the house of the kalontar97. The parents are informed, and people gather in
the streets: “they looked at each other and cursed the Czar (podšoh) and the
government (hukumatdorho) in a low voice, so that only people nearby
could understand.”98 The police officers grow nervous, as precedents had
been already set elsewhere of people attacking government buildings and
even killing civil servants under similar situations. But this time they reach
the house of the kalontar unharmed. The last part of the hikoya takes place
in the courtyard of the kalontar. About forty innocent Jewish boys and men
(gunohnakarda) are sitting in front of the community leaders and confront
them with their questions and complaints. Ari’s demand on them to send
their sons to the front ends in a tumultuous protest which is violently
suppressed. The captives spend the night in a camp, along with one hundred
other Jews and one thousand Muslims who were also “drafted.” The
following day Ari is allowed to visit his father, who had a stroke when he
heard about the fate of his son. Two hours later his escort takes him to the
railroad tracks outside the city. “That night the chained captives … out of
sight of the people entered the ‘red railway carriages’ (vagonho-yi surx) and
were transported to Russia.”99 While the captives face a doubtful future far
from home, the rest of the community stays behind, paralyzed and unable to
not know who will be arrested next, and what could yet ensue. Exactly fifty
years later, Bukharan Jewish readers read once more of Bukharan Jewish
captives on board a train. This time, in the second volume of Mordexay
Bačaev’s memoirs Dar juvol-i sangin “In a stony sack” (Tel Aviv 1989), the
“truthful novel about the life and the history of the Bukharan Jews” Aron
Šalamaev had waited for so long, they were Soviet prisoners on their way to
the Gulag. But this is another story yet to be told.

Thomas Loy
Adresse

97
kalontar (lit. “elder”) is the traditional secular leader (chief administrator) of Bukharan
Jewish communities.
98
Yishoqboev 1939, p. 43.
99
Ibid., p. 52. Vagonho-yi surx was a nickname for life-stock wagons.
6 T. L O Y

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