Sadriddin Ayni ( tg, Садриддин Айнӣ, fa, صدرالدين عينى, russian: Садриддин Саидмуродович Саидмуродов; 15 April 1878 – 15 July 1954) was a
Tajik intellectual who wrote poetry, fiction, journalism, history, and dictionary. He is regarded as Tajikistan's national poet and one of the most important writers in the country's history.
Biography
Ayni was born in a peasant family in the village of Soktare in what was then the
Emirate of Bukhara
The Emirate of Bukhara ( fa, , Amārat-e Bokhārā, chg, , Bukhārā Amirligi) was a Muslim polity in Central Asia that existed from 1785 to 1920 in what is modern-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. It occupied the lan ...
. He became an orphan at 12 and moved to join his older brother in
Bukhara
Bukhara (Uzbek language, Uzbek: /, ; tg, Бухоро, ) is the List of cities in Uzbekistan, seventh-largest city in Uzbekistan, with a population of 280,187 , and the capital of Bukhara Region.
People have inhabited the region around Bukhara ...
, where he attended a
madrasa
Madrasa (, also , ; Arabic: مدرسة , pl. , ) is the Arabic word for any type of educational institution, secular or religious (of any religion), whether for elementary instruction or higher learning. The word is variously transliterated '' ...
and learned to write in Arabic.
In the early 1920s Ayni helped to propagate the
Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and ad ...
in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. In 1934 he attended the Soviet Congress of Writers as the Tajik representative. By purporting national identity in his writings, he was able to escape the Soviet censors that quieted many intellectuals in Central Asia. Ayni survived the
Soviet Purges, and even outlived Stalin by one year. He was member of the Supreme Soviet of Tajikistan for 20 years, was awarded the
Order of Lenin
The Order of Lenin (russian: Орден Ленина, Orden Lenina, ), named after the leader of the Russian October Revolution, was established by the Central Executive Committee on April 6, 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration b ...
three times, and was the first president of the
Academy of Sciences of Tajik SSR. After 1992, his writing helped to bind together a sense of Tajik nationalism that survived the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Ayni gave indigenous Tajik literature in Tajikistan a boost in 1927 by writing ''Dokhunda'', the first Tajikistani novel in the
Tajik language
Tajik (Tajik: , , ), also called Tajiki Persian (Tajik: , , ) or Tajiki, is the variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by Tajiks. It is closely related to neighbouring Dari with which it forms a continuum of mutually intelligible ...
. In 1934 and 1935, leading Russian director
Lev Kuleshov
Lev Vladimirovich Kuleshov (russian: Лев Владимирович Кулешов; – 29 March 1970) was a Russian and Soviet filmmaker and film theorist, one of the founders of the world's first film school, the Moscow Film School. He ...
worked for two years in Tajikistan at a movie based on ''Dokhunda'' but the project was regarded with suspicion by the authorities as possibly exciting Tajik nationalism, and stopped. No footage survives.
Ayni's four-volume ''Yoddoshtho'' (Memoirs), completed 1949-54 are famous and widely read. In 1956, Tajik director Boris (Besion) Kimyagarov (1920–1979) was finally able to get approval for a movie version of ''Dokhunda''.
Ayni's early poems were about love and nature, but after the national awakening in Tajikistan, his subject matter shifted to the dawn of the new age and the working class. His writings often criticized
the Amir of Bukhara. Two well-known are ''The Slave'' and ''The Bukhara Executioners''.
Ayni died in
Dushanbe
Dushanbe ( tg, Душанбе, ; ; russian: Душанбе) is the capital and largest city of Tajikistan. , Dushanbe had a population of 863,400 and that population was largely Tajik. Until 1929, the city was known in Russian as Dyushambe (r ...
, the capital of Tajikistan, where a mausoleum stands in his honor.
References
Notes
Translations
Ainī, Sadriddin, and John R. Perry. 1998. ''The sands of Oxus: boyhood reminiscences of Sadriddin Aini''. Costa Mesa, Calif: Mazda Publishers.
External links
Sadriddin Ayni's timeline, biography and names of works
1878 births
1954 deaths
20th-century male writers
20th-century Tajikistani historians
People from Bukhara Region
Members of the Tajik Academy of Sciences
Stalin Prize winners
Recipients of the Order of Lenin
Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour
Male poets
20th-century Tajikistani poets
Tajikistani male writers
Persian-language poets
Tajikistani novelists
Tajikistani journalists
Tajik poets
Socialist realism writers
Soviet poets
Soviet male writers
Soviet politicians
Communist Party of Tajikistan politicians
Third convocation members of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union
Fourth convocation members of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union
Jadids
Researchers of Persian literature
19th-century pseudonymous writers
20th-century pseudonymous writers
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