During the last few weeks, we’ve been talking about events in Turkestan in 1917 and today we’re going to take a step back and talk about two giants within the Jadid movement: Munavvar qori Abdurashidxon and Mahmudxo’ja Behbudiy. Both of these men were identified by Adeeb Khalid as the most influential Jadids of their time. They provided the funding, organization, and intellectual drive and supported the Jadid during the Tsarist regime and helped the Jadids survive the tumultuous period between 1919 and 1926, when they succumbed to the Soviet purges.
Mahmudxo’ja Behbudiy
Mahmudxo’ja Behbudiy was born in Samarqand in 1875. He came from a family of qazis and became a mufti as well as a successful merchant. While going on the hajji in 1900, he became convinced that Turkestan society needed to be reformed. He may have also been introduced to Gasprinsky’s ideas about reform and the new teaching method during his travels. When he returned to Samarkand, he dedicated his wealth and literary abilities to the Jadid cause. He wrote several primers for the new-method schools and contributed to Uzbek literature through several plays. His play Padarkush (the Patricide) was the first Uzbek play to be staged. In 1913 he turned to the printed press and published the newspaper Samarqand and Oyina (Mirror) which became the most important Jadid periodical in Turkestan.
As we discussed in our Alash Orda episode, 1905 brought a moment of hope for the people of Central Asia as they were offered representation in the Duma. When that right was taken away, the Kazakh intellectuals allied with the Socialist democrats (the Kadets), but Behbudiy was distrustful of the Kadets and instead turned to the newly created Muslim Faction in the Duma (this was a governmental body for all other Muslims of the Russian Empire, but no Turkestan Muslims). He submitted a list of his ideal future for Turkestan, arguing that Turkestan remain part of the Russian Empire, but as an equal. He wanted an Administration of Spiritual and Internal Affairs that would oversee immigration, resettlement, education and cultural life. The Administration would be managed by men elected for 5 year-terms and familiar with Sharia law. They would control all matters of law including the administrators and judges, oversee the function of the mosques and madrasa and manage waqf property. Behbudiy believed this would give the government the power to reform Islam, particularly Sufi practices, while granting autonomy and modernity to Turkestan.
During the 1917 revolution, Behbudiy was in Samarkand managing a new newspaper the Huriyet (Liberty). When the Bukharan Emir chased out his Jadids, many of them fled to Samarkand, including Abdurauf Fitrat, and ended up writing for Behbudiy’s paper. While Fitrat would eventually argue for an Uzbek based origin story for Turkestan, finding inspiration from the great Timur to justify the creation of a Turkestani state, Behbudiy believed that for Turkestan to survive, they needed to embrace their Turkic, Russian, Arabic, and Persian roots. He argued that Persian was significant to Turkestanis because:
“It is the language of madrassas and litterateurs and is spoken in several cities and villages in the Samarqand and Ferghana provinces of Turkestan.”
Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 295
His newspaper the Oyina was published in Uzbek but had Persian articles. However, his other newspaper the Huriyet after 1917 only published materials in Uzbek.
When the Kokand Autonomy was formed in 1917, Behbudiy sat on the Kokand Autonomy’s 32-member council. While serving on the council, he and three others were sent to the Paris Peace Conference to gain recognition of the situation in Turkestan. He never made it to Paris. Instead, while traveling through Bukhara, he was stopped by border guards, arrested, and tortured to death. He died on March 25th, 1919.
Munavvar qori Abdurashidxon
Munavvar qori Abdurashidxon was born in Tashkent in 1878. Like Behbudiy, he came from a religious family. Most of his family members were ulama and he studied at a madrassa in Bukhara. While studying, he became convinced of the need for reforms.
In 1905, Munavvar wrote:
“All our acts and actions, our ways, our words, our maktabs, and madrasas and methods of teaching and our morals are in decay…if we continue in this way for another five or ten years, we are in danger of being dispersed and effaced under the oppression of developed nations…O coreligionists, o compatriots! Let’s be just and compare out situation to that of other advanced nations…let’s secure the future of our coming generations and save them from becoming slaves and servants of others. The Europeans, taking advantage of our negligence and ignorance, took our government from our hands and are gradually taking over our crafts and trades. If we do not quickly make an effort to reform our affairs in order to safeguard ourselves, our nation, and our children, our future will be extremely difficult.
Reform begins with a rapid start in cultivating sciences conforming to our times. Becoming acquainted with the sciences of the [present] time depends upon the reform of our schools and our methods of teaching”
Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 27
Munavvar was introduced to the new-school methods supported by Gaprinsky and opened a new method school in Tashkent, the Namuna (Model) school. He also published several textbooks and contributed to several Tashkent newspapers. However, his biggest contribution was his efforts in creating a standardized and universal curriculum for the schools in Tashkent, organizing the wealthy merchants of Tashkent to open a reading room, and creating a benevolent society called the Imdodiya (Aid).
Munavvar used his considerable organizing skills to spur the intellectuals to take advantage of the Russian Revolution. Munavar was involved in the many different councils that sprung up in Turkestan. He and Ubaydulla Xo’jayev organized the first meeting of the Shuro council, a place for the people of Turkestan to come together and rule themselves. You can learn how that turned out in our episode on the Russian Revolution and Central Asia. Munavvar would be elected president of the First Turkestan Muslim Council in 1917 and take part in the formation of the Kokand Autonomy.
When the Bolsheviks took Tashkent in 1918 and established the Musburo, they couldn’t extent its power into the old city, so the indigenous activists took over. At the time there were several Ottoman POWs in Central Asia and Munavvar decided to hire them as teachers in their schools. He also became involved with many of the nationalist and secret societies running rampant in Turkestan as the Bolsheviks, Jadids, and Russian settlers struggled to fill the political vacuum created by the fall of the Tsar. He was also involved with the reformation of the waqfs, believing they were the best mechanism the Jadids had to redistribute funds for the betterment of the community. He argued that the waqfs were:
“Founded not for serving religious and benevolent needs, but for the progress of culture and the enlightenment of the people”
Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, 233
And that they could:
“Liberate the thousands of existing maktabs from their present pitiful condition and to transform them from religious institutions into sources of culture and enlightenment”
Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 234
Because of his role in establishing the Shuro, the Kokand Autonomy, and his work with the Ottomans, he came under the Cheka’s suspicion as the Bolsheviks spread their control over the entirety of Turkestan. In late 1920 he was arrested and thrown in prison for a year.
When he was released, Munavvar worked first for the branch of the Commissariat of Education that was responsible for primary and secondary education and then in the Uzbek Academic Center. While writing primers, he became embroiled in a scandal when his work was defamed for being “counterrevolutionary’ and “narrow nationalist” that brought him under renewed surveillance in 1921.
As the Soviets strengthened their hold over Central Asia, they didn’t know what to do with the old revolutionary Jadids and Alash Orda. Their first approach was to push them out of governmental bodies into dead end jobs or academia while keeping them under close surveillance. They then implemented random arrests, deportations to gulags, and finally executed them for state crimes. Munavvar was hounded by the Cheka since 1921, chased to Moscow where he could not find work, chased back to what was now Uzbekistan, and fired from his job at the Uzbek Academic Center. In 1927, he was asked by the OGPU to write a written testimony about his work with the Jadids and Nationalists. He also made a public speech where he admitted his “mistakes” and claimed that the Jadids were willing to work with the regime. His speech was belittled and he never made a public appearance again.
Munavvar became implicit in the Milliy Istiqlol (National Independence) conspiracy cooked up by the OGPU which claimed that at least 84 Jadids and various members of the Soviet Apparatus (several who actually went to Munavvar’s new-method school) were nationalists conspiring to overthrow the Soviet Union and/or working with the British to create an autonomous Turkestan. Munavvar was spared a show trial but was still executed on April 23rd, 1931.
References
Making Uzbekistan: Nation, Empire, and Revolution in the Early USSR by Adeeb Khalid
Russian Colonial Society in Tashkent 1865-1923 by Jeff Sahadeo
