Today’s Uzbekistan has been revisiting the phenomenon of Jadidism [reformist movement in Turkestan in the late 19th–early 20th centuries – trans.], considered an important movement that changed our region’s history. To me, Jadidism was a really powerful ideology and an effective campaign.
But for some reason, when the Jadids are mentioned, we refer to mostly male figures like Behbudi, Kadiri, Cholpon, Ibrat, Avloni... We barely see the faces of women, we scarcely hear their names. However, they were there, they were active and enthusiastic. There were many of those who sacrificed their lives for the cause, and those who were persecuted.
Anbar Atin, Khairinisa Majidkhanova, Maryam Sultanmuradova, Tursunoi Saidazimova, Masuma Kariyeva, Rukiya Khojayeva are to name but a few of those Jadidist women.
Unfortunate as it is, the names and images of women, let alone what they did, were rarely mentioned and covered by contemporaries due to the demands of the times. But even during the past hundred years, no serious research has been undertaken to inquire into their activities and personalities. Perhaps it’s time to fill this gap?
In order to make a good way out of the thorny situation they happened to be, the Jadidist women turned first to education, then to words (fiction), and then to theater. That was a reason why they chose to become primarily teachers, poets and actresses.
However, at the turn of the 20th century, women were in need across diverse areas: they thus began pursuing education as doctors, chemists, and lawyers. Some of them studied in Germany with the help of the “Komak” (Assistance) Fund. They aimed to become a ‘soft power’ determined to change the society.
Regrettable as it was, our grannies who studied in Germany were destined to fall victims of Soviet repression; they were banned, arrested, while others were executed... Some of them were still unmarried, others were pregnant, and many others had babies in their arms and had children at home.
“As my mother used to tell us,” Maryam Sultanmuradova’s daughter Anorakhon Davronova recalls, “on August 30, 1937, two men in military uniform came early in the morning to 13 Uyezdnaya Street beside the present-day Alai Market in Tashkent, and all of a sudden took my mother and me, a 5-6 months-old baby, to prison. Until my mother came out of prison for the first time in 1947, i.e. in 10 years’ time, I grew up in the home of my aunt, while my brother Polatbek Ahmadbekov was raised first in an orphanage, and then by my aunt Gulchehra. We both grew up longing for our mother.
That is, the struggle of a woman was not only about sacrificing herself to a cause, but also seriously endangering her family, loved ones, and the surrounding microcosm. They made such sacrifices since they were so brave.
It was not easy to exist as a woman during the period of grave political, social and economic transformation in Turkestan at the turn of the 20th century. On the one hand, views of the Bolsheviks and the Jadids clashed over the question about the future of Uzbekistan, resulting in confrontation and war. On the other hand, the people faced heavy economic situation, religious fanaticism...
Every type of difficulty was first reflected in women’s lives.
Call me Anbaratin, who came to this bitter world,
Call me Anbaratin, burdened in thorny grudge.
Who came to this world at a bad time,
Call me Anbaratin who came to the house of witches.
People of manners are humiliated underfoot,
Call me Anbaratin who came as a ray.
Anbar Atin is one of the first Jadidist women. She believed that she was born in the wrong time and the wrong space. That is, she is critical of the era and the system. Check out her Philosophy of the Black. It is an analysis at the level of Diderot, Kant, Montesquieu and Rousseau of the tragedy of social inequality, economic stress, political blindness and domestic backwardness in society. But she was a woman, and thus her voice was not heard...
Jadidist women are people we know very little about. Today’s Uzbek women should be grateful to them for their rights. For this reason, I would like the names of our courageous, active and learned Jadidist mothers, who remain hidden behind the curtain of history, to be widely promoted.
