Author: Bhattacharya, Nandini

Annotation: Abdurrauf Fitrat was an iconic figure in the formative phase of Uzbek national identity as part of the supra-national Soviet identity growing along the Bolshevik Revolution and its expansion in the East during the interwar period. However, Fitrat’s life and career as an intellectual and a potential leader began to develop much before the advent of the Bolshevik power in the region of inner Asia. He was an established scholar, a poet and a promising author who had a critical approach towards traditional strongholds of orthodoxy and repression and an agile and fearless pen to express his thoughts. This was for his association and belonging to the Jadid movement , an all pervasive renaissance growing within the Turko-Persian literary genre centring around the great education hubs of the Islamic world. As an young Jadid, aspiring for an all-out reform and modernization of his society , Fitrat, like many of his contemporaries were spontaneously attracted towards the Bolshevik ideology, preaching against extortion, repression and imperial domination.

Keywords: Abdurrauf Fitrat, Uzbek national identity, the Jadid movement, the Turko-Persian literary

Pages in journal: 353 - 362