A Kokand poet of the late 19th century and one of the founders of the satirical and realist current in Uzbek literature, known for his satire “The Land Surveyors” and his travel poems. A house-museum in Kokand honours him.
Muhammad Aminkhoja, son of Mirzakhoja, who wrote as Muqimiy (“constancy”), was born in Kokand in 1850 to a baker's family; his exact birth date is unknown. His father came from Tashkent and his mother, Oyshabibi, from Khujand; it was she who awakened his love of poetry, introducing him to Navoi, Hafez and Jami. He studied at the neighbourhood school, at Kokand's Mahlaroyim madrasa built by Nodira, and in the madrasas of Bukhara. Returning to Kokand in 1876, he worked as a clerk in the land survey office. After his father's death he fell into poverty and from 1885 until the end of his life lived in a small cell of the Hazrat madrasa. He died in Kokand on 25 May 1903.
His work
Besides lyrical ghazals, Muqimiy wrote biting satire. Having watched officials' fraud at close quarters, he wrote “The Land Surveyors” (Tanobchilar), and in poems such as “The Moscow Merchant” and “The Victor Affair” he mocked tsarist administrators, bribe-takers and profiteers. His “Travel Notes” (Sayohatnoma) give lively portraits of the towns and villages along the roads between Kokand and Fergana. His plain, popular language and humour made his verse hugely popular, and many of his ghazals are sung as songs. With Furqat, Zavqiy and others he shaped Kokand's literary scene.
Remembrance
Muqimiy is recognised as a founder of democratic Uzbek literature. Tashkent's Uzbek State Musical Theatre, the Kokand State Pedagogical Institute and many streets bear his name; Kokand has a house-museum devoted to him, and in 2021 Uzbekfilm released a feature film, “Muqimiy”, about his life. In Kokand the museum pairs naturally with Khudayar Khan's palace and the Friday Mosque.
From 9 May to 17 June 1865 General Mikhail Chernyayev's troops besieged Tashkent, then part of the Khanate of Kokand. Alimqul, Kokand's de facto ruler, was killed leading the defence, and the city passed to the Russian Empire. In 1866, at war with the Emirate of Bukhara, Russian forces took Khujand, Ura-Tyube and Jizzakh. In 1867 the Governorate-General of Turkestan was created with its seat in Tashkent, headed first by General Konstantin von Kaufman. A new European-style Russian town grew up beside the old city, and Tashkent became the region's administrative centre.
Samarkand falls and Bukhara becomes a protectorate
In May 1868 Kaufman's troops defeated the army of Emir Muzaffar of Bukhara on the Chupan-Ata heights and entered Samarkand. In June, while the main force crushed the emir again at Zirabulak, the small garrison left in Samarkand's citadel was besieged by townspeople and the forces of the Shakhrisabz begs; among the defenders was the painter Vasily Vereshchagin. Under the peace signed at the end of June, Samarkand and Kattakurgan passed to Russia as the Zeravshan District, and the Emirate of Bukhara became a Russian protectorate. Vereshchagin's Turkestan series, including scenes of the siege, hangs in Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery.
In spring 1873 several Russian columns under the overall command of General Kaufman crossed the deserts from different directions into Khorezm, and at the end of May Khiva surrendered without a fight. Under the Treaty of Gandimian, signed in August, Muhammad Rahim Khan II kept his throne but lost the right to conduct foreign policy without Russian consent; the slave trade and slavery were abolished and a heavy indemnity imposed. The right bank of the Amu Darya, most of today's Karakalpakstan, passed to Russia as the Amu Darya Department, administered from the fort of Petro-Alexandrovsk, now Turtkul. Khiva survived as a protectorate until 1920.
In 1873 a broad revolt against Khudayar Khan's heavy taxes swept the Fergana Valley, led by a pretender known as Pulat Khan. In 1875 Khudayar was overthrown and fled to Russian territory, and the rising turned against Russia. Troops under General Kaufman and Mikhail Skobelev occupied the valley, and in February 1876 an imperial decree abolished the khanate, replacing it with Fergana Oblast. A new administrative centre, New Margelan, was built — later renamed Skobelev and, from 1924, Fergana. Khudayar Khan's palace in Kokand now houses the regional museum.
Built eastward from the Caspian shore under General Mikhail Annenkov, the Trans-Caspian Railway reached Samarkand via Bukhara (Kagan) in 1888. Trains first crossed the Amu Darya on a wooden bridge; a permanent one was completed only in 1901. In 1898 the line was extended to Tashkent and Andijan, and the opening of the Tashkent–Orenburg railway in 1906 linked Central Asia directly with central Russia. The railway boosted cotton exports dramatically, and new settlements grew around stations such as Kagan and Khavast and in the Russian quarters of towns like Jizzakh. The old station buildings of Kagan and Samarkand recall the era.
On the night of 29 May 1898 some 1,500 armed men led by the Naqshbandi sheikh Muhammad Ali Madali, known as Dukchi Ishan, attacked the Russian army camp at Andijan. The rising fed on resentment of colonial rule, taxation and land policy, as well as on religious appeals. The troops quickly recovered and beat off the attack, and within days the revolt was crushed. Dukchi Ishan and other leaders were executed, many participants exiled and their villages punished. The episode pushed the authorities to tighten control over Muslim institutions in Turkestan.
