Publication Details
Abstract
This article traces the evolution of discourse on sheʼr (poetry) and shoirlik (poethood) in Uzbek literature from the sixteenth century to the formation, in 1919, of the first dedicated theoretical treatment of the subject. It shows that, before the twentieth century, reflection on poetry and the poet was embedded within other genres — the historical chronicle and memoir (Hofiz Tanish Buxoriy’s Abdullanoma, Zayniddin Vosifiy’s Badoyeʼ ul-vaqoye) and the lyric devan (Munis, Maxmur, Furqat) rather than treated as an independent subject of inquiry. Particular attention is given to the nineteenth-century poets’ growing insistence on truthfulness (haqqoniylik) and social usefulness in poetry, their condemnation of the flattering “maddoh” poet, and the press-era controversies this provoked. The article then examines Abdurauf Fitrat’s 1919 essay “Sheʼr va shoirliq,” published in the newspaper Ishtirokiyun, which the dissertation on which this study draws identifies as the first Uzbek-language work to treat poetry and poethood as a unified theoretical problem rather than a series of scattered remarks. Fitrat’s argument that verse requires “maʼnaviy kuch” (spiritual-emotional force) rather than meter and rhyme alone, and his rejection of imitation (taqlidchilik), are read against both classical Eastern poetics and later twentieth-century Uzbek poets’ own reflections on originality. Given the continuing post-Soviet rehabilitation and international reassessment of Fitrat’s legacy, revisiting this genealogy remains a task of clear current relevance.