The main theme of Aini’s writings is the struggle for justice and change. This leitmotif was acceptable for the Soviet government as it fit into narratives about the struggle of classes. The characters in Aini’s prose are positive or negative depending on their relation to the revolution; anyone who opposed the revolution or did anything in the past that was not in line with the revolutionary ideology was a bad character, whereas those, who benefited from revolution and participated in it are by default positive personages.727 As a rule, a personage on the good side
723 I. Braginskii, "Dvadtsat' Piat' Vstrech s Sadriddinom Aini," in Zhashnnomai Aini, ed. K. Aini, et al. (Dushanbe:
Donish, 1971), 310.
724 For more details of the debate, see ibid., 300-01.
725 For a review of these words, and other contributions of Aini to Tajik morphology, see R. Ghafforov, "Zabon va
Uslubi Ocherki "Qahramoni Khalqi Tozhik Temurmalik"," in Zhashnnomai Aini, ed. K. Aini, et al. (Dushanbe: Donish, 1971).
726 Mirzoev, "Unsurhoi Zaboni Guftuguii Mardumi Bukhoro dar Asarhoi S. Aini," 35.
of the fence was a representative of the Tajik nation. Braginskiǐ notes that “the themes of his novels are taken, as a rule, from the life of the Tajik people.”728 According to a Tajik scholar, “Aini’s best writings […] expressed the very essence of great changes in the life and self- consciousness of the Tajik people that marched out of the feudal Middle Ages toward the bright path of socialism.”729 There is an argument that Aini was preoccupied with the fate of the Tajik nation before the revolution and, as his literary works kept emerging, Aini voiced his concerns more loudly:
Aini’s creative works concentrate on the issues of the historical fate of his own nation. It has always been so, from the onset of his career as a writer. For instance, [we can take] Aini’s earlier, still naïve work called “Khonavodai khushbakht” or “Oilai Khushbakht” [Happy Household/Family] written in 1916. Cannot one already feel in this work an anxiety for the fate of his nation? […] one can hear, as if the heart of the young writer beats alarmingly concerning the fate of his people: will they be literate or will they remain illiterate? This holy [sic] feeling of anxiety about the plight of the Tajik nation can be felt more in a mature, classic work of Aini such as “Yoddoshtho” [Memoirs]. […] In all his writings, one can hear his voice saying, “Where are
you going, my nation?730
The emotional narratives about the oppressions and atrocities that the Tajiks faced can be observed in Aini’s literary works. For instance, through the words of Odina, a positive character in an eponymous novel, Aini revealed the harsh conditions the Tajiks lived in:
Brother! Poor Tajiks, whose bones rest in the dirty and stinky well, are the ones to blame [for their condition]? Their biggest guilt is ignorance and backwardness. They do not understand anything. Words like “faith” and “motherland” are sacred to them. It is unforgivable for workers. They preferred to die like sheep, ingratiatingly looking at the eyes of the murderer. It was the same in the past. However, with this challenge, it is
time to see who our enemy is and who our friend is.731
In essence, Aini’s writings are about the struggle of the oppressed Tajik people against the atrocities of the Manghit rulers. For instance, his Slaves depicts “how the Tajiks spent the last century in slavery and how they eradicated it to start a new, more deserving life”732 and culminates with the announcement of the Tajik Soviet Republic. 733 As Rosenfeld noted, the novel
728 I. Braginskii, "O natsional'nom i internatsional'nom v tvorchestve S.Aini," in Zhashnnomai Aini, ed. K. Aini, et al.
(Dushanbe: Donish, 1963), 8.
729 Iakubov, "Esteticheskaia kontseptsiia Sadriddina Aini," 58.
730 Braginskii, "O natsional'nom i internatsional'nom v tvorchestve S.Aini," 9-10.
731 Aini’s character Odina as quoted in Zh. Baqozoda, "Realizm S.Aini," in Zhashnnomai Aini, ed. K. Aini, et al.
(Dushanbe: Donish, 1971), 25-26.
732 Aini as quoted in Rozenfel'd, "Sadriddin Aini i iego "Vospominaniia"," 966-67.
733 See also L. Demidchik, "O printsipe istoritsizma v proze S.Aini," in Zhashnnomai Aini, ed. K. Aini, et al. (Dushanbe:
is about “the struggle of the Tajik toilers against the oppressors.” 734 Therefore, the positive characters in Aini’s literary works are deemed to represent the best qualities of the Tajik nation:
In the essays and novels of Aini, the positive and negative characters differ from one another in their deeds, views, social affiliation, and class. The representatives of the workers, despite all humiliations and difficulties, bear in themselves the best and progressive rudiments that the Tajik nation has accumulated. It is them – Odina, Gulbibi (from the essay “Odina”), Yodgor, Gulnor (“Dokhunda”), Ergash, Fotima (“Slaves”), Saidmurod, Ustoamak (“Memoirs”) – that are the true bearers of the best national characteristics. They are drawn by a soft and expressive brush and immediately deserve the sympathy of a reader. The representatives of the exploiter classes [sic], from Klych khalifa, Arbob Kamol to Kutbiia, represent inhumaneness, insidiousness, spiritual bankruptcy. The writer [Aini] did not spare bright colours when creating the images of the enemies. […] The personality of the heroes gets revealed in the extreme dramatic situations and collisions [between the positive and negative characters]. Through the disclosure of their moral image, the objective historical movement of the society, the destruction of
the foundations of the feudal Bukharan Emirate gets exposed.735
The oppressors of the Tajiks are either the Manghit monarchs of Bukhara or the officials, religious clerics and the wealthy that thrived under their rule. In Aini’s narration, the history of the Manghit rulers of Bukhara appears as, to use the words of a Tajik analyst, “a chain of uninterrupted dreadful villainy, and violation of the principles of goodness and humanity.”736 For instance, Aini’s Jallodoni Bukhoro was about the “brutality of Emir and his officials.” 737 Another work, Ta’rikhi Mukhtasari Harakati Inqilobi dar Bukhoro (Short History of Revolutionary Movement in Bukhara), was known as an “important and valuable source” concerning the history of late XIX and the early 20th century due to the facts within it regarding popular opposition to the atrocities of the Manghit rulers and the political and spiritual elite.738 In general, it is believed that Aini attempted to explain to readers that “bloodshed and moral decadence were the inherited sins of the Manghit dynasty.”739
While in the Soviet period, Tajik versus Manghit narratives of Aini were mostly understood in terms of the struggle of the classes. In the post-Soviet times, thisMarxist explanation of history is replaced by a nationalist interpretation. In this regard, the Manghit dynasty of Bukhara appears in Tajik scholarly narratives synonymous with Uzbek oppression. Through his literary and analytical works, Aini has crystallized knowledge concerning the successful struggle of the
734 Rozenfel'd, "Sadriddin Aini i iego "Vospominaniia"," 965. 735 Baqozoda, "Realizm S.Aini," 28-29.
736 Demidchik, "O printsipe istoritsizma v proze S.Aini," 76.
737 A. Saifulloev, "Kori Ezhodii Ustod Aini dar Ta'lifi povesti "Zhallodoni Bukhoro"," in Zhashnnomai Aini, ed. K. Aini,
et al. (Dushanbe: Donish, 1971), 91.
738 A. Maniiozov, "Mulohizaho doir ba tashakkuli nasri S.Aini," in Zhashnnomai Aini, ed. K. Aini, et al. (Dushanbe:
Donish, 1963), 35-36.
Tajiks against their brutal oppressors. Thus, he has created grounds for nationalistic interpretations.