Aini welcomed the Russian revolution of 1918 with a poem called “Marshi Hurriyat” (The March of Freedom), which is claimed to be written in the motif of the French Marseillaise:
Hey, the oppressed, the enslaved, It is high time for our freedom! I have good news for you, comrades, It is the dawn of joy all around the world. How long will we suffer?
Be happy from now on!
631 In his Bukhoro Inqilobining Ta’rikhi, Aini devoted four chapters to the analysis of the Kolesov event, however,
they can be found on the original manuscript only as they were omitted from the 1926 and following publications of the book.
632 Aini, Mukhtasari Tarzhimai kholi khudam, 101-02.
633 As quoted in Uzbek language in Shimada and Tosheva, Kirish, xvi. 634 See ibid., xv-xvi.
635 Aini, Mukhtasari Tarzhimai kholi khudam, 102. 636 Ibid., 104.
Enough of the injustice, enough of the oppression, Hey, justice, why don’t you rule the world? Revenge, revenge, my comrades,
Let the world be taken over by Independence, justice, and equality! (Laborer, peasant, shoulder by shoulder) [Ėǐ sitamdidagon, ėǐ asiron,
Vaqti ozodii mo rasid! Muzhdagonī diḣed, ėǐ faqiron, Dar jaḣon subḣi shodī damid, To ba kaǐ ghussa khurdan ba hasrat, Ba’d az in shodmonī namo!
Bas jafo, bas sitam, ėǐ adolat, Dar jaḣon ḣukmronī namo! Intiqom, intiqom, ėǐ rafiqon, Ėǐ jafodidagon, ėǐ shafiqon! Ba’d az in dar jaḣon ḣukmron bod Ḣurrii͡at, adolat, musovot!
(Ranjbar, barzgar, botifoq)]637
Nevertheless, as is shown above, Aini was sure that organizing a similar revolution in Bukhara was impossible. As a former madrasah student and teacher in Bukhara city, Aini was aware of the conservative nature of society in Bukhara. Based on an analysis of Aini’s Ta’rikhi Inqilobi Fikri dar Bukhoro, a manuscript which was discovered and published by his son, Kamoliddin Aini, in 2003 in Tehran, Shimada and Tosheva argue that “in September 1920 a revolution took place in Bukhara that was not desired by Aini as it was premature and externally supported.”638 In the book, which was originally written in 1918, Aini reportedly argued for the importance of education and freedom of press in shaping a free society that can gradually pressure the government regarding political reforms.639
Aini was critical about the absoluteness of the Emir’s rule and the moral deterioration of the ulema in Bukhara. However, he never advocated the overthrowing of the monarch. In his Bukhoro Inqilobining Ta’rikhi, Aini provided rather nostalgic accounts of the periods in the history of Bukhara when the ulema were in a position to keep the royal family accountable.640 He believed that the coalition of Young Bukharans and the Communists were not forces that could take over the task of checking and balancing the power of the Emir. The coalition, according to him, was dysfunctional due to fundamental differences between the parties:
In Tashkent and Samarkand, along with the Jadid entities that used to call themselves “the revolutionaries of Bukhara,” an organization of the communists of Bukhara was established. The members of the Communist
637 Isfandiëri Odina, "Aǐnī va sabki nav dar sheʺri forsī," BBC Persian, 15 April 2009. See also A. Rozenfel'd, "Sadriddin
Aini i iego "Vospominaniia"," in Vospominaniia, ed. Sadriddin Aini (Moscow and Leningrad: Izdatel'stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1960), 961.
638 Shimada and Tosheva, Kirish, xv. 639 Ibid.
organization of Bukhara were the workers and the former soldiers. However,the leaders of the “Revolutionaries of Bukhara” were the rich and small traders of Bukhara, and some of the members were the sons of mullahs
(mullozodagon) and religious clerics (makhdum).641
Furthermore, the socio-political situation during the civil war in Turkestan in 1918 that followed the Russian revolution was deteriorating. The nationalities policy of the Communists of Turkestan was not appealing to Aini. It is well-known that after leaving Bukhara, Sadriddin Aini started to identify himself and the people around him (for instance, his readers) as “Turkestanis.”642 The idea of forging the “Turkestani” identity, which he and some other intellectuals preferred, was not on the agenda of the Communists of Turkestan. The government of Turkestan ASSR rather sought to promote ethnic division of the population. For them, the majority of the population of Turkestan were Turks/Uzbeks, whereas Tajiks, Afghanis, and Iranians were all known as Persians (Fors); such a division was institutionalized in May 1919, when the CP of Turkestan ASSR established the so-called “Persian Section” within the Commissariat for National Affairs.643 At that time, Aini used to work for both Tajik and Uzbek newspapers in Samarkand (i.e., Shu’lai Inqilob and Mehnatkashlar Tovushi).644 At that stage, he would not want to see similar socio-political issues happen in Bukhara.
Instead of communism, Aini probed an alternative ideology that sought to keep Turkestan undivided and even independent from Russia. During the political turmoil in Turkestan, the clandestine movements that sought independence mushroomed. For a short time, Aini himself was seriously dragged into an anti-communist and nationalist movement. At that time he wrote poems calling for the people of Turan645 to wake up. For instance, on 1 October 1919 the Mehnatkashlar Tovushi newspaper published Aini’s poem, titled “Turon marshi” [The March of Turan]:
Wake up! The people of Turan, wake up! The whole world is in upheaval!
It is a new era,
Different epoch, different age!
Don’t sleep, come on, enjoy the world!
Will you oversleep this, you benighted, dullard? [Uǐghon! Turon ėli, uǐghon!
Tūlqinlandi butun jahon! Boshqalashdi butun davron, Boshqa davron, boshqa zamon! Ukhlama, i͡ur, saǐra jaḣon!
641 Aini, Mukhtasari Tarzhimai kholi khudam, 104.
642 Bergne, The Birth of Tajikistan: National Identity and the Origins of the Republic, 24. 643 Ibid., 23.
644 Aini, Mukhtasari Tarzhimai kholi khudam, 103.
Ëtasanmi, zhoḣil, nodon?]646
It is interesting to note that the revolution had already happened when this poem was written. Furthermore, the theme of the poem is about the awakening of the people of Turan, rather than about poor and oppressed people. So, the theme of the poem might be about national revival, rather than a revolt.
In 1920, Aini was involved in a group involved with works of nationalist movements in Turkestan. The group was led by Bashkir Ahmed Zaki Validi Togan and sought to establish an independent, federated republic in Central Asia. Furthermore, the group had close ties with the Basmachi leaders. In his memoirs, Togan noted that the Jadids of Bukhara and Turkestan came together in the late 1910s to secretly work on a project concerning the future government of Turkestan.647 The proposed government was planned to be run by members of three parties such as Erk, Tarakki Parvarlar, and Alash Orda. A disagreement between the Bukharans and Turkestanis surfaced while selecting the leader of the central governing body of the proposed government, which Validi called the President of the Joint Committee. The group could not choose between one of two candidates for the presidency, namely Sadriddin Aini, representing the Jadids of Bukhara, and Munavvar Qori, a Jadid from Tashkent.
In Togan’s words, “the primary reason was a sort of competition between the Bukharans and the Taskentians, as well as a distrust shown by the Bukharans and Taskentians toward the Kazaks [sic].”648 The Bukharans “did not even wish to hear” about the candidacy of the Tashkentians. At the same time, Aini was not acceptable to Tashkent; “those who supported him were very few in number.”649 Moreover, if selected, Aini refused to go underground no matter what happened to the organization. Eventually, after the official representative of the government of Turkey, who was present at the meeting, interfered and “spoke with the competing Ozbek [sic] and Tajik representatives,” the issue was resolved and Togan was selected as President.650 There is no evidence about the participation of Sadriddin Aini in any other congresses following the first one. However, the fact that Aini was among the leaders of a national movement, which aimed to establish an independent Federative Republic of Turkistan, means that he had seriously
646 Ozod Sharafidinov, "20-30 yillarda zhadid adabiioti," e-adabiyot.uz, 1996.
647 Zeki Velidi Togan, Memoirs: National Existence and Cultural Struggle of Turkistan and Other Muslim Eastern
Turks, trans. Hasan Paksoy (North Charleston, SC: Create Space, 2012), 294.
648 Ibid. 649 Ibid.
650 Ibid. Turkistan National Union was established as a result. In the sixth congress of the Turkistan National Union,
that took place in Samarkand the flag of Turkestan was worked out. Ibid., 300. Eventually, the organization started to collapse as Bukharans led by Khojaev chose to side with the communists.
considered adopting a “Turkestani” identity at some point in his life. His Tajik identity emerged much later.
With the consolidation of power in the hands of the Bolsheviks in Turkestan, the people within Aini’s circle eventually chose to go one of the three ways. They either joined the Basmachis to struggle against the communists openly, went into exile to continue political opposition from abroad, or aligned with the communists to establish new states in the region. Aini chose none of these paths. He instead distanced himself from political affairs and for some time found refuge in literature, linguistic studies, journalism and teaching.
1.3.The rise of the former Jadids to power and the marginalization of Aini from