Oyina
Oyina (Persian: آینه, 'The Mirror') was a bilingual Turki-Persian newspaper published from Samarkand, Russian Turkestan 1913-1915.[1] The newspaper was published by Mahmudkhodja Behbudiy.[2] It functioned as an organ of the Jadid social reform movement.
History
[edit]Mahmudkhodja Behbudiy was a wealthy philanthropist and social reformer in Samarkand.[3] Out of nine pre-revolutionary newspapers in Turkestan were all short-lived and struggled with finances, Oyina was arguably the most successful.[1] The newspaper was launched in August 1913.[1] The newspaper played a significant role in spreading Enlightenment ideas.[2] It was the most important periodical of the Jadid movement in Turkestan.[3] In the pages of Oyina "the development of national education, language, and literature, in order to overcome the feudal-patriarchal backwardness of their peoples and to facilitate their liberation from colonial oppression".[4] In articles in Oyina Mahmudkhodja Behbudiy would attack religious impurity, sinning, pederasty and alcohol consumption, and would call for the development of a new generation of educated Islamic clergy.[5]
Whilst the newspaper was bilingual, different languages were assigned different roles. About two-thirds of the articles (such as news reporting, articles on science and editorials) were written in Turki.[2] The remaining third of the article (essays and texts on philosophical issues) were written in Persian.[2] Moreover, some advertisements in the newspaper were in Russian language.[2]
Hoji Muin served as temporary editor of Oyina around 1914-1915.[2][6] Many texts by Hoji Muin appeared in the pages of Oyina.[2]
Oyina was published more or less weekly for a period of twenty months.[7] Oyina closed down in June 1915 after 68 issues.[1] The publication struggled with its finances.[7] The economic difficulties of publishing in the midst of World War I further exacerbated this situation.[7] By the end of its first year of publishing Oyina had merely 234 paid subscribers.[7]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d Loy, T., & Levin, Z. (2022). From “Mercy” to “Banner of Labour”: the Bukharan Jewish press in late Tsarist and early Soviet Central Asia. Central Asian Survey, 41(1), pp. 22–40.
- ^ a b c d e f g Shinji Ido, Behrooz Mahmoodi-Bakhtiari. Tajik Linguistics. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2023. pp. 14-15
- ^ a b Adeeb Khalid. Making Uzbekistan: Nation, Empire, and Revolution in the Early USSR. Cornell University Press, 2015. p. 49
- ^ Central Asia on Display: Proceedings of the VII. Conference of the European Society for Central Asian Studies. LIT Verlag Münster, 2004. p. 148
- ^ Edward A. Allworth. The Modern Uzbeks: From the Fourteenth Century to the Present: A Cultural History. Hoover Press, 2013. p. 143
- ^ Paul Bergne. The Birth of Tajikistan: National Identity and the Origins of the Republic. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2007. p. 141
- ^ a b c d Adeeb Khalid. The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia. University of California Press, 1999. p. 123