Cultural Events
130th Birthday of Father of Modern Tajik Literature, Sadriddin Aini, Commemorated (04/16/2008)
Sadriddin Aini, widely known as “the father of modern Tajik literature,” wrote not only in Tajik, but also in Uzbek and Russian. He was a prolific writer, authoring novels, poems, scholarly articles, and journalistic and propagandistic essays. Some of his works have been translated into other languages. Recently, two American professors, John Perry and Rachel Lehr, collaborated on an English language translation of his autobiography, “Yoddosht-ho,” directly from Tajik into English. On April 14 and 16, U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission Brad Hanson visited two museums devoted to the Tajik-language writer Sadriddin Aini and presented copies of their English-language translation of Aini’s work. Both museums were happy to receive this English version, entitled “The Sands of Oxus: Boyhood Reminiscences of Sadriddin Aini.”
Mr. Hanson visited the Sadriddin Aini House Museum in Soktare, the writer’s birthplace, about thirty kilometers from Bukhara on April 14. Sadriddin Aini was born there on April 15, 1878. Mr. Hanson presented the English translation to the Museum Director Mastura Zikriyayeva, who is also the granddaughter of Sadriddin Aini’s brother, and then Ms. Zikriyayeva showed Mr. Hanson around the museum.
On April 16, Mr. Hanson made a visit to the Sadriddin Aini Memorial House Museum, where Aini lived many years of his life, across the street from the Registan in Samarkand. There he presented the English translation to Museum Director Abdukarim Ganizoda. The museum had just celebrated the 130th anniversary of the writer’s birthday the day before with a conference attended by numerous professors and students of Tajik language and literature and the Tajik Ambassador to Uzbekistan.