Novel · A way to begin
Дохунда
Not translated into English
Sadriddin Aini · 1930
Synopsis
An orphan born in the mountains of the emirate of Bukhara, Yodgor tends the flocks of a rich landowner and knows the misery of the Tajik peasants; he is nicknamed dokhunda, the beggar. Thrown into the zindan, the emir's underground prison, he meets a Bolshevik there who opens his eyes to his condition. His fiancée, Gulnor, also refuses oppression, while the emirate collapses and civil war spreads across Tajikistan.
Context
Written in 1928 and 1929, or in 1927 and 1928 according to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, the novel was published in Kazan in 1930. It continues the short story Odina, of 1924, and precedes Les Esclaves, of 1934: according to the same encyclopedia, these books form an epic panorama of the life of the Tajik people over a century. Lev Kuleshov began an adaptation in the mid-thirties, which the authorities stopped and of which nothing survives, and Bension Kimyagarov made a film from it in 1956.
Who it is for
For readers interested in the beginnings of the Tajik novel and the last years of the Emirate of Bukhara.
Prizes and reception
It is regarded as the first novel written in the Tajik language, and opens the best-known novel cycle of its author.
Sources for this page 3
The pages consulted to check this page.