The Bibi Khanum Congregational Mosque is the largest Timurid monument in Samarqand. Com-missioned by Timur himself after his military campaign in India in 1399, the architecture of themosque can be... Show moreThe Bibi Khanum Congregational Mosque is the largest Timurid monument in Samarqand. Com-missioned by Timur himself after his military campaign in India in 1399, the architecture of themosque can be interpreted as a visual representation of Timur’s ambitions to surpass the archi-tectural achievements of the preceding Islamic dynasties. Striving for political legitimacy beyondthe legacy of Chinggis Khan, Timur imitated and even e xceeded the monumental scale of the ar-chitectural ensembles in the Ilkhanid capitals of Tabriz and Sultaniyya. In an attempt to ensurethe continuity of the Timurid dynasty, Timur’s successors adopted Yuan iconography and visualvocabulary so as to forge an ancestral and artistic genealogy that directly related the Timuridswith the Mongols via the aesthetic legacy of the Ilkhanids and the Yuan. Their cultural pr oductionthus secured the continuity of the Timurid royal patrons as just successors of Chinggis Khan. Show less
The 500th anniversary of the cultural patron and literary figure of the later Timurid period Mir Niẓām al-Dīn ʿAli Shīr Navāʾī (844–906 AH/AD 1441–1501; at present also Alisher Navaʾi, Alisher... Show moreThe 500th anniversary of the cultural patron and literary figure of the later Timurid period Mir Niẓām al-Dīn ʿAli Shīr Navāʾī (844–906 AH/AD 1441–1501; at present also Alisher Navaʾi, Alisher Navoi, hereafter:) was scheduled for 1941. As early as 1937, a special committee for the Alisher Navoi Jubilee was created in Tashkent. At the same time, another committee was organized under the Soviet Writers’ Union in Moscow, which oversaw preparations for union-level writers’ tributes, commemorative events and publications in Russia. The Tashkent Alisher Navoi Jubilee Committee involved prominent Russian and Uzbek scholars, writers such as Ṣadr al-Dīn ʿAynī (1878–1954; hereafter Sadriddin Ayni), and artists, as well as cultural administrators and political leaders including the then-First Secretary of the Uzbek Communist Party Usman Yusupovich Yusupov (1901–1966).1 In 1938 the Communist Party of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (UzSSR) acquired an official approval from the Soviet People’s Commissariat and the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party to celebrate the 500th birthday of the “Great Uzbek poet, Alisher Navaʾi” at the end of 1941.2 However, the actual jubilee was postponed due to the breakout of the Second World War and it subsequently took place in 1948.3The purpose of the celebrations was to offer a new narrative about the progressive potential of the Central Asian peoples and to remind all Soviet citizens that Central Asia had a rich cultural heritage and was not a remote region inhabited by illiterate nomads. In particular the ancient city of Samarqand had a thriving sedentary culture, sophisticated architectural traditions and an influential scientific elite.4The choice of local historical figures was undoubtedly prompted by the Soviet policies of indigenization (korenizatsiia) according to which every titular nationality within the Soviet Union should be governed by its own people.5 Furthermore, the local Soviet citizens had the right to education and cultural development in their own language. In that aspect the literary legacy of Navoi was branded as formative since his poetic oeuvre was composed in Chaghatay, a language regarded as the precursor of modern Uzbek. According to the Russian orientalist Aleksandr Iur’evich Iakubovskii (1886–1953), the “ingenious Navoi” (genial’nyi Navoi)6 was the cultured predecessor of all Uzbeks. The literary importance of Navoi as the “ancestor” (rodonachal’nik)7 of Uzbek literature and “founder” (osnovopolozhnik)8 of the Uzbek language has been widely examined.9 My study will focus on the two archaeological expeditions that took place in Samarqand in the summer of 1941 under the aegis of the Alisher Navoi Jubilee, and on the ways in which they have shaped our knowledge and understanding of the Timurids, and their propaganda value for the Soviet regime.Before I proceed with the archaeological excavations, I would like to point out that the date for the jubilee was not defined by the lunar Hijra or the solar Jalali calendars used in Navoi’s lifetime. In 1941 the 500th birthday anniversary was calculated based on the Gregorian year 1441. The Gregorian calendar was introduced on the territories under Soviet-control by a decree of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Soviet Union (Sovnarkom) in 1918. The calendar was officially adopted by the Uzbek SSR after its proclamation in November 1924. However, double dating in both Hijra and Gregorian formats was still common practice for example in endowment (waqf) deeds of the Bukharan SSR (1920–1924), which were officially managed by the central Soviet administration while relying on local Islamic judiciary.10 By the late 1930s the Gregorian calendar was widely embraced across the Soviet Union. In line with the atheistic propaganda, the choice of the date by the specially appointed Jubilee Committee may have been a clear sign of the ideological break with the Islamic daily routine and prayers under the Soviet regime. The Hijra calendar was used up until the 1930s not only to record time but to organize religious activities throughout the day across Central Asia.Firstly, I will outline the historical context surrounding the commemorative 500th Jubilee of Alisher Navoi in 1941 and the political narrative that prompted excavations by two archaeological teams in Samarqand.11 Based on the their findings, kept at several Uzbek museums and archives,12 I will discuss the opening of the tombs of Timur and Ulugh Beg in the dynastic mausoleum of Gūr-i Amīr (ca. 1400–1440s) by the first team. Afterwards I will describe the architecture of the China pavilion (chīnīkhāna) of Ulugh Beg (ca. 1420s) by using drawings and archaeological reports from 1941 compiled by the second team. Unfortunately, the abundance of archaeological materials excavated around these two Timurid sites have been partially lost due to successive restorations after the Second World War or remain unpublished. The purpose of this article is to present the archaeological findings to the wider public and to contextualize as much as possible the role of the jubilee in promoting not so much the literary figure of Alisher Navoi but in elevating Ulugh Beg as one of the most educated men of his time, a sedentary statesman, scholar and diplomat. Given the limited scope of the text, I analyse exclusively Samarqand in 1941 and not the actual commemorative festivities of the Navoi Jubilee in 1948. Show less
At the end of the 15th century, the Timurid ruler Sultan Husayn Bayqara had a splendid court in the city of Herat, in present-day Afghanistan. He commissioned the manufacturing of an illustrated... Show moreAt the end of the 15th century, the Timurid ruler Sultan Husayn Bayqara had a splendid court in the city of Herat, in present-day Afghanistan. He commissioned the manufacturing of an illustrated manuscript of the Bustan or “Orchard”, a book of counsel written by the Persian poet Sa’di two centuries before. For this manuscript, the master painter Kamal al-Din Bihzad made a painting to illustrate the anecdote of the seduction of Yusuf, in which he depicted Zulaykha chasing Yusuf from room to room in a labyrinth-like palace. Show less
