The Beginnings of the Modern Turkestanian Theater

Abstract

The pre-Soviet introduction of modern Turkestanian theater, long flatly denied by Communist officials, gave vigorous expression to social and political ideas current among local groups of enlightened private citizens in Western Turkestan just before the outbreak of the First World War. The innovation also strongly affected developments in the state-sponsored dramaturgy which appeared later. This new theater, differing radically from the old folk art, was inaugurated before a responsive audience at Samarkand early in 1914 with a performance of Mahmud Khoja Behbudiy's Padarkush (“The Parricide“).Padarkush presents the spectacle of a father's willful refusal, despite repeated warnings, to meet specific religious and social obligations by giving his illiterate, adolescent son an education. This fatal error inevitably leads to the parent's violent death and the destruction of his family.