Bozor Sobir (20 November 1938 – 1 May 2018) was a preeminent Tajik poet and politician, known as the national poet of Tajikistan and 'the conscience of the nation'.
Sobir established his reputation during the Soviet era. His poems, books, and articles have been published throughout the former Soviet Union and translated into Western languages, as well as Persian, Dari, Uzbek, Slavic languages, and several other languages of the Soviet Republics.Radio Free Europe. https://www.rferl.org/a/tajikistan-bozor-sobir-poet-former-opposition-figure-dies-at-79/29204740.html His poetry books were also published in Afghanistan and Iran.World Literature Today Vol. 70, No. 3, Literatures of Central Asia (Summer, 1996), p. 574 Sobir's poetic style is known for its imagery, nationalism, patriotism, its inclusion of the history of the Tajik people, and also for its strong political views. Many of his poems have been set to music by various Tajik composers. After his poem We are of Siyovush's Bloodline (Az Khuni Siyovushem) was set to music, it became the de facto Tajikistan national anthem. As a poet, he contributed much to the revival of Tajik national culture after Mikhail Gorbachev's call for perestroika. Many Tajiks know his poems by heart. Sobir is a laureate of a prestigious National Rudaki Poetry Award, Tajikistan's most eminent prize for poetry (1988) and the Star of the President 3rd degree (2013).
With the advent of glasnost, Sobir became actively involved in political and cultural movements for an independent national identity. He was one of the founders of the Democratic Party, serving as its deputy leader.REEU Newsletter, 1991 Autumn The Democratic Party was the secular component of the Democratic-Islamic coalition that governed Tajikistan in 1992, until it was overthrown by pro-communist forces with Russian military support.The Jamestown Foundation. Tajik Opposition Activists Pardoned. https://jamestown.org/program/tajik-opposition-activists-pardoned/ He was elected a senator in the Supreme Council of Tajikistan, but resigned from this post and remains the only politician to have done so. He also subsequently resigned from the party, reportedly because of a disagreement with the leadership over the growing Islamic elements within the party. A strong proponent of separation of state and religion, Sobir believed religious figures should not engage in politics.
Sobir remains popular in Tajikistan and is the best-known Tajik poet outside the country.Wilks, Judith M. World Literature Today Vol. 70, No. 3, Literatures of Central Asia Numerous books have been written about him and his poems. A play about his life called A Night Away from Homeland (Shabe Dur Az Vatan) was performed by the Tajik State Theater named after M. Vakhidov, with the role of Sobir played by the Honored Artist of Tajikistan, Abdumumin Sharifi.
Biography
Early years and education Bozor Sobir was born on 20 November 1938 in Sufiyen, which is part of the city of Ordzhonikidzobod (now Vahdat District) in Tajikistan. He is the fourth-youngest of seven children. After his father died at an early age, he was sent to study at a boarding school in Hisor in western Tajikistan, about from the capital of Dushanbe.National Library of Tajikistan. Bozor Sobir. http://kmt.tj/bozor-sobir-shoiri-daroshnoi-millat-darguzasht There, he met Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet, who visited the school as a speaker.
The poet's father was a government tax collector. His mother was a housewife. His younger brother Temur Sobirov was a respected mathematician, with a school and a street named after him in Tajikistan.Temur Sobirov Museum. His second youngest brother, also a mathematician, ran for a Senate seat. The poet's nephew, another mathematician, was the head of a Democratic Party in Tajikistan until his resignation in the 2000s. Another relative was head of the now-banned Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), whose closure Bozor Sobir had advocated.Islam News. July 2013. http://islamnews.tj/tajikistan/768-bozor-sobir-oni-mully-ya-poet.html His other siblings went into teaching.
The first publication of Bozor Sobir's poetry was in 1960, while he was a university student. In 1962, he completed his graduate work in philology and Tajik-Persian literature at the Tajik National University.
Writing career After completing his studies, Sobir served as a translator in Afghanistan for a year. Thereafter, he worked at various newspapers and magazines in Soviet Tajikistan, including Education and Culture (), Voice of the East (Sadoi Shark), and Justice (Adolat).
He was also commissioned to translate works of British poet and politician Lord Byron, French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Guillaume Apollinaire, Chilean poet and politician Pablo Neruda, Russian poet Sergei Yesenin and Lithuanian-Soviet poet Eduardas Mieželaitis.
In 1979, he began working at the Writers' Union of Tajikistan as a poetry and editorial consultant.Denber, R. Human Rights in Tajikistan: In the Wake of Civil War. Helsinki Watch. At their request, he edited and improved the poems of almost all famous Tajik poets throughout his lifetime, though he worked at the Writers' Union for ten years.
Literary work Style and contribution The poems of Bozor Sobir are characterized by their novel form, penetrating lyricism, high spirituality, and a tense search for truth and beauty in work and love. Defining motifs are: the ancient and recent history of Tajikistan's people; the formation of national identity in the complex, changing world of the end of the 20th century; the comprehension of modernity through the moral experience of a man of the post-war generation; the beauty of his native land; and intimate lyrics with features of the mythological understanding of women and nature.«Вічні камені» Киев, издательство ЦК ЛКСМУ «Молодь» 1989. Редактор М. Г. Василенко
Sobir contributed much to the revival of Tajik national culture, the formation of the Tajik identity and building of a national consciousness in Tajikistan before, during and after the Soviet era.SHAHRBANOU TADJBAKHSH. In New Tajikistan Islam Can Be a Crime. New York Times 05 Nov 1993 His poems are known for their imagery and creativity. They are nuanced, intricate, and make creative use of grammar, linguistic features, and subtle semantic features. The art of speech as praise, allegory, and antithesis is used in the artistry and imagery of his poems, which may account for their soulfulness.Tohiriyon, Shahlo. Theoretical problems of poetical language in works of Bozor Sobir (Lexical-semantic aspect). Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan. Institute of Language, Literature and Eastern Studies. 2017
According to a study of his works by Shahlo Tohiriyon, a notable feature of Sobir's poetry is that its style reveals the essence of the concept, the case and the images through comparison and contrasts. Antonyms in various forms and manifestations of meaning are a feature of his poetry. A certain order of application of antonyms and homonyms in the work of the poet indicates that he always expresses his opinion with exact thoughts about each word. The same use of one of the lexical means of expression, such as synonyms, homonyms and antonyms, is found in almost every poem by Sobir.
While a majority of his early poems have romantic elements and imagery of his birthplace, from the late 1970s there is a change in direction: themes of Tajik ancestry, their ancient Zoroastrian religion, history, and patriotism. His poems became highly political, including current national and international events, and at times anti-religious.
Poems of the independence movement Sobir's poem about the history of Tajiks and the Tajik language, Mother Tongue (Zaboni Modari), shows indignation about the sad history of the only Persian minority in Central Asia (i.e. the Tajiks). Written on the eve of independence, became an anthem for Tajik nationalists at the time. The poem tells the history of Tajiks, their accomplishments, great figures, and the losses. The poem highlights the importance of the Tajik language in maintaining the Tajik nation. The poem was written when Russian was the dominating language in Tajikistan, and the Tajik language had been relegated to unofficial non-governmental matters.Van Den Berg, Gabrielle. PERCEPTIONS OF POETRY. SOME EXAMPLES OF LATE 20TH CENTURY TAJIK POETRY. Oriente Moderno, Nuova serie, Anno 22 (83), Nr. 1, La letteratura persiana contemporanea tra novazione e tradizione (2003), pp. 37-56
Sobir saw the promotion of the Tajik language for Tajik people, during the predominance of use of Russian in Soviet times, as of utmost importance. He was one of the very few who actively wrote and politically worked to ignite people's awareness about Tajik identity, history, and traditions.Nooshin, L. Music and the Play of Power in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia
The feeling of having been robbed throughout history is prominent in this poem, as is the resentment about the fact that Bukhara and Samarkand, the ancient Iranian cities and the traditional centers of the Tajiks' literature and culture, were in 1929 allotted to Uzbekistan by the foundation of the Soviet Republics. Bukhara and Samarkand feature as lost Tajik treasures, and ancient pre-Islamic Zoroastrian heritage is placed in the foreground (as can be seen by references made to the Shahnameh figures Rostam and Sohrab, the Soghdians). The poem expresses the quest for lost roots.
These sentiments amalgamated in the formation of new political parties, such as Rastokhez (). This party in particular was focusing on Iran as a political example. Although Sobir was one of the founders of the Democratic Party, he wrote On the Foundation of Resurrection, published in 1991. This poem an open support of opposition and rebellion and is much less acquiescent than Sobir's earlier work.
The poem Square of Freedom (Maydoni Ozodi) conjured the electrified atmosphere of the square where protests for independence took place. The calls for independence were seen as returning and embracing one's forgotten roots. The poem elevates the square to the nation's place of prayer.
Poetry of the civil war During the Tajikistani Civil War (1992–1997), Sobir wrote poems about the tragedy of the war:The River Was Once a Drop of Water: Tajik Poetry in the Past Six Years. World Literature Today, Summer 1996, Vol.70(3), p.577
Warm blood shed through love of blood relations Bridges of kinship broken In the waters of orphans' eyes. My Kulob has heedlessly gone its way - Gone, perhaps, until the day of Resurrection. No bridge is left but that across the chasm of Hell, Alas, alas!
The bridge refers to the Chinvat Bridge of Zoroastrianism (the religion of Tajiks before Islam), which is "finer than a hair and sharper than a sword" over which all must pass to the hereafter. A sifting bridge, the righteous will cross safely while the wicked will tumble into the infernal fires.
Poetry of secularism Some years following his exile, some of Sobir's poems developed a new anti-Islam theme. The poet saw religion as a menace to development and progress of society, and felt that religious leaders had contributed nothing concrete toward improving the lives of humans.
One poem ironically praised Vladimir Lenin and compared him to religious leaders and prophets for similar contributions to the development and progress of Tajik people and Tajikistan. His poems criticizing religion caused a furor, especially among the religious, which has yet to settle down.