Abstract
AN EVALUATION OF TURKISTANI JADID (REFORMIST) POET ELBEK’S IDEAS ON LANGUAGE AND HIS STRUGGLE FOR THE SAKE OF HIS IDEAS
The Jadid (reformist) Mashriq Yunus Oghli (Elbek), who was one of the thousands of intellectuals who lost their lives during the “Red Terror/liquidations of non-communists” carried out by the Soviets in Turkestan during 1930s, was active in the fields of language, literature, folklore, Turcology, press, translation and education. Elbek witnessed the material, moral and cultural distress suffered by the people of Turkestan and the oppression and massacres exposed to them during both the Tsarism and the Soviet Russian eras. Elbek fought for the freedom of his homeland Turkestan and nation and opposed the colonialism and the occupation with his works, sincerity, strong will and visionary ideas.
Elbek’s ideas about national language were reflected on his works. For example, by writing his poem “Til” (Language), Elbek boldly opposed the humiliation and the elimination language policies which were made against the Turkish language by the Soviet government and the native obsequious. In his poem, Elbek exclaimed to those who attacked his mother tongue that Turkish is one of the most beautiful, the richest and the most historical languages among the world languages and emphasized that although those people who were hostile to the Turkish language disdain this language it would never lose its beauty. Also, he worked with other fellow idealists to form a common Turkish language among Turkish people.
Keywords
Elbek, Turkish, USSR, Red Terror, Uzbek Soviet Literature.