Sadriddin Aini

Sadriddin Aini (1878-1954) was one of the reformist intellectuals of Russian-ruled Central Asia (Jadids) who in the early 1920s joined the Bolsheviks to overthrow the Emirate of Bukhara and propagate the revolution in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. As the leading Tajik (Persian-speaker) among predominantly Uzbek (Turkish-speaking) colleagues, he was instrumental in establishing a distinctive Tajik Persian language and literature, written first in Latin characters and, from 1940, in Cyrillic. Aini's voluminous oeuvre (encompassing poetry, fiction, journalism, history and lexicography), while steering safely close to Stalin's party line, helped to preserve a Tajik national consciousness that has survived the collapse of the USSR. Today it is building a post-Soviet identity through closer links with its Iranian culture and fellow Persian-speakers abroad.