"He who looks down on the enemy is not a Muslim!" - the poet who broke the bowl of praisers

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“He who looks the other way at the enemy is not a Muslim!” — the poet who broke the bowl of praise

He turned his face away: “Why did you come?”

This was not just a protest. This was the protest of a rebellious spirit who had maintained his dignity like mountains all his life, who did not blush in front of anyone, who did not submit to the Soviet “plan”, in the face of helplessness. It was as if the air in the room was running out, as if someone had deliberately sucked out the oxygen in the entire universe. Shavkat Rahmon, a 46-year-old poet who brought sword-sharp verses to Uzbek poetry, who struck at the very roots of odes consisting of lies and praise, was lying on his deathbed, struggling for a breath of air, and was fighting alone with the incurable disease of cancer.

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As his contemporary Askar Mahkam recalled, the countless traces of needles stuck in his strong hands, similar to those of a hoe, resembled the rust of a vine, and there was no trace of the eagle gaze that had been staring at the canvas of the Osh painter. He did not ask for mercy, he did not need consolation. He was wary of any fakery, even of false comforts in the face of death.

Is this the sky,

is it an iron curtain,

is this a bed of rain and thorns?

Some bowed their black necks...

are you young,

are you brave?!

At this point, a question arises: how did a young man from the foothills of the Pamir Mountains, who as a child followed black sheep, become a poet like a razor, and why did a man who fought against hypocrisy, localism, and cowardice die at the end of his life, gasping for air?

Childhood in a brick factory and rejected dreams

September 12, 1950. "Pamir" neighborhood of Osh city. Born into the family of merchants Rahmonberdi and Aftobkhan, Shavkat's childhood was spent under the fierce winds of the mountains. His parents would spend months trading in the pastures, and the burden of living fell on the stubborn, taciturn, but proud boy.

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He was not just a dreamy poet by nature - he grew up in the hands of hard work. At the age of 13, the young man, who worked at a brick factory and rebuilt a building in his yard with his own hands, was actually preparing to change the foundations of Uzbek poetry in the future.

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After graduating from school in 1966, he applied to Tashkent State University. However, the doors of the capital did not open easily for him - he failed the competition for two consecutive years. He did not give up, returned to Osh and worked as a typesetter and proofreader in the newspaper editorial office. It was here that he met the poet Tursunboy Adashbayev. When the competition for the Moscow Literary Institute was announced in the press, Shavkat translated his poems into Russian and sent them to the Institute. And unexpectedly, the telegram: “You have passed the selection, come to Moscow” became a ticket for him to the world podiums.

On one of the wonderful days

I wake up from sleep -

In the deepest part of the heart

From a feeling that has turned into pain.

I become a song like a river

In the deepest part of the heart.

I look at the world like a world

On one of the wonderful days.

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Moscow is a huge melting pot. Having studied at the same school with such great talents as Halima Khudoyberdiyeva and Murad Muhammad Dost, Shavkat Rahmon returned from here feeling not slogans wrapped in shiny paper, but the real weight and taste of words. In 1975, he arrived in Tashkent with a completely different approach - iron discipline and uncompromising aesthetic criteria.

“The general carriage has run out of steam”

1975. Returning to Tashkent, Shavkat Rahmon began working in publishing houses. At that time, the poetry department of the Gafur Ghulam publishing house was bustling with young poets. Shavkat Rahmon brought not just dry poetry to the room, but also his unyielding principles. Kutlibeka Rakhimboyeva recalls in her memoirs what a magnificent person the poet was.

He was a man who deeply respected women, but did not turn this into a poem. One day, a male acquaintance of his entered the publishing house and asked Kutlibeka for a loan. Seeing this, Shavkat Rahmon’s complexion changed and he rushed out. Soon his harsh voice was heard in the corridor: “Aren’t you ashamed to ask a girl with four healthy limbs, like a giant, for a loan?!” This was his penchant for petty, petty things.

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Another incident. The publishing house's poetry cabinet was likened to a train carriage. Original books were put in a "compartment," mediocre ones in a "postcard," and rhyming poems in a "general carriage." One day, the "general carriage" cabinet broke from the constant cramming of those books, and the papers were scattered on the floor when the next rhymer arrived with his poems. Then Shavkat Rahmon, without hesitation, said:

"The general carriage is out of breath. Tickets are not sold yet,"

and ran away. He hated those who wanted to turn literature into a garbage dump.

His hatred was so pure that he did not even want to breathe the same air as flatterers and flatterers. One day, a writer who makes a living by flattering the leaders and littering the streets with straw is drinking tea in their room. Shavkat Rahmon asks Kutlibeka: “Did you drink tea in my cup?” When she replies, “Yes, I washed it with salt,” she silently breaks her cup in two with a “kash” and throws it in the trash. She hypocritically considers it a shame to drink water from the same cup.

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Naturally, the glossy poets, who are used to kicking in the editorial office door, could not stand it. Attacks began against him. An open letter was organized in the newspaper “Qishloq Haqiqatı” against Shavkat Rahmon on behalf of the sick poet (Anvar Isroilov) who was lying in bed. Another newspaper accused him of open “nationalism.” Special meetings were held at the Writers' Union, and they began to look for meanings in his words and metaphors.

But the poet had already said his piece:

What is applause?

The sound that comes from between two palms,

I clap if I want, and I don't if I don't,

the applause is mine, not yours.

... There are so many unscrupulous poets,

there are few who can burn hearts with words,

I will not give my applause to a fool who thinks of fame and who thinks of fame.

I assure myself that I am not a slave Lorca

Shawkat Rahmon was tooth and nail against the psychology of slavery. In the autumn months, intellectuals, along with everyone else, were driven to pick cotton and grapes. If everyone else was late for a day, he would sweat and finish his quota (40 buckets of grapes) by noon.

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When asked why he was so hard on himself, he said:

Let me, I feel free for half a day. For half a day, I convince myself that I am free, that I am not a slave. Otherwise, how can I write poetry in slavery?

He was spiritually attached to the Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca, who, like him, considered freedom to be the highest value and died for freedom. He vowed to translate Lorca from Russian: “Uzbeks should not pass by Lorca as the Russians make him say, thinking that it is true,” he would say. He deliberately learned Spanish. The Spanish words he memorized at night came to his dreams. In 1986, he traveled to Spain and returned feeling the soil where his poems were born.

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Shawkat Rahman's love of translation also caused his own creative disputes among his friends.

As Khurshid Davron recalls, one day a translation debate broke out among the young poets. When Khurshid Davron jokingly said, "I can translate Lorca better than you!", Shawkat Rahman interrupted him in a completely serious tone, saying, "You can't do it." To put an end to the dispute, Usman Azim took on the role of referee: the two creators were given two days to translate Lorca's poem about the Spanish marshals. Although Khurshid Davron, who worked tirelessly all night, was confident of victory, the referee's conclusion was firm - Shawkat's translation clearly prevailed.

But the most remarkable aspect of this event is not the victory. A few days later, Shavkat Rahmon Khurshid comes to Davron and asks him to give him one word in the translation. He wanted to replace the word “city” in the line “Oh, my resounding gypsy city!” in his translation with the word “kent” in his opponent’s translation. Only a true architect who knows the value of words can feel how one word can make an entire poem perfect.

The guitar’s moan begins.

Oh, don’t expect silence from him!

Don’t ask him silence!

Oh, guitar, salty guitar, a heart pierced by five daggers!

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The fury of the “Brass Horseman” and the Turks

By the mid-1980s, the Soviet empire was in the throes of disintegration. Literature has now become a serious battlefield. The arrival of Shavkat Rahmon in the poetry department of the magazine "Yoshlik" edited by Erkin Vohidov was an open declaration of war against "stupidity" in literature. In Shavkat Rahmon's works, not just perceptions of nature, but the echoes of two hundred years of colonial chains, the tragedy of the nation, began to be clearly visible.

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He created the image of the "Bronze Horseman" (Peter I) as a terrible symbol of the empire. Addressing this conquering statue that had been ravaging peoples and trampling the lands of Turan for two hundred years, he exclaimed with such fury:

...Are these seas small,

Are these lands small,

Are these countries that have given their crowns small,

Are lands that have rotted away with their own blood,

Are bound hurs and plundered walls.

What remains unbroken by the hooves,

say the memories that have been rekindled,

Heavenly addresses,

dear books from the urine of a horse as yellow as Turan.

So, horseman,

don't go too far,

pull the reins of the rabid stallion,

this terrible horse that has been hooving at the head of nations for two hundred years...

The poem is written very sharply and frankly. As you read it, a flame cannot fail to appear inside you. Note that the rabid stallion of the horseman is so dirty that even the holy books, the ancient knowledge of Turan, have turned yellow and become disgraced from his urine. This is a statement that should be like a punch to any sober mind. The poet predicts that one day the Tomaris will throw the heavy head of this tyrant "officer" into the sea of blood (punishment).

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The Bronze Horseman is striking everywhere —

the owner of the ominous kingdom,

a sea of seagulls drowning in a cry,

the people's vengeance following like wolves. …

Again Tumaris appears in the desert,

another instigator of patience,

this time, not a match,

he will throw the heavy head of this officer into the sea of blood…

He dreamed of seeing the nation, the shattered Turkestan, as a whole. In an interview with Rahmon Kochkar in 1995, he said: “Only five or ten years ago, ideologists were promoting the idea of Turkestan as a dead idea... We are all interested in the creation of a single political space between China and Russia, which will eventually develop in all respects... ”.

Airless

Injustice beyond human comprehension... The rebel who brought boundless expanse and sky-clear air to poetry, words, and the Uzbek language... was left airless at the end of his life.

In 1995-96, cancer (throat cancer) took hold of Shavkat Rahmon. Tall, strong, with a figure reminiscent of ancient stone inscriptions, the alpine poet melted away in his hospital bed and became a lump.

The most painful days. March 1996. The days when the Russian Duma was taking action to restore the former Soviet Union. Nabijon Boki and Rahmon Kochkor came to see the poet, who was struggling for his life in the chamber. Shavkat Rahmon was also talking to his wife about restoring the former Soviet Union.

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The poet looks at the guests, clenches his fists and says: “If it is necessary to defend independence with weapons, I will volunteer to go to war... My son will go too... You will go too... We will not easily give up our independence, which was gained after one hundred and thirty years.” His body was worn out, but his spirit was as strong as steel, the warrior did not retreat until his last breath.

The poet wrote poetry until the end of his life. He dictated his last poems to his wife Manzura in a whisper:

Nodirajon, Shoirajon,

my body does not move,

call my mountains

from distant oases

the sky is full of clouds

but only I cannot reach them.

... go, to the snowy mountains:

say a poet lies,

in God's courtyard...

The morning of October 2, 1996. The eagle that lay in God's vast courtyard stopped breathing.

He died. The capital's Karasu village was plunged into mourning. His mother, weeping blood, wanted to take her son to Osh, to the foothills of the Pamir Mountains, where he always missed. But, at the request of his daughters and relatives, he was buried in the Yalangochata cemetery in Tashkent.

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Today, when you see the names of the poets who are shining on the posters, who are reading poetry with such passion that they swallow the microphone (in the words of Shavkat Rahmon, "reading poetry with a roar"), who are wearing several titles and orders, it is enough to remember that silent and simple grave in Yalang'ochata.

Are there any men, are there any women?!

The princes finally threw down their swords,

the vultures were trampled,

the snarls of the fangs,

the verses in the languages they learned to recite,

the Turks recognized the perfect god.

The swords rusted…

disaster was on the alert,

the Turks gave their strength to the lands.

The enemy approached like cunning friends

to the brave men who sought perfection.

The young men of Ilvasin, the young men of Babir, bowed their heads in prostration, facing the enemy, the dogs gnawed at the flowers and cried, the sword cut off the great head with a crack. The Turk had no head left... no more horses. The women and children were left in mourning, the enemies ordered them to "don't look at us", and they lived facing the enemy. The heavenly vultures took their loot, their dice were stolen, the zebu bulls were killed, the enemies ordered them to look away and die, and they died facing the enemy. They entered the coffin with their own curses, and their Arabic and Turkish letters were gone, the enemies said, facing the enemy, and they were born facing the enemy. Slaves were born,

born,

slain in their forties—in need of help,

looking at the enemy like dogs,

enemies of each other,

shy of each other.

In the land of Turan, where the generous were slaughtered,

I saw a hellish experience:

in some people there is a donkey's image,

in some I saw a pig's head.

From this state, the old men choke to death,

the slave Bilal is crushed and cries in the sky...

They burn themselves, the true angels like the Badakhshan lilies, fed up with existence.

The believers remember Allah five times

and bow their heads in prostration before the executioner's stone.

When he turns around and asks him to look back a little,

they hit him on the head,

only on the head.

Are there any men, women,

are there any flowers in your bosoms,

are there any children who have sought their own self in this soil,

and reached the sky and the heavens.

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If there are any,

let them know,

that one head is not equal to one death,

martyrs do not die,

and be satisfied with one look:

He who looks at the enemy is not a Muslim!