“Yashash-shin Ishtalin!” Muhammad Yusuf’s work that baffled Soviet censorship
“Long live Ishtalin!” Muhammad Yusuf’s work that bewildered Soviet censorship
What will remain of me,
Two lines of verse,
Two chests of books,
A heap of soil...
I am sure you know the continuation of this poem; the author wrote it when he had just turned forty, dedicating it to the memory of his friend who passed away early — the poet Shavkat Rahmon. Whether he knew then that he himself would leave just as early and unexpectedly, no one can say for sure now.
How did this boy, who grew up sharing secrets with nature, become Uzbekistan's beloved and so close-to-the-people poet? What suffering was hidden behind his sincere smile? Was it a coincidence that death seized the poet, who struck the people's hearts, by his own heart, or was this the answer to his precise equation of fate? First, let's find out where the story of Muhammad Yusuf began, and the rest will become clear step by step...
### The road that started from Qovunchi
April 26, 1954. Born in the village of Qovunchi in the Marhamat district of Andijan region, Muhammadjon's childhood was spent in the embrace of fields, mint, and alfalfa pastures. The fire for poetry in his heart was not a simple hobby. As his mother, Enaxon aya, recalls, Muhammadjon saw Hazrat Khizr in a dream during his adolescence. The luminous figure approached the boy sitting by the canal and blessed him, saying: “Write, my son, you will surely reach your goal!” We cannot accept this as a fact, but looking at the poet's life path, it cannot be dismissed as a lie either.
The young creator graduated from high school with honors in 1973 and entered the Institute of Russian Language and Literature in the capital — now the Uzbekistan State University of World Languages. Already during his student years, in 1976, his first poems were published in the newspaper “Oʻzbekiston adabiyoti va sanʼati” (Literature and Art of Uzbekistan). Thus, the name of the young man, not yet twenty, appeared on the pages of a newspaper for the first time.
Just yesterday, all the girls in the village
Would look at me, winking mysteriously.
If they didn't look, I would go to their houses at night,
Throw stones and run away, it suited me.
Wandering around their houses until dawn,
I would return home sad, they knew it.
Peeking over the wall, they would laugh, saying,
“Who is this young man waiting for?” ....
### The word left at the station
After graduating from the institute in 1978 and returning from military service, he worked first at the Republican Book Lovers Society, and then, from 1980, for six years as a correspondent for the newspaper “Toshkent oqshomi” (Tashkent Evening). It was during this period, in front of the canteen of the publishing house building on Navoiy Street, that he spotted a girl with finely braided hair wearing a doppi (traditional skullcap). The student girl — Nazira — passed by without even looking at him. But the young man immediately said firmly to his friends: “This girl is my destiny. You will see, I will definitely marry this girl!”
The poet followed the girl, waited for her at tram stops, but did not dare to speak to her. (There was also a 2-year break in between because Muhammad Yusuf went to the army.) The traces of those days later transferred into poems:
I will remain at the stations,
My words to be spoken will be left behind.
Trams carry you every day
To Bodomzor.
I gaze silently after them,
My eyes grow tired of looking.
Trams carry you every day
To Bodomzor.
Finally, in 1983, they got married. Three daughters were born one after another — Maʼsuda, Nozima, and the youngest, Madina. To his wife, who was upset to have a girl for the third time, he sent a letter to the maternity hospital: “Allah blessed even our prophets with daughters. You have given me the happiness of prophets.” In 1985, the year his youngest daughter was born, his first book of poetry — “Tanish teraklar” (Familiar Poplars) — was published.
Creation was never easy for him. In the moments when a poem was being born, he would see no one, not even his daughters. One day, while he was writing, his daughter Nozima ran in and sat on his lap. Suddenly snapped out of his creative thoughts, the poet raised his voice at his daughter. Not expecting this, Nozima left the room upset. When his wife rushed into the room, startled by the loud voice, the poet broke the pen in his hand; Muhammad Yusuf's eyes were filled with tears. Later, he went after his daughter, kissed her, and apologized.
At night, he plunged into creation again — by morning, his wife found a new poem on the table. The poem began like this:
I, misguided, must be greedy for fame,
My lament in my heart must be false.
Sometimes when I write my simple verses,
Even my child disappears from my sight.
And the poem concluded with these lines of merciless self-judgment:
Let them never write poetry like me,
Let them be of more use to my people than I.
Even if it were a masterpiece, I spit on that —
Poem I wrote making my child cry.
### “No head left worthy of the doppi”
After his book was published, he was given a house in the “Darxon” neighborhood, but fame did not come peacefully — this was a time when the totalitarian regime scrutinized every line written by young creators.
One day, his colleague, the writer Murodjon Mansurov, who worked at the magazine “Yoshlik” (Youth), took a draft copy of the magazine to the responsible official of the relevant department. The official stared mockingly for a long time at the fresh doppi on his head and, with disgust, objected to several poems. Returning upset, Murodjon aka met Muhammad Yusuf on the way and told him about the incident.
Photo: Image generated by artificial intelligence
The young poet smiled slightly and said: “A strange thing happened, don't worry, Murodjon aka,” but inside him, another line was already ripening. Not long after, the poem “Doʻppi” (The Skullcap) was born based on this very event — a dedication written in response to the humiliation his friend suffered.
People stopped wearing the doppi,
Except for one poet, one prose writer.
Hair is smooth,
Steps are smooth,
It feels heavy on the head...
What a miserable trade this is,
The people stopped wearing the doppi.
Either there is no doppi to fit the head,
Or there is no head left worthy of the doppi.
When this poem was read at a major poetry gathering at the Writers' Union in the 1980s, the hall erupted in applause. The writer Muhammad Ali recalls that day:
A dark-skinned, unfamiliar young man took the stage, stood alongside famous poets, and surpassed everyone in an instant — as the people say, “he took the prize.”
Within five or six years, book after book was published: “Bulbulga bir gapim bor” (I Have a Word for the Nightingale) (1987), “Iltijo” (Supplication) (1988), “Uyqudagi qiz” (The Sleeping Girl) and “Halima enam allalari” (Lullabies of My Grandmother Halima) (1989), “Ishq kemasi” (The Ship of Love) and “Koʻnglimda bir yor” (A Beloved in My Heart) (1990), “Bevafo koʻp ekan” (There Are Many Unfaithful Ones) (1991), then “Yolgʻonchi yor” (The Lying Beloved) and “Erka kiyik” (The Gentle Deer).
For the collection “Uyqudagi qiz”, he was awarded the Republican Youth Prize in 1989. Literary scholar Ozod Sharofiddinov later wrote about this period: Muhammad Yusuf “became famous for his poems that loudly spoke the people's pain and described love for the homeland in lines unlike anyone else's.”
But as I said, fast-coming fame also brings fast envy: some of his peers tried to belittle his poems as “domestic” and lacking “novelty” in his work. One day, as he was leaving the publishing house in a depressed state, Shukur Qurbon saw the poet's condition and reminded him of Sergey Yesenin's response to similar reprimands: “We have written plenty in the forms they are writing. Now we have found our own way. They do not know that we are on the right path, we will still surpass them all!!!” From that day on, the phrase “They do not know...” became a secret password between them — he would repeat it every time they asked how he was doing.
### Black Sun, Gentle Deer, and Ishtalin
In the middle of those years — in 1988, at a time when even the word “perestroika” did not grant full freedom — he tackled a subject in poetry that many did not dare to touch. The epic poem “Qora quyosh” (Black Sun) begins with an archival document: a letter from a prisoner, apparently written in 1946 from an exile destination in Siberia to his sister Qumri, with only the name “Akmal” left in the signature. In the author's note, he says he “found it by chance” — this method of mixing prose with poetry, document with lyrics, gave the epic a unique documentary power.
Page by page, the epic touches the most painful spots on the body of the nation. In one chapter, there is a mute man who was shot because he could not pronounce Stalin's name correctly and blurted out “Ishtalin” in front of the public:
Photo: Image generated by artificial intelligence
They imprisoned the mute,
The mute “enemy”,
The politically illiterate,
Naïve enemy…
They imprisoned him,
In one day,
Without delay.
His guilt was clear,
His guilt was known,
Unable to say the leader's name
Correctly,
In front of everyone
He said “Ishtalin”!
The mute stares at the guard,
Trembling,
They will kill him now,
They will kill him.
The house remained,
His house of misery remained.
In his house of misery — his old mother.
Another soul was gone,
Thus —
His own tongue brought
The mute's end…
They shot him in the forest,
The snow was thick.
He fell.
Shouting: Long live Ishta-lin!
In another place, there is a story about a prisoner who was exiled as the “tail” of a man he had never seen, and met him face-to-face for the first time during that very exile.
Photo: Image generated by artificial intelligence
— Why were you imprisoned, brother?
— They said you are the “tail” of Sulaymon Azimov!
— Of whom?
— I told you, Azimov…
After a while, having recovered a bit, I slowly went and hugged his shoulder:
— Do you know him?
— No, I have never seen him…
— Then let's get acquainted, — I said. — I am that very man you spoke of!.. (From the memoirs of the former secretary of the Central Committee, Sulaymon Azimov)
In another chapter, there is a grim question-and-answer session spoken by a boy whose parents were exiled to Siberia — written in the tone of a lullaby and lament from folklore:
— Where is your father, my child?
— My father went to Siberia.
— Where is your mother, my child?
— My mother went with him too…
— Where is your older brother, my child?
— He is sleeping in that world.
— Where is your younger brother, my child?
— He is crying, asking for milk…
There is also an unknown writer who died by hitting his head against the wall after his boss threw his manuscript into the stove:
The simple-minded writer handed him the manuscript. The boss took the manuscript and threw it into the roaring stove… He came to his senses again in that damp and dark room. “Who led me to this villain? My feet? I will cut them off right now. Have my eyes not opened even after seeing so much humiliation! Is there not a grain of sense in this head! Did it really urge me to go and ask the executioner for help! Now… Now!…”
He stood up abruptly, ran, and hit his head against the wall with force. He hit it and kept hitting it. He kept hitting it until his soul departed!.. Who was this writer? Qodiriy?.. Choʻlpon? Or Usmon Nosir?!.
Photo: Image generated by artificial intelligence
At the end of the epic, the assessment he gave to Stalin becomes a formula with few equals in Uzbek poetry:
To me, very dear is
His image,
At one glance,
It seems to have no comparison.
He is a river-hearted,
He is a stone-hearted,
He is a sun
But — a Black Sun!
This was a formula that fit two opposing feelings — fear and hatred at the same time — into a single line, and it was precisely because of this ambiguity that the epic survived Soviet censorship and reached the people.
After this heavy theme, as if catching his breath, he also wrote completely different, light and gentle poems. One of them — “Erka kiyik” (Gentle Deer), written in a unique melodic repetition style — begins like this:
Gentle deer, may I caress you once,
Become Majnun and lead you to the deserts,
In this world, both you and I are equally poor,
Gentle deer, may I caress you once?..
Your eyes are black, my eyes are black,
Your heart is wounded, my heart is wounded,
In this world, you are miserable, I am miserable!..
Gentle deer, may I caress you once?..
Photo: Image generated by artificial intelligence
This poem also experienced a small twist of fate in 1993. The famous singer Faxriddin Umarov from Qibray, wanting to turn it into a song, read it and made an unexpected observation: when sung, the word “Erka kiyik” (gentle deer) sounds to the listener's ear like “Erkak kiyik” (male deer), whereas “kiyik” (deer) and “ohu” (gazelle) are the same creature — why not use that instead? The poet simply said, “Agreed!” That was it. Ever since, when that poem became a song, it entered thousands of hearts under the name “Erka ohu” (Gentle Gazelle), and years later, several singers set it to music.
However, in most of them, the phrase “Erka(k) kiyik” remained. What can we say, there is a difference between a talented creator and a craftsman.
### “If your father, your mother does not understand...”
The years of independence opened a new stage in his work. His poem “Vatanim” (My Homeland) begins like this:
What did I do with the world, My own bright world,
Myself emperor, Myself sultan, You my throne of Solomon,
...You are my Greatest of the great, My Homeland…
— here he places his country above kings and thrones. But he was not a poet who only praised the homeland. In the poem “Oʻzbek” (Uzbek), he first describes his mother bent sevenfold in the cotton field:
You were picking cotton bent sevenfold,
You were in your field, oh my mother.
Are you Uzbek, asking with a strange laugh,
A fashionable lady asked me.
— and then he openly rebels against the silence and submissiveness of the people:
Why don't you go to Crimea in summer,
Or are you the stepson of your father?!
If they insult you, you say nothing, are you a sheep or sated,
If they beat you, you don't cry, meaning — you are a thief!
Literary scholars compare these lines to Choʻlpon's address to the people, “O captives… O oppressed” — in both, the lyrical hero addresses his people directly, without hesitation. “I entered literature as a social poet,” he said later in an interview.
He searched for poetry not in books, but in life: “I search for poetry only on the street, and find it on the street... Poetry is a sweet pain, suffering. The poet is sick with this pain.” He also disliked ornate words, because in his opinion, if “your father, your mother does not understand the poem, what is the use of it?”
In 1996, he was awarded the Order of Friendship (“Doʻstlik”), and from 1997, he worked as the deputy chairman of the Writers' Union for work with youth — mentoring young creators became one of his main activities in the last years of his life. By 1998, he received the title of “People's Poet of Uzbekistan” — at that time, he was the youngest creator in the country's history to be honored with this title.
### The Ellikqalʼa coincidence
On the threshold of the 2000s, he often visited the Ellikqalʼa district of Karakalpakstan — an ancient land where the ruins of Tuproqqalʼa and Ayozqalʼa are located. Planting an oak sapling with his own hands in the botanical garden there, he said to the garden director, half-jokingly, half-seriously: “They say this tree lives for five hundred years. But the person who planted it either lives one-tenth of the tree's life, or cannot. I mean, I will either reach fifty, or I won't.” Unfortunately, he really did not reach fifty.
I fear, if I die tomorrow,
If my eyes lie buried in the sand,
A grief will weigh on my heart like an avalanche —
My daughters do not even know how to cry…
My closest friends will gossip about me,
My weakest enemy will laugh at me.
As for them, they know what to do,
My daughters do not even know how to cry…
On July 31, 2001, during a meeting with his fans in Ellikqalʼa, he took the stage, but collapsed to the ground without being able to say a single word — the poet's heart stopped completely. He was forty-seven years old. His body was laid to rest in the soil of Andijan. The oak in the Ellikqalʼa botanical garden still grows today, outliving its owner by far. And we hope that the poet's verses will live in the memory of the people even longer than the oak.
We are like blue pigeons in the skies, my dear,
Do not worry, come let's make the heart happy, my dear.
I have no acquaintance in the other world,
We won't go to heaven anyway, my dear...
Who lives to their fill in the bright world,
Life passes in the blink of an eye:
While you press your head to your mother's chest,
While you look into your child's eyes and smile...