Details

Abstract / Summary

TITLE: New Path (Selected Pages). DESCRIPTION: In 1925, the Women's Division of the Communist Party in the newly formed Uzbekistan Soviet Socialist Republic created an Uzbek-language women's magazine, Yangi Yo'l, or New Path. Most of its content was created in Uzbek, by Uzbek writers, for an Uzbek-speaking public. Yangi Yo'l's core mission was to explain to Uzbek women that their lives could improve, if women would take advantage of new opportunities: gaining literacy, sending daughters to school, working for pay outside the home, learning about their rights under Soviet law, and becoming politically active. The magazine was published monthly from 1925 until 1933. In Uzbekistan, 1927 was a turning point because the Soviet leadership launched initiatives that historian Sheila Fitzpatrick called a "cultural revolution." The Communist Party of Uzbekistan had begun land reform in 1925, a process designed to undermine the economic power of wealthier rural land owners. In 1927, the Communist Party directly confronted religion, shutting down many of Uzbekistan's mosques, ending formal religious education by closing maktabs and madrasas, and arresting many imams. At the same time, Uzbekistan's Communist Party also declared a new campaign called the "Hujum" (Attack), to change women's lives and opportunities. The Women's Division of the Uzbekistan Communist Party turned the content of Yangi Yo'l toward advancing the Hujum. Reading issues in sequence allows one to notice the shifting emphases of this campaign. In the first three issues from 1927, authors wrote articles and short stories encouraging women to send daughters to school, to come out of their homes and get involved in working for pay or in public life, and, for women agriculturalists, to obtain land through land reform. On March 8, 1927, the Women's Division held mass unveilings in public places in many of Uzbekistan's cities. Unveiled women, whom activists thought would become lynchpins of cultural revolution by gaining education and becoming social active supports of a Soviet system, faced abuse and violence when they went out into public unveiled. Issue 5 of Yangi Yo'l shows this shift, with its strong emphasis on the Hujum and its discourses in support of unveiling. Of particular importance is an article by Hadicha (1927, no 5: 3-4) laying out the Women's Division's arguments as to why women should unveil. Hadicha was clearly writing for the Uzbek intelligentsia (ziyolilar), as her article began by contrasting Communist ideas about women and unveiling with Jadid (Islamic modernizing) ideas about hijab. Yangi Yo'l's authors were convinced that the Soviet government would bring beneficial progress and change and that women themselves should actively participate and bring those changes into their own lives and families. The earliest copies, from 1925 and 1926, had print runs of 2,000 copies. By 1928, the print run expanded to 4,000, and in 1929 to 6,500. The journal was published in Arabic-script Uzbek language until 1930. The selected pages from this issue are accompanied by a brief English summary and translation, compiled and created by scholar Marianne Kamp.

Field of Interest

Women and Social Movements

Collection

Women and Social Movements, Modern Empires Since 1820

Copyright Message

English-language translation and summary, © Marianne Kamp, 2016.

Content Type

Periodical article

Duration

0 sec

Format

Text

Page Count

12

Publication Year

1927

Source Title

Yangi Yo’l [New Path], no. 6, 1927, pp. 4, 10-13, 19

Subject

Women and Social Movements, History, Women and Religion, Women and Rights, Women and Social Reform, Mujer y Religión, Mulher e Religião, Mujer y Derechos, Direitos da Mulher, Mujer y Reforma Social, Mulher e Reforma Social, Uzbequistão, Communist Party. Women's Division, Uzbekistan Soviet Socialist Republic, Uzbekistan, Political and Human Rights, Women and Religion, Indigenous Women, Equal Rights for Women, Religious Prescriptions for Women, Social and Political Leadership, Religious Leadership and Religious Activism, Northern Uzbek, 20th Century in World History (1914--2000)

Topic

Equal Rights for Women, Religious Prescriptions for Women, Social and Political Leadership, Religious Leadership and Religious Activism

Translator

Marianne Kamp, fl. 2000

Keywords and Translated Subjects

Mujer y Religión, Mulher e Religião, Mujer y Derechos, Direitos da Mulher, Mujer y Reforma Social, Mulher e Reforma Social, Uzbequistão