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. By 1928, the Uzbekistan Women's Division magazine Yangi Yo'l [New Path] had grown in size and scope, and it was publishing stories by writers who would become recognized leaders in Uzbekistan's literary establishment. The Communist Party's "Hujum" (Attack) campaign entered its second year. (For the first year advancing the Hujum, see the issues of Yangi Yo'l from 1927.) Yangi Yo'l's authors of political articles, its short-story writers, and its poets all continued to stress the importance of removing paranjis (veiling robes) and chachvons (face-veils), as a first step toward getting an education, entering public life, taking up paid work outside the home, and participating in building socialism. By 1928, Uzbek women's division activists were furious that the violent backlash against unveiling had deterred many women from unveiling and had created severe obstacles to their revolutionary agenda. Yangi Yo'l incorporated many accounts of women who were murdered for unveiling, interpreting these as martyrdom for the cause of women's liberation. Yangi Yo'l also published works of fiction that sought to shape a new version of Uzbek womanhood, one where women were bold and daring, and found opportunities to better their own and their children's lives through education, work, and the aid of Soviet law. In issue 6 of 1928, it becomes clear that Yangi Yo'l's contributors were furious about violent attacks and murders of unveiled women. There are stories remembering individual women activists who became victims, and there are more sophisticated arguments against veiling, including several directly attacking Islam as the source of women's subjugation. 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

23

Publication Year

1928

Source Title

Yangi Yo’l [New Path], no. 7, 1928, pp. 2-10, 13-14, 17-19

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