Jadidlar

In the 1890s, reformers across the Muslim world began opening schools that taught the alphabet phonetically instead of by rote memorisation, alongside geography, arithmetic and modern science. In Turkestan the movement took hold quickly. Mahmudhoja Behbudiy opened new-method schools in Samarkand, founded the journals Oyina and Samarqand, and in 1911 wrote Padarkush — widely regarded as the first Uzbek drama. Munavvar Qori built a school network in Tashkent. Abdurauf Fitrat argued, in print, that the region's decline was self-inflicted and reversible.

Many Jadids initially welcomed the Soviet project, believing it would deliver the modernisation they had argued for. It did not protect them. During the purges of 1937–38 the movement was effectively erased: Behbudiy had already been killed in 1919; Fitrat, Cho'lpon and Abdulla Qodiriy — author of O'tkan kunlar, the first Uzbek novel — were executed in October 1938. Their books were withdrawn and their names removed from print for half a century. Since independence they have been formally rehabilitated, and today their work is taught in Uzbek schools and their names carry streets, theatres and prizes.