Otajon Xudoyshukurov

Otajon Xudoyshukurov was born on 4 October 1944 in the Tortkul district of Karakalpakstan. He learned singing from his uncle, the singer Yoldosh Olloshukurov, and later studied with Komiljon Otaniyozov, Nazir qori and Jumanazar Bekchonov.

From 1963 he was a soloist of the Karakalpak State Philharmonic. His repertoire included classical ashulas (“Feruz”, “Xorazm Segohi”, “Bozurgoniy”, “Samarqand ushshog‘i”, “Toshkent iroqi” and others), Khorezm dastan songs, works by Uzbek composers, and Turkmen, Azerbaijani, Karakalpak, Kazakh and Kyrgyz folk songs; he was especially known for performing suvora. Sources stress the wide range and clarity of his voice and his ability to sing without a microphone or backing track.

He is also known as the composer of more than 300 songs that he performed himself, accompanying himself on the tor, among them “Mujgonlaring”, “Olamda bir” and “Birinchi muhabbatim”. “Birinchi muhabbatim” is his own setting of a poem by Abdulla Oripov; Sherali Jorayev also set the same poem, and both versions circulated among students.

He was named People’s Artist of Karakalpakstan (1969), received the Hamza State Prize of the Uzbek SSR (1974), and was made People’s Artist of the Uzbek SSR (1977), of Tatarstan (1981) and of Turkmenistan (1993). He died on 22 December 1994. In August 2021 a presidential decree awarded him the Order “Fidokorona xizmatlari uchun” posthumously; it was handed to his family at a ceremony at the Kuksaroy.

He is remembered: since 1999 a republic-wide competition of young singers has borne his name; streets, a boulevard and parks in Ellikqala and Tortkul, an arts school and the cultural palace in Tortkul are named after him, and a museum has been set up in the house where he lived. On 3 October 2026 Tortkul held the evening “Ustozga ehtirom” for the 82nd anniversary of his birth.