Hafiz Abdusamatov

Hafiz Shoahmedovich Abdusamatov was born on 8 February 1925 in Jambul (now Taraz, Kazakhstan); some sources give 2 August as his birthday. During the Second World War he attended school, finishing with distinction, and worked evening shifts at an aircraft factory. He then entered the philology faculty of the Central Asian State University in Tashkent and graduated in 1946.

He continued his studies in Moscow, defending his candidate’s dissertation at Moscow State University in 1952 under L. Timofeev. In 1952–1960 and 1966–1979 Abdusamatov worked at the Institute of Language and Literature of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan as a senior researcher, head of a sector, deputy director and head of a department; in the years between, 1960–1966, he held other senior posts. He was a member of the Writers’ Union of the USSR from 1957, became a Doctor of Philology in 1968 and was later given the title of professor.

From 1979 to 1981 Abdusamatov was rector of the Tashkent State Institute of Culture, and from 1981 to 1993 he directed the Hamza Institute of Art Studies. In 1994–1998 he was a leading researcher at the Institute of Manuscripts of the Academy of Sciences. He was named Honoured Science Worker of the Uzbek SSR in 1975 and won the Hamza State Prize of the Uzbek SSR in 1977.

His main subjects were dramaturgy, theatre, satire and humour in Uzbek literature, the last of which is also the subject of his doctoral dissertation. He wrote monographs on the playwrights Abdulla Qahhor, Alp Jamol, Uyghun, Olmas Umarbekov, Tuyghun and Komil Yashin, and on the actor Zokir Muhammadjonov. His books include “Drama nazariyasi” (Theory of Drama), a summing-up of many years of work on dramatic theory and theatre criticism. He contributed to the two-volume “Essays on the History of Uzbek Soviet Literature” and sat on the editorial boards of the Brief Literary Encyclopedia (1962–1978) and several literary publications.

In 2001 “Drama nazariyasi” won the “Istiqlol tongi” contest, and in 2004 his monograph “Shoshma, quyosh!” received the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan prize for the best scholarly work of the year. In 2007 Abdusamatov was awarded the Order “Mehnat shuhrati”.