Matyoqub Qo’shjonov

Matyoqub Qo’shjonov was born on 5 May 1918 in the village of Hallang near Tashauz (Toshhovuz), in present-day Turkmenistan, into a shepherd’s family. He studied at teacher-training schools and, until 1942, taught Uzbek language and literature at a school in Tashauz.

He served in the Second World War as a sniper, and the war later found its way into his literary-biographical books. After the war he graduated with distinction from the philology faculty of the Central Asian State University (1945–1950) and worked in the apparatus of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan, then studied at the Academy of Social Sciences in Moscow. His career as a critic began in the same years: his first review appeared in 1956.

From 1957 to 1960 he was a docent in the university’s department of Uzbek literature. From 1960 until the end of his life he worked at the Institute of Language and Literature of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan: as a senior researcher, head of a department, director (1975–1986), and later leading researcher and scientific consultant. He took his doctorate in philology in 1972.

His main research concerns Uzbek literature of the twentieth century, the methodology of literary criticism and the writer’s craft. He analysed the work of Qodiriy, Oybek, Abdulla Qahhor, Abdulla Oripov and others, studying plot, composition, character and conflict in the literary work. For the books “Meaning and Measure” (1974) and “Facets of Talent” (1975) he received the Hamza State Prize of the Uzbek SSR in 1977. He took part in producing the two-volume “Theory of Literature”, the five-volume “History of Uzbek Literature” and dictionaries of the Uzbek language; five doctors and fifteen candidates of sciences were trained under his supervision.

In 1978 he was given the title Honoured Scientist of the Uzbek SSR, and in 2000 he became an academician of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan. In the years of independence he wrote “The Uzbek’s Selfhood” (1994) and, with a co-author, a study of Abdulla Oripov (2000); his literary-biographical books “The Trigger Was Pulled” (1990), “Pain” (1996) and “Regret” (2004) were published. He received the orders “El-yurt hurmati” (1999) and “Buyuk xizmatlari uchun” (2003).

Matyoqub Qo’shjonov died in Tashkent on 16 August 2005. In 2018 the Institute of Uzbek Language, Literature and Folklore held a scholarly conference for the centenary of his birth.