Olim Khojayev

Olim Khojayev was born on 7 October 1910 (24 September in the old style) in Bukhara. He graduated from the Bukhara Institute of Education in 1929 and that year joined the troupe of the Hamza Uzbek State Drama Theatre in Tashkent, where he stayed for almost fifty years, until the end of his life.

His first major parts included Calaf in Carlo Gozzi’s “Turandot” and Yarovoy in Konstantin Trenyov’s “Lyubov Yarovaya”. In 1939 he took the title role in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”, which he went on playing for thirty years. In 1948 he created the role of Navoi in Uyghun and Izzat Sultan’s play “Alisher Navoi”, for which he received the Stalin Prize, second class, in 1949; he played the part for twenty-five years.

Other notable roles were Hamza in the play “Hamza” by Kamil Yashin and Abror Umari, Iago in “Othello”, Lear in “King Lear” (1966) and Professor Komilov in Izzat Sultan’s “Imon”. In 1960 he also played Hamza in the feature film “Hamza”, directed by Zagid Sabitov. Over his career he played more than a hundred parts.

He worked as a director as well: after finishing directing courses at the All-Russian Theatre Society in Moscow in 1951, he staged Bahrom Rahmonov’s “Secrets of the Heart”, Wang Shifu’s “The Spilled Cup” and Uyghun’s “Abu Rayhan Beruni”, and directed Hamza’s “The Rich Man and the Farmhand” at the theatre in Haskovo, Bulgaria.

Beyond the stage he held public posts: from 1955 until his death he chaired the board of the Theatre Society of Uzbekistan, and in 1975–1977 he was director of the Hamza Theatre. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan (1966–1971 and 1976–1977) and a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Uzbek SSR in its 6th to 9th convocations.

He was named People’s Artist of the Uzbek SSR in 1948 and People’s Artist of the USSR in 1959. Khojayev died in Moscow on 14 February 1977 and was buried at the Chigatay Memorial Cemetery in Tashkent. The USSR State Prize was awarded to him posthumously that year, and in 2002 he received the Order “For Outstanding Merit”. A theatre in Guliston, a culture college in Bukhara and a school in Tashkent bear his name.