Razzoq Abdurashid

Razzoq Abdurashid was born in Tashkent, in the old Ko‘kcha quarter. Official documents give his birthday as 4 January 1936, though other accounts place his birth in the summer of 1935. His father, Abdumajid, came from a well-off merchant family and traded himself in the 1920s; when his shop was confiscated he went to work on a collective farm. His mother, Nurinisa, kept the house; she had attended an old-style school and knew the ghazals of Mashrab, Yasawi and Fuzuli by heart.

He finished school in 1953 and entered the journalism department of the philology faculty of the Central Asian (later Tashkent) State University, studying there until 1958. After graduating he worked as a literary staff member of the magazine Gulxan (1958–1964), then at the newspaper Lenin uchquni (1964–1966) and at the Yosh Gvardiya publishing house (from 1961 to 1969, according to the sources). In 1969–1971 he attended the Higher Literary Courses in Moscow.

Abdurashid’s poems began to appear in print in the early 1960s. His first collection, “Yo‘l boshida”, was published in 1962; his mentor, the poet Shuhrat, helped him select the poems. It was followed by “Kaftimda olam” (1969), “Qalbim qo‘lingda” (1970), “Yulduzlar xayoli” (1975), “Yorug‘lik” (1983), “Otalar chirog‘i” (1986), “Yo‘l o‘rtasida” (1988) and others — about twenty books in all. He wrote the narrative poems “Toshfaryod”, “Umrdan lavhalar” and “Tiriklar”, among others, as well as books for children; in Moscow his collections “Pritok” (1979) and “Otchiy porog” appeared in Russian.

Translation is a separate part of his legacy. Abdurashid rendered into Uzbek poems by Pushkin, Nazim Hikmet, Rasul Rza, Rasul Gamzatov and Musa Jalil, and narrative poems by Samad Vurgun and Yegor Isayev. He was best known as the translator of the Azerbaijani poet Samad Vurgun: three of his books, among them the poem “Asrimiz bayroqdori” and the play “Vagif”, appeared in Abdurashid’s translation.

In his working life he held editorial posts: adviser at the Writers’ Union of Uzbekistan, editor at the Republican Radio and, from 1979, lead editor at the Gafur Gulyam publishing house. He was a member of the Writers’ Union of Uzbekistan. In February 2023 the Writers’ Union published its condolences to his family on the death of Razzoq Abdurashid.