Sora Eshonto'rayeva

Sora Abdurahmonovna Eshonto'rayeva (Russian: Sara Ishanturaeva) was born on 8 November (26 October, Old Style) 1911 in the village of Beshbuloq, now in the Yangiqo'rg'on district of Namangan region, into a peasant family. Her father died early, and her mother had to give her and two other children to other families. From the age of eleven she was brought up at the Zebunniso boarding school for girls in Tashkent, took part in an amateur circle and then appeared in the crowd scenes of the Model Regional Drama Troupe.

In 1924 she joined a group of Uzbek young people sent from Tashkent to study in Moscow. In 1927 she graduated from the Uzbek State Drama Studio at the Uzbek House of Enlightenment in Moscow, where her teachers included R. Simonov, L. Sverdlin and I. Tolchanov. The graduates of the studio went on to form the core of the company of the future Hamza Uzbek Drama Theatre.

From 1927 Eshonto'rayeva was an actress of the Central State Model Uzbek Troupe in Samarkand; in 1929 it became the Hamza Uzbek State Drama Theatre, and the theatre later moved to Tashkent (since 2001 the Uzbek National Academic Drama Theatre). Among her first roles were Tursunoy in Vasily Yan and Cho'lpon’s play “Hujum” and Beatrice in Goldoni’s “The Servant of Two Masters”. From the 1930s she played the leading female parts in almost every production of the theatre. Her Ophelia in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” (1935) made her famous.

Her repertoire included Jamila in Hamza’s “The Rich Man and the Hired Hand”, Guloyim in Hamid Olimjon’s “Muqanna”, Guli in Uyg'un and Izzat Sultan’s “Alisher Navoi”, and Onaxon in Komil Yashin’s “Honour and Love”; from world drama she played Desdemona (“Othello”), Goneril (“King Lear”), Jocasta (“Oedipus the King”), Katerina (“The Storm”) and Lyubov Yarovaya. She played Desdemona in a production in which her husband Abror Hidoyatov was Othello. In later years roles of mothers took a notable place in her work. She also acted in films, among them “The Rich Man and the Hired Hand” (Jamila), “Sinchalak” and “The Bell of Sayat”. In 1964 she visited England for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth.

Beyond the stage she held demanding posts: she was director of the theatre in 1943–1946 and 1953–1960, and chair of the board of the Theatre Society of Uzbekistan in 1946–1955 and 1981–1985. She was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Uzbek SSR from 1939 and of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (2nd–4th convocations) in 1946–1958, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan and chair of the board of the republican Peace Fund.

In 1937 she was named People’s Artist of the Uzbek SSR. In 1949 she received a Stalin Prize, second class, for the role of Guli in “Alisher Navoi”; on 6 December 1951, at the time of the Decade of Uzbek Art in Moscow, she became People’s Artist of the USSR. In 1967 she won the Hamza State Prize of the Uzbek SSR and in 1977 the USSR State Prize for a role in the play “Zarya revolyutsii” (“Dawn of the Revolution”). In Soviet times she was awarded two Orders of Lenin (1945, 1971), the Order of the October Revolution, five Orders of the Red Banner of Labour, the Order of the Friendship of Peoples and other honours; after independence she received the Sog'lom avlod uchun order (1993) and, posthumously in 2004, the Order “Buyuk xizmatlari uchun”.

Sora Eshonto'rayeva died in Tashkent on 8 September 1998 (some sources say 7 September) and was buried in the Chig'atoy cemetery. Her husband Abror Hidoyatov (1900–1958) was a People’s Artist of the USSR; their sons are the historian Goga Hidoyatov (1930–2015) and Timur Hidoyatov (1932–2024), a doctor of architecture. In 2024 an exhibition of her archive documents and personal belongings was held.