Yoqub Ahmedov

Yoqub Ahmedov was born in Namangan on 3 January 1938. As a child he already appeared on stage at the Alisher Navoi Namangan Regional Theatre of Musical Drama and Comedy. He went on to study at the Ostrovsky Tashkent Theatre and Art Institute, graduating in 1959. While still a student, in 1958, he joined the company of the Hamza Uzbek State Academic Drama Theatre (since 2001 the Uzbek National Academic Drama Theatre), where he remained for the rest of his life.

His first sizeable stage role was Murod in Uyghun's drama “The Moth” (Parvona). Over the following decades he played leading parts in more than fifty productions, among them Proteus in Shakespeare's “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” (1966), Dulchin in Ostrovsky's “The Last Sacrifice” (1967), al-Biruni in Uyghun's “Abu Rayhan Biruni” (1973), Creon in Sophocles' “Antigone” (1977), Karenin in Leo Tolstoy's “The Living Corpse” (1978) and Solihboy in Hamza's “The Rich Man and the Servant” (1982).

In the 1980s Ahmedov often played historical figures and heroes of world drama: Babur in a stage version of Pirimqul Qodirov's novel “Starry Nights”, Abai in Mukhtar Auezov's “Abai”, Shah Jahan in Uyghun's “Zebunniso” (all three in 1983), Othello (1984), Yusufbek Hoji in Izzat Sulton's “Abdulla Qodiriy's Days Gone By” (1988) and Navoi in Uyghun and Izzat Sulton's “Alisher Navoi” (1991). Ali Qushji in Maqsud Shaykhzoda's tragedy “Mirzo Ulugbek” is also counted among his best-known roles. For Fazilkhoja in Komil Yashin's play “The Dawn of the Revolution” (Bukhara) he received the USSR State Prize in 1977.

He began acting in films in 1958. His breakthrough was the poet Furqat in Yuldash Agzamov's “Furqat” (1959), followed by some forty screen roles: Okhoy in “Daughter of the Ganges” (1961), Azizbek in “Days Gone By” (1969), Emir Alim Khan of Bukhara in Kamil Yarmatov's “The Death of the Black Consul” (1970), Sheikh Ismail Khoja in the serial “Fiery Roads” and Kasim in “Adventures of Ali-Baba and the Forty Thieves” (1979). After independence he played the historian Khalid in the series “Shaytanat” and the colonel's father in “Baron” (2016). He also had leading parts in Uzbektelefilm television films and voiced more than 400 films dubbed into Uzbek at the Uzbekfilm studio.

Ahmedov was named Honoured Artist of the Uzbek SSR in 1969, People's Artist of the Uzbek SSR in 1974 and People's Artist of the USSR in November 1991. From 1992 to 2013 he ran his theatre as its director, a period in which it gained a new building and a new generation of actors; after stepping down he stayed on in the company as an actor, and in his last years he chaired the Union of Theatre Workers of Uzbekistan. Independent Uzbekistan awarded him the Order of Friendship (Do'stlik) in 1997 and the Order “For Selfless Service” in 2018.

Yoqub Ahmedov died on 30 October 2025, aged 87.