artist
Tajikistan

 

The first comic book in Tajikistan is presented to your attention. It was created by Sulaymon Sharifi. His work is innovative. The artist experiments in painting, video, photography, book illustration, and now comics. The comic is a synthetic media genre that is taking its first steps in our country. It combines features of literature and fine arts. The starting point of the project presented to your attention is the artistic understanding of ethnic diversity and the relationship between the communities of Tajikistan. In Sharifi’s view, ethnic diversity is a great treasure that should be cherished and developed. He explores human diversity not in the biological or ethnic, but in the most important – the cultural dimension.

 

Ethnic communities are not stable, they are in constant motion and interaction, creating human diversity. But what are the main parameters of this ethnocultural diversity? Where did the Tajiks live and live in the present, and what role does geography play in shaping their identity? What did the national palette of our country look like in the past and in the present? These questions can be answered by a historian. Next, we will talk about comics in general, about ethnicity and cultural diversity in comics. And about the prospects for the development of this genre in Tajikistan. 
Main ethnic groups in Tajikistan

 

Central Asia is populated mainly by Iranians and Turks. The Iranians arrived here around the second half of the 2nd millennium BC. The 6th century AD is considered to be the time when Turkic-speaking nomadic tribes entered the historical arena of the region. Half a millennium later, the Turks achieved numerical superiority and established their political and military control over all of Central Asia. Since the 8th century, along with the Turks, Pashtuns, and smaller groups, natives who spoke Farsi (or Persian), mainly Tajiks, professing Sunni Islam, live here. 

 

Tajiks also include those for whom Farsi is not the first language.  Almost   200 000   of  “Pamirs”,  that  is,  Tajik Shiites, 
followers of the Ismailism of the Aga Khan, live in Badakhshan and other parts of Tajikistan. They speak Eastern Iranian unwritten languages, such as Shugni, Rushoni, Yazgulomi, Vakhoni, Zebaki, Bartangi, Rini, etc. At the same time, they all use Farsi for writing and communicating with neighbors. In addition, both the Sunni Tajiks themselves and their neighbors (Uighurs, Uzbeks, Kirghiz, Chinese) attributed the Pamirs to Tajiks. 
Tajiks also live in Afghanistan. Estimates of the share of Tajiks in that country vary widely, from 25 percent to 50 percent or more of the total population. Their numbers are equal to, if not greater than, the number of Tajiks in Tajikistan. Tajiks are the second-largest people in Afghanistan. 

 

Thus, ethnologically, the Tajik identity absorbed the so-called mountain Tajiks of the Tajik and Afghan Kuhistan (mountainous   areas),   the   Persian-speaking   inhabitants   of the oases and cities of Afghanistan, Bukhara, and Turkestan, as well as the Pamiri Ismailis. These subnational Tajik groups have retained their distinctive features to this day. The qualities that united the Tajiks and distinguished them from their neighbors were not blood kinship (as with nomads), but important cultural and socio-economic characteristics, namely Iranianism and a settled way of life. Iranianism means belonging to the region’s oldest ethnic group and culture, using Iranian (Eastern or Western) dialects, and recognizing Farsi (named Tajik in the 1920s and changed into Cyrillic in the late 1930s) as the written language. Sedentarism implied urbanism, the absence of tribal (including armed) structures, and egalitarian political institutions (genesh, maslahat, jirga, etc.). Iranianism connected the Tajiks with the great written tradition of Persian literature, while sedentarism was associated with the economy of the cities and agricultural oases of Central Asia. Religion did not play a unifying role, since the Tajik identity absorbed two incompatible madhhabs - Hanafi Sunnism and Ismaili Shiism.

Iranianism and a settled way of life were the core characteristics of the Tajiks, indicating their common origin from the most ancient settlers of the region. This is what unites an Ismaili farmer from Badakhshan with a shopkeeper from the Ferghana Valley. 

 

The Uzbeks represent another dynamic confederation that formed in the 14th-16th centuries. The Uzbeks made up the dynasties of the last khanates of Movarounnahr - Khiva, Bukhara, and Kokand. In the 20th century, the Uzbeks were the largest ethnic group in the region. Its characteristic features were Turkism (the use of Turkic-Chagatai languages and a sense of belonging to the ruling and most numerous ethnic group in the region) and Sunnism. All Uzbeks speak the same language and profess the same religion. Iranianism, whose main agent was the Tajiks, was also not alien to the Uzbeks. Urban Uzbeks absorbed the Iranian heritage, thus enriching their own culture. Tajik-Uzbek bilingualism was commonplace in the cities and oases of Central Asia at the beginning of the 20th century. Tajik and Uzbek poets and musicians experimented in the popular style shiru shakar («milk and sugar»), which synthesized the achievements of two close cultures. 

 

The history of Central Asia shows that Iranianism can be preserved in a non-Persian-speaking environment, and Tajiks, like the Persians, are not monopolists in the right to own and authorize the rich cultural environment of the Iranian world. Iranian identity is not found in genes; it manifests itself, sometimes unexpectedly, in the culture of various peoples of Eurasia, like taste preferences, myths, and legends. The most striking example of the vitality of Iranian culture is the recognition by various non-Persian peoples of the Caucasus, South, and Central Asia of Navruz - the Iranian New Year, as a national holiday. Another example: the Kashgar (Turkic) Ilekhans  (12th  century)  were  so  fascinated  by  the  Book  of the Kings of Iran «Shahnameh» that they declared themselves descendants of Afrasiab. Language is important, maybe even the most important, but not the only marker of national identity. 

 

Until the mid-1920s. the region knew no borders and visas. Tajiks and Uzbeks shared territory with Arabs, Gypsies, Bukharan Jews, Afghans (Pashtuns, Hazaras) and other groups. Did the Tajik and Uzbek nations exist before the arrival of the Russians in the middle of the 19th century? The short answer is this: there were various ethnic groups, but not political nations united  in  states  with  a  fixed  border. Traditionally, there was no national self-identification in Central Asia, in the same way, linguistic affiliation was not a fundamental national feature. The hero of all the Muslim peoples of the East, Khoja Nasreddin, had no nationality. He was a Muslim who performed the Hajj (hence the Khoja), and there is no nationality in Islam. 

 

How did people identify themselves in the past? Of course, the dominant feature of Central Asia was (and is) belonging to Islam. Inside the common home - the holy religion, the inhabitants of Central Asia identified themselves according to the social and - more often - regional principle (for example: “Khujandi”, “Kulobi”, “Fargoni” or “Badakhshi”), but never according to the language, and even more so national. Often people were recognized by nicknames, and titles. Example: Ali Moshina (Ali Machinist), Kichik Irgash (Small Irgash), Ishan Sultan.

 

Were there ethnic conflicts in Muslim Central Asia? The subjugation of the Tajiks by the Turko-Mongols and the Pashtuns cannot be considered manifestations of ethnic, and even more so racial, contradictions (if only because the Pashtuns, like the Tajiks, belong to the same race). This was mainly a reflection of the cultural-economic, social and political conflict between the nomadic tribes and the settled, predominantly urban population. It just so happened that the former turned out to be Turks and Pashtuns, while the latter became identified with Tajiks. The conflict would also be inevitable if there were Indians in the place of the Tajiks, and Arabs in the place of the Pashtuns and Turks. 
Thus, throughout the long Central Asian history, numerous territorial, ethno-linguistic, and religious unions and communities competed, negotiated, and fought with each other, not thinking about creating a broader - national - identity. Any such attempt was seen by them as the loss of their «Us» and the imposition of someone else’s dominance. Communities sought to build bridges among themselves to avoid major conflicts, while at the same time cultivating fragmentation in society as a whole since it was this that ensured their autonomy and survival. It must also be borne in mind that the Central Asians lived on a vast territory, separated by impenetrable mountains, waterless deserts, and stormy rivers. This objectively restrained the  unifying   national   tendencies.   In  addition   to  tribal  and ethno-regional groups   with   pronounced   cultural,  linguistic, and bloodline-based characteristics such as nomadic Kyrgyz, Kazakhs, Lokais, Karluks, Katagans (all Uzbek tribes), Pamir Tajiks, etc., there were many groups with civic consciousness in the cities and oases of the region - farmers, artisans, merchants, scientists, teachers, priests, artists - whose ethnicity was difficult to determine. Such was, most likely, Khoja Nasreddin. 

 

In Tajikistan, there are ethnic groups that differ from Tajiks in language, religion, culture, and other features. They are sometimes called national minorities. These can be divided into two groups: the irredenta and the diaspora. The first, as a rule, is the indigenous population of non-Tajik Muslim, Jewish, and Gypsy origin, who inhabited the Emirate of Bukhara and the Kokand Khanate, and who entered Tajikistan during the national delimitation of 1924. 

 

According to the 2010 census, Tajiks made up 83.4% of the population in the country. The main irredenta groups are as follows: Uzbeks 13.9%, Kyrgyz 0.8%, Turkmen 0.8%. They are all Muslims, but not Tajiks. They lived and live in their native lands for a long time, and they can, and should be considered indigenous. As for the Eastern, or Bukharian Jews, they appeared in Central Asia long before the Turks - in the 5th century BC. They were called  “Bukharan” by European travelers of the 16th-17th centuries. In the Emirate of Bukhara and the Kokand Khanate (17th-early 20th centuries), Jews, although they were limited in their rights, achieved great success, in particular in trade and Shashmaqom classical music. At the beginning of the 20th century, a synagogue was built for 500 Jews in Dushanbe. It is interesting that in Soviet times they called themselves maida millat, which literally translates as “national minority”. There are also a number of Islamized Jews, or chala, who lived in Khujand and other large cities of the Ferghana Valley. They all feel like Tajiks. Although it is believed that all Jews left Israel, by the time they lived in Tajikistan, they can also be considered an irredenta, which, however, has its own “mother” state of Israel in the Middle East. However, since the late 1970s, almost all Jews left Tajikistan and settled mainly in Israel and the United States. There they continue to perform Shashmaqom and engage in literature in their native language - the Bukhara dialect of Persian-Tajik. 

 

Gypsies (luli, dzhugi) of Tajikistan live in compact rural areas,   without   mixing   with   other   peoples.  They  are  Sunni Muslims by religion. Their women do not cover their faces. Lulis are peaceful and hospitable people. They speak Tajik. 
The diaspora includes groups of non-indigenous - Soviet and non-Soviet origin who migrated to Tajikistan during the Soviet period and later. It is primarily Russians (Ukrainians, Belarusians). Unlike in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, Russians appeared in Tajikistan quite late: in the second and third decades of the 20th century. They should be attributed to the diaspora because they did not form Russian settlements with Russian names, they often came compulsorily or were sent by the authorities as qualified specialists. Most of them left Tajikistan in the 1990s. There were only 34.8 thousand Russians in 2010 or 0.5% of total population.

 

By the reason of the long-lasted conflict in Afghanistan, an Afghan diaspora has formed in Tajikistan since the early 2000s. According to the UN, there are about 14,000 Afghan refugees in Tajikistan. They do not plan to stay in Tajikistan forever, preferring to leave for a third country, and if it does not work out, then return back to Afghanistan.
A separate group is made up of approximately 3,000 Yaghnobis living in the very center of Tajikistan, who speak their own, New Sogdian language. They are also considered the indigenous Tajik people. (We will tell you more about the Sogdians below). There are also Arabs who came to the right bank of the Amu Darya in the 7th-8th centuries, and in the 15th century. They have assimilated into the local culture, speaking the language of their nearest neighbor with whom they share land and water: Tajik or Uzbek. They don’t speak Arabic. Officially, all representatives of this group are recorded in documents as Tajiks. According to the 2000 census, the number of Arabs in Tajikistan was 14,450 people.
Post-Soviet Tajikistan, in contrast to the Soviet period, is not distinguished by a large variety of diaspora groups. Most of them left the republic due to the civil conflict of the 1990s, unemployment, economic difficulties, etc. For the same reasons, parts of irredentist groups of Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Kazakhs and Turkmens left Tajikistan for their respective former Soviet republics, Russia, and further around the world. Tajikistan today is almost a mono-ethnic country. Approximately 90% of the population is Tajik, with the largest «minority» being Uzbeks who can speak Tajik and share the same culture as Tajiks. A recent genetic study found no significant differences between Tajik and Uzbek DNA.
Geography of Tajiks and its influence on culture

 

According to the patriarch of Western Iranian studies, a great friend of the Tajiks, Richard Frye, the geography of the Tajiks and Persians «is related to those parts of the Eurasian continent in which they prevailed numerically or dominated in culture.» This is the northeast of the space known as Iranian. Of course, there are many differences between the Tajiks of Central Asia and the Persians of Iran today, but the identification of Tajiks with Persians a thousand and even 300 years ago did not raise any doubts, since from the 8th to the 16th centuries the ethnonyms «Iranian», «Persian» and «Tajik» were synonymous. Geographically, history and ethnology have delineated the Iranian area (Iranian Area), albeit with fuzzy edges, but quite defined. It starts on the border of Iran and Iraq, further goes east along the Iranian plateau to the Pamirs, sometimes reaching the Indus River valley (tribal zone on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan). The cradle of the Tajiks is the Amudarya river basin. In the Middle Ages, the center of Tajik culture, depending on the political situation, the availability of resources, and the interest of the «sultan-sponsor», moved throughout the region - from Isfahan to Herat, from Khorezm to Samarkand, from Bukhara to Delhi. 8th to 17th centuries artists, poets, architects, and scientists of the Iranian world (Persians, Turks, Indians) followed this route, leaving their traces in the culture of the countries of their stay.           

 

The concepts of homeland and identity are linked through geography. The homeland in its geographical understanding can be perceived as an archetypal concept endowed with love and glorified in music, literature, and visual arts. For the court poet of the 9th-10th centuries, Abuabdullo Rudaki’s long stay in Herat was painful, and the memories of the cool Mulien canal in Bukhara stirred the soul. This is how the famous qasida “The wind blowing from Muliyan comes to us” appeared. The legend says that Nasr Ibn Ahmad Somoni, having heard these lines, forgot to put on his shoes, jumped on a horse, and galloped to Bukhara, not knowing the rest. This episode was captured in B. Kimyagarov’s film «The Fate of a Poet.» In modern Iran, the lines «Bui chui Mulien» have become a marker of Tajik identity. Every time they meet a Tajik, the Iranians recite these lines. 

 

The idea of Tajikistan as a mountainous republic is widespread.   In   fact,   93%   of  its  territory  is  covered  by the highest  mountain  systems.  However,  the  vast    majority of the population lives in the valleys of Gissar, Vakhsh, Fergana, and Zerafshan. For this reason, there are many geographical interpretations of what «Tajikistan» is. For the film director Kamil Yarmatov, the author of the first film of Tajik cinematography “The Emigrant” (1934), this is a desert near his native Kanibadam, which entered Tajikistan in 1929, when the republic had already been proclaimed “mountainous” for five years. His film provoked a protest from the head of the republic, who considered that since the desert is Turkmenistan. If we take literature, then, at the suggestion of the Bukharan Sadriddin Aini, he sees the oasis Samarkand and Bukhara as national icons and symbols. As an artist, however, Aini, in search of a person who best represents the Tajik nation, “gives up” his geography. Aini finds him in Odina, a poor highlander from Karategin (Gharm, Rasht). And another writer, S. Ulugzade, whose geographical homeland, like Ayni’s, is in Uzbekistan, considered the rebel from Kulyab Vose as a national ideal. Thus, the image of a “mountainous country at the gates of Hindustan” was firmly entrenched in Tajikistan. It is even politically enshrined. According to an unspoken tradition established by the leader of Tajikistan at the turn of the 1940s and 1950s, historian Babajan Gafurov (Khujandi), Chairman of the Supreme Council of Tajikistan (today Majlisi Namoyandagon), that is, the formal head of state, is elected from the mountainous region of Karategin-Garm- Rasht. 

 

From sedentarism back to nomadism?

 

Can we fix the above geographical territory as the homeland of all Iranian-Tajiks and protect it with a high fence? In the 21st century to make it is impossible. People are increasingly leaving the territory of their residence and traveling beyond its borders. Some go for money, some for knowledge, some out of curiosity, and some make a pilgrimage. In recent decades, ever-increasing mobility has been observed everywhere. Human mobility is facilitated by the development of transport, mobile communications, the abolition of visas, etc. Accordingly, among historians and anthropologists, a revision of the methodology for studying “indigenous cultures” began, as unchanged, tied to a strictly defined territory. They have to consider culture in its mobile state. Studying various communities, including urban ones, scientists propose to move from the “metaphysics of sedentarism” to the “metaphysics of nomadism”. To study a person and his inner world as  a  static  and  fixed  phenomenon,or is it just part of a fast-moving stream? A migrant worker who lives in two houses and is a citizen of both Russia and Tajikistan: who is he? What change does his consciousness undergo from the beginning of the journey to the destination? Why do some of them change their trajectory along the way and find themselves drawn into international terrorist networks? The picture of the world is changing rapidly, which makes it difficult to study. The boundaries between city residents and rural dwellers, traditional conservatives and advanced modernists, and central and marginal cultures are blurred. As well as the very concept of «historical homeland». More and more people have a homeland, culture, and origin that is not tied to a specific territory. For many Tajiks, constant movement has become a routine, and the territory of residence has ceased to be a place where they can, or want to, “anchor”. This «de-territorialization» of everything is happening all over the world at an alarming rate. 

​

Sogdian phenomenon

 

Of course, migrations and other forms of territorial displacement did not appear today. In the pre-Islamic period, the ancestors of the Tajiks - the Sogdians, along with the Vikings and Jews, were among the most mobile in the world. They established colonies from Kashgar to Mongolia and southeast Asia, populated it with a large Sogdian diaspora, and controlled international trade all the way from China to Europe. In the period from the 4th to the arrival of the Arabs and Islam in the 8th c. Sogdian cities were awash in money and wealth, and agriculture was one of the most advanced in the world. The famous fragments of wall paintings in Penjikent, which, incidentally, are shown on the cover of B. Gafurov’s book «The Tajiks», show the splendor of the palace decorations of the Sogdian kings. The Sogdians spoke the eastern Middle Iranian language, which was native to Bukhara, Samarkand, Penjikent, Fergana, and Khujand. They were excellent diplomats and translators of religious books. Thanks to them, Buddhism, Christianity and Manichaeism came to China. The dominant religion of the Sogdians was the ancient Iranian religion of Mazdaism (an early form of Zoroastrianism), but they were pluralistic and syncretic in their religious practices. 

 

Compared to the Chinese and Turks, the Sogdians were small people who succeeded not by the strength of their armies and  aggression,  but  by  their  intelligence,  mobility,  curiosity, flexibility, and the ability to communicate with other peoples in their language. In the sphere of culture, the Sogdians paid special attention to social activities: hunting, banquets with music and dancing, theater, and sports. They loved to tell stories, which included themes and borrowings from neighboring cultures. The Sogdians not only knew how to survive among foreign peoples but also how to thrive. They were able to profit from life in a foreign land. They were able to export their goods and achievements, gaining recognition and respect from the host society. In China, Central Asia was called the Western Region. During the Tang period (618-907), everything «Western», i.e., Sogdian (Iranian): clothes, makeup, sports games, music, dances and cuisine dominated in the Celestial Empire. Imported horses from Dawan (Ferghana) were for the Chinese something like cool foreign cars today. The energetic «Sogdian pirouette» dance was a hit, performed both in taverns and at the imperial court. The Sogdians sold Chinese wine made from grapes from Kashgar, Khujand and Istravshan. Chinese rich men treated Iranian beauties from visiting theater troupes with this wine. The theatrical image of the «drunken Sogdian» with his eagle-nose, deep-set eyes crowned by bushy eyebrows began to be reproduced in Japanese and Chinese masks. Images of «barbarians from the West» are still represented in the theatrical arts of Japan and China. 

 

The offensive of Muslim armies in the 7th and 8th centuries led to the defeat of the Sogdian ruling families of Samarqand, and their gradual conversion to Islam. In China, in 757, the general of the Chinese army, An Lushan, a Sogdian by father and a Turk by mother, rebelled against the emperor and even declared himself emperor. He lost, but as a result of the rebellion, the mighty Tang Empire was derailed. The defeat of the Chinese general of Sogdian-Turkic origin led to the decline of many Sogdian communities as they became regarded with suspicion   and   even   hostility.  Many  Sogdians  in  China  were actively assimilated, and within a few generations, their original Sogdian identity was lost. Today, we have several hundred Yaghnobis, speakers of a variety of the Sogdian language, living in the Yaghnob mountains, as well as melodious names of settlements, rivers and mountains left by the Sogdians - Samarkand, Falgar, Iskodar, Varzob, Anzob, Bodkand (Batken) etc. Many Sogdian words have made their way into Tajik, naghz (good) for example.

 

Sogdians achieved success not through the seizure of foreign territories and wars, but through their ability to move between worlds, their openness to other cultures, their peaceful and constructive activities in trade, agriculture, culture, and art. Their territorial expansion was peaceful - through the creation of trade colonies along the Silk Road. In this sense, a Sogdian is a free individual, a «man of the world,» a promoter of the ideology of world citizenship - cosmopolitanism.

 

I think that here we can conclude the historical part of our narrative and move on to talk about comics. 

 

Comics in the modern world.

 

Comic books appeared in America in the early 1930s, and in the middle of the 20th century, they were sold in newsstands as periodicals, along with magazines and newspapers. In 1938, the most iconic comic book hero of all time, Superman, appeared on the cover of Action Comics magazine. Since the early 1950s, their popularity began to decline, but since the mid-1980s their sales began to gradually increase. Another ten years later, a new kind of comic appeared - webcomics. That is, there is a public demand for this type of popular culture. Why? First of all, comics are a fascinating, entertaining, and often critical representation of society. They influence culture and represent it at the same time. They can also be used as teaching material in schools. Researchers have found that reading comic books makes readers smarter. They make you want to read, and the language of comics (text plus images) raises the speech culture of young people. 

 

That is why, today, along with books, comics and cartoons play an increasing role in society, especially among young people, who, incidentally, constitute the vast majority of the population of Tajikistan. Recall that children under the age of 15 make up more than a third (33, 9%) of the country’s population, and the overall literacy rate among young people (15-24 years) is 99.88%. 

 

The comic culture of Tajiks is at the very beginning of its formation. What should it look like? In our opinion, the Japanese approach to comics is more suitable for Tajikistan. First of all, Tajikistan, as we pointed out above, is almost mono-ethnic, like Japan. The population of this island country is 97% Japanese. All of the human characters in their comics look «Japanese» with white skin and large, slanted eyes. For Japan, comic book magazines    are     carriers     of     the    national    cultural    code, and are actively used to promote Japanese artistic products in the international media market. Thanks to comics, Japanese youth receive information about things that «official» culture and society in general prefer not to talk about aloud: norms of behavior, boundaries of the permitted, models of relationships, etc. 
The picture is different in the homeland of comics, in North America, a society characterized by racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity.    It    is    important    for    Americans    to    adhere    to  multiculturalism – the coexistence of ethnic and racial minorities in a single socio-political system. Pluralism, freedom, and tolerance are proclaimed an important priority in American culture and art. Diversity of all kinds-racial, gender, and rights of sexual minorities is experiencing an explosion of recognition and representation in American comics. The mainstay of the comics publishing industry is Marvel Entertainment, LLC (formerly Marvel Enterprises). Established in 1998, it is known for such superhero comic book series as Superman, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Iron Man, Hulk, Deadpool, Captain Marvel, Blade, etc. In all, Marvel has produced 27,000 comic books. Dozens of feature and animated films have been created based on Marvel comics. The  value  of  this  company  in  2009  was  estimated  at 
$4 billion. 

 

Interest in comic books is widespread. The Sufi comics series 40 Sufi Comics by brothers Mohammad Ali Wakil and Mohammad Arif Wakil is widely known among Muslims worldwide. Their works are in English and based on an accessible presentation of Sufi stories. The Sufi comics focus on three main themes: ethics, spirituality, and philosophy. They are ideal for anyone interested in learning more about Islam, including non-Muslims. 

 

Comics in Tajikistan? Why not!

 

The peoples of Central Asia have a rich cultural heritage for the development of this genre. For the choice of characters, the composition and graphic model, and the color scheme of comics, one can turn to medieval Persian miniatures, and images from Tajik films of the Soviet period («Khasan Arobakash,» for example). There are epics, parables and legends, proverbs and sayings, rich folklore, and of course first-class classical and modern literature. There is a rich history and religious traditions. 

 

Tajiks, like many other peoples of the world since childhood, love books with illustrations. They loved books even when they were not all literate. They loved them first of all with their eyes: for the beauty of the cover, the design of the pages, the vignettes, but especially if they had pictures. It is known that many rulers of the Middle Ages were not literate, so they spent a lot of money and effort to translate and publish books with the obligatory condition that they had bright illustrations. Such were the descendants of Babur, the former ruler of Fergana, who in the 16th century established one of the strongest empires of that time, the Mughal Empire, which lasted in India until the arrival of the British in the mid-19th century. The Mughals, as Muslim rulers of multi-confessional and multi-ethnic Hindustan, in contrast to their formidable ancestors, Genghis Khan and Timur, were liberal and tolerant of the peoples they conquered, including Christians, Parsis, Muslims, and Hindus. Babur’s grandson Akbar, for example, was not literate, but fervently loved the arts, sponsored the publication of books, and founded a library of over 24,000 volumes. He did not read but listened to «online» audiobooks. Specially selected readers (reciters) with good voices read books to him in the evenings. Akbar declared Farsi to be the language of the administration of Hindustan and instructed scholars to translate all the most important books into this language. At his kitobkhona (library) he had an artistic workshop with painters and calligraphers from all over the Orient. Akbar demanded that the miniaturists, Indian above all, learn from the Persians  and  the  Jesuit  Christians not  to  paint  static pictures reminiscent of icons, but realistic and detailed «serial» illustrations. The number of illustrations went up to 1400, one per page, and the team of artists numbered in the dozens. «Serial» meant that the picture had to reflect what the text said. What is this if not the first sprouts of the comic book, which, as a genre, did not appear until 400 years after Akbar? 

 

In lieu of a conclusion.

 

Comics are taking their first steps in Tajikistan. The number of comics fans in the country is negligible, primarily because there are almost no comics. The work of artist Sulaimon Sharifi may be a «trial balloon», the first experience of the Tajik comic strip. The main message the artist and citizen S. Sharifi wants to convey is     the    importance    of    inclusiveness    in    forming    young people’s understanding of the ethno-racial diversity of contemporary society.
Comics are a multi-layered structure and complex language that they use to make the reader complicit in mythical narratives. In Sharifi, these are legends and parables. There are six of them: «The Donkey and His Practice of reincarnation» (Hinduism); «From Selfishness to Altruism» (Judaism); «Six Moles and the Elephant» a cosmopolitan allegory about collective perception; «Life Priorities» (Chinese theme); «Seeds of an Overseas Plant,» about a European king’s hoax about corruption; «Sufi and the Tree» (Sufi parable).

 

Good luck with the Tajik comic strip! 

 

 

 

The author of the article  graduated from the department of history of Tajik State University and received his Doctorate from the Institute of the History of the USSR in Moscow in 1983. He has more than forty years of experience in the study and teaching of the modern history of Central Asia. Dr. Abdullaev actively participated in the international research exchange programs in history and social sciences. Awards include Fulbright Scholar (1994, the George Washington University and 2005, Allegheny College, PA); Regional Exchange Scholar (1995, Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars); the British Academy visiting fellow (SOAS, 1996); Visiting scholar at the University of Toronto (2009); Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) in 2010-2011; Visiting Research Fellow at the Humboldt University of Berlin, Crossroads Asia (2014) and others. 
 

Dr. Abdullaev taught Central Asian subjects from multidisciplinary perspectives at Yale, the Ohio State University (USA) from 2001-to 2013. He authored and edited 10 books in English and Russian including Historical Dictionary of Tajikistan. Lanham-Toronto-Plymouth, UK: The Scarecrow Press Inc., 2002, 2012, and 2018 (three editions), and Ot Sintsiana do Khorasana. Iz Istorii Sredneaziatskoi Emigratsii 20 veka. (From Xinjiang to Khurasan. From the History of the 20th Century Central Asian Emigration). Dushanbe: Irfon, 2009, as well as over 70 articles in English, Russian, Tajik, and translated into French, Farsi and Japan.
For more details go to his page at: kamolkhon.com