History of the Literary Tatar Language in the Twentieth Century

65 Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Vol. XXXIV, No. 1, Fall 2010 History of the Literary Tatar Language in the Twentieth Century Kuzmina H.H The 20th century as a historical literary and linguistic cycle has ended. This fact allows us to reveal the characteristics which determined its entity and processes which guided its development. This involves methodological and theoretical tools adequate to the object of the research. However, precisely at this point the modern Tatar linguistic science faces very serious difficulties. First of all, it is the problem of periodization of the development of literary Tatar language in the 20th century. For the complete comprehension of the peculiarities of its functioning let’s recall the first stages of the development of literary Tatar language in the 20th century. At the beginning of the 20th century the Tatar nation was looking into the future with optimism. Liberal changes in the social and political life of Russia which followed the 1905-1907 revolution had beneficial impact on Tatars’ national awakening. Creation of a wide chain of newspapers and magazines in addition to the existing publishing houses gave full scope to the rise of young literary talents. Tatar literature made a giant leap in its development. It absorbed all most important features of the previous literature tradition and transformed them in accord with the new ideological and aesthetic needs. At the same time the question about the norms of national literary language remained open and disputable because the language trends that existed at the time did not allow the popular Tatar language to consolidate. These language trends imply: 1) a version of literary Tatar language with prevalence of Arabic language units (a so-called “elevated bookish style”; 2) a version of literary Tatar language with prevalence of Turkish language units; 3) a version of classical old literary Tatar language with archaic Turkish language forms; 4) a version of literary Tatar language which was closest to the popular language. Newspapers and magazines were following different trends. Quite often some articles written in styles of different trends could be found in the same issue. This diversity did not satisfy the needs of the Tatar intelligentsia, which caused more and more arguments about the development of the norms of literary language. Only after the October revolution of 1917 was the problem solved. The “nationalization” of literary language took place, i.e. the city koine of Kazan (the capital of Tatarstan) was actually acknowledged as the basis of the common literary Tatar language. This fact did not raise much opposition because before the revolution the majority of leading poets and writers had already been writing their works in a language which was close to a live colloquial language. In the Soviet epoch the development of literary Tatar language started. Among those who stood at the outset of the development of literary language were the renowned masters of word – Galimjan Ibrahimov, Fatiykh Amirkhan, Galiaskar Kamal, Majit Gafuri, Fatkhi Burnash, Karim Tinchurin, Khadi Taktash and others. The generation of literary men born in the national phase at the beginning of the 20th century was destroyed by the repressions of the 1930’s. However, the spiritual rise caused by the revolution of 1917, upon which the Tatar intelligentsia pinned their great hopes, gave birth to new generation of talented masters of word. They were called upon to define the character of the literary language of the Soviet period. Among them are writers like Kavi Nadjmi, Gumer Bashirov, Afzal Shamov, Ibrahim Gazi, Amirkhan Yeniki, Mirsai Amir, Fatiykh Khusni, Abdrakhman Absalyamov, whose novels and short stories aroused interest not only in Tatar readers but in the whole Soviet Union. The most distinguished among their were big masters of epic scale and psychological depth-Gumer Bashirov and Amirkhan Yeniki. The connecting link between the generations were these talented writers and the poets of the older generation Nurikhan Fattakh, Gamil Afzal, Musagit Khabibullin, Ildar Yuzeev, Tufan Minnulin, Shaukat Galeev, Akhsan Bayan and others. So what is happening to literary Tatar language of the post-revolution period? Firstly, the guidelines changed drastically: under the motto of battle against Islamic religion the way to oriental (Arabic and Persian) writing culture, which had...