Protest Scenes in the Poetry of Muhammed Salih

Abstract

This article examines the appearance of protest elements in the poetry of Muhammed Salih, an Uzbek poet, a representative of the «Metaphorist school» in Soviet Uzbek literature and the founder of protest and emigration poetry. In order to clarify this issue from all angles, the poet's protest poems were classified into two macrogroups: Soviet Union period (anti-Sovietism) and post-Soviet period protest (post-anti-Sovietism). The protest motif in the poet Salih's poetry can be noted as a new facet of the research work in the context of this article for the first time in the literature of Kazakhstan. In the first part of the article, the problem of nationalism (Turkism) and anti-Sovietism, which have become the main theme in M. Salih's work in the last forty years, was comprehensively analyzed. By using several literary methods, the characteristics of anti-Soviet protest, longing for independence and the achievement of sovereignty in the poet's poems were determined. The object and subject of the leitmotif «awakening» were studied in such poems as «Mother's Word», «Mouse in the Cage», «Awakening» written in this period. Focusing on the physics and metaphysics of the poems, the influence of the literature of the modernists before him was discussed. Special attention was paid to the beauty of allegory and metaphor in his poems and the peculiarity of writing, the meaning hidden in the surface of his poetry. The use of symbols and motifs characteristic of the classicist literature in the poet's poems was studied. In the second part of the article, the feature of protest poetry in the post-Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan was studied. On the basis of M. Salih's poetry, the expression of critical ideas and values such as independence, civil society, freedom of speech, and human rights were analyzed. The process of development of emigration literature in modern Uzbek literature was differentiated based on the poet's poems such as «Strange tree», «Love of the enemy of the people for the homeland», «Prayer of the exiled exile». The characteristics of Salih's poetic nature were comprehensively demonstrated. The influence of the poet's political and literary life in emigration was analyzed in a comparative and synergistic aspect. In M. Salih's protest poetry, the themes of Turkish unity and independence of Turkestan, which are of special importance, are partially connected with his nationalist (Turkish) poems. In the framework of such studies, an analytical forecast was made for the development of protest literature in modern Uzbek literature, the topics and issues raised, poetic power, and influence in the formation of civil society. The article focuses on the manifestations of protests during the Soviet Union and the post-Soviet period in M. Salih's works, and his poems are studied from several angles. His struggle for justice and his contribution to world knowledge were also taken into consideration.