LITHOGRAPHY

iii. IN CENTRAL ASIA (1881-1918)

Lithographic book printing began in Central Asia in the late 19th century in several regions: in the khanate of Khiva as of 1874 (in Turkic languages only), in Turkistan in Tashkent as of 1881, and in the khanate of Bukhara from 1901 onwards.

The bulk of lithographed books in Oriental languages were published in Tashkent, where, according to estimates by G.N.Chabrov, thirteen typographic and eight lithographic printing houses had been active in various years (Chabrov, 1954, p. 82). However, the largest and the most long-term of these were the three owned by O.A.Portsev (1887–1918), V.M.Il’in (typographic printing house from 1893, typographic-lithographic printing house in 1899–1912), and Gulam-Khasan Arifdzhanov (1906-March 1918), called “Ḡolāmiya” by the owner after the first part of his first name (Ḡolām-Ḥasan). The first commercial enterprise that published books in Oriental languages for sale was the typographic-lithographic printing house of S.I.Lakhtin. It had functioned as typographic printing house from 1877, and as typographic-lithographic printing house from 1880 on. At first, S.I.Lakhtin, together with V.F.Pastukhov (Rustamov, p. 118), were the joint owners, but from 1883 Lakhtin assumed the sole ownership. In 1892-93 the property was in the hands of Lakhtin’s descendants. From the middle of 1893, the printing facility became part of the trading house of the brothers F. and G.Kamenskiĭ (Andijān and Qoqand from 1904; and in Namangān (the Esḥāqiya printing house, founded in 1909, active in the period 1910-17).

In the khanate of Bukhara, the lithographic printing house of Baranovsky started its activities in New Bukhara in 1901. In 1903-04 it was owned by L.N.Levin, and later, as of 1907, it belonged to I.Gaĭsinskiĭ and M.Bendetskiĭ. In 1910-13, the typographic-lithographic printing house of Levin was working again. The period of active lithographic book printing in Turkestan and in Bukhara lasted for a short time. It operated only in the first two decades of the 20th century and was at its most productive between 1905-17. Besides the printing houses mentioned earlier, books in oriental languages were published by the enterprise of G.Ya.Yakovlev, and in 1900-06, some books in Persian came out at the printing press belonging to the H.Q. of the Turkestan Military Command. All private enterprises in Turkestan ceased their activities in March 1918 due to nationalization (Chabrov, 1964, pp. 134-41). The lithographic printing house in Bukhara remained operative until 1338/1919-20 (Shcheglova, 1975, nos. 460 and 505).

All the above-mentioned enterprises produced books in various languages. The main centers that published books in Persian were Tashkent and Bukhara. A small number of editions was printed in Samarqand, and the odd volume came out in Namangān, Qoqand, and Ashkhabad. The largest number of books in Persian, often in Persian and Uzbek simultaneously, came out at the first national lithographic printing house of Gulam-Khasan Arifdzhanov.

The lithographic printing houses in Central Asia restricted their activities to the printing process; only G.-Kh.Arifdzhanov at times attempted to publish books on his own initiative, and this was mentioned on the title pages. As a rule, the initiative for publications and their accomplishment came from the local men of erudition and booksellers who also acted as book publishers. Already in the 1890s, the business of book printing was the occupation of about two dozens of local booksellers. Some of them published books in the Turkic languages while others produced books in Persian too.

In Tashkent, Mollā Raḥim Ḵᵛāja Išān b. ʿAli Ḵᵛāja was engaged in the book trade from the last two decades of the 19th century. In the first decade of the 20th century, Ḥājji ʿAbd-al-Raʾuf b. ʿAbd-al-Nabi was active as a publisher. In some cases, booksellers joined together to publish multi-volume compositions. Thus, in 1907-11, three publishers, Mollā ʿAbd-Allāh Ḥājji, Mollā ʿAbd-al-Raʾuf Ḥājji, and Mollā Mir Maḵdum Tāškandi, pooled their resources together at the lithographic printing house of Il’in in Tashkent to publish the three-volume work by Šayḵ Faqih Masʿud Samarqandi (Shcheglova, 2002, no. 206), and this was not their only joint undertaking. In Samarqand, editions were ordered by the local bookseller ʿAbd-al-Ḥakim b. Qāri Šah Naẓar. In Bukhara, the local bookseller Mollā Solṭān b. Mollā Ṣāber Boḵāri was engaged in the book business (ʿAbd-al-Qāder Jilāni (d. 1167). The edition contained Persian translations of two Arabic works by ʿAbd-al-Qāder Jilāni, Persian commentaries to them, and an Old Uzbek commentary to one of them, his biography, and his ṭariqat. The publication was undertaken by ʿAbd-al-Raʾuf b. ʿAbd-al-Nabi, one of the professionals engaged in the preparation of theological works for lithographic edition (Shcheglova, 2001, no. 64). The edition was later (again without mentioning the exact date) republished in Namangān (Shcheglova, 2002, no. 65).

The collection of works entitled Maqāmāt-e ḥażrat-e Ḵᵛāja Naqšband was published twice, in 1909 and 1910, in Bukhara. Beside the biography of the founder of the Naqšbandiya order, Bahāʾ-al-Din Naqšband, it also included works by some of his acknowledged followers. The first edition was commissioned by the Bukharan bookseller Mollā Solṭān.

A curious sample of deliberate choice of compositions on different subjects is the collection of works compiled by Mollā ʿAbd-al-Ḥakim Ḵᵛāja from Bukhara and entitled Kajkul-e wājeb al-ḥefẓ wa wājeb al-naẓr (‘Collection of required readings’). This included directions of the rite, prayers, Arabic-Persian dictionary Neṣāb al-ṣebyān, treatises on grammar and poetics, poems by Ḵayyām and Abu Esḥāq Aṭʿema, the treatise Āʾena-ye gitinamā, and an excerpt from the Persian translation of Avicenna under the title Tarjoma-ye qānunča-ye Bu ʿAli Sinā (Shcheglova, 1975, no. 346).

Rare editions of secular and scientific works drowned in the deep sea of educational and theological literature. Publications of historical works were few and far between and included the Naršaḵi’s Tāriḵ-e Boḵārā (Bukhara, 1904), the history of Timur by ʿAbd-al-Raḥman Sirat entitled Timur-nāma. Kolliyāt-e fārsi which is the first volume of the Konuz al-aʿẓam by the same author published at the lithographic printing house of Arifdzhanov in 1913 (Shcheglova, 1975, no. 68; idem, 2002, no. 6). Information on the history of Central Asia and the history of the reign of the local dynasties could have been contained in appendages to larger works (Shcheglova, 1975, no. 22; idem, 2002, no. 22). Among the valuable editions, one could mention the encyclopedia Jāmeʿ al-ʿolum by Faḵr-al-Din Rāzi (d. 606/1209) published by the writer and traveler ʿAbd-al-Raḥmān Sayyāḥ Tāškandi, the Šabestān-e nokāt wa golestān-e loḡāt by Šabestari with added poems by classical Persian poets (lithographic printing house of Yakovlev, 1331/1912-13), and the Golestān of Saʿdi with an Uzbek translation by Morād Ḵᵛāja Išān entitled Šowq-e golestān-e moṣawwar (lithographic printing house of Arifdzhanov, 1328/1910). The latter was one of the few illustrated editions with a commentary and a brief biography of Saʿdi in Uzbek (Farid-al-Din ʿAṭṭār had been reprinted frequently. There were also separate editions of Yosuf o Zoleyḵā by Nāẓem Haravi (by the printing house of Portsev, 1904), and the Golšan-e rāz by Maḥmud Šabestari (Bukhara, 1908). The Ḵosrow o Širin by ʿOrfi of Shiraz came out as a part of the edition of collected works (Shcheglova, 1975, no. 1446). A popular form in both manuscript form and lithographed books were anthologies of poems by different authors (bayāż). Collections of fairy tales were published too.

A special place in the repertoire of the lithographed books was taken by compositions written by contemporary authors who lived in the late 19th-first decades of the 20th century. Such works can be divided into three groups: a) publicist and polemical works; b) editions of teaching aids by the followers of new-method teaching; c) poems by contemporary poets. These authors, to mention just a few, Serāj-al-Din Boḵāri, Mirzā Salimi, Aḥmad Waṣli, Maḥmud Ḵ˚ᵛāja Behbudi, ʿAbd-al-Raʾuf Feṭrat, Monawwar Qāri, and others, had become part of the history of culture, but their works should be related to the Tajik literature.

Lithographic book printing in Turkestan and in Bukhara came to an end in 1918-20 due to revolutionary upheavals and the change of the state system.