A Star is born
Soviet Uzbek actress Sara Ishanturaeva was considered a gem of the Uzbek stage, but behind her shining public figure was an intriguing past. Here the actress’ granddaughter, Nadira Khidoyatova, uncovers the path to stardom for this strong Uzbek woman
Born in the hamlet of Beshbuloq in the Namangan region of Uzbekistan, Sara Ishanturaeva (1911–1998) was a celebrated Soviet theatre and cinema actress, public figure and People's Artist of the USSR. During her active years, she was a member of the Supreme Soviet of the Republic and was the leading actress in the Khamza Uzbek Academic Theatre. She was also my grandmother.
In 1922, Ishanturaeva was sent to the now-gone Zebunisso boarding school for girls. Established by the Jadids (Muslim modernist reform group), in particular the poet and playwright Abdurauf Fitrat. The school taught all the necessary subjects for secondary education, with much attention paid to spiritual development and handicrafts. There was a drama club headed by Ali Ibragimov (Ardobus), a future People's Artist of Uzbekistan and Karakalpakstan. At that time, the Soviet Hudjum movement was gaining momentum in Turkestan and women were being campaigned to stop wearing the Muslim veil and to fight for equal rights.
Preparations for International Women's Day were underway, and for the occasion, the Zebunisso school was staging one of Fitrat’s plays, Orphan. Sara Ishanturaeva was cast in the leading role and was to take to the stage at Tashkent’s Coliseum Theatre on 8 March 1922. Social activists Sobira Kholdorova and Tojikhon Shodieva were particularly prominent at that time and were also involved in the performance. The huge hall was completely packed with women when the beautiful Sobira Kholdorova came on stage in a red headscarf, fervently agitating women to take off their paranja (Muslim women’s outerwear gown with long false sleeves and a hair net covering the face).
Finally, the performance began and Sara Ishanturaeva – then only age 11 – performed her first role on stage. During one poignant scene when Ishtanuraeva’s character, the orphan, goes to her mother's grave and complains about her unhappy lot, the audience broke down sobbing and Ishanturaeva herself cried genuinely. At the end of the play, the auditorium was filled with applause and the drama club head, Ali Ibragimov, praised her, saying, “Well done Sara, you are a born actress. I will send you to study in Moscow.”
My grandmother did eventually go to Moscow, nearly three years after that fated first performance. But during the intervening years, she and her friend Tursunoy Saidazimova were invited by Ibragimov back to the Coliseum Theatre, where they played background roles in crowd scenes.
At that time, the Coliseum had become the main stage for progressive Jadids, a social, political and intellectual movement among Muslim (mainly Turkic) peoples in the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Jadids used the Coliseum to promote their ideas of enlightenment to general audiences. It was also at that time that the first serious theatrical productions began at the Coliseum, among them Leyli and Majnun, Iblis and Arshin Malalan, all written by Azerbaijani authors. Abror Khidoyatov and Maksuma Kariyeva were the headline actors of the time, although none had theatrical education.
In 1920, the Bukhara People's Soviet Republic was proclaimed in Bukhara, headed by an enlightened Jadid and one of the richest men in Turkestan – Faizullo Khojaev. On 18 May 1923, an educational decree was issued for the Bukhara House of Enlightenment, and 400 young men and women were selected to receive higher education in Moscow. The Ryabushinsky Mansion at Spiridonovka 17, in the centre of Moscow (currently the Reception House of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs), was allocated for the students from Turkestan. It was there that a foundation was created for the future creative and scientific intelligentsia. Seventeen students from the programme were eventually certified as actors, including the young Sara Ishanturaeva.
And a star of the Uzbek stage and screen was born.
