MUSTAFA CHOKAI

Mustafa Chokai was a well-known state and public figure and a consistent fighter for the independence of Turkestan people [1].

He was born on December 25, 1890 [January 7, 1891 according to the new calculation] in Avliyotarangil farm (in Narshok village, according to some sources) in the Perovsk uyezd of Zhopek, Syrdarya region [2]. His father, Chokaibey Torgay, son of Dodkhoh, was the head of a bolis (volost), one of the nobles of the Kipchak clan of Kazakhs, and his mother’s ancestors were traced back to Khiva khans. In his biography, Mustafa Chokai considered himself a Kipchak [3].

After receiving primary education in Okmachit, Mustafa Chokhai studied at the men’s gymnasium in Tashkent (1902-1910). He graduated from the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University (1914). Alexander Kerensky (1881-1970), who later became the Prime Minister of the Provisional Government in Russia, graduated from these educational institutions about ten years ago in 1899 and 1904. In 1916-1917, Mustafa Chokai worked as a secretary and translator in the Muslim faction of the IV State Duma of Russia. After the brutal suppression of the uprising in Turkestan in 1916, as part of the special commission of the State Duma headed by A. Kerensky, in August of the same year, he visited Turkestan, including Jizzakh, and saw the ruins of the ruined city.

In April 1917, Mustafa Chokai returned from Petrograd to Tashkent and stood at the center of political processes in Turkestan. In the spring of 1917, he started publishing “Birlik Tugi” and “Svobodnyi Turkestan” newspapers in Tashkent. On April 16-23, 1917, the Central Council of Muslims of Turkestan [Kraymussovet], i.e. the National Center, was established under the chairmanship of Mustafa Chokai at the First Congress of All-Turkistan Muslims held in Tashkent. He actively participated in the 1^st All-Kyrgyz [All-Kazakh] Congress held in Orenburg on July 21-28. He was a member of the Turkestan Committee of the Provisional Government (from August 1917). After the violent seizure of power by the Bolsheviks in Tashkent, the National Center headed by Mustafa Chokai moved to Kokand in early November [4].

 

On November 26-28, 1917 (December 9-11 according to the new calculation), the IV extraordinary congress of All-Turkistan Muslims was held in the city of Kokand. This congress was opened by the chairman of the Central Council of Muslims of the country (Kraymussovet) Mustafa Chokai. He was also elected a member of the Congress Committee. During three days, the participants of the Congress determined their views on the future political structure of Turkestan. Muhammadjon Tinishboyev, Islam Sultan Shoahmedov, Ubaydulla Khojayev, Obidjon Mahmudov, Mahmudhoja Behbudi, and others played an important role in the development of the resolutions of the congress together with Mustafa Chokai.

The government of the Turkestan Autonomous Region was initially formed by 8 members. Muhammadjon Tinishbayev took the post of Prime Minister and Minister of Internal Affairs. Mustafa Chokai was elected to the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs. Ubaydulla Khojayev was included as the Minister of War and Abidjon Mahmudov as the Minister of Food. Among the majority, Mustafa Chokai was included in the Turkestan National Assembly elected at the Congress.

From December 12, 1917, Mustafa Chokai became the Prime Minister of the Turkestan Autonomous Government. (M. Tinishboyev left Kokand for Orenburg to directly participate in the activities of the autonomous government of Alash Orda.) At the same time, Mustafa Chokai was in Orenburg on December 5-13, 1917 (December 18-26 according to the new calculation). He was also the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the government of Alash Orda, which was established at the 1st Congress of All-Kyrgyz [All-Kazakh] representatives.

At this point, it is necessary to mention the attitude of Mustafa Chokai to the autonomous government and leadership of Alash Orda. Raised with the ideas of Turkism from his youth, Mustafa Chokai was a supporter of creating a single and indivisible Turkestan. He informs the members of the Alash party, who are Kazakh compatriots, that it is not necessary to form a separate autonomous government, they can enter the newly formed Turkestan Autonomous Government as a separate province. In the future, it would be possible to create an independent state of Turkestan (not Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan!) by including the territories of the Bukhara Emirate and Khiva Khanate to this autonomy. However, such geopolitical views of national leaders like Mustafa Chokai, Behbudi, Munavvar Qori, Ubaidulla Khojayev, and Faizulla Khojayev were not liked by Kazakhs. That is why Mustafa Chokai, being a Kazakh and a member of the Alash Orda government, did not legitimately work in the Alash Orda government even after the tragedies in Kokand. He did not communicate with the Alash orda group based in Orenburg.

When the autonomous government was abolished by the Bolshevik military forces, he left Kokand at the end of February 1918 and secretly came to Tashkent in March, where he lived for 2 months. On April 16, 1918, he married his old acquaintance, actress Maria Yakovlevna Gorina (1888-1969) in a mosque in Tashkent. The young family left Tashkent for Moscow by train on May 1, 1918. However, the train only went as far as Aktyubinsk because of the military operations on the Volga. On June 8, 1918, the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch) government was formed against the Bolsheviks in Samara. In July, the leaders of the Alash Horde, Alikhan Bukeykhanov and Mustafa Chokai, came to Samara and formed a military-political alliance with the Komuch government against the Bolsheviks. At this time, Mustafa Chokai worked in Samara, Ufa, and Omsk. On November 18, 1918, Mustafa Chokai, who was imprisoned with his comrades, escaped from prison in Chelyabinsk with Vadim Chaykin from Turkestan and Ilyas Alkin from Tatar. On December 1, 1918, there was a meeting between him and the chairman of the Bashkir government, Ahmad Zaki Walidi, in the Caravanserai in Orenburg (the residence of the Bashkir government). Mustafa Chokai worked in the Komuch government for a short time.

In February 1919, Mustafa Chokai appealed to the European countries with a special memorandum, urging them to support the struggle of Turkestan independence against the Bolsheviks and to overthrow the Soviet regime [5].

In the spring of 1919, Mustafa Chokai went to Baku and then to Tiflis through the Kazakh steppes and the Caspian Sea. He lived in Tbilisi for 2 years. Here he founded the newspapers “Yeni Dünya” and “Shafak” for Muslims and edited the magazine “Na rubeje”. After the Red Army captured Tiflis, in February 1921, Mustafa Chokai was forced to emigrate and arrived in Istanbul. Mustafa Chokhai and his wife came to Paris in the summer of 1921. Mustafa Chokai lived in exile for 20 years, took part in various international conferences and regularly participated in the press with sharp journalistic articles in English, French, Polish, Russian, and Turkish languages. In Paris, his books “Soviets in Central Asia” (1928) and “Turkistan under Soviet Power” (1935) were published in Russian, and “Fragments of memories of 1917” [6] (1937) in Turkish in Paris-Berlin.

Mustafa Chokai became the chairman of the Central Committee of the National Unity of Turkestan in 1929. In 1929-1939, he edited the magazine “Yosh Turkistan”. The magazine was prepared in Paris and published in Berlin (117 issues were published).

On February 19, 1930, Mustafa Chokai wrote about the ongoing armed independence movement against the Soviet regime in Central Asian republics (it was called the “basmachilik” movement during the years of Soviet power) in the article “O basmachestve” on February 19, 1930: “Turkestan is the only part of the Soviet Union where the insurgents have not stopped their activity so far. There are two reasons for this. First of all, the strength of the national feeling that led the country to struggle to get rid of the tyranny of Moscow. This is the reason for the general situation. Second, there is a local reason. This is a special feature of Soviet national policy unique to Turkestan...

  The people of Turkestan are in a state of continuous (permanent) struggle against the Soviet government. We are not surprised by the re-emergence of basmachilik in the spirit of “permanent struggle” against Soviet power. Basmachilik is a shadow of Soviet domination in Turkestan.

The fact that the basmachilik took place in Ferghana clearly shows that this situation will soon lead to the beginning of a rebellion against the cotton policy of the Moscow government” [7].

On June 22, 1941, when Germany attacked the USSR, the Nazis arrested Mustafa Chokai, who lived in the town of Nojan near Paris, and he was held prisoner in the Compiegne military camp until July 13 [8]. Then Mustafa Chokai visited Berlin (from July 15 to August 26). In September-December 1941, he was in Suwalki, Wustrau, and Czestochowa concentration camps, where Soviet prisoners of war were kept, and looked for ways to save the captured Turkestans. Mustafa Chokai and Uzbek Vali Qayumkhan (1904-1993) from Tashkent planned to form a Turkestan Legion from captured Turkestans. However, Mustafa Chokai contracted an infectious disease in the concentration camps and died of typhoid fever (typhoid) in the “Victoria” hospital in Berlin on December 27, 1941. He was buried on January 2, 1942 in the Turkish Muslim cemetery of Tempelhof in Berlin [9].

Mustafa Chokai wrote many articles and books on the history of Turkestan in the 20th century in Russian, Uzbek, Kazakh, Turkish, French, English, German, and Polish languages. The book “Memorial fragments of 1917” (Berlin, 1937; in Uzbek) gained great fame. This work was published as a separate book in Turkish (Ankara, 1988), Russian (Germany, 1989; Tokyo-Moscow, 2001), and Uzbek (Tashkent, 1992). His 2-volume book “Selected works” (Almaty, 1998-1999) was published in Kazakh and partly in Russian.

After the collapse of the USSR, the works of Mustafa Chokai were published in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. A 12-volume collection of works by Mustafa Chokai was published in Almaty in 2012-2014 under the leadership of the famous historian and scientist Professor Kushim Yesmagambetov (1938-2016) [10]. In Kazakhstan, art works were created about Mustafa Chukai, films were shot, and many statues were erected in his memory. International conferences dedicated to Mustafa Chokai are regularly held here.

Thus, the life and work of Mustafa Chokai, the famous child of the Turkic peoples, a famous statesman and political statesman, is a shining example for all Turkic peoples living in the 21st century, especially Kazakhs and Uzbeks. Despite the fact that he devoted his life to the struggle for the unity and independence of Turkestan, and worked in a complex and conflicting situation, both in the Russian Empire and the Soviet state, in exile in Europe, and under the Nazi rule in Germany, he remains a bright figure [11].

[1] Rajabov Q. Turkiston Muxtoriyati vazirlari hamda milliy majlis aʼzolari hayoti va taqdiri. – Toshkent: “Bodomzor Invest”, 2021. – B. 23-29.

[2] Sadikova B. Mustafa Chokay. –Almati: “Alash”, 2004. –S. 231.

[3] Mustafa Shokay.

[4] Rajabov Q. Turkiston Muxtoriyati vazirlari hamda milliy majlis aʼzolari hayoti va taqdiri. – Toshkent: “Bodomzor Invest”, 2021. – B. 23-29.

[5] Rajabov Q. Mustafo Choʻqay //Oʻzbekiston milliy ensiklopediyasi. T. 6. –Toshkent: “Oʻzbekiston milliy eniklopediyasi” Davlat ilmiy nashriyoti, 2003. –B. 157.

[6] Qarang: Mustafo Choʻqay oʻgʻli. Istiqlol jallodlari (1917-yil xotiralari). Soʻzboshi muallifi B. Qosimov. –Toshkent: Gʻafur Gʻulom nomidagi Nashriyot-matbaa birlashmasi, 1992. – 80 b,; Mustafa Chokayev. Otrыvki iz vospominaniy v 1917 g. Sostavleniye, predisloviye, primechaniya S.M. Isxakova. –Tokio-Moskva, 2001. – 54 str.

[7] Mustafa Shokay.

[8] Mariya Chokay. Ya pishu Vam iz Nojana... (Vospominaniya, pisma, dokumentы). –Almati: “Kaynar”, 2001. –S. 165.

[9] Sadikova B. Istoriya Turkestanskogo legiona v dokumentax. –Almati: “Kaynar”, 2002. – 248 str.; On je. Mustafa Chokay v emigratsii. –Almatы: “Mektep”, 2009. – 248 str.

[10] Mustafa Shoqay. Shigʻirmalarinin toliq jinagʻi. On yeki tomdiq. Tom I – XII. Kurastirgʻon algʻi soz ben tusinidirmelerdi jazgʻan K.Yesmagʻambetov. –Almati: “Dayk-Press”, 2012 – 2014.

[11] Rajabov Q. Turkiston Muxtoriyati vazirlari hamda milliy majlis aʼzolari hayoti va taqdiri. – Toshkent: “Bodomzor Invest”, 2021. – B. 23-29.