''Oyina'' (, 'The Mirror') was a bilingual

Turki Chagatai (, ), also known as Turki, Eastern Turkic, or Chagatai Turkic (), is an extinct Turkic language that was once widely spoken across Central Asia. It remained the shared literary language in the region until the early 20th century. It was ...

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

newspaper published from

Samarkand Samarkand ( ; Uzbek language, Uzbek and Tajik language, Tajik: Самарқанд / Samarqand, ) is a city in southeastern Uzbekistan and among the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities in Central As ...

Russian Turkestan Russian Turkestan () was a colony of the Russian Empire, located in the western portion of the Central Asian region of Turkestan. Administered as a Krai or Governor-Generalship, it comprised the oasis region to the south of the Kazakh Steppe, b ...

1913-1915.Loy, T., & Levin, Z. (2022).
From “Mercy” to “Banner of Labour”: the Bukharan Jewish press in late Tsarist and early Soviet Central Asia
'. ''Central Asian Survey'', 41(1), pp. 22–40. The newspaper was published by

Mahmudkhodja Behbudiy Mahkmudkhodja Behbudiy (Cyrillic Маҳмудхўжа Беҳбудий; Arabic script ; born as Mahmudkhodja ibn Behbud Chodscha) (20 January 1875 in Samarkand; 25 March 1919 in Qarshi) was an Uzbek Jadid activist, writer, journalist and leading ...

.Shinji Ido, Behrooz Mahmoodi-Bakhtiari.
Tajik Linguistics
'. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2023. pp. 14-15 It functioned as an organ of the ''

Jadid The Jadid movement or Jadidism was an Turco-Islamic modernist political, religious, and cultural movement in the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th century. They normally referred to themselves by the Tatar terms ''Taraqqiparvarlar ...

'' social reform movement.

History

Mahmudkhodja Behbudiy was a wealthy philanthropist and social reformer in Samarkand.Adeeb Khalid.
Making Uzbekistan: Nation, Empire, and Revolution in the Early USSR
'. Cornell University Press, 2015. p. 49 Out of nine pre-revolutionary newspapers in

Turkestan Turkestan,; ; ; ; also spelled Turkistan, is a historical region in Central Asia corresponding to the regions of Transoxiana and East Turkestan (Xinjiang). The region is located in the northwest of modern day China and to the northwest of its ...

were all short-lived and struggled with finances, ''Oyina'' was arguably the most successful. The newspaper was launched in August 1913. The newspaper played a significant role in spreading Enlightenment ideas. It was the most important periodical of the ''Jadid'' movement in Turkestan. In the pages of ''Oyina'' "the development of national education, language, and literature, in order to overcome the feudal-patriarchal backwardness of their peoples and to facilitate their liberation from colonial oppression". In articles in ''Oyina'' Mahmudkhodja Behbudiy would attack religious impurity, sinning, pederasty and alcohol consumption, and would call for the development of a new generation of educated Islamic clergy. Whilst the newspaper was bilingual, different languages were assigned different roles. About two-thirds of the articles (such as news reporting, articles on science and editorials) were written in Turki. The remaining third of the article (essays and texts on philosophical issues) were written in Persian. Moreover, some advertisements in the newspaper were in

Russian language Russian is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic languages, Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is ...

. served as temporary editor of ''Oyina'' around 1914-1915.Paul Bergne.
The Birth of Tajikistan: National Identity and the Origins of the Republic
'. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2007. p. 141 Many texts by Hoji Muin appeared in the pages of ''Oyina''. ''Oyina'' was published more or less weekly for a period of twenty months.Adeeb Khalid.
The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia
'. University of California Press, 1999. p. 123 ''Oyina'' closed down in June 1915 after 68 issues. The publication struggled with its finances. The economic difficulties of publishing in the midst of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

further exacerbated this situation. By the end of its first year of publishing ''Oyina'' had merely 234 paid subscribers.

References

{{reflist Publications established in 1913 Publications disestablished in 1915 Uzbek-language newspapers Defunct Persian-language newspapers Bilingual newspapers 1913 establishments in the Russian Empire 1915 disestablishments in the Russian Empire Newspapers published in the Russian Empire History of Samarkand uz:Oyna (jurnal)