American Journal Of Philological Sciences
279
https://theusajournals.com/index.php/ajps
VOLUME
Vol.05 Issue06 2025
PAGE NO.
279-282
10.37547/ajps/Volume05Issue06-73
Main Features of Today's Uzbek Novels
Rahimova Bahora Shuhratjon qizi
1st year doctoral student of Tashkent State University of Uzbek Language and Literature, Uzbekistan
Received:
26 April 2025;
Accepted:
22 May 2025;
Published:
24 June 2025
Abstract:
This article discusses the novel genre, its characteristics, the history of its emergence, and the
characteristics inherent in today's Uzbek novels. It also discusses the works of which writers have observed
changes in the work of current Uzbek novels that do not meet the requirements of the genre. The leading
elements in current novels, the aspects of works that attract readers, and the differences between novels of the
last century and today's Uzbek novels are discussed.
Keywords:
Novel, image, character, plot, epic, epic poem, essay, mythopoetic, meta-work.
Introduction:
The novel, which has been developing
and developing in world literary studies, as well as in
today's Uzbek literature, has been honing its position
for several years without losing it. Because literature
cannot be separated from the nation and its destiny,
from the expression of thoughts and ideas of universal
importance. A work of art has always interested
researchers as a means of reflecting every innovation
in the life of the people, the emotions of the human
personality, depending on social development. Uzbek
novelism has improved both theoretically and
practically during its development in the past short
period. So, what are the distinctive features of today's
Uzbek novels?
The main part. The novel, considered a genre that
connects human private life with society, is one of the
relatively young and developing modern genres of
fiction. How did the novel genre emerge? Professor
Hotam Umurov writes on this question: In the Middle
Ages, along with the epic, various prose works
appeared, reflecting the adventures and deeds of
heroes, containing events similar to those in the epic.
As one of the earliest manifestations of such works in
Western countries, chivalric novels appeared. Thus, for
the first time in the world, works called novels were
written. This name is due to the fact that these works
were originally created in the languages of the
Romance peoples. Such languages include Italian,
French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Moldavian,
Provençal, Sardinian, and Catalan.
V.G. Belinsky, explaining the sources and circumstances
that gave rise to the novel, writes the following: “As the
name of the novel shows, ... it appeared in an era when
all civil relations, social, family and human relations in
general, were growing in an endless, multifaceted
way.”
If we compare the ancient epic to the ocean, the
modern epic is equal to the river. The largest genre of
the modern epic - the novel - is described as a miniature
world (N.E. Saltykov - Shchedrin). It discovers a world
that can be both an ocean and a river. Only the scope,
scale, and characters of both are different. While
romanticism shines in one, the power of realism is
manifested in the other.
"The epic of our time is the novel. All the foundations
and essential features of the epic are present in the
novel, the only difference is that in the novel other
elements prevail, a different landscape. There are no
mythical dimensions of heroic life, no grandiose figures
of heroes, no gods participate in it: in the novel the
phenomena of ordinary prosaic life are idealized, taken
under a general type.
.... in which the fate of a person is important not only
for his society, but also for humanity.” Continuing his
thoughts, V.G. Belinsky emphasizes that the task of the
novel as a work of art is to reveal the hidden soul, the
living idea of \u200b\u200beveryday life and historical
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American Journal Of Philological Sciences (ISSN
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2771-2273)
events, to make scattered events the abode of the soul
and mind. Based on this basis, he writes: “The level of
artistry of the novel depends on the depth of the main
idea and, in some respects, the strength with which it
forms an idea. Having fulfilled its task, the novel passes
into the ranks of all other works that are the fruits of
free fantasy, and in this sense the novel must be strictly
distinguished from superficial belliritistic works that
satisfy the necessary needs of the common people.”
(V. G. Belinsky, Selected Works, p. 176). The depth of
this idea is measured by a deep analysis of the
philosophy of life of the novel's thinking. E. A. Karimov,
a researcher of epics, based on the definition of Guy de
Maupassant (“The novel arises on the basis of the
philosophical concept of the world”), says, “A work
without a holistic philosophical concept of the world
cannot be a novel,”
and continues: “A novel is a literary
and artistic system, a large artistic form, openly focused
on the world and history, society and humanity, its
problems and concerns, wars and peace, political and
class struggles, uprisings and revolutions, its great and
small events. Not only the novel, but also the main
character depicted in the novel, whose soul and
thoughts are directed to the world, the universe.”
So, the true novel in the true sense of the word
emerged in Western Europe in the 18th century.
According to literary criticism, its first example is the
novel by the writer Antoine Prevost called "The History
of the Chevalier de Griers and Manon Lescaut". This
work was later published under the name "Manon
Lescaut". The famous writer Guy de Maupassant called
this work "the attractive form of the modern novel."
From the mid-1930s, this genre began to develop
rapidly and began to open its second stage of
development. At the same time, the famous novels of
the great writer Balzac, which are part of the series
"Human Comedy", and rare works of this genre by
Stendhal, Dickens, Thackeray, appear on the scene. The
difference between these works and the novels of the
previous stage is that realism is embodied in them
more fully and vividly.
By the end of the 19th century, the novel took on a
completely new form in Russia in the works of L.N.
Tolstoy and F.M. Dostoevsky, and this opened the next
historical period in the development of this genre.
The novel genre in Uzbek literature was founded by
Abdulla
Qodiriy in the 1920s. “In world literature, five
schools of novel writing, which differ in style, are
distinguished. They are the English, French, German,
Russian, and Indian schools of novel writing. Now a
sixth school of novel writing has been created. The
creator of this school is Abdulla Qodiriy,” wrote Bertels,
a famous orientalist in his time.
Or, to use the words of Mukhtar Avezov, one of the
great thinkers not only of the Kazakhs but of all Turkic
peoples, the novels of Abdullo Kadiri, who created a
sublime work, are reminiscent of the Pamir Mountains,
which suddenly appeared in the flat desert in the
1920s.
Abdullo Qodiriy says: "Since we have entered a new
era, we will follow the innovations of this new era in
every way and feel obliged to innovate in similar epics,
novels, and short stories, and to introduce our people
to the "Tohir Zuhro", "Chor Dervish", "Farhod and
Shirin", and "Bahromgor" of this time."
At first glance, it seems that the writer said these words
out of modesty, but if we look at the history of the
origin of the novel genre, we will see that the writer's
words are absolutely true. The novel's unique thinking,
language, style, interpretation of heroes and
characters, and most importantly, its complete
difference from other genres in poetic perception of
reality, that is, its epic scale, completely distinguishes it
from other prose genres. "Transient Days" fully
answers the question of what a novel should be in
every way - in the text, structure, interpretation of
heroes and reality, and various images.
After our homeland gained independence, the novel
genre began to appear in a completely different form.
Our writers realized that the consciousness, which had
lived under oppression for years, should be free, have
its own individual style, and each novel should also be
individual. It is clear to us that a novel does not fit into
any mold or pattern, and we often encounter these
situations in non-traditional novels created today. In
our country, where fundamental reforms are being
carried out, it is natural that new novels will be created
as a product of a new spirit, a new way of thinking. After
all, each era, according to its own needs, forms an
artistic and aesthetic idea in society.
The use of unconventional interpretation methods in
contemporary Uzbek novels is of great importance in
the artistic renewal of the poetics of the Uzbek novel.
It should be recognized that the influence of not only
modern Western novels, but also the traditions of
classical Uzbek literature and folk oral art in the
formation of unconventional interpretation methods is
also significant. The philosophical observation in the
novel
"Bazar"
by
Kh.
Dostmuhammad,
the
psychological analysis in "The Ruin on the Hill", the
absurd idea in "The Game of Butterflies" by T. Rustam
show that the reality we live in also plays a special role
in the emergence of unconventional methods in our
contemporary novel.
Today's novels mainly describe a person, his inner
experiences, thoughts, fantasies, and psyche. Also, the
American Journal Of Philological Sciences
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American Journal Of Philological Sciences (ISSN
–
2771-2273)
creation of mythopoetic novels was one of the unique
innovations. This category includes Sh. Botayev's
"Shokh", "Yettinchi tong", "Kh. Dostmuhammad's
"Bozor", "Wise Sisyphus", N. Eshonkul's "Gorugli", U.
Hamdam's "Isyon itoat", I. Sultan's "Boqiy darbadar"
and
"Ozod",
which
are
considered
serious
achievements of Uzbek prose. The prominent scholar,
Professor Qazoqboy Yuldosh, gives the following
thoughts about Amon Mukhtor and his novels: “The
period of independence brought a number of
innovations to Uzbek novelism. Taking into account the
fact that the era was intense, information was
overwhelming, and reading time was always scarce,
Amon Mukhtor tries to reduce the size of the novel. At
the same time, based on the fact that the novel is an
“epic of a separate individual,” he strives to strengthen
psychologism in the image. There is no unnecessary
detail in any of the writer’s novels. The artistic meaning
in them is so dense that it cannot fit into the image.
Amon Mukhtor is the first writer to introduce the
concept of “metaesar” into Uzbek literature. A work of
a writer that determines the direction of several other
works created later, with its depicted images, raised
problems, and way of expression, is called a metaesar
in the science of literary criticism. The author's work "A
Thousand Faces" was the first Uzbek meta-novel, which
inspired the writer to write several novels. In the work
of Omon Mukhtar, the principle of depicting characters
as more suffering and in the throes of thoughts and
fantasies, which is becoming characteristic of current
Uzbek novels, prevails.
It is not surprising that the beginning of the twenty-first
century went down in history as a period of
essayization of fiction and thought. The uniqueness of
essayized thought is that the correctness of a person's
opinion is based not on the opinions of others, but on
the logic of his own "I". Individual - personal opinion is
put above. Because any correct opinion is also relative.
The freedom of thought of an individual person is
manifested through this. Today's Uzbek novel has not
been left out of the essayization process. It is natural
that this phenomenon is happening on a global scale
and has reached us as well. Philosopher Mikhail
Epstein, who makes well-founded observations about
the essence of the changes taking place in modern
Russian literature, says: “…the dominant feature of the
novel genre was its creation of a special conditional
reality for itself. This conditional reality blocked the
novel from real existence outside it. Today's novel is
faced with the need to overcome this limit…. The novel
became essayistic not because of the external influence
exerted by essayism, but as a result of internal changes
in the process of the artistic perception of existence
gradually abandoning
all traditional conditionalities.”
We can see the process of essayism in the novels of
writers such as Ulugbek Hamdam and Khurshid
Dostmuhammad Ahmad Azim. An example of this is
Ulugbek Hamdam's novel “Sabo and Samandar”. The
artistic achievement of the n
ovel “Bazar” by another
talented writer, Kh. Dostmuhammad, is the creation of
an artistic model of real reality in it. The novel "The
Wise Sisyphus" is new in both genre and style, and it
would not be wrong to say that it raised modern Uzbek
novelism to a higher level. The essayization of creative
thinking, that is, its liberation and transformation from
recording facts in reality to expressing its own
conclusions inherent in the original essence, allows the
author to freely intervene in the events depicted in the
work of art. We can cite Ahmad Azim's novel "A Dream
or a Journey to Gulistan" as a vivid example of this.
CONCLUSION
As the novel develops as a genre, all its elements
change. The novel, which was originally a large volume,
has undergone a reduction in volume today, while
preserving the "novel problem (problem)" and the
novel's unique thinking. In today's era of globalization,
writers, taking into account the reader's time
constraints, have begun to reduce the volume of novels
and focus on enriching their meaning. U. Hamdam's
mini-novel "Namatak",
O. Mukhtor's novel "Maydon" are among them. The
author's "Tort tomon qibla trilogy" does not even come
out to be four hundred and fifty pages. Not all large
works are novels. However, in the science of literary
criticism, when defining the genre of the novel, the size
of the volume is also mentioned. However, in today's
Uzbek novels, attention is paid not to the volume, but
to the scope of the subject. In addition, in novels such
as M. M. Dost's "Lolazor", U. Hamdam's "Muvozanat",
E. A'zam's "Shovqin", A. A'zam's "Royo orhud
Gulistanga safar", L. Borikhon's "People in the Heat", A.
Nurmonov's "Qon hidi", Javlon Jovliyev's "Korqma", A.
Malik's "Halqa", the writers do not show the actions of
the characters, but describe their feelings and
experiences, the characters are not examples that
show the way when a person finds himself in a difficult
situation, they have both strengths and weaknesses,
goodness and evil are combined in one div. They
describe him as a living person. From this we can
conclude that today's Uzbek novels differ from novels
of other periods in that they study man. In them, not
the period, but the person comes to the fore. After all,
man is the crown of cinema.
REFERENCES
Qazoqboy Yoldosh “Opening Word”, Tafakkur –
Tashkent 2019.
Qazoqboy Yoldosh “Soz Yolqini”, Tashkent –
2017.
American Journal Of Philological Sciences
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American Journal Of Philological Sciences (ISSN
–
2771-2273)
Hotam Umurov “Theory of Literary Studies”, Tashkent
–
2004.
w.w.w. ziyo.uz.
w.w.w. adabiyat.uz
