Sayid Abdullah
Sayid Abdullah (1873–1933) was the last Khan of Khiva of the Khongirad (Qungrat) dynasty, from 1 October 1918 until 1 February 1920. His father was Muhammad Rahim Khan II.
| Sayyid Abdullah Khan | |
|---|---|
Sayid Abdullah, presumably during his reign | |
| Khan of Khiva | |
| Reign | 1918–1920 |
| Predecessor | Isfandiyar Khan |
| Successor | Monarchy abolished by Red Army invasion. Territory taken over by the Soviet Union. |
| Born | 1873 Khiva, Khiva Khanate (present-day Uzbekistan) |
| Died | 1933 Kryvyi Rih, Ukrainian SSR |
| Burial | Kryvyi Rih's Rudnichnoye cemetery |
| House | Khongirad (Uzbeks) |
| Father | Muhammad Rahim Khan II |
| Religion | Sunni Islam |
Sayid Abdullah had no real power (titular ruler), because the Khanate was ruled by Junaid Khan, a Turkmen general, at that time. In 1920, the Bolsheviks had defeated Junaid Khan, overthrown the Khanate of Khiva and deposed Sayid Abdullah.[1] He was sent to Ukraine, where he died 13 years later at a hospital.
Descendants
Ukrainian writer Grigory Jamalovich Huseynov in the early 1980s met with the descendants of Said Abdullah Khan, and conducted a study about the descendants of the Khan in Ukraine. In particular, he interviewed the nephew of Said Abdulla Khan, Abdurasul Mukhammedyarovych Madiyarov, who lived in Krivoy Rog, who told in detail the history and life of the Khan's descendants in Ukraine. Grigory Huseynov outlined the results of his research in the essay “How the Khan Worked at the Mine”.[2]
After abdicating the throne on February 2, 1920, Said Abdullah Khan and his family were arrested by the Bolsheviks . The trial of the Khan and his family began on June 12, 1920 . According to the verdict, Said Abdulla Khan and 9 (according to other sources 7) of his closest male relatives are evicted from the Khorezm People's Soviet Republic for a period of 3 to 5 years. The remaining members of the Khan's large family, not influential men, women, old people and children, were separated from them and left in the republic itself. In addition, all property, money, jewelry, houses, lands and estates of the Khan's large family were confiscated.[3]
The 9 people mentioned above were sentenced to exile, including the Khan himself. These were Said Abdulla Khan himself, his three sons - Said Abdulla, Rahmatulla and Yakub Yusuf, his brother - Muhammadyar, as well as nephews - Abdurasul, Madyar, Nasyr and Ibadulla. They were first taken from Khiva to Tashkent, where they were held for two days, and from there, under guard, they were taken by train to Samara, where they stayed for three weeks. From Samara they were all taken by train to Moscow . Two weeks they were kept in the Horde camp, 10 months in the Andraikovsky camp, and two months in the Ivanovo camp.On February 12, 1922, all of them, including Said Abdullah Khan himself, were unexpectedly released and instructed to find work for themselves. They were first sent to Yekaterinoslav (now Dnipro), but found no work there and moved to nearby Verkhovtsevo, where they began working at a local state farm . In July 1924, everyone - with the exception of Abdurasul Mukhamadyarovich, who entered the local police school, arrived in Krivoy Rog at the Oak Balka mine (later the Bolshevik mine). Three of them began working at the mine as watchmen and grooms. At that time, there was total unemployment in central Ukraine, and the rest could not find work. First, they did not know Russian or Ukrainian, and secondly, they did not have the crafts and skills characteristic of the inhabitants of this region. Bad news came from Khorezm that the former Khan's family, forcibly divided and left in Khiva, lived below the poverty line, starved, and lived literally on alms and the help of neighbors, and even small children began to beg .
Upon learning of this, in July 1925 they applied to the Krivoy Rog department of the GPU (the political intelligence service of that time), the Council of People's Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR and the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee with an application for permission to return home to Khorezm. In early August, the Secretariat of the Administration of the Council of People's Commissars addressed the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR with a proposal to familiarize themselves with a copy of the request of the exiles and send their proposals. In a cover letter, the head of the administrative department of the NKVD wrote that "if there are no obstacles, then take all measures to satisfy their request." The Ukrainian GPU decided to play it safe and sent materials to the OGPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR . OGPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on November 19, 1925 sent a response to the GPU of the Ukrainian SSR, which stated that their return to their homeland was undesirable because of "the possibility of any influence on the masses" .
In 1926, Abdurasul joined the exiles, who retired from the police. He came to Krivoy Rog with his wife named Olimpiada, and the whole large family lived in one of the mine barracks. Later he married a local resident named Vlada Zhitkovskaya - Said Abdulla - one of the sons of Said Abdulla Khan .
Said Abdulla Khan himself did not start a family in Krivoy Rog, and continued to work as a watchman at the Bolshevik mine. At the place of work, he had the nickname “Khan”, and most did not guess or did not believe that “Khan” was the last Khan of the State of Khorezm from the Kungrat dynasty. In 1932, a massive famine (known as the Holodomor) began in the Ukrainian SSR . In 1933, Said Abdullah Khan fell ill and was admitted to a mine hospital, where he was diagnosed with dysentery, and died a month later from a prolonged illness and malnutrition. He was buried in the mine cemetery .
The elder brother of Said Abdullah Khan, Muhammadyar, was elderly at the time of his arrival during the exile, and he was about 70 years old. He could not work, and after the onset of a massive famine, he was forced to beg. The younger brother of Said Abdullah Khan - Ibadulla, who was also expelled from Khorezm, was deaf from childhood, and practically did not work throughout his life. I mostly begged at the local market next to the mine shop. By the summer of 1934, Ibadullah was severely malnourished due to starvation, and was accidentally run over by a truck and died due to this accident .
In 1933, the exiles were allowed to return to Central Asia or settle in other parts of the USSR without restrictions, and the sons of Said Abdulla Khan - Rahmatullah and Yusuf Yakub moved to Tashkent, where part of their relatives lived. After arriving in Tashkent, they sent a letter to Krivoy Rog and reported their whereabouts. Muhammadyar, the elder brother of Said Abdullah Khan, decided to return to Khiva, and reached Tashkent, where he was forced to beg, and died in Tashkent in 1936, never reaching his native Khiva.
The Khan's son, Said Abdulla, moved with his wife to Tashkent, where he worked as a translator. Later he moved to the city of Osh and worked in exploration . A few years later he began to drink, and in 1941 he knocked down a man and was sentenced to five years in the camps. His wife returned to Krivoy Rog in 1944 . Said Abdullah died in the early 1960s . During the Soviet era, all exiles were prohibited from entering Khiva, while there were no restrictions on entry to the rest of the USSR.
After 1934, only the brothers Nasyr and Abdurasul remained in Krivoy Rog. Nasyr worked as a watchman, although he was the most educated among the expelled, he wrote poetry and painted. He was married several times, and his wives parted with him because of poverty. He spent the last years of his life alone and died in 1944 . Abdurasul was able to build himself a small house, got married, and spent the rest of his life in a mining village. During the occupation of Ukraine by the Third Reich, he was in forced labor in Germany . Upon his return from Germany, he continued to work at the mine as a groom. He had three daughters, and later grandchildren and great-grandchildren were born. He died in the 1990s and shortly before his death, in 1990, 71 years later he visited Khiva and visited the grave of his grandfather - Muhammad Rakhim Khan II, still lived in Ukraine .
In February 2019, it became known that Grigory Huseynov’s book “Wind from the East” (Ukrainian: Wind from the Skhoda) is being prepared for publication, which is completely dedicated to the life history of these exiles. The book was written on the basis of Abdurasul's many hours of stories to Grigory Huseynov, as well as on the basis of various archival data and documents, as well as on the basis of Abdurasul's impressions after returning from Khiva in 1990. The book also contains numerous photographs, documents and manuscripts provided to Grigory Huseynov by the descendants of Abdurasul.[4]
References
- ^ Chahryar Adle:History of Civilizations of Central Asia volume VI, page 319
- ^ "Саид Абдулла-хан", Википедия (in Russian), 2021-04-24, retrieved 2022-04-26
- ^ "Саид Абдулла-хан", Википедия (in Russian), 2021-04-24, retrieved 2022-04-26
- ^ "Саид Абдулла-хан", Википедия (in Russian), 2021-04-24, retrieved 2022-04-26