THE RULER AND SOCIETY IN FITRAT’S DRAMA “ABULFAYZKHAN”

Abstract

This article examines how the relationship between the ruler and society is represented in Abdurauf Fitrat’s historical tragedy “Abulfayzkhan” (1924), which depicts the decline of the last Ashtarkhanid ruler of Bukhara and the rise of the Manghit amirs. It argues that the play neither reduces the ruler to a simple tyrant nor presents society as a unified collective, but shows the fall of the state as the result of a distorted relationship between a powerless sovereign, a self-serving ruling elite, and a people who are present in the play mainly through their absence from the stage. On the basis of the critical literature and selected features of the text, the article analyzes the dramatic configuration of characters, the tragic characterization of the khan, the language through which power is legitimized, the role of the external threat, and the connection of the play with the Jadid programme of enlightenment. The conclusions are presented as a conceptual interpretation that requires verification through a full close reading of the text.