“…a child must be brought up from the first day of his birth: we must strengthen his body, illuminate his mental faculties with the light of wisdom, improve his morals and train his memory”;

“If a child is left to himself, if he receives no upbringing, he grows up an ignorant and dull person who fears neither God nor the devil, is guided by no customs or traditions, does not heed good and wise advice, and does evil…”;

“From the standpoint of scientific ethics, composure is the most needful and necessary quality of an educated person”;

“…A person must at all times be in a state of action and movement, working persistently and stubbornly, so as later to reap the fruits of that labour and live well”.

(Abdulla Avloniy (1878–1934) was one of the outstanding Uzbek writers, who wrote about children, a playwright, enlightenment figure and teacher who did much for the development of the modern Uzbek school.)

Abdulla Avloniy was one of the leaders of the Jadid movement, which spread among Russia’s Muslims in the late 19th century. A little about Jadidism: the word is of Arabic origin and means “new”, “renewal”. Jadidism is an ideology of Islamic modernism. The immediate founder of Muslim Jadidism was the Crimean Tatar enlightenment figure and politician Ismail Gasprinsky.

In its ideology, Jadidism opposed Qadimism. Qadimism likewise comes from Arabic and means “old, ancient”. Qadimism was a conservative movement among Tatars and among the Muslims of Russia at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Its supporters defended the patriarchal foundations of life and fought actively against religious reformism and Jadidism, adhering to a scholastic system in education and upbringing.

Abdulla Avloniy was one of the originators of the idea of new-method Uzbek schools for children and wrote textbooks and manuals for them. In 1907 he published the Uzbek-language newspaper “Shukhrat” and organised in Tashkent the Uzbek theatre troupe “Turkestan”, which lasted until February 1917. After the creation of the USSR he was one of the active figures of enlightenment in Uzbekistan. He taught and wrote books and plays for the Uzbek theatre. At Tashkent State University, Abdulla Avloniy taught alongside a group of other Uzbek enlightenment figures. He died on 25 August 1934 in Tashkent and is buried in Botkin Cemetery.