Koshif

Biography

Koshif was one of the gifted poets and men of letters of the Kokand literary circle in the first half of the 19th century. He wrote ghazals and various other verse forms on the foundation of the classical Uzbek tradition. Koshif was active in the crowded and lively literary world of the Khanate of Kokand and took a busy part in the circle that had formed from the time of Amir Umarxon (Amiriy). According to the biographical sources, under the rulers who followed — Muhammad Alixon in particular — the difficult political and literary atmosphere at court meant that poets such as Hoziq and Koshif were for a time kept at a distance from it, or chose the path of independent work themselves. Koshif is an Arabic word meaning 'the one who opens', 'the discoverer', 'the one who reveals what is hidden'. His poetry is dominated by the leading themes of classical lyric: the experience of love, philosophical and gnostic reflection, and the note of complaint at the failings of the age. He wrote chiefly ghazals and muhammas, and his work was taken into various literary compilations and bayaz anthologies of the period. Although no complete divan of his own has come down to us, many of his poems and specimens of his ghazals survive in manuscript bayaz anthologies copied in the Fergana Valley in the 19th century and in the collections of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan.

Works

• G'azallar
• Muxammaslar
• Adabiy majmua va bayozlarga kirgan she'rlar