Nodira and her ghazals

Nodira was born in Andijan in 1792; her real name was Mohlaroyim and Nodira was her literary pen name. She wrote her Uzbek poems under the pen names “Nodira” and “Komila” and her Persian-Tajik works as “Maknuna”, so she was bilingual. Her father was Rahmonqul otaliq, governor of Andijan. In 1807 the Khan of Kokand, Olimxon, married his brother Umarxon to Mohlaroyim. Umarxon became beg of Margilan and, after Olimxon was executed in 1810, took the throne; Nodira spent the rest of her life in the court at Kokand. Umarxon was a poet who wrote under the pen name Amiriy. Nodira lost her husband at 30, so the motif of separation became the main direction of her work. According to the textbook, the beloved in women poets’ ghazals is made general: it is the male beloved (God) who is meant, so they do not list the beloved’s hair and waist. In 1842 the Emir of Bukhara, Nasrullo Khan, took Kokand, and Nodira, her sons and her grandchildren were executed. Nodira left two divans: the Turkic one has 189 ghazals, and her Persian poems are in the “Devoni Maknuna”. Her stanza-poem “Firoqnoma” is regarded as a remarkable example. Furqat wrote some of his poems as naziras to Nodira’s ghazals.