Uzbek literature

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Uzbek literature refers to the literature produced and developed in the Republic of Uzbekistan with additional literary works contributed by the Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan people of Central Asia. Influenced by Russian and Turkish literature, Uzbek is predominantly written in the Uzbek language with its roots in Chagatai language, one of the widely accessible languages in the region from 14th to 20th century. In Uzbek literature, Chagatai plays an important role as a reference point.

The history of Uzbek literature links ancient and modern Uzbekistan. Before the founding of Uzbekistan, preceding colonies and the Russian conquest of Central Asia had significantly impacted Uzbek literature and continued to mark its presence until the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991. Central Asian literature, including Uzbek is thus linked to Turkish and Russian literature. However, much of Uzbek literature witnessed significant development in modern era due to its pre-existence in Uzbeks.

Uzbek writing system observed significant changes by its native writers who switched from Turkic script to Arabic that originally began in the 10th century until the 12th century. This development adopted language reforms from Arabic literature. Yūsuf Balasaguni, Mahmud al-Kashgari, and Ahmad Yugnaki were among the leading writers of that time who flourished Uzbek literature by adopting language reforms. Ahmad Yasawi was also one of the other writers who introduced new genre in Uzbek literature. Yesevi's poetry collection Divan-i hikmet (Book of Wisdom) is composed of various dialects, such as Arabic and Persian, which features Turkic metre.

In the later years, Uzbek literature emerged in the Chagatai language between the 13th and 14th centuries. One of poets of that time was Khwārizmī who wrote Muhabbatnamah (Love Letters) that was preserved in the region and serves as a historical reference for modern literature.^[1]