 He was one of the very few who actively wrote and politically worked to ignite people's awareness about Tajik identity, history, and traditions.The feeling of having been robbed throughout history is prominent in this poem, as is the resentment about the fact that Bukhara and Samarkand, the ancient Iranian cities and the traditional centers of the Tajiks' literature and culture, were in 1929 allotted to Uzbekistan by the foundation of the Soviet Republics.Bukhara and Samarkand feature as lost Tajik treasures, and ancient pre-Islamic Zoroastrian heritage is placed in the foreground (as can be seen by references made to the "Shahnameh" figures Rostam and Sohrab, the Soghdians).