Thanks to his long life, the Samarqand-born Tajikistani essayist and literary critic Rahim Hashim (1908-93) has often been considered, during and after Perestroika, a major witness of the history of Soviet Tajik literature.  Notwithstanding the essentially memorial character of many of Hashim’s writings, the present paper insists on his involvement in the Tajik Union of Writers (in the shade of Sadr al-Din ‘Ayni), and on his courageous advocacy of nonconformist authors like Sulaymani and Fitrat during the early 1930s.  The paper also casts light on the significance of Hashim’s family background as the son of a pharmacist (‘attar) of Iranian, Shiite origin, and this background’s influence on the writer’s interest in traditional herbal medicine—a significant aspect of the recent rediscovery of his prolific works, to be replaced in the context of the overall revaluation of traditional medecine in Central Asia.

Stéphane A. Dudoignon, National Centre for Scientific Research, Paris
CER: I-6.2.B-528