Description

A rare “Molla Nasreddinistic” magazine ملا مشفقى, was published in Ottoman script in Turkic language, and partly in Russian Cyrillic, in Samarqand, Uzbekistan. It includes sarcastic images against the clergy, and pro-Soviet and pro-Commuinsm propaganda.

In 1924, the borders of political units in Central Asia were changed along ethnic lines determined by Vladimir Lenin’s Commissar for Nationalities, Joseph Stalin. In 1925 Uzbekistan became one of the republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Samarkand was the capital until 1930, when it was replaced by Tashkent.

The magazine was created in the style of Molla Nasraddin magazine, an anti cleric and pro-Soviet  Azerbaijani satirical magazine, published on 8 pages, in Tiflis, Tabriz and Baku in the Azeri and occasionally Russian languages, between 1906 and 1931. This probably first magazine of its style was highly influential in the Arabic world in the time of the split between the traditional religious sphere and the Russian-Communistic influence.

We could not trace any examples of the magazine in the institutions worldwide.