THE WORK “A BRIEF HISTORY OF KHOREZMIAN MUSIC” AS AN IMPORTANT SOURCE IN THE STUDY OF CENTRAL ASIAN MUSICAL ART
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47390/hum-i4v2y2026/n03Keywords:
Khorezmian music, musical source study, ethnomusicology, maqom system, tablature, oral tradition, textology, History of Central Asia.Abstract
This article aims to explore the significant historiographical and source-study importance of the treatise “A Brief History of Khorezmian Music” (Xorazm musiqiy tarixchasi), co-authored by Mulla Bekjon Rahmon ogli and Muhammad Yusuf Devonzoda in 1925. Serving as a fundamental reference source in Central Asian ethnomusicology, this treatise provides an unprecedented written archive of Khorezmian musical traditions, which had historically survived for centuries exclusively through oral transmission (tavotur). Employing the methodology of musical source study, the article provides an in-depth analysis of the treatise's role in documenting the institutionalization of the maqom system during the “Feruz Renaissance” in the Khiva Khanate at the end of the 19th century. Furthermore, it highlights the work's crucial contribution to the semiotic deciphering of the Khorezmian tanbur notation (an eighteen-line tablature system) and its value in preserving authentic local musical terminology amidst the subsequent rise of Soviet cultural homogenization.
The research results confirm that this 1925 treatise is not merely a historical memoir of the past, but a crucial epistemological bridge between oral performance practice and systematized musicological classification. This factor renders it a primary source for international research in modern ethnomusicology and cultural history.
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