House museum of Gafur Guliam, Tashkent

The museum is located in the house where Gafur Guliam lived and worked from 1944-66. In the literary part you can see photographs, original documents and personal items of the poet, as well as first and later editions of his works. In the memorial part you can see his working study, living room and recreation room. There are books from his personal library, his desk and household items.

The popular poet and academic Gafur Guliam lived from 1903-1966. His name is connected with the establishment and development of new Uzbek Soviet literature. His creative style was formed in the literary-historical epoch when the old forms of writing, traditional Eastern poetry and the system of verse composition, were superseded by the principles of realism, social significance in art, and new artistic means and forms. On the one hand, Gafur Guliam developed the principles of Russian realism in literature using Uzbek traditions. Mayakovsky and Gorky were strong influences. On the other hand, he also relied on Uzbek and Eastern popular and literary traditions.

The work of Gafur Guliam is a unique artistic chronicle of life in Uzbekistan and the USSR in the 1930s-40s, a time of major social-economic change and shock. take for example "On the road to Turksib", "I am a Jew", "You are not an orphan", and the story "Ozornik", the verses and stories about the industrial giants of Chirchik and Tashkent, the hard work of cotton pickers and the struggle of the people against the Fascists in WWII. The poetry collection "I go with the East", which the poet published in 1945,was awarded the USSR state prize. In 1970, Gafur Guliam was posthumously awarded the Lenin prize for the poetry of his later years.

Gafur Guliam is of course well known!
Ask anyone my address in Tashkent.
I will be glad to greet you!
Without delay life is short
Come to me, I am waiting for you, friend!

Info used from "Arts & Culture program"