This article examines the life and pedagogical activity of Abduqodir Abdushukur Shakuriy (1875–1943), one of the most prominent Jadid educators of Samarkand, within the wider historical context of late imperial Russian rule and early Soviet modernization in Central Asia. Using historical-analytical, comparative, and source-critical methods, the study reconstructs Shakuriy’s formation as a teacher, school founder, textbook author, and reformer; analyzes his curricular and organizational innovations such as the rapid-literacy method, coeducation, the introduction of Russian language, labor and music lessons, and the preparation of reading books and anthologies for new-method schools; and situates his practice alongside contemporaneous global reform currents that reached Central Asia through Tatar, Ottoman, and Russian channels. The article also explores the constraints that colonial and early Soviet politics placed on educational experimentation, including persecution, school closures, and Shakuriy’s arrest during the Great Terror, with subsequent posthumous rehabilitation. It argues that Shakuriy’s enduring significance lies not only in the institutional facts of schools and textbooks but in a coherent pedagogical worldview that fused national enlightenment with pragmatic modern schooling aimed at moral character, civic competence, and practical skills. By tracking his trajectory from the first new-method school of Samarkand to his leadership at city schools and his textbook authorship, the article clarifies how local initiative, transregional networks, and changing political regimes co-produced a distinct Samarkand pedagogical school whose patterns continue to inform present debates about curriculum, teacher authority, and the social mission of schooling in Uzbekistan.
Ashurova Dilrabo (2025) studied this question.