In the history of the Abazin people there are names whose contribution to the Abazin culture cannot be overemphasized. And even among them, the figure of Nukh Ozov stands alone - his whole short life, tragically and suddenly stopped by false accusation, he served his people, bringing people the light of knowledge, becoming one of the authors of Abazin grammar and the pioneer of Abazin literature.
Petr Chkalov
Nukh Ozov was born in 1900 in the village of Apsua in the territory of the modern Karachay-Cherkess Republic in the Abazin family of an average peasant and was the only child. In the notes of the professor-Caucasus expert Anatoly Genko, according to Nukh Ozov, it is stated: "I was born in a working family. My father plowed, hunted, engaged in beekeeping." The father died when the boy was only 6 years old, but nevertheless he entered the village school, graduated from it and continued his studying of the Arabic language, where he later freely read and translated the Koran. Nukh did not succeed in completing his studies; on the eve of the October Revolution of 1917 he returned home.
From the courses of the Circassian language to the National Publishing
House The young man could continue his studies only 2 years later - in 1919 he entered the Circassian language courses for school teachers in Teberda, graduating from which until 1928 he worked in his native village as a teacher.
Information about the life of Nukh Ozov at that time is rather scarce, but it is known that there was a period of work in Abkhazia in his biography, from where he returned already to work in the National Publishing House. Approximately at the same time, in 1925 Nukh Abramovich marries Khanishch Pashevna Kacheva, later his two daughters Raisa and Rosa were born.
In the National Publishing House, where Ozov worked since 1929, he combined the duties of an interpreter, reviewer, editor and earned the deserved respect of his colleagues. Mikhail Veredibin, acting deputy editor of the Russian-language newspaper "Krasnaya Circassia". Mikhail Veredibin, in his testimony, which would later be attached to the criminal case against the scientist, stressed that Ozov enjoyed great authority both from representatives of the regional party committee and the leadership of the Writers' Union of Circassia, and among ordinary people: "In 1934, when he arrived in the village of Apsua, he was followed in the village as a bishop, it was almost servility," he said.
Before the Abazin script
Due to the lack of written language in their native language Abazin children were trained in the Circassian language until 1933. Working as a teacher in his village, Nukh Abramovich also worked with children in Circassian. Being one of the most prepared teachers, he takes part in the compilation of new teaching aids. In 1930, he published his primer for adults "The Path of a Peasant, Collective Farmer." At the same time, together with Tatlustan Tabulov (compiler of the first Circassian and Abazin alphabets - ed.), Ozov is preparing a book for the second year of schooling at the rural school "New Life". A year later, in 1931, he translates the story of V. Konel "Mother Mountain" from the Russian language. All these books are published in the Circassian language.
Now in Abazin language
In 1932, the Abazin alphabet was approved on a Latin graphic basis, instruction in the Abazin schools began to be taught in the native language. Teaching aids were urgently needed. Nukh Abramovich completely gives himself in the new tasks.
The famous Caucasus professor Genko, speaking at the Gorsky Research Institute in Rostov in October 1933, said: "All the questions of grammar that are significant in practical and pedagogical terms are fixed in the form of specific rules at my bidding by the research fellow of the CRI (Cherkessian Research Institute - ed.) comrade Tabulov. In addition to Tabulov, Nipov Mhamat (from the village of Kuvinsky), Ozov Daud and Ozov Nukh (from the village of Apsua) took part in the theoretical part of my works.
" It is not surprising that Ozov was among those who were entrusted with translating both the speeches of the leaders of the Communist Party and the Soviet state into Abazin, as well as the creation of the first national textbooks on language and literature. One of the first books published in the Abazin language was the translation of Ozov's "Letters of 250 North Caucasian Brigadiers to Stalin", published in a separate brochure in Batalpashinsk in 1933. Subsequently, a translation of Stalin's report was published at the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), as well as the manuscript of the Abazin-Russian social and political dictionary was prepared. In 1934 two textbooks by Ozov were published: "The grammar of the Abazin language for primary school. Part 2. The third year of education" and "Grammar of the Abazin language for primary school. Part 2. The fourth year of education".
The work was not easy, much had to be done for the first time, to go the pathless roads, because at that time many issues of the alphabet and terminology had not yet been resolved. Thus, in the textbooks of Ozov the system of grammatical facts of the Abazin language was first formulated. Nukh Abramovich stressed the complexity of the work in his author's foreword.
"In order to discover these laws, it is necessary to overcome great difficulties, have profound knowledge, and make maximum efforts. As long as there is a person with such data, we, without regretting our little forces, must pave the way ... I hope this work will give impetus to those in whose hearts there is a desire for good, but who lack own efforts. The next generation of educated people will fill in and straighten out what they started. One cannot add anything only to the nonexistent," he wrote.
The author of the textbooks was quite self-critical, aware of possible flaws in his work, and, nevertheless, considered it necessary to start and move the matter off, counting in the future on more trained cadres who could eliminate the shortcomings of the first experience. It was not the glory of the pioneer that moved him, but the desire to serve his people with what he was capable of.
In 1934, taking as a basis the textbook on the literature of D. Bogoyavlensky and L. Timofeev, Nukh Ozov created a book for reading for schools of semi-literate. The textbook basically consisted of translated works of Russian writers, some of which were adapted by Ozov, trying to make a foreign language material understandable to the Abazin schoolchildren. In the same collection were included independent original works of Ozov: poems "Five Days and Nights" and "Did not Have Time", the story "The Way of Musa" and an excerpt from a large work "Deceived." Two adapted stories from the textbook - "Shimmering" and "Social competition on the collective farm" - were included as independent works in the collection of works by the writers of Circassia "Going to the test", which was also released in 1934.
The founder of Abazin literature
Working with the educational material in the Circassian language, translating into Circassian before the Abazin alphabet was created, allowed Ozov to acquire the first writing skills. He was one of the most capable and prepared for literary work, which gave him the opportunity to become, along with Tatlustan Tabulov, the pioneer of national literature.
He could become a good prose writer. He had a good creative principle, an open-minded attitude to the word, free treatment of it and a linguistic and artistic flair. His works are distinguished by the ease and freedom of presentation, the realism of the actions and behavior of the characters. He was able to describe the crowd penetrating into its psychology. Without a doubt, Ozov was a class, party writer, with all his heart, who accepted the socialist revolution and fervently defended the interests of the working people.
To find guilty…
However fate had different views. On May 10, 1935, the educational and creative activity of Nukh Ozov was interrupted: the scientist was arrested by the employees of the regional prosecutor's office on charges that he "made translations and editing in the Abazin language with political distortion of political documents." The investigation lasted six months, following a three-day trial, the panel found Nuh Abramovich guilty.
The most vivid distortions, according to the judges, were made by Ozov in the translation of Stalin's speech at the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), which was held from January 26 to February 10, 1934. Ozov handed over the manuscript of the translated Stalin’s report to the party publishing house of Circassia on March 14, 1934, and a month later, on April 11, an 83-page brochure "I. Stalin. The report to the 17th Party Congress on the work of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was published in the Abazin language.
If we take a closer look at the details, the absurdity of the accusation becomes obvious. Firstly, Ozov was not allowed more than one month to perform a rather voluminous and very responsible job. Secondly, at the time of the translation the Abazin script was only one year and two months, as a result of which the literary language and related norms were not yet developed; even in its infancy, functional styles did not show up, spelling rules were not developed, because of which anarchy reigned in spelling.
Later the philologists made a thorough comparative analysis of Stalin's report at the 17th Congress and its Abazin version, the results of which are unambiguous: the translation was carried out in good faith, with knowledge of the case, preserving the general and particular features of the style, both texts - original and translated - are adequate to each other, all the most important and less important provisions of Stalin's speech in the Abazin language are reproduced correctly. And this means that the central thesis of the judicial verdict: "Comrade Stalin's report was translated in such a way that the policy of our party is questioned," was absolutely contrived and untenable. In all the translation report, there cannot be found a single fundamental violation, which could be interpreted as a political distortion!
To give a true assessment of the work of Ozov, it was necessary to know and take into account many factors, including the specifics of the translation work and the peculiarities of the functioning of the Abazin language. In addition, it was necessary to remain simply objective, impartial, not to invent non-existent sins, not to impart ideological coloring to the shortcomings, which in most cases were attributed to technical failures or the general level of the state of the national language. Unfortunately, in almost all cases neither the investigation nor the judges bothered themselves with such tasks; they did not try to understand the essence of the alleged violations.
The man who accepted the October Revolution, selflessly working for the sake of establishing its ideals, for the sake of education and prosperity of the culture of its people, could not engage in sabotage, and conduct secret counter-revolutionary work.
Contrary to all the logical arguments and the actual state of affairs, on November 11, 1935, the regional court of the Circassian Autonomous Oblast recognized Nukh Abramovich as guilty of all charges and sentenced him to 10 years of imprisonment with full confiscation of property. On December 26, 1935, the verdict came into legal force and the convict was sent to the place of serving the term of punishment - to the Temnikovski correctional labor camp of the Mordovian ASSR.
Nukh Abramovich sent letters every month to his wife. There are reasons to believe that he wrote to the state authorities asking to reconsider his case. According to the wife of Ozov, Khanishch Pashevna, in 1942, Nukh Abramovich said that they would meet soon, as the case was studied by Moscow and he was found not guilty. It is well known that in 1940 the USSR Prosecutor's Office twice requested the administration of the Correctional labor camps, by whom, when and by what article of the Criminal Code Ozov was convicted, but there were no documents confirming the revision and a positive decision in the case. Nukh Ozov never left for freedom. On June 11, 1942, the scholar-educator died in a camp hospital from pulmonary tuberculosis.
45 years later
One can only marvel at how much this person has done in his short life. He did not wait for someone smarter and more talented to come, instead at his time and in his place did everything he could to eradicate illiteracy, to educate his people, and he deserved the good and long memory of the descendants. His literary heritage is almost not preserved: his books, written for children, were destroyed along with manuscripts that did not reach the printing press. Even more of his manuscripts and books died before birth.
But justice still prevailed, even 45 years later. On November 11, 1980 Nukh Ozov was rehabilitated for lack of corpus delicti by the Supreme Court of the RSFSR.
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