Literatureמרדכי חיא בצ'איב

Muḣib

Mordekhai Batchaev, known by the pen name Muhib, was a Bukharan Jewish poet and translator.

1911 to 2007Bukharan Jewish poetryAutobiography In a Stone SackRussian to Tajik translation

Occupation: poet, translator
Education: National University of Uzbekistan named after Mirzo Ulugbek

Muḣib was born in 1911 in Merv

Mordekhai Batchaev was born in 1911 in Mari, today Merv in Turkmenistan. His father, Khie Batchaev, reported for the newspaper Rahamim in the town. The family later moved to Samarkand.

In Samarkand he went to a Jewish religious school and a Russian secondary school. He later studied literature at the Central Asian State University in Tashkent.

His first poems appeared in 1927, and from 1928 to 1938 he worked in Bukharan Jewish periodicals. In 1930 he became managing secretary of the newspaper Bajroqi Mihnat, and he published several poetry collections in 1931 and 1932. In July 1938 he was arrested on charges of bourgeois nationalism.

He was released in 1945 but barred from living in major cities. He was rehabilitated in 1953 and settled in Dushanbe. From 1954 he worked as a Russian to Tajik translator until he retired in 1972.

He moved to Israel in 1973, took part in radio broadcasts in Bukharian, and edited a monthly bulletin in that language. In 1974 and 1975 he wrote a two-volume autobiographical work. He died in Petah Tikva in 2007, the year his collected works appeared in 7 volumes.