The very first theatre in Kyrgyzstan!

Osh’s theatrical history began in 1877, when local amateur theatres staged the play “Judgment of Men, Not of God” and the vaudeville production “Scandal in a Noble Family.” A drama club was opened in the military assembly of the 4th Turkestan Line Battalion.

In 1918, following a concert brigade at the Revolutionary Military Council of the Turkestan Front, the small amateur drama club became a formalised acting company. The next year it went on its first tour, staging a performance in Uzgen of the play “The Doctor from Turkestan.” The official history of the first theatre in Kyrgyzstan begins from there.

Their first production made a sensation in Uzgen because of its acute social themes, and all roles, including the female ones, were performed by men. One of the lead roles was played by Zhurakhon Zainabidinov, after whom a street in the old bazaar area is named. Women were forbidden to perform in public at that time, so the first woman to perform with the theatre troupe, Tazhikhon Khasanova, came later.

In 1929 the Musical Drama Theatre was formed around the troupe by decree of the USSR Council of People’s Commissars. Rakhmonberdi Madazimov was appointed as the First Director, and also served as Theatre Director of the Osh Uzbek Musical Drama Theatre. He is known as the author of “Characteristics of Osh,” published in 1914-1915 in the printing house of the Chancellery of the Governor-General of Turkestan Region.

Did you know that the first performer of the famous “Andijan polka” was Osh theatre artist Roziyakhon Muminova? During one of her tours in Andijan in the 1930s, Muminova performed a “male dance” in a new arrangement of an outdated melody by musician Ziyamiddin Shakirov. Both the music and the dance were later called the “Andijan polka” after the city where this popular oriental-inspired dance was first performed. The theater is famous for its musical productions, and often tours abroad. The theater’s present building was built in 1979; before that, it was housed in a former madrasa opposite the regional philharmonic society, which was later demolished. Until 1992, the theater bore the name of Stalin’s closest associate, Sergei Kirov, but is now named in honor of the Mughal emperor Babur, who was born in Andijan.