In the early 1920s, a group of young people from Central Asia travelled thousands of kilometres to Germany. They were not soldiers, politicians or wealthy travellers. They were students. Their mission was simple but ambitious: learn modern science and bring that knowledge back home.
At the time, Central Asia was going through enormous political and social changes. Jadid reformers believed that education was the key to transforming society. They wanted young people to study modern subjects such as engineering, medicine, chemistry, agriculture and technology. Germany, with its advanced universities and technical schools, seemed like an ideal place to acquire this knowledge.
Around 70 students from Turkestan and Bukhara were sent to Germany around 1921–1922. Some sources give slightly different numbers, but historical records indicate that the group included students from a wide range of backgrounds and specialisations. They studied in cities such as Berlin, Darmstadt and Stuttgart.
Among them were Sultan Matqul, who studied at a higher technical school in Berlin, Sattar Jabbor, who studied chemistry at Berlin University, and Tulağan Mumin, who studied engineering. There were also two remarkable young women, Maryam Sultonmurodova and Khayriniso Majidkhonova. Their decision to study abroad was particularly extraordinary at a time when educational opportunities for women in Central Asia were extremely limited.
The students experienced a completely different world in Germany. They learned foreign languages, became familiar with modern scientific methods and established relationships with German families and educational institutions. They were preparing themselves for lives as doctors, engineers, teachers, scientists and specialists.
But when some of them returned home, the atmosphere had changed.
From students to suspects
During the second half of the 1920s, Soviet authorities increasingly viewed people who had studied abroad with suspicion. Students who had travelled outside the Soviet Union had been exposed to foreign ideas and had connections that Soviet officials could not easily control. Political repression gradually intensified.
For some students, returning home did not mean beginning the successful careers they had imagined.
Sattar Jabbor, for example, returned in 1931 and became head of the chemistry department at the Tashkent Medical Institute. He was later arrested and executed in 1938.
Tulağan Mumin returned in 1931 and worked as a chief engineer in the electricity sector. He was also executed in 1938.
Sultan Matqul, who had studied engineering in Berlin, returned in 1931 and became deputy chairman of the Scientific Committee. He was executed in 1938.
Perhaps the most tragic stories belonged to the women.
Khayriniso Majidkhonova returned to Uzbekistan in 1928 and worked as a doctor. During the Stalinist purges, she was accused of being a nationalist and a German spy. She was sentenced to death and executed on 9 October 1938. She was later rehabilitated in 1999.
Her fellow student Maryam Sultonmurodova also returned in 1928. She worked in education and journalism, but her previous experience in Germany eventually became a reason for persecution. In 1937, she was arrested and sentenced to a long period of imprisonment. Unlike Khayriniso, however, Maryam survived and died decades later.
A generation interrupted
The fate of these students reveals something larger than individual tragedies. They represented an attempt to create a modern, educated generation capable of developing Central Asia.
They had been sent abroad to learn how to build laboratories, hospitals, schools, factories and modern industries. Instead, several returned to a political system in which international education and independent intellectual connections could become dangerous.
The repression did not destroy their achievements completely. Their names disappeared from official histories for decades, but after Uzbekistan gained independence, historians began studying their lives again. Archival research has gradually revealed more information about the students, their education and their persecution.
Their story therefore has two sides. They were victims of political repression, but they were also pioneers of modern education. They travelled to Germany when studying abroad was almost unimaginable for an ordinary young person from Central Asia. They learned new skills and returned with hopes of contributing to their homeland.
Some were executed. Some were imprisoned. Some never returned to Uzbekistan. And some survived.
But all of them left behind an important question:
What might Central Asia have achieved if this generation had been allowed to continue its work?