Translated material
Betrayal
In Abdulla Khakimov’s story “A Assignment for Life” it is worth paying attention to one minor detail. The fact is that the main motive of this book is not the heroic feat of the Soviet intelligence officer, but betrayal. In the story, a young philologist and poet, Mirza Sadykov, goes as a nationalist refugee to Iran, where, through a series of tricks, he gains the trust of the nationalist leader in exile, Mullah Sadretdin Khan. The book reveals the process of gradually gaining trust in an aging political intriguer, murderer and spy, covering his activities under the guise of a religious figure. Gradually, this trust grows so much that Mullah Sadretdin Khan calls his secretary his right hand and even his son. Despite the author’s best wishes to show the mullah’s image as negative, his fate is tragic. Having made a choice on Mirza Sadykov, he wants to make him his successor, just like him: a cunning, ruthless intriguer-killer. In a certain sense, this works out, since Mirza really intrigues, spies and even arranges the murder of people dangerous to him. But everything we know about their relationship, i.e. relationship between teacher and student - that the teacher will definitely be betrayed by his student and, possibly, die by his hand. This betrayal is indicated by one minor detail that appears at the very beginning of the book, and which the author most likely did not suspect. When Mirza first finds himself in the mullah's cell, he draws attention to Trotsky's book on the shelf. The action takes place in 1933, and the author wanted to show that Trotsky is a traitor to the Soviet Union, who is read by the enemies of the Soviet Union. But we will expand the field of representation a little and interpret this as a sign. Since the book “A Assignment for Life” is dedicated to a long journey into trust and betrayal, is this not also connected with the fate of Trotsky himself? After all, the person who killed him also spent a very long time infiltrating his circle and eventually became a person close to him. It seems to me that Trotsky in this story is not so much a symbol of political opposition as a sign of tragic betrayal and murder.
Unfortunately, I was unable to find information about the continuation of the story “A Mission for Life” and its author. Although the story is stated as the first part, the second part, apparently, was never published in Russian, if it was ever published at all. In a short afterword to the book, Khakimov mentions that the action of the second book will take place during the Second World War.
It was also not possible to find any biographical information about Khakimov Abdulla Khamidovich (?). There is only reason to assume that five years after the release of “Assignment for Life,” his book “The Seal of Uzbekistan and the International Education of the Masses” was published in Tashkent.
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Illustration of the book's flyleaf
Khakimov, Abdulla. A task for life [Text]: [Tale] / [Author. lane from Uzbek B. Parmuzina]. — Tashkent: Publishing house of artists. lit., 1969