The Origins of Interpreting Alisher Navo’i’s Works Through the Lens of “Imitation” and Its Transformation in the History of Research

The main aim of this study is to examine the origins of the assessment of Navo’i as an “imitator”, which emerged in nineteenth- and twentieth-century European Navo’i studies and continued in subsequent scholarship, and to trace the transformation of this judgment throughout the history of Navo’i studies.
Among the principal research objectives are a comparative, lexicographic, and textual analysis of sources that contributed to this judgment, including English and French translations of the Baburnama and assessments of Navo’i’s literary work by European Orientalists such as J. von Hammer-Purgstall, F.-A. Belin, L.Bouvat, E.Blochet,  A.P. de Courteille, and E.G. Browne.
Methodologically, comparative-source-critical, textual-semantic, contextual, historical-lexicographic, historiographical, and metareceptive analysis methods are employed. Assessments related to “imitation” are distinguished at genealogical-descriptive, canonical-hierarchical, and pejorative-reductive levels, with particular attention to the semantic and evaluative distinction between “imitation” and “imitativeness”, the latter implying a denial of authorial originality.
Analysis of Babur’s words “javobida, vaznida, taqlid qilib”, used in describing Navo’i’s work in the Baburnama, demonstrates how they are rendered in English and French translations. The lexicological and textual meanings of “imitation”, “imitateur”, “imiter”, “meter”, and “answering” are differentiated. “Imitation” in F.-A. Belin, E.G. Browne, and L.Bouvat denotes following predecessors and taking them as models, whereas E. Blochet associates it with passivity, lack of creativity, and pastiche, giving it an explicitly pejorative meaning. J. von Hammer-Purgstall likewise uses Nachahmung in a partially negative sense. Y.Bertels’s studies demonstrate the subsequent recategorization of F.-A. Belin’s position in historiography.
The findings indicate that the judgment of “Navo’i as an imitator” is not a firmly established conclusion but a position coexisting with assessments emphasizing Navo’i’s originality and genius. Rather than merely reflecting primary-source assessments, it represents a formulation produced through subsequent processes of reinterpretation.