Bibliography
Sources
68 records. Every source id used anywhere on this site resolves to one of them.
Everything on this site is attributed. Quotations are marked as quotations and carry the document they came from. Where sources disagree, the page says they disagree instead of choosing quietly.
The Foundation’s own English
The pages the Foundation wrote about itself, in English, around 2004 are the primary source here. They are characterful, they are the family’s own account, and they are the origin of most later English writing about Ziyodullo Shahidi — the English Wikipedia article descends from them. Where they can be quoted rather than paraphrased, they are. Spelling and obvious typing errors in the 2004 text have been regularised silently; no wording has been changed.
Her last interview
On 2 July 2026, at the house-museum of Sadriddin Ayni in Samarkand, Munira Shahidi gave an interview to zarnews.uz about her father’s music and the Silk Road. She died thirteen days later, and it is the last thing she published. It is used here as a primary source: for the dating of Komde and Madan and of the museum, for the account of the 1996 conference in London, and for her own summary of what her father was doing. Her word for the organisation she founded, in that interview, was a foundation for culture.
Reference works
The Russian and Tajik encyclopedias, the Music Encyclopedia article by Z. Tadzhikova, Elena Orlova’s monograph of 1986 and her portrait essay of 1990. Tajik Wikipedia is the source for the 1957 newspaper polemic, which appears in no English account.
Things this site does not say
A father’s death. The Foundation’s text says Muqaddaskhon Shahidi was murdered in the terror of 1937. A Russian source says he was arrested by the NKVD and died in prison six months later; a Tajik interviewer in 2013 spoke of him as having been shot. The year and the fact are firm. The manner is not, so no manner is stated.
Who played what. The 2004 biography contains a sentence whose subject is ambiguous: whether the virtuosity on the nay, tanbur and dutar and the work founding theatres in Tashkent and Samarkand belong to Ziyodullo or to his father. English Wikipedia read it as the father. Russian sources independently place Ziyodullo in the theatres of Tashkent, Samarkand and Stalinabad until 1939, so this site reads it as Ziyodullo, and says of the father only what other sources say: that he was a musician and that the shashmaqom was played in his house.
Dates. Buzruk is 1972 or 1976. Gulomon is 1978, 1979 or 1980. Komde and Madan premiered in 1960 or 1961; his daughter’s last interview says 1960, staged in Dushanbe, which is the strongest claim on it. The museum was founded in 1987, gained its republican status in 1989, and one Tajik source dates both it and the Foundation to 1996; the same interview says the systematic work began with the museum in 1987 and the Foundation followed in 1992. All variants are shown on the chronology, and none of them has been quietly dropped.
The Foundation’s registered name. The Foundation’s own 2004 site called it a foundation for culture. The site published until 2026 called it a music foundation. Russian sources use the culture form. Until the registration document is seen, this site says “the Shahidi Foundation” and nothing longer.
UNESCO. UNESCO funded the “Music of the Silk Road” project and included the composer’s centenary in its list of memorable dates for 2014–15. A standing UNESCO aegis over the Foundation could not be confirmed, so it is not claimed.
The museum’s address. A report of 2018 says the composer’s house was demolished and the collection moved to the grounds of the Academy of Sciences. Unconfirmed, so no address is published.
Corrections to the previous version of this site
Five statements carried by the site until 2026 have been changed or removed here.
He was the father of Tajik symphonic music, not Persian.
His father was murdered in the terror of 1937. He was not sent to a labour camp; those are different facts and only one of them is supported. His name was Muqaddaskhon Shahidi.
Samarkand is in Uzbekistan. It is a Persian-speaking city with a thousand years of Persian poetry behind it, and the Foundation’s own text gives it as “Samarkand, Uzbekistan”.
Munira Shahidi died on 15 July 2026. Every sentence about her is in the past tense.
A confectioner’s house has been removed. The old site opened its account of his childhood with the line “From a confectioner’s house in Samarkand”. It is a good sentence and there is no evidence for it. The Foundation’s own pages, the Russian, Tajik and English reference works and the family’s research files were searched for it in four languages and returned nothing; the claim appears to originate with whoever wrote that page. It is cut rather than kept, because a site correcting other people’s unsourced statements does not get to keep its own. What is documented — a father who kept a salon where the shashmaqom was played — has taken its place.
Web pages, recovered from the Internet Archive
Announcements
Archived http://shahidifoundation.org:80/announcements.html
src-sf-announcements-2002
Biography: Farangis Nurulla-Khoja (part 1)
Archived http://www.shahidifoundation.org:80/links/biof.htm
Opens: 'Farangis Nurulla-Khoja is a granddaughter of Ziyodullo Shahidi'.
src-sf-biof-2004
Biography: Farangis Nurulla-Khoja (part 2)
Archived http://www.shahidifoundation.org:80/links/biof2.htm
Quotes Le Monde, which gives her year of birth as 1972.
src-sf-biof2-2004
Biography: Munira Shahidi
Archived http://www.shahidifoundation.org:80/links/biom.htm
src-sf-biom-2004
Compositions (index)
Archived http://www.shahidifoundation.org:80/links/compos.htm
Links the two CD covers to their track lists, which is how the disc titles were recovered.
src-sf-compos-2004
Compositions: Rethinking Maqam and Symphony (track list)
Archived http://www.shahidifoundation.org:80/links/compos2.htm
'NOTE: These are 17 seconds samples only.'
src-sf-compos2-2004
Compositions: Sitorai Man, CD 1 — Songs & Romances, tracks 1-15
Archived http://www.shahidifoundation.org:80/links/compos3.htm
src-sf-compos3-2004
Compositions: Sitorai Man, CD 1 tracks 16-22 and CD 2 — Opera
Archived http://www.shahidifoundation.org:80/links/compos3.1.htm
src-sf-compos3-1-2004
Contacts
Archived http://www.shahidifoundation.org:80/links/cont.htm
The Foundation's own contact details as published in 2004. The addresses and numbers on it are twenty-two years old and are not reproduced on the site as current.
src-sf-cont-2004
Fonus (part 1)
Archived http://www.shahidifoundation.org:80/links/fonus.htm
The Foundation's own account of the journal Fonus. No complete run of the journal has been found.
src-sf-fonus-2004
Fonus (part 2)
Archived http://www.shahidifoundation.org:80/links/fonus2.htm
src-sf-fonus2-2004
In brief… (the Foundation)
Archived http://www.shahidifoundation.org:80/links/main.htm
States the Foundation was organized in February 1992 by the Z. Shahidi Museum of Musical Culture and five other bodies.
src-sf-main-2004
Opera Along the Silk Road — call for papers
Archived http://munira-shahidi.org/?p=1
Her own site, which went offline in the 2020s like the Foundation's. The post calls for papers for a conference in Dushanbe in October 2015 and describes the 'Music of the Silk Road' project under the auspices of UNESCO.
src-munira-org-opera-silkroad
Three generations of Tajik composers of the 20th century (part I)
Archived http://www.shahidifoundation.org:80/essay1.html
Unsigned on the page, but written in the first person by 'a specialist in the science of art, belonging to that family'; the Foundation's other pages attribute this role to Munira Shahidi. Authorship is an inference, not a byline.
src-sf-essay1-2001
News: CD released on the Magra label
Archived http://www.shahidifoundation.org:80/links/news.htm
Names the Bolshoi Symphony Orchestra and the Tajik Symphony Orchestra for the three tracks.
src-sf-news-2004
Photo archive
Archived http://www.shahidifoundation.org:80/links/photos.htm
Index of ten captioned photographs; each caption sits on its own page ph1-ph10, cited per photograph.
src-sf-photos-2004
Recent events (part 2): the festival's three levels of success
Archived http://www.shahidifoundation.org:80/links/events2.htm
src-sf-events2-2004
Recent events: 1st Ziyodullo Shahidi International Festival of Contemporary Music
Archived http://www.shahidifoundation.org:80/links/events.htm
src-sf-events-2004
Three generations of Tajik composers of the 20th century (part II)
Archived http://www.shahidifoundation.org:80/essay2.html
src-sf-essay2-2001
Three generations of Tajik composers of the 20th century (part III)
Archived http://www.shahidifoundation.org:80/essay3.html
Calls Farangis Nurulla-Khoja 'a granddaughter of Ziodullo Shahidi'.
src-sf-essay3-2001
Welcome to the Z. Shahidi International Cultural Foundation
Archived http://shahidifoundation.org:80/introfoundation.html
Gives the Foundation's 2002 address as 108 Karl Marx Street, Dushanbe 713002.
src-sf-introfoundation-2002
Ziodullo Shahidi: rethinking Maqams and Symphony (part I, 2001 site)
Archived http://www.shahidifoundation.org:80/ziodullo1.html
Earlier wording of the biography, with photo captions the 2004 site dropped.
src-sf-ziodullo1-2001
Ziodullo Shahidi: rethinking Maqams and Symphony (part II, 2001 site)
Archived http://www.shahidifoundation.org:80/ziodullo2.html
Carries the Foundation's own reference list: Symphony of Maqams (Moscow 1984), Komde & Madan (Moscow 1982), E. Orlova (Moscow 1986).
src-sf-ziodullo2-2001
Ziyodullo Shahidi: Rethinking Maqams And Symphony (part 1)
Archived http://www.shahidifoundation.org:80/links/bio.htm
Local copy at media/original/pages/links/bio.htm, windows-1251.
src-sf-bio-2004
Ziyodullo Shahidi: Rethinking Maqams And Symphony (part 2)
Archived http://www.shahidifoundation.org:80/links/bio2.htm
Carries the Foundation's own datings: Buzruk 1972, Komde and Madan 1996, Gulomon 1978.
src-sf-bio2-2004
Ziyodullo Shahidi: Rethinking Maqams And Symphony (part 3)
Archived http://www.shahidifoundation.org:80/links/bio3.htm
Describes the four sections of the Symphony of Maqams and the Ushshoqi Samarkand leitmotif.
src-sf-bio3-2004
Newspapers, encyclopedias and journals
Contacts — Republican Museum of Musical Culture named after Ziyodullo Shahidi
The museum's own published telephone number and email, which is what the visit page gives instead of a street address.
src-zshahidimuseum-contact
Dr Munira Shahidi — GCRF COMPASS
https://research.kent.ac.uk/gcrf-compass/person/dr-munira-shahidi/
Names her National Team Leader for Tajikistan and describes the UNESCO-funded 'Music of the Silk Road' project. Page confirmed live and about her by fetching it, August 2026.
src-kent-compass-msh
Farangis Nurulla-Khoja — biography
https://farangis-nurulla.com/biography/
Her own site, and the right authority for anything about her own work.
src-farangis-site
The Impact of the Emergence of Eurasian Art Communities in the Globalizing World
http://www.davidpublisher.com/Public/uploads/Contribute/5716fec9b7d60.pdf
doi:10.17265/2328-2134/2016.03.005. Written in the first person: it is her own account of her career, of the museum's founding, and of her family of composers. Not to be confused with the other David Publishing PDF in the research files, which is a different article about the composer.
src-davidpublisher-2016-msh
Munira Shahidi — biography
https://www.inst.at/trans/bio/shahidi-munira/
src-inst-bio-msh
Opera Komde and Madan by Ziyodullo Shahidi opens new season at Tajik Opera and Ballet Theatre
src-asiaplus-2006-komde
Tajik Book on Cultural Ties Gains International Recognition, but Remains Overlooked at Home
Published 15 September 2025. Title, byline and date confirmed by fetching the page, August 2026.
src-timesca-2025
Ziyodullo Shahidi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziyodullo_Shahidi
Substantially derived from the Foundation's own archived biography, so it is not independent of sf-bio-2004.
src-wikipedia-en-shahidi
Ziyodullo Shahidi — album 1013915177
https://classical.music.apple.com/gb/album/1013915177
A pointer for listeners, on the same terms as the Spotify entry: not an authority on attribution.
src-applemusic-zsh
Ziyodullo Shahidi — artist page
https://open.spotify.com/artist/62627a8IU7e3T2z7F7acrz
Cited as a pointer to where his music can be heard in full, not as an authority on anything. Streaming catalogues confuse him with his son Tolib-khon regularly, so nothing about attribution is taken from here.
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Биография Зиёдулло Шахиди
https://zshahidimuseum.com/biografija-ziyodullo-shahidi/
src-zshahidimuseum-bio
Визит в прошлое
https://asiaplus.news/2018/04/26/vizit-v-proshloe
UNVERIFIED CONTENT. The URL and date come from the family's own research files, which cite this article twice: once for the museum's founding in 1987, and once for the statement that the house was taken down in the rebuilding of the capital and the collection moved to a building on the grounds of the Academy of Sciences. Asia-Plus returns 403 to automated fetching and the Internet Archive was unavailable when this was written, so nobody on this rebuild has read the article itself. It is kept, and marked, because it is the reason this site publishes no street address: if it is right, an address would send people to a building that is gone. Someone should open it in a browser and either confirm it or strike it. Note also that the research file places the demolished house on проспект Рудаки while the museum's address is elsewhere given as ул. Лоик Шерали 108 — a discrepancy this record does not resolve.
src-asiaplus-2018-museum
Зиядулло Шахиди
https://www.belcanto.ru/shahidi_ziyodullo.html
Reproduces the Music Encyclopedia article and Orlova's 1990 portrait. Where the two disagree, both datings are carried here as separate claims.
src-belcanto-shahidi
ШАХИДИ — энциклопедия «Музыка»
https://www.musenc.ru/html/q/qahidi.html
src-musenc-shahidi
Зиёдулло Шахиди: биография, деятельность, награды
https://dume.tj/zijodullo-shahidi-biografija-dejatelnost-nagrady/
Published in connection with his inclusion in the platform's list of the country's hundred outstanding figures.
src-dume-zsh
Зиёдулло Шаҳидӣ
https://tg.wikipedia.org/wiki/Зиёдулло_Шаҳидӣ
Dates the Komde va Madan staging 1961, Ghulomon 1979, and the museum's founding 1996 — each against the Russian-language sources.
src-wikipedia-tg-shahidi
Зиядулло Шахиди — фильмография композитора
https://www.kino-teatr.ru/kino/composer/sov/265577/bio/
Records five credits in five projects; the individual titles are not listed there.
src-kino-teatr-ru-shahidi
Музыка Зиёдулло Шахиди на Великом шёлковом пути
https://sv.zarnews.uz/post/x5u
Published 2 July 2026, thirteen days before Munira Shahidi died on 15 July 2026 — her last published interview, given at a book presentation at the Sadriddin Ayni house-museum in Samarkand. Local copy: docs/primary-sources/2026-07-02-zarnews-munira-shahidi-interview.pdf. The weightiest source in this collection: the composer's daughter, chair of his Foundation, speaking on the record. It is still testimony given forty-one years after his death, so it is recorded as claims like everything else, not as settled truth.
src-zarnews-2026
М. Шахиди: «Отец посвятил себя тому, чтобы посредством своей музыки вытащить людей из традиционной скорлупы»
The interviewer puts it to Munira Shahidi that her grandfather Muqaddaskhon was repressed and shot; she does not contradict the wording.
src-khovar-2013-munira
Мунира Шахиди: «Моя книга была представлена в Кембридже и Берлине, но не в Таджикистане!»
13 September 2025, on «Диалог культур — Восток и Запад в XXI веке». Her second-to-last published interview; the zarnews one of 2 July 2026 is the last.
src-asiaplus-2025-interview
Мунира Шаҳидӣ
https://tg.wikipedia.org/wiki/Мунира_Шаҳидӣ
src-wikipedia-tg-munira
Мунира Шаҳидӣ даргузашт
https://sputnik.tj/20260715/munira-shahidi-darguzasht-1079004245.html
Tajik-language report of her death, 15 July 2026.
src-sputnik-2026-obit
«Комде и Мадан» — первая опера таджикского композитора Зиёдулло Шахиди
https://kmt.tj/ru/russkij-komde-i-madan-pervaya-opera-tadzhikskogo-kompozitora-ziyodullo-shahidi/
States the opera was finished in 1959 and premiered in 1960, names Abdusalom Dehoti for the libretto, and credits Sadriddin Ayni with suggesting the subject.
src-kmt-tj-komde-2024
Пять таджикских композиторов, музыку которых знают не только в Таджикистане
src-asiaplus-2020-composers
Республиканский музей музыкальной культуры имени Зиёдулло Шахиди — каталог
https://elint.kunstkamera.ru/catalog/respublikanskij_muzej_muzykalnoj_kultury_ziedullo_shahidi/
src-kunstkamera-museum-catalog
Зиёдулло Шахиди — основоположник отечественной музыки
https://pressa.tj/ziyodullo-shahidi-osnovopolozhnik-otechestvennoj-muzyki
Written for the 40th anniversary of his death; carries recollections by his wife Marhabo Shahidi and daughter Munira Shahidi.
src-pressa-tj-2025
Таҷлили 110-солагии Зиёдулло Шаҳидӣ
https://konservatoriya.tj/tj/khabar/tachlili-110-solagii-ziyodullo-shakhidi
The 110th-anniversary concert, May 2024.
src-konservatoriya-110-2024
Тот станет всем (1975)
Credits both Ziyodullo and Tolib-khon Shahidi; directed by Tahir Sabirov.
src-ruskino-tot-stanet-vsem
Умерла востоковед и искусствовед Мунира Шахиди
https://asiaplus.news/2026/07/15/umerla-vostokoved-i-iskusstvoved-munira-shahidi/
Published on the day of her death, 15 July 2026.
src-asiaplus-2026-obit
Ҷамъбасти мубоҳиса доир ба масъалаҳои инкишофи мусиқии тоҷик (ҷавоб ба З. Шаҳидӣ)
6 May 1957. The published reply to Shahidi in the polemic over the professional standing of Tajik traditional music, in which he had at that point declined to recognise the Shashmaqom. He changed his position later, and the Symphony of Maqams is the result. No digitised copy has been located: the citation is known through Tajik Wikipedia, which quotes the title and date. It is a print newspaper of the Tajik SSR and would be held by the National Library of Tajikistan.
src-tojikistoni-soveti-1957
Шахиди Зиедулло — справка
https://centrasia.org/person2.php?st=1309938965
Contains at least two demonstrable errors elsewhere in the same entry (it calls him a deputy of the USSR Supreme Soviet, and names his wife as Munira, who was his daughter). Used only for the account of his father's arrest.
src-centrasia-shahidi
Шахиди, Зиядулло Мукадасович
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Шахиди,_Зиядулло_Мукадасович
Its works list contains a truncated entry, «Ситораи», with no completion.
src-wikipedia-ru-shahidi
Шахиди, Мунира Зиядуллаевна
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Шахиди,_Мунира_Зиядуллаевна
Gives 1987 for her part in creating the museum and 1992 for the Foundation.
src-wikipedia-ru-munira
Books
Зиядулло Шахиди
The principal Russian book on the composer. Cited by the Foundation's own 2001 reference list; not consulted directly for this catalogue.
src-orlova-1986
Зиядулло Шахиди — Творческие портреты композиторов
https://www.belcanto.ru/shahidi_ziyodullo.html
Dates Buzruk 1976 where the Music Encyclopedia dates it 1972. Full text reproduced on belcanto.ru.
src-orlova-1990
Шахиди З. М. — Музыкальная энциклопедия
https://www.musenc.ru/html/q/qahidi.html
Published across 1973-1982. Lists four symphonic suites (1954, 1956, 1961, 1975).
src-muzenc-tadzhikova
Scores
Комде ва Мадан (score)
Parts were issued in Moscow through the 1960s and 1970s; the score was published complete in 1982. Listed in the Foundation's own 2001 reference list.
src-score-komde-1982
Симфония макомов (score)
Listed in the Foundation's own 2001 reference list as 'Ziodullo Shahidi. Symphony of Maqams. Moscow, 1984'.
src-score-symphony-maqams-1984
Liner notes
Ziyadullo Shakhidi — Sitorai Man
Cover reads 'Sitorai Man / SONGS and ROMANCES / MAQOMS' SYMPHONY - Opera KOMDE va MADAN'. CD 1 holds 22 songs and romances, CD 2 three orchestral and operatic tracks. No label, catalogue number or year was recovered.
src-cd-sitorai-man
Ziyodullo Shahidi — Rethinking Maqam and Symphony
Only the cover image and the Foundation's news page survive; no sleeve text, no catalogue number, no release year was recovered. Three tracks, performed by the Bolshoi Symphony Orchestra and the Tajik Symphony Orchestra.
src-cd-rmas-magra
Datasets and records
GCRF COMPASS: Comprehensive Capacity-Building in Eastern Neighbourhood and Central Asia (ES/P010849/1)
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FP010849%2F1
The funding record behind the COMPASS claim, cited so that the project is verifiable from the funder rather than from the participants' own descriptions of it.
src-ukri-gtr-compass
Wayback recovery manifest for shahidifoundation.org (2001–2007)
data/wayback-manifest.json in this repository: every recovered file with the Wayback timestamp and original URL it was fetched from, plus the CDX SHA-1 digest that was checked against the bytes. It is cited where a page states what was recovered — 71 pages, 43 images, 28 audio clips — because that is a claim about our own work and it should carry its evidence like any other. Regenerate with scripts/wayback-index.mjs; verify the files with media/original/CHECKSUMS.txt.
src-wayback-manifest
