Khudaibergan Divanov
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Khudoybergan Divanov, the first Uzbek photographer and cameraman, was born in 1878 in Khiva. Thanks to the German photographer Wilhelm Penner, along with other compatriots, who moved from the Volga region to the Khorezm oasis, in his young years he showed a great interest in photography and became his favorite student. Soon, Khudoibergan himself began to photograph his comrades with a camera donated by his teacher, Khiva streets and wonderful ancient monuments.
Thus, the first national photographer in Central Asia was born, who later became the ancestor of Uzbek photography and the first national cameraman.
In 1907, Kh. Divanov returned from his trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg with a gramophone, a new camera and a movie camera and opened the first film and photo laboratory in Central Asia in Khiva. Having mastered a new field for himself - camera work, he began to photograph folk festivals, famous people and the outgoing nature. Filmed by H. Divanov films "Shurkul", "Wheel", "Dagish trouble", "Potter", "Khiva Bazaar", "Karakum Desert", "First Tractor" and many others. others became the first examples of Uzbek documentary cinema.
Interested in the work of H. Divanov, the Moscow newsreel, later called "Soviet Union", attracted him, the cameraman Uzgoskino, a film correspondent and constantly asked him to shoot new and new stories for the newsreel. The services of H. Divanov were used by the editors of numerous newspapers and magazines that were published at that time not only in Uzbekistan.
Along with the work of a photographer and cinematographer, Kh. Divanov carried out a lot of state work as the Minister of Finance of the Khorezm People's Republic. And in the last years of his life, he opened a photo club at the Khiva school and taught young children the art of photography.
On November 30, 1937, Kh. Divanov was arrested and convicted "as an enemy of the people." A year later, on October 4, 1938, he was shot.
The creative heritage of the outstanding photographer and cinematographer is scattered all over the world. His photographs and film plots are currently not only in Tashkent and Khiva, but also in the cinema-photo-phono archives of Moscow, Paris, Berlin, London.