what is Uzbek literature?
Arguably, the central figure of Uzbek letters is not a writer of any kind, but a bakhshi, the performer of the country's many epic poems. The oldest of them, as it is usually admitted, date back to the 10th century, and are not a strictly local tradition, but one shared among all peoples of Central Asia. One of that oldest stock is the epic cycle Ker-ogly, a larger whole composed by poems on various episodes, such as the love of Ravshan-Hon or various heroic adventures.
The epic poems, that might be associated with the Turkic element of the country's complex cultural history, represent just one of various strands of tradition. Another one would be Islamic moral poetry, such as, just to give an example, Khibat al-Khakaik, or Hibat ul-haqoyiq ("The Gift of Truths") by Ahmad Yougnaki (or, as other people spell it, Yükneki), a 12th/13th-c. poet and scientist from Samarkand. Quite in contrast, secular literature, without excessive focus on religion, is associated with the Timurids. The most celebrated Timurid figure is Alisher Navoi (Ali-Shir Nava'i, or Herawi, 1441-1501), a stateman and mystic poet of the Chagatai language, that he believed to be superior to Persian (the Chagatai is an extinct literary language, a sort of Turkic Latin, metaphorically speaking). He even wrote Muhakamat al-Lughatayn ("Judgement of Two Languages") to prove it. Be that as it may, Nava'i is considered the founder of Turkic literary tradition; he also occupies his due place in World Literature with a collection of ghazals translated into English. What is more, his tazkira (anthology) of some 450 poets of his time was translated into Persian and Russian.
Unsurprisingly, the history of the region sometimes called the Mesopotamia of Central Asia intertwines peoples, languages, traditions, as well as strands of reflection and early knowledge production. Just an example of that early research is the dictionary of Turkic dialects compiled by Mahmud al-Kashgari.
And this is my today's approach to the Uzbek. There is more to learn, but I'm not patient enough. I put the pelicans in the header, because I believe they live - or used to live - on the shores of the Aral Sea.
The epic poems, that might be associated with the Turkic element of the country's complex cultural history, represent just one of various strands of tradition. Another one would be Islamic moral poetry, such as, just to give an example, Khibat al-Khakaik, or Hibat ul-haqoyiq ("The Gift of Truths") by Ahmad Yougnaki (or, as other people spell it, Yükneki), a 12th/13th-c. poet and scientist from Samarkand. Quite in contrast, secular literature, without excessive focus on religion, is associated with the Timurids. The most celebrated Timurid figure is Alisher Navoi (Ali-Shir Nava'i, or Herawi, 1441-1501), a stateman and mystic poet of the Chagatai language, that he believed to be superior to Persian (the Chagatai is an extinct literary language, a sort of Turkic Latin, metaphorically speaking). He even wrote Muhakamat al-Lughatayn ("Judgement of Two Languages") to prove it. Be that as it may, Nava'i is considered the founder of Turkic literary tradition; he also occupies his due place in World Literature with a collection of ghazals translated into English. What is more, his tazkira (anthology) of some 450 poets of his time was translated into Persian and Russian.
Unsurprisingly, the history of the region sometimes called the Mesopotamia of Central Asia intertwines peoples, languages, traditions, as well as strands of reflection and early knowledge production. Just an example of that early research is the dictionary of Turkic dialects compiled by Mahmud al-Kashgari.
And this is my today's approach to the Uzbek. There is more to learn, but I'm not patient enough. I put the pelicans in the header, because I believe they live - or used to live - on the shores of the Aral Sea.
I have read... nothing ...
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I have written... nothing ...
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On a rainy day in Leiden, or the Shaibanids
Today we had a lecture given by a Cambridge professor, Charles Melville, on some Shaibanid manuscripts from Biruni Institute in Tashkent. The Shaibanids, as I have just learned, were a dynasty ruling the Transoxania after the Timurids. We are somewhere in the beginning of the 16th century.
I must confess the exact extend, chronology and succession of several branches issued from the great nomadic conquest is still a conundrum for me. I should take a spare notebook, draw a neat diagram of all the movements and connections, and spend several travels or waiting periods in its exclusive company. I suppose I am not an exception; movable nomadic frontiers are universally rebel to the Western mind, just as those of the Fulani world in Africa; on my page dedicated to them, I quoted Gayatri Spivak lamenting on comparative literature's ignorance of their migrating identities. Certainly, the slave trade brought them closer to the United States, and that's why this unexpected, even if episodic, visibility. Till the present day, as far as I know, there has been no public intellectual's voice claiming for better knowledge and understanding of Central Asia. I could be shameless and impenitent of my ignorance. But in fact, the Uzbek world is connected to mine. It forms roughly the greater Perso-Islamic universe, that I actually do not ignore at all. At least, not impenitently. It means something to me when I am told that these books are roughly modelled after Firdausi's Shahnameh (my personal orthography differs from the norm currently adopted in English texts, which is a testimony of a long intimacy, dating back, in fact, to those remote Polish public libraries that possessed a translation of this book, under the title of Księga królewska, made by Władysław Dulęba and published in 1981 as a part of the prestigious, hard cover Bibliotheca Mundi, that was emblematic of the opening toward the world that Poland lived at the end of the communist era). And it means something to me when I am shown a rather clumsy, unsophisticated miniature representing Nasir ad-Din Tusi in his observatory in Maragha. Somehow, the Central Asian history of science penetrates my mind easier and quicker than does proper Uzbek literature. Nonetheless, here it is. Neither very attractive nor striking - that was at least how the Cambridge professor presented it - but with some jolly pictures in it. "Jolly" is what he's called them. Certainly, those Uzbek miniatures have very much the look of a provincial school, far from the mind-boggling excellence of properly Persian or Ottoman ones. They seem rough, derived, lacking technical skill, striking by featureless surfaces where more inventive mind would have placed a profusion of picturesque details. But here they are. The first one is Tarikh-i-Abu'l-Khair Khani, by Mas'ud ibn Uthman Kuhistani. By the sheer amount of Google results, I deduce that manuscript is not as unimportant as it might seem. A universal history narrating the lives of prophets and rulers up to Genghis Khan, Timur and his successors and finally the Shaibanids. Illustrated with miniatures representing people conversing on carpets stretched in the middle of flowery meadows, hunting scenes, battles. The other one is Fathnameh, by Mulla Muhammad Shadi, much harder to google up. A poem on heroic deeds of the ruler, culminating in the siege and capture of Samarkand in 1501. Leiden, 7.05.2019 |
