کارزار نمایاندن نظامی به عنوان شاعر ملی آذربایجان

In brief, Azerbaijan was in great need of its own history, and in 1940-1941 the Department of History of Azerbaijan was established and a course in the history of Azerbaijan was introduced to the curriculum of the Historical Faculty of the ASU (Ibragimov, Tokarzhevsky 1964: 27). By that time, both aforementioned Iranian and Armenian factors had been conducive to rapid Azerbaijanization of historical heroes and historical political formations in the territory of Azerbaijan, hi particular, in 1938 the 800-year anniversary of Nizami was celebrated, and he was declared a great Azeri poet (Istoriia 1939: 88-91). In fact, he was a Persian poet and that was no wonder, since the Persians accounted for the entire urban population in those days (Diakonov 1995: 731). This was recognized in all the encyclopedias published in Russia before the 1930s, and only in 1939 did the Big Soviet Encyclopedia called Nizami a "great Azeri poet" for the first time (Cf. Brokgauz, Efron 1897: 58; Granai 1917: 195; BSE 1939: 94). In the 1940s the Safavi Dynasty became Azerbaijani rather than Turkic, let alone Iranian (Altstadt 1992: 159; Astourian 1994: 53).

The Azerbaijani delegate insisted that the Persian poet Nizami was actually a classic of Azerbaijani literature because he was a „Turk from Gandzha“, and that Mirza Fath Ali Akundov was not a gentry writer, as some proletarian critics has charged but…

It was up to the central power to solve these kinds of contradiction by arbitrary decisions. This makes clear that Soviet nationalism was embedded into the political structure of what used to be called ‘Democratic Centralism’. The territorial principle was extended to all aspects of national histories, not only in space but also in time: ‘Urartu was the oldest manifestation of a state not only on Armenian soil but throughout the whole Union (and, therefore, implicitly the earliest forerunner of the Soviet state)’, ‘Nezami from Ganja is an Azerbaijani Poet’, and so on.

The attempt to ‘annex’an important part of Persian literature and to transform it into ‘Azerbaidzhani literature’can be best exemplified by the way in which the memory of the great Persian poet Nizami (1141—1203) is exploited in the Soviet Union. The Soviet regime does not pay tribute to Nizami as a great representative of world literature, but is mainly interested in him as a ‘poet of the Soviet Union’, which he is considered to be because he was born in Gandzha in the territory of the present Azerbaidzhani Soviet Republic. The Soviet regime proclaims its ownership over Nizami also by ‘interpreting’his works in accordance with the general pattern of Soviet ideology. Thus the leading Soviet journal Bolshevik stressed that Nizami’s ‘great merit’consisted in having undermined Islam by ‘opposing the theological teaching of the unchangeable character of the world’. // Stalin himself intervened in the dispute over Nizami and gave an authoritative verdict on the matter. In a talk with the Ukrainian writer, Mikola Bazhan, Stalin referred to Nizami as ‘the great poet of our brotherly Azerbaidzhani people’who must not be surrendered to Iranian literature, despite having written most of his poems in Persian.

«The partisans of classical oriental studies were also made to take refuge in the hoary past. In some disciplines — ancient and medieval history, for instance — they had to completely give up studying the inherent features of a civilisation and concentrate all efforts on its formation. For those specialising in cultural creation studies, it was impossible. But this did not prevent the introduction of such limitations into the blueprint for research.

So in studying oriental literature, scholars looked above all for indications of the transformation apparently experienced by the peoples of the East within the socialist context. And as analysis of literary works did not yield sufficiently convincing proof, recourse was made to fortuitous facts of history like the birth place or residence of an author. With their help even cultural figures who wrote only in Arabic or Persian were claimed by the future Soviet republics.

This gave the impression that the greatest and best part of the pre-Soviet heritage of peoples once part of the same civilisation but recently divided by the magic line of the Soviet borders was created within the future USSR. And this was not the result of a national awakening among the Azerbaijanis, Uzbeks or Tajiks, but of an initiative by the ideological authorities. In fact, by forcing scholars to search the past for signs of a unique mission predesignated by history not only for Russia, but for the entire empire, they attributed a significant part of the Russians' Messianism to their oriental 'younger brothers'.⁴

From the 1960s to the 1980s, the paths of Soviet oriental studies and the Soviet East diverged even more. A new research school appeared — 'Third World studies'. Many scholars began to examine the political situation as well as the processes of social modernisation and economic growth in the developing nations of the East.

4. Here are primary arguments from L. I. Klimovich’s afterword to the Russian translation of Nizami’s Iskander Namah: 'The flight of thought characteristic here of Nizami no doubt reflects the people’s aspirations. … Nizami appears before us … as a thinker of genius who had given a glimpse of mankind’s bright future life in the dark medieval night. . .. Speaking of Nizami, Comrade Stalin pointed out that the language of his works (Persian — S.P.) by no means served as a reason for linking him with the literature of Iran.' [Nizami, Iskander Name (Iskander Namah), Moscow, Izdatelstvo Khudozhestvennoi Literatury, 1953, pp. 756-57.] On the whole, the following pattern was suggested: Nizami wrote in Farsi, but had been born and lived in the territory of the future Azerbaijan SSR. He reflected the aspirations of the people of Azerbaijan. He foresaw a brilliant future for the USSR. Because he predicted this not as a stranger, but as an Azerbaijani, he was doubly great. So the Azerbaijanis should be considered 'chosen' builders of socialism because they had a presentiment of a bright future and gave the world a progressive poet-prophet.''»

This book provides a full survey of the distortions – dictated by nationalistic purposes – which have been pervading the field of the studies on the Persian poet Nezami of Ganje since the Soviet campaign for Nezami’s 800th birthday anniversary. The authors discuss, with critical accuracy, the arguments put forward by Soviet scholars, and more recently by scholars from the Republic of Azerbaijan, which term Nezami as an “Azerbaijani poet” and his work as pertaining to an alleged “Azerbaijani literature;” and show the historic unsoundness of such theses.

Nezami Ganjavi is one of the most famous Iranian poets of the classical period. He was born to native Iranian parents in the city of Ganja, which is now located in Azerbaijan Republic. At Nezami's time, Iranian ethnic elements and Persian culture and language were dominant in Ganja as noted by primary sources. Nezami is famous for his five monumental books of narrative poems collectively known as Panj-ganj or "Five Treasures", all considered Persian masterpieces. He also wrote a number of Persian lyric poems. // The above information about the poet is very basic, universally acknowledged, and found in countless literary and encyclopaedic publications over the past several centuries and has thus never been a point of contention. That is until recently. A number of politicians and activists in the newly established Azerbaijan Republic have attempted to deny Nezami's Iranian nationality and even his native language. Amazingly, the Iranian authorities seem to not have even noticed this distortion of history. // However, Siavash Lornejad and Ali Doostzadeh, in their book entitled On the Modern Politicization of the Persian Poet Nezami Ganjavi, have noticed the vulgarity of the claim and have traced it back to the ideologically-inspired writings on Nezami Ganjavi done by some scholars of the Soviet era.