Ministry of Education of the Republic of Azerbaijan Baku International Multiculturalism Centre Azerbaijani Multiculturalism Textbook for Higher Education
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Bright as the Sun in youth,
Perfect as Isa in childhood. In these lines Fuzuli refers to Majnun’s intelligence, hinting at parallels with Isa, who began to speak just as he was born. It is possible to see a similarity between the great humane missions of Majnun and Isa in the following couplets at the beginning of the poem. Turning his face to the suffering world, Majnun says: I came to this world to share the burden of grief. Lay on me the burden of grief, But show me how to bear it, And free the world from grief. Fuzuli’s humanistic ideas greatly influenced the work of Husein Javid, a great Azerbaijani poet and dramatist of the 20th century. For example, Arif, the hero of his tragedy Iblis (Devil), appeals to God because he cannot bear the bloodshed and strife on earth: Raise me to the heavens that I may not witness the tyranny of man. In his ghazals (a specific kind of oriental verse), the peak of his wonderful lyric poetry, Fuzuli recalls the image of Jesus the Messiah. He says that it is easy for his lyric hero to die for the sake of his beloved, because he is the Messiah of his time. According to Fuzuli, the crucified Jesus joined the Holy Father, just as the poet lover joins his beloved – Allah: It is no hardship for the lover to give his life for the beloved, It is easy for you to give your life for you are the Messiah of your time. Multicultural ideas occur in the Azerbaijani literature of the 17th and 18th centuries as well. For example, the great 18th century Azerbaijani poet Mollah Panah Vaqif devoted one of his poems to
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Tbilisi and another to a beautiful Christian girl, whom he saw as she was leaving church. While praising the Georgian girl’s beauty, Vaqif recalls the legend of Sheikh Sanan; he justifies his conversion to Christianity out of love for the Christian girl, and confirms once more that love is higher than religion. The poet writes in the last stanza of his mukhammas (an oriental form of verse) that starts with the line ‘Exuding grace, the beautiful maiden is coming out of church’:
Multicultural ideas were widespread in Azerbaijani literature in the 19th and first two decades of the 20th century. The northern regions of Azerbaijan became part of the Russian Empire and the foundations of relations between the local Muslims and Christian Russians were laid. In that period some of the Azerbaijani intelligentsia began to be educated in the Russian language, got acquainted with Russian culture and, through it, European culture. As a result, the first translations from Russian and European literature appeared in the Azerbaijani language. It is clear that such a multicultural atmosphere had a positive impact on Azerbaijani literature. Some valuable works were written on global problems. For example, Abbasqulu Agha Bakikhanov, who worked in the military administration of tsarist Russia and was promoted to the rank of colonel, described his visit to Warsaw, his impressions of what he saw there and his acquaintance with the Russian intelligentsia in a novel entitled Miratul Jamal (The Mirror of Beauty). He translated one of Krylov’s popular fables from Russian into Azerbaijani. The friendship and literary relations between Bakikhanov’s contemporary, Mirza Shafi Vazeh and German scholar Friedrich von Bodenstedt, catches the eye in terms of multiculturalism. Bodenstedt came to Tiflis (Tbilisi) in 1844 and taught French and Latin there. While in Tiflis, he studied Azerbaijani and Persian with Vazeh, describing him as the ‘Oriental Sage Mirza Shafi’. Bodenstedt’s book A Thousand and One Days in the Orient, published in Berlin in 1850, is the first valuable work to acquaint the scientific and literary public with the Caucasus, including Azerbaijan and Azerbaijani literature. Another German scholar, Adolph Bergé, published a Collection of Works by famous Caucasian and Azerbaijani Poets in 1867 in Leipzig. Both books are an important source on German-Azerbaijani and east-west literary relations and the history of multicultural values. The highly multicultural outlook of Mirza Fatali Akhundzada (1812-78) can be seen in the work of this important philosopher in the history of Azerbaijani thought and playwright, who laid the foundations of drama not only in Azerbaijan, but the whole Muslim Orient. In 1837, at the age of 25, Akhundzada wrote an elegy on the death of the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. He describes Pushkin as ‘the leader of the poets’ army’ and pays tribute to prominent figures in Russian science and literature – Lomonosov, Derzhavin and Karamzin. It is evidence of his familiarity with Russian science and literature and love of them. He expressed his respect for Western culture in the character of the French enlightener Monsieur Jordan in his comedy The Botanist Monsieur Jordan and the Celebrated Sorcerer, Dervish Mastali Shah. Ethnic Russians, Armenians and Germans also feature in his comedies and are depicted with national colour. Many ideas reflecting multicultural values can be found in the poetry of Akhundzada’s contemporary, Seyid Azim Shirvani. This great educator and poet of the Muslim Orient had an Islamic higher education in the famous religious centres of the Orient, but
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preferred the profession of teacher. He taught his pupils their mother language, the canons of Islam, the humanist ideas of the thinkers of the Orient and his own ideas and took care of their development as true citizens with a healthy spirit. The educator and poet saw that the cause of much misfortune was prejudice, ignorance, illiteracy, religious discrimination and ignorance. He emphasized education as the only solution: Yüklə 2,25 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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