Ministry of Education of the Republic of Azerbaijan Baku International Multiculturalism Centre Azerbaijani Multiculturalism Textbook for Higher Education
Multiculturalism in Azerbaijani Art and Culture
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The musical culture of Azerbaijan is rich in the traditions of multiculturalism. We can see their diversity in the heritage of traditional oral music and in the work of composers. Heydar Aliyev, National Leader of the Azerbaijani People, said: ‘The richness of a country depends on the number of nations and ethnicities living there.’ The traditions of the musical culture of the different nations in Azerbaijan combine to create the vitality of Azerbaijani music, confirming again the country’s tolerance and multiculturalism. In its broadest sense, the musical folklore of Azerbaijan embraces the music of the Azerbaijanis and of the ethnicities and national groups living there. The close contact between the ethnicities and minority groups and the Azerbaijanis and their influence on one another is there for all to see in Azerbaijani musical culture. Of course, the study of the musical folklore of these separate peoples and comparisons in terms of ethno-musicology are a major subject. While the musical folklore of the minorities and ethnic groups has been studied to a certain extent, the study of their relations in the context of the musical culture of Azerbaijan is also important. Since ancient times musical folklore has passed from generation to generation, reflecting the world outlook, desires, way of life, rites and ceremonies of a nation. There are features in genre and subject that are common to the musical folklore of all nations. Lullabies are the oldest genre of musical folklore, while circle dances, work songs and other songs and dances connected with family and the seasons are also common to many peoples. Despite that, the musical folklore of each nation is unique and not repeated. The process of work, daily life, rites and ceremonies, songs and dances created to mark historical events are varied and reflect the peculiarities of the musical language and thinking of each nation. All this is reflected in the musical folklore of the Azerbaijanis, as well as in the musical folklore of the peoples and ethnic groups living in Azerbaijan. The representatives of many peoples settled in different regions of Azerbaijan down the centuries. They mixed and mingled with the
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Azerbaijanis, the dominant nation. They profess Islam, Christianity, Judaism and other religions and represent different language families. Among them are the Meskhetian Turks (Turkic branch of the Altay family), the Tats, Talysh, Mountain Jews, Kurds (Indo- European), Udis, Lezghis, Avars, Sakhurs, Ingiloy, the people of Budug, Qriz and Khinaliq (Caucasian languages) and the Russians, Molokans, Ukrainians (all Slav).
All these nations and groups have retained their religion, language and cultural values and observe their customs, traditions and rites and pass them on to future generations. They also profit from the musical folklore of the Azerbaijanis, and take part in the religious and national holidays celebrated in the territory of Azerbaijan. The oldest holiday, Novruz (the spring holiday celebrated on 19-21 March), is celebrated on an official level. The UN cultural organization UNESCO has included Novruz on its list of intangible cultural heritage. The celebration of this holiday by all the nations and ethnicities living in Azerbaijan is a conspicuous display of the traditions of multiculturalism. Another sign of multiculturalism in musical folklore is the performance of the dances of the Caucasian peoples in Azerbaijan. Musicologist Bayram Huseynli has written that the dance music of the Caucasian peoples occupies a special place in the dance music of Azerbaijan. The most widespread is the Lezghinka, which is also known as the Lezghi-engi or Lezghi dance. Its name reveals the nation to which it belongs. It is a masculine dance melody, one that conveys bravery, pride and speed. It is very much loved and danced with enthusiasm by the people of many nations. The repertoires of all performers include the folklore music of different peoples and ethnic groups living in Azerbaijan. This music is played at wedding parties, festivals and concerts. Through playing these traditional instruments the musicians make them familiar to their audiences. The folk musicians play mostly the tar, saz, kamancha, balaban, ney, zourna, tambourine, dutar, tanbur, qarmon and accordion. Professional musicians and music groups keep musical folklore alive. Cultural centres and song and dance groups in the districts and villages populated mostly by the ethnic minorities help to preserve musical and ceremonial culture;. these include, for example, the Suvar Lezghi Song and Dance Company (in Baku), the Tugan Tel Tatar Cultural Centre (in Baku), the Khinayakhdi Tat Song and Dance Company (in the village of Daghbiliji, Shabran District) and the Avasor Talysh Song and Dance Company (in the village of Kalakos, Astara District). These song and dance companies give a variety of concerts and perform at national ceremonies and international festivals, where they present programmes to demonstrate ancient customs and traditions, songs and dances. The traditions of multiculturalism manifest themselves to good effect not only in the oral traditional music of Azerbaijan, but also in in the work of composers. From this point of view it is worth looking at the work of Uzeyir Hajibayli, a prominent composer of Azerbaijan. Uzeyir Hajibayli’s work could be described in its entirety as an example of multiculturalism. Hajibayli was the founder of the operatic genre not only in Azerbaijan, but also in the whole Orient. Various traces of the traditions of multiculturalism can be seen in his operas Leyli and Majnun (1908), Sheikh Sanan (1909), Rustam and Sohrab (1910), Shah Abbas and Khurshidbanu (1912), Asli and Karam (1912), Harun and Leyla (1915) and Koroghlu (1937). He composed his first opera on the basis of the narrative poem Leyli and Majnun by the prominent Azerbaijani poet of the 16th century, Mahammad Fuzuli. The opera interprets the ancient
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Arabian legend in the national musical spirit; i.e. though it speaks about the life of the Arab tribes, to the audience the heroes of the poem are Azerbaijanis because of the music of Uzeyir Hajibayli.
Hajibayli’s opera Rustam and Sohrab is similar. This opera is based on the motifs of Persian 10th century poet Firdowsi’s Shahnameh or Book of the Kings. In this mugham opera the composer conveys the inner world of the heroes through national music. The operas Sheikh Sanan and Asli and Karam are striking for different reasons. They tell the tragic love stories of heroes from different religions and nations. Sheikh Sanan tells the tragic love story of an Arab sheikh and a young Georgian girl, while Asli and Karam recounts the fate of an Azerbaijani prince and a young Armenian girl. Both are impressive operas, but they had different fates. Sheikh Sanan was performed only once and was deemed a failure, so the composer burned the manuscript. Asli and Karam, however, won over its audience and is still performed on the stage of the Opera and Ballet Theatre in Baku. The opera’s plot is centred on the love story between the Azerbaijani Karam and the Armenian Asli. The Armenian girl’s father, the Black Priest (Qara Keshish) obstructs the young couple’s love and they perish in a fire. The Azerbaijani public were deeply moved by the tragic end to the opera. This was Uzeyir Hajibayli’s protest at the tragic events, religious and national conflict taking place in society and at the hatred and hostility among nations. It should be noted that this issue remains relevant and the opera still moves its audiences. In the opera Koroghlu Hajibayli depicted the popular folk hero of the same name, who was known among the Caucasian nations for helping ordinary people and saving them from their oppressors. In the third act of the opera, which takes place at Chanlibel, the misty mountain top where the hero and his company reside, the author portrays Koroghlu as a saviour not only of the Azerbaijani people, but also of other nations. He describes people who come from distant regions to join Koroghlu in search of justice and who are welcomed with great enthusiasm. Here again the traces of multiculturalism are visible. This shows that the Azerbaijani people try to live in peace with other nations and to help them, and this is honoured in the national and spiritual heritage of the Azerbaijani people. In his operas Uzeyir Hajibayli made use of the classical poetry and folk epics of Azerbaijan, which also manifest the traditions of multiculturalism. Through his music the composer honours these traditions; one may speak here of the deep impact of music on the feelings of the nation. The traditions of multiculturalism can be found in other areas of Uzeyir Hajibayli’s work, too. For example, his first musical comedy Er va Arvad (Husband and Wife, 1910), which laid the foundations of this genre in Azerbaijan, features characters from different nations. The libretto concerns family relations and was written by the composer too. The comedy’s score includes dance music and clearly reveals the inner world of the characters, allowing the creation of vivid, lively scenes. The comedy is enriched by the inclusion of music and dances of various nations in the final wedding party scene, where Lezghi, Russian and Georgian folk music and dances are performed. The comedy is indicative of the everyday musical style popular at the time. Uzeyir Hajibayli’s serves as a kind of mirror on events taking place in Azerbaijani society. From this point of view, his musical comedy O olmasin, bu olsun (If Not that One, Then This One, 1911) is a good example. The characters – Mashadi Ibad, Rustam bay, Sarvar, Gulnaz and Sanam all have individual musical features and describe the environment of Baku. The characters of the comedy
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speak in different languages, dialects and accents reflecting the impact of other nations. For instance, journalist Rza bay speaks Turkish, the intellectual Hasan bay speaks French and Russian, while the Iranian porter and nationalist Hasanqulu bay has a distinctive way of speaking. Through these characters Uzeyir Hajibayli showed the interaction of different languages and cultures in the multi-ethnic environment of Baku and at the same time mocked the extreme features of such influences. The composer distinguishes these characters through the chorus, which intrudes into the course of events, rather than individually.
Uzeyir Hajibayli’s musical comedy Arshin Mal Alan (The cloth peddler, 1913) is deeply loved for its content, packed with national features. It was the first of Hajibayli’s comedies to achieve international renown and bring Azerbaijani music to a new audience. It has been translated into Turkish, Russian, Georgian, English, Persian, Chinese, Polish and Bulgarian and has been performed in New York, Paris, London, Beijing, Warsaw, Cairo, Ankara, Sofia and other cities. A feature film Arshin Mal Alan was shot in 1945, based on the operetta, and reached an even wider international audience. Prominent Azerbaijani actor and singer Rashid Behbudov and actress Leyla Badalbayli took the main roles. It was dubbed into several foreign languages and shown in 130 countries to considerable acclaim. The musical comedy is based on the love story of a young couple, Askar and Gulchohra, and has become Azerbaijani music’s representative on the world musical stage, promoting peace and unity among the nations for over 100 years. Two choreographic works of Uzeyir Hajibayli, Azerbaijan and Dagestan, should also be mentioned. In them the composer uses the musical heritage of different nations. They were composed in 1919, but unfortunately, were not performed. According to researchers, Azerbaijan was composed in the spirit of Tarakama dance music, and Dagestan in the spirit of Lezginka dance music, both of which were very popular in Azerbaijan at that time. Uzeyir Hajibayli’s work, therefore, reflected the traditions of multiculturalism from different angles and put different aspects of multiculturalism at the forefront of national musical heritage. Various aspects of multiculturalism can be found in the work of composers of the Azerbaijani school, who benefitted from Uzeyir Hajibayli’s legacy. From this point of view, Azerbaijani composer Qara Qarayev is especially worthy of note. He was the first Azerbaijani composer to make use of the literature and musical heritage of the peoples of the world. He was inspired by the poets of Azerbaijan – Nizami, Samad Vurghun, Rasul Rza – and by the work of classic writers, including Shakespeare, Cervantes, Pushkin, Omar Khayyam, Lermontov and Lope de Vega, and 20th century poets including Nazim Hikmet, Langston Hughes, Vsevolod Vishnevsky, Peter Abrahams, Edmond Rostand and Henri Barbusse. Qara Qarayev filtered the music of different nations, from Africa to Vietnam, and presented it to his audiences in a new way. The Azerbaijani composer took musical traditions from very different cultures of the world and united them in the musical culture of Azerbaijan, giving it a universal importance. At the root of this work lies artists’ desire for freedom. For example, millions of people of different nationalities understood the struggle against apartheid and desire for liberation of South African writer Peter Abrahams through the melody of The Path of Thunder, a ballet composed by Qara Qarayev. Qarayev’s symphonic sketches Don Quixote, based on Spanish author Cervantes’ novel of the 1600s, talks of freedom through the ideals of chivalry. The main characteristic of Qarayev’s work is the importance of freedom for everyone, irrespective of religion and language. He calls on people
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to understand and live in unity, which is a shining example of tolerance and multiculturalism.
Qarayev absorbed these universal ideas from Nizami and reflects them in his work based on Nizami’s narrative poems: the ballet Seven Beauties, the symphonic poem Leyli and Majnun, and the Autumn chorus. In the ballet Seven Beauties (1952) Qarayev gave his own interpretation to the poet’s ideas. Nizami presented the tales of seven beauties or princesses – from Byzantium, China, Khorezm, the Maghreb, India, the Slav lands and Iran. Qarayev uses seven planets and seven colours to represent the seven beauties. The national identity of the seven beauties is distinctly expressed through the ballet’s music, while the costumes and colourful scenery of the ballet combine with the music to make a great impression on the audience. The ballet has been very successful in many countries. In recent years it was performed in San Diego, USA. Born of the genius of Nizami and Qara Qarayev, the ballet Seven Beauties urges people of different cultures towards dialogue and unity. The traditions of multiculturalism are also clearly manifest in Fikrat Amirov’s ballet The Arabian Nights. He revived the old Arabian tales in his ballet and enriched them with the Azerbaijani spirit by using a variety of means of musical expression. The composer’s symphonic works also encourage people towards tolerance and unity. Amirov praises the unity of the cultural traditions of the oriental nations in his symphonic mugham Bayati-Shiraz. Mugham is a musical art form common to the Orient and reflects the individual spirit of each nation, and at the same time, it merges music and classical poetry. In his symphonic poem Fikrat Amirov interpreted the Azerbaijani mugham composition Bayati-Shiraz through the work of the classical Oriental poets Saadi and Hafez. His symphonic composition begins with an epigraph from Saadi’s poem Gulustan (Flower Garden) and embodies the unity of music and poetry. Ballets composed by Niyazi and Arif Malikov are excellent examples of good relations among the nations. Niyazi based his ballet Chitra on the play by Rabindranath Tagore, while Malikov composed his ballets The Legend of Love on the motifs of a poem by the Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet, and A Poem of Two Hearts on the motifs of a poem by the Uzbek poet and philosopher Mirza-Abdulqadir Bedil, writing music that embodies unity and tolerance. Stories concerning the lives of different nations constitute a special part of the work of composers of all generations of the Azerbaijani school. The common feature inherent in all these works of art is praise and reverence for the most humane ideas of human culture. A new perspective on the traditions of multiculturalism and tolerance can be seen in the more recent works of Azerbaijani composers. One such perspective is the use of religious topics to cultivate ideas of tolerance and solidarity. Islamic motifs in the composers’ works are very conspicuous and varied, while Christian symbols (texts and genres) can be found there too. The work of Azar Dadashov is a good example from this point of view. Dadashov uses religious themes in his compositions for a capella choir, including Shukurlar olsun sana (Thanks be to you), to which the composer wrote the lyrics himself, the prayer Ave Maria, Ay Tanrim (Oh, My God), Hallelujah with the words of a Catholic prayer, and Who Loves God, setting to music the words of Mahammad Fuzuli. These compositions were first performed in 2002 during Pope John Paul II’s visit to Baku. (They were performed by the Azerbaijan State Choir Capella, conducted by Gulbaji Imanova with Ali Asgarov the soloist.)
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Dadashov has also composed chamber music on religious and spiritual motifs: for example, a piano novella Faza Taranasi (Song of the Heavens); a poem for cello and chamber orchestra Lutf (Mercy); a violin and piano composition Daimi ishiq (Permanent Light); and a piano piece Tanri Qurbani (Sacrifice for God).
Some Azerbaijani composers have used the words of prayers from different religions, which is a striking example of tolerance. For example, Galib Mammadov composed The Psalms of David for mezzo-soprano, bass and chamber orchestra and Psalms 52 and 39 for a capella choir. Arif Mirzayev wrote Organ Symphony in Memory of Bach and Prayers of Sorrow for violin and organ (in memory of the late President Heydar Aliyev), New York Passions for chamber orchestra, January Passions (or January Elegies, based on Islamic mourning music, devoted to the victims of 20 January 1990) for reader and soloist accompanied by violin, choir and chamber orchestra, and a range of improvisations for the organ to be played in Lutheran churches. Similar works that cultivate tolerance and a positive attitude towards different religions include Death Notices I, II and III for various instruments by Jalal Abbasov; Psalm 150 for soprano, flute, violin, organ and choir by Sardar Farajov, the poem Oath for organ and soloist by Rufat Ramazanov, the vocal and instrumental composition Mevlana (lyrics by Y. Solmaz) devoted to Jalaluddin Rumi by Aghadadash Dadashov, and Prayer of Two Women (Ave Maria) by Farhad Badalbayli. The work of Firangiz Alizada embodies the traditions of multiculturalism. Her composition Dervish, based on Nasimi’s poem, was performed to great acclaim at the international Silk Way music project by an orchestra led by internationally renowned musician Yo-Yo Ma and the unique singer Alim Qasimov. This piece combines traditional instruments the ney pipes, double drum and qanun, and the European viola, violin and cello. Alizada’s concerto Mersiyya (Islamic elegy) for cello, violin and symphony has been performed in Lisbon, while her Zikr (praise of God) using Nasimi’s words was performed in Holland by the Alas orchestra, which consists of the musical instruments of the peoples of Europe, Asia and the south Caucasus. Her cantata Gottes ist der Orient, based on Goethe’s West-East Divan, for choir, organ, harp and percussion, is remarkable. Goethe made use of the Koran and classical oriental poetry, particularly Saadi’s Divan, when he wrote this poem. Continuing the ideas of Goethe, Firangiz Alizada has turned to the ghazals of the Azerbaijani poets Nizami, Shah Ismail Khatai and Mirza Shafi Vazeh and given them her own musical expression. Another of her compositions, Mughflamenco, combines two great musical genres – Azerbaijani mugham and Spanish flamenco. The fusion is obvious not only from the title but from the content too. Alizada found common features in these two traditions, which at first sight might seem to be totally different from one another. Cultural dialogue and multiculturalism can be seen in Alizada’s recent opera Sanin adin Danizdir (Your Name is the Sea). The plot centres on the love story of a young American artist and an Azerbaijani mugham singer. The opera was performed at the Houston Grand Opera in Texas in 2011 and starred Azerbaijani mugham singers Babak Niftaliyev and Malakkhanum Ayyubova, accompanied by Mohlat Muslumov, Fakhraddin Dadashov and American opera singers, and the Houston Grand Opera symphony orchestra and soloists. The traditions of multiculturalism and tolerance are shown in a wider context at the level of a dialogue of cultures in the work of Firangiz Alizada. In conclusion, the traditions of multiculturalism can be seen in a variety of ways in traditional oral Azerbaijani music, or folklore,
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and in its written compositions. All the works rely on the talent of the composers to combine diverse cultures and to achieve cultural dialogue. They have become integral parts of Azerbaijani music, and are national and spiritual values that ensure the peaceful co-existence of peoples.
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