Tajik poets: biographies, famous works, quotes, features of literary styles

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Tajik poets form the basis of the national literature of their country. They include all authors who write in Tajik and Persian, regardless of their citizenship, nationality and place of residence.

Rudaki

In 859, the Tajik poet Rudaki was born in the village of Panjrud. He was also a scientist who is considered the founder of Tajik literature, one of the most famous Persian poets.

His biography contains many references to the fact that Rudaki was blind from birth. At the same time, his biographer of the XII-XIII centuries, Muhammad Aufi, claimed that as a child he was so receptive that by the age of eight he knew the entire Koran by heart and began to write poetry himself.

Modern researchers question this fact, noting that there are so many colors in his poems that, most likely, if he lost his sight, it happened already in adulthood. This version is confirmed by the fact that many of the descriptions in his works are too realistic.

Anthropologist Mikhail Gerasimov, who restored his sculpture from the remains,claims that the poet's eyes were burned out already in adulthood. After analyzing the skeleton, he concluded that he was blinded with a piece of red-hot iron. Probably not before age 60.

According to the most common version of his biography, the famous Tajik poet Rudaki from his native village, located on the territory of modern Tajikistan, went to Samarkand. He entered the service of the Samanid court. However, no details of how this happened are known.

Creative legacy

At an early age, he already became famous as a musician and singer. It is reliably known that Rudaki knew the Koran and Arabic well, had a scholastic education.

According to one version, he was blinded after an uprising against the Ismailis broke out in 940. Rudaki was blinded on the advice of the vizier, who hated him, and his property was also confiscated. The ruler Amir Nasr later greatly regretted this, ordered the vizier to be executed, and Rudaki to be bestowed with generous gifts. But he refused, dying in his native village as a beggar in 941.

Researchers note that Rudaki was a prolific author. It is believed that he wrote about 130 thousand of his couplets. These are ghazal poems, rubaiyat and other genres of Persian literature, the founder of which he himself is considered. About a thousand couplets have survived to this day. The qasida called "Mother of wine" has been completely preserved. Here is an excerpt from it.

We need to torture the mother of wine first, Then imprison the child itself.

You can't take away a child as long asmother is alive -

So crush her and trample her first!

Also translated into Russian is his autobiographical qasida "Complaint of old age", several dozen rubais.

Researchers of his work note that along with laudatory verses, there are lines that affirm a call to knowledge, faith in the power of the human mind. Rudaki mainly uses simple poetic means, achieving vivid and spectacular images.

Firdousi

One of the most famous Tajik poets is well known to us under the name Firdousi. He was born in Iran in 935. Little is known about his early years, but he appears to have received an excellent education.

His youth fell on a significant period in the history of Iran, when the feudal aristocracy, after many years of Arab domination, managed to free itself from the yoke of the conquerors, taking power into their own hands.

Firdowsi himself initially served with Sultan Mahmud of Ganzevid, to whom he dedicated his most famous poem "Shahnameh". This is a famous monument of Persian literature, which describes the entire history of Iran from ancient times to the 7th century, when Islam penetrated its territory. Many researchers note the main idea of this work, which is that only heirs have the right to power. This did not please Mahmud, who recognized the right of power, not kinship.

Shahnameh

According to legend, the Sultan did not pay the Persian-Tajik poetFerdowsi for the poem. This made him so angry that he wrote a satire in which he reproached the ruler for being descended from a slave. Because of this, he had to flee the country and wander in poverty for the rest of his life. He died in his hometown of Tus in 1020.

He said goodbye to the throne with a clear look, Three heads of his sons were with him.

When Manuchihr sat on the throne, a knight came to the young king

Himself, owner of Sistan, and said:

I am entrusted with an eye over the king of power, You - to judge, I - the court to approve the right.

The hero Karan, the son of the blacksmith Kava, became another close associate of the king.

This is how the Tajik poet Firdousi talks about power in "The Tale of the Blacksmith Kava", which is included in the Shahnameh.

Events in the poem are divided into mythical and historical time.

Omar Khayyam

The name of this poet is known even to those who have not heard anything else about either Tajik or Persian literature. This is a famous poet, philosopher, astronomer and mathematician.

He was born in 1048 in the city of Nishapur in Iran. His father was a camper who paid much attention to his son's education. From the age of 8, he began to comprehend the basics of astronomy and philosophy, studied mathematics. At the age of 12 he entered the madrasah in Nishapur. After that he studied in Samarkand, Balkh and Bukhara. Deeply researched medicine, qualified as a doctor, Muslim law.

His childhood fell on the period of the Seljuk conquest of regions in Central Asia, when many people were killed, includingmost major scientists.

At the age of 16, the Tajik poet Omar Khayyam lost his parents. They died during the epidemic. Then he sells all his property and goes to the scientific and cultural center of Samarkand, recognized in the East at that time. At debates, he so impresses everyone with his scholarship that he soon becomes an influential and respected mentor.

Like many other scientists of that time, he does not stay long in one city, in Bukhara he works in a book storage. Since 1074, he has become the spiritual mentor of Sultan Melik Shah I, runs one of the world's largest observatories. He works and makes many significant discoveries until 1092, when the sultan and his vizier Nizam al-Mulka die. After that, Khayyam is accused of free-thinking and godlessness, he has to leave the capital of the Seljuks.

They say that when he felt the approach of death, he was then 83 years old, he stopped reading a book on metaphysics, made a will, said goodbye to his family, friends and students. After that, without taking any food, he prayed before going to bed and died.

Rubai Khayyam

The great Tajik poet Khayyam left a large number of famous works. At the same time, during his lifetime he was known only as a scientist, his rubies became popular much later. In them, he formulates the most intimate thoughts about a person, life, knowledge, love.

At the moment, about four thousand quatrains are attributed to his pen. At the same time, researchers believe that he could not compose some rubais, they were attributed to him by later authors, fearing accusations ofblasphemy and freethinking. It is no longer possible today to determine exactly which works Khayyam wrote. Most likely, from 300 to 500 rubles belong to his pen.

Real popularity came to Omar Khayyam when the notebook with his poems was in the hands of the English poet Edward Fitzgerald, who began to translate rubaiyat into English and Latin. At the beginning of the 20th century, as loosely put by Fitzgerald, they were among the most popular works in Victorian England. Here are just a few examples of his works translated into Russian.

Where did we come from? Where are we headed?

What is the meaning of our life? He is incomprehensible to us.

How many pure souls under the azure wheel

Burns to ashes, to dust, but where, tell me, is the smoke?

I look at the ground - and I see embraced by sleep;

I look into the depths of the earth - I see those taken by the earth;

Staring into your non-existence desert, -

Those who have already left, and I see the unconceived.

Skull-sculpting mysterious potter

Special showed a gift to this art:

On the tablecloth of life he overturned the bowl

And in her blazing passions ignited a fire.

Don't worry! Your path is drawn - yesterday, Passions are allowed to play with you - yesterday.

What do you grieve about? Without your consent

Your future days are lined up - yesterday.

Here again the day disappeared, like a light moan of the wind, From our life, friend, he fell out forever.

But as long as I'm alive, I won't worry

About the day that departed and the day thatnot born.

All over the world today, Khayyam is known as a preacher of hedonism, who denies the possibility of posthumous retribution.

Nadira

Among the famous Tajik poets and writers there are very few women, but they still exist. The poetess Nadira was born in 1792 in the ancient Uzbek city of Andijan. On this basis, she is also considered an Uzbek poetess, but many of her works are written in Persian-Tajik languages.

Becoming the wife of the ruler of the Kokand Khanate, she spent most of her life at court, often participating in poetry competitions with her husband, who died in 1822, when she was only 30 years old.

After that, her 12-year-old son ascended the throne, Nadira became his guardian. The Kokand Khanate in those days reached its peak, occupying the largest area.

In the sources of that time, information has been preserved that Nadira took an active part in the cultural and social life of the state, being an influential patron of the arts. She participated in the construction of the madrasah, helped poets and scientists. Her life and work are imbued with themes of sympathy for the oppressed people and concern for the enlightenment of one and all.

Her life ended tragically. In 1842, due to political intrigues, religious fanatics accused her of debauchery. Together with her sons, Nadira was brutally murdered.

The works of the poetess

In her works, Nadira, like many poets of her time, relied on the humanisticthe legacy of Alisher Navoi, who was considered a classic of Uzbek literature. At the same time, she wrote many poems in Tajik.

Nadira worked in different genres. These were mukhammas, gazelles, musammans, tarjibands. Her poetic sofa is considered a hymn of fidelity, love and honesty. In her works, she always urged to notice in a woman not only beauty, but also feelings, intelligence and dignity.

For you, languishing and toiling, I drag myself in the desert valley, Waving my ashes to heaven, I wind like a tornado in a wild field.

You will barely leave - my soul was overcome by the torment of passion!

Heart and soul - with you, I'm in my troubles in captivity, I entrust my heart to you, and you to God's will.

Nadira has always sung love as a symbol of humanity and the basis of morality.

Loik Sherali

The famous modern author, who wrote in the Tajik language, the Tajik poet Loik Sherali. He was born in 1941 in the village of Mazori-Sharif in the Penjikent region.

The works he read as a child, as well as his national identity, which determined his authority and personality, had a significant influence on his work.

He headed the International Tajik-Persian Language Foundation, died in 2000 at the age of 59.

Best Poems

Sherali himself titled the cycle of his best poems "Inspiration". The Tajik poet wrote poems for ordinary people, so there are no complex phrases and vague philosophical reflections in them.

Friends are everywhere, howeverHomeland in one place, Each stone of the Motherland is like a beautiful monument.

The universe is cute everywhere, but to me

Mother is one, Tajikistan is one.

Pain, impressions and feelings that are present in his poems cannot leave anyone indifferent. This is the most famous and successful Tajik poet of our time. He has been creative for over forty years, leaving behind a rich legacy.