The Akhmetzyan Tubyli’s story of Prominent Farhad and his beloved Shirin

Abstract

The article devoted to the recently found manuscript collection of Akhmetzyan Tubyli, a Tatar Sufi poet of the 19^th century, gives its academic description. It is noteworthy that this collection included the poetic work of the poet Mashkhүr va mutagarrif ulan Farһad gashyyk ilya magshuk Shirin khikayase (The Story of the prominent Farhad and his beloved Shirin).

The purpose of this study is to disclose the content of the love poem, the features of the compositional structure, images and motifs, the identification of its role and place in the literature of the East and the entire Turkic world.

In the course of the analysis, the article provides poetic excerpts from the original, its comparison with the classic versions of the love poem about Khosrov and Shirin / Farhad and Shirin reveals the original features and the author’s interpretation of this literary work. The analysis of A. Tubyli’s poetic work showed that its plot line, motifs and images are very close to the folk romantic dastans, namely, to the dastan of Turkish meddahs, because this work combines the traditions of written literature and local folklore.

Unlike pagan ideological orientations of classical poems about the love of Farhad and Shirin by eastern authors, the work of the Tatar poet is an Islamic version; it lacks the traditional motifs of drinking wine, seeing Shirin bathing in the river by Khosrov, inclining Shirin to sexual intimacy by Khosrov/Farhad, other erotic scenes. The love of Farhad and Shirin in this work is uplifting and ennobling, it gives the narrative a highly humanistic orientation.Tubyli’s work stands out for its syncretic character, variety of ideas and motifs, and it gives it a unique flavor. The ending of A. Tubyli’s work is lost; the surviving part contains 2442 versicles, so it is difficult to attribute it to a poetic novel, such as, for example, Qutb’s Khosrov and Shirin; it appears that, it is a poetic work, which, according to the statement of ideas, the wealth of images and motifs, the original author’s interpretation, is an independent literary work and deserves to occupy a prominent place in the treasury of Tatar literature of the 19^th century.

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