what is Azerbaijani literature?
The literature of Azerbaijan is on the brink of the Persicate and the Turkic world. At least the Azerbaijani language is a Turkic one, yet its southern variety is equally spoken in Iran; the contemporary borders of the country don't correspond to the historical and cultural area. On the other hand, Azerbaijani is also spoken in Dagestan, part of today's Russia. No wonder the tongue also has several orthographies: it may be written in Latin script, Arabic, or Cyrillic (used in former Soviet Azerbaijan).
The history of Azerbaijani literature may be connected with the general rise of the Turkic peoples after their conquest of Anatolia. Several figures of important poets rose between the 14th and 17th centuries. Another period of significant development was under Russian rule, in the 19th century, yet later on, just like in many other areas of the Caucasus, the Stalinist terror put an end to the local intelligentsia. It is thus a sort of discontinuous history, bound together by the survival of people and their sense of identity. This is why, in the most general outline, there are two lines of literary tradition: the oral/folk one and the high or courtly one, derived mainly from the Safavid culture. The oral culture was almost exclusively Turkic in its origin, free from Arabo-Persicate influence. Its most typical form of expression was sung poetry written in quatrains (dördmisralı), contrary to the Arabo-Persicate tradition of couplets (beyt) as a written form of expression, independent from music. The content of the oral tradition is derived from the Central Asian roots, especially those of the Oghuz Turks. The epic of Dede Korkut, as well as that of Köroğlu ("son of the blind man"), are among the outstanding examples.
The courtly tradition, represented by such poets as the 13th-c. Dehhanî, connected to the court of the sultan Ala ad-Din Kay Qubadh, was under the influence of Persian language and aesthetics. This tendency became even more accentuated after the advent of the Safavid empire in the 16th century. This is when Azerbaijani poetry adopted Persicate meters and such forms as gazal and mesnavi, forming a current of so called "divani literature", as opposed to the ancient, oral one.
The history of Azerbaijani literature may be connected with the general rise of the Turkic peoples after their conquest of Anatolia. Several figures of important poets rose between the 14th and 17th centuries. Another period of significant development was under Russian rule, in the 19th century, yet later on, just like in many other areas of the Caucasus, the Stalinist terror put an end to the local intelligentsia. It is thus a sort of discontinuous history, bound together by the survival of people and their sense of identity. This is why, in the most general outline, there are two lines of literary tradition: the oral/folk one and the high or courtly one, derived mainly from the Safavid culture. The oral culture was almost exclusively Turkic in its origin, free from Arabo-Persicate influence. Its most typical form of expression was sung poetry written in quatrains (dördmisralı), contrary to the Arabo-Persicate tradition of couplets (beyt) as a written form of expression, independent from music. The content of the oral tradition is derived from the Central Asian roots, especially those of the Oghuz Turks. The epic of Dede Korkut, as well as that of Köroğlu ("son of the blind man"), are among the outstanding examples.
The courtly tradition, represented by such poets as the 13th-c. Dehhanî, connected to the court of the sultan Ala ad-Din Kay Qubadh, was under the influence of Persian language and aesthetics. This tendency became even more accentuated after the advent of the Safavid empire in the 16th century. This is when Azerbaijani poetry adopted Persicate meters and such forms as gazal and mesnavi, forming a current of so called "divani literature", as opposed to the ancient, oral one.
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