Essay
Əsrimizin Səyavuşu
Not translated into English
Mammad Amin Rasulzade · 1923
Synopsis
The essay starts from the episode of Siyavush in Ferdowsi's Book of Kings: a hero half Iranian and half Turanian, whom the author reads as the reconciliation of two worlds, a partisan of peace and federalism. After a preface recounting its genesis and a summary of the legend, he traces the passage from the age of heroes to that of peoples, the history of Azerbaijan between the Turkic world and the Iranian world, and the birth of the republic of 1918, presented as the fulfilment of this project; he finally addresses the youth of the country.
Context
The text was born in Lahıc, where its author was hiding after the Soviet occupation of 1920: there he read Ferdowsi's epic and wanted to write the Siyavash of his century. He lost the first manuscript when he was arrested, spent two years in Moscow, fled through Finland, recovered the text and published it in Istanbul in 1923 in the Milli Azərbaycan series. The essay contrasts an Iran judged obscurantist with a Turkey held up as a model of modernisation, and argues that the state proclaimed in May 1918 was the fruit of a national awakening. It was reissued in 1928, in Ankara in 1989, then in Baku in 1990 in the Azerbaijani translation by Mais Alizade.
Who it is for
A short essay, written in Turkish in the Arabic alphabet and translated into modern Azerbaijani in 1990; it is better to have Ferdowsi's episode in mind.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as a text of independence; its closing formula, the flag once raised that is never lowered, is often quoted.