Epic
The Book of Dede Korkut
Kitabi-Dədə Qorqud
Anonymous · 1400
Synopsis
Twelve tales from the life of the Oghuz tribes. Salur Qazan's camp is plundered by a Georgian king while the chief is out hunting; Bamsı Beyrək, captured, remains a prisoner for sixteen years; Basat confronts Təpəgöz, the one-eyed giant born of a human father and a peri. From one tale to the next appears the old Qorqud, bard and soothsayer, who blesses, predicts and settles the tribes' disputes.
Context
The text, in Oghuz Turkish, shows, according to Barthold and Geoffrey Lewis, features peculiar to Azeri. The Dresden manuscript, probably copied in the sixteenth century from a fifteenth-century original, bears a prologue and twelve tales; the Vatican one, discovered in 1950, differs from it in language and composition, and a third, found in 2018 in northern Iran, contains only two tales and maxims. Həmid Araslı published in Baku in 1939 a complete text of it, based on Barthold's translation. A film was made from it in 1975, from a screenplay by Anar.
Who it is for
Twelve tales preceded by an introduction, readable in French in the 1998 translation and in English in the 1974 one.
Prizes and reception
In 2000, with Unesco, the country celebrated the supposed thirteenth centenary of the book, and the epic culture attached to it has been inscribed since 2018 on the intangible heritage list.