Epic
Гӯрғулӣ
Not translated into English
Anonymous · 1930
Synopsis
The hero is born after his mother, who died pregnant, has already been buried, hence his name, “son of the tomb”, and survives thanks to the milk of a mare until shepherds find him. Having become the sultan Gurughli, he rules over Chambul, an ideal city where his companions, almost all of them his kin, live in peace. His wives are fairies from Mount Qaf, and his son Avaz, adopted in many versions, is the foremost of his warriors. Fairies held captive by demons, winged horses and shape-changing beings fill cycles that each bard strings together in his own way.
Context
The Gurughli is the Tajik form of the Köroğlu epic, widespread among the Turkic peoples: it came by way of the Uzbeks, took on in Persian motifs from the Book of Kings and from courtly romances, and is sung in verse, whereas the Uzbek versions mix in prose. It flourished in Kulob and in neighbouring Badakhshan. Aleksandr Boldyrev and Iosif Braginsky began to record it in the early thirties, from bards such as Boboyunus Khudoydodzoda, who died in 1945 and knew by heart tens of thousands of lines; in 1987 Braginsky published a major compendium of it in Russian.
Who it is for
For readers interested in the oral epics of Central Asia and in the meeting of the Persian and Turkic traditions.
Prizes and reception
In 1969 a national competition brought together seventy singers of the cycle, and a Soviet stamp celebrated it in 1990.
Sources for this page 2
The pages consulted to check this page.