Fuzuli – 530

As it is known, on the 25th of last month, President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree on the celebration of the 530th anniversary of the birth of the great Azerbaijani poet and thinker Muhammad Fuzuli. The document shows that Fuzuli is a powerful artist who occupies an exceptional place in the development of Azerbaijani artistic thought and has a strong influence on the literature of Eastern countries, and holding his anniversary will serve to properly appreciate the poet's artistic and philosophical heritage.

We present an interview with professor Tarlan Guliyev, doctor of philological sciences, head of the Department of Humanities at the Baku Music Academy named after Uzeyir Hajibeyli.

- Mr. Tarlan, as mentioned in the said order, Fuzuli's multi-faceted artistic heritage, which instills deep love for life and human beings and always calls to live with a sense of beauty and lofty ideals, is an incomparable spiritual wealth given to the treasury of the human culture of the Azerbaijani people. First, you would comment on the ordinance.

- Thanks to our President and our independent state, the people of Azerbaijan have achieved many successes in recent years. A number of decrees and orders signed by our head of state in the field of culture in these years are also from our hearts. So, his decrees about Nasimi and Nizami a few years ago are very important in terms of studying and promoting the lives and works of these poets, and introducing the moral values ​​derived from their works to the whole world.

At the beginning of 2024, the decree on Fuzuli's jubilee gives a more pleasant impression to all our people, at the same time, to our intellectuals and scientists. Because on the basis of the measures resulting from this decree, we will once again get acquainted with the work of the great poet of our nation, Muhammad Fuzuli (1494-1556), study his works, and once again introduce Fuzuli's art to the young generation and the whole world. Fuzuli has the right to it as a poet.

Muhammad Fuzuli is one of the genius poets brought up by the people of Azerbaijan, whose works should be studied and promoted constantly. It is no coincidence that the English orientalist Gibb called Fuzuli the sun of Eastern poetry. Indeed, Fuzuli occupies an exceptional place in Eastern poetry as a whole, especially in the history of the literature of the Turkic peoples, among the artists who wrote and created in the Turkish language. It is known that Muhammad Fuzuli is one of our artists who writes and creates in 3 languages. Along with his mother tongue, he also wrote beautiful works in Arabic and Persian languages, as well as in Persian, as well as in Azerbaijani. This once again shows that Azerbaijani poets, even in the Middle Ages, have high education, intellect, moral values ​​and tolerance.

- What can you say about the interpretation and understanding of Fuzuli, whom you consider to be the most beautiful singer of love and other human feelings, as a skilled connoisseur of Aruz verse, ghazal genre?

- Fuzuli is the peak of Azerbaijani poetry. So, the works written by him have been conquering hearts with their lyrical voice for more than 500 years. In other words, when you get acquainted with his works, you see that none of human feelings, moral values, and high moral qualities are left out of these works. One of the most important aspects that make Fuzuli's works popular is his high moral quality. Thus, the poet who deeply feels, knows and glorifies the inner world of man, did not allow any moral defects while writing them and thus tried to keep the moral values ​​of his works always at a high level. In fact, if we approach it with the medieval scientific thinking, the poet walking on the path of reaching the truth has risen almost to the end in the stages of sharia, sect, enlightenment, and truth.

Fuzuli is a poet who is distinguished by the artistry of his creations. The genre of ghazals, which lived for about 300 years in our literary history before Fuzuli, is almost fully formed in Fuzuli's work. With his ghazals, Fuzuli occupies an exceptional place in the history of the literature of all Turkic-speaking peoples, and at the same time proves that the ghazal genre as a genre is not far behind the Persian literature and the ghazals of Hafiz and Sadi. Fuzuli, at the same time, plays an important role in the history of Azerbaijani literature of other genres, in determining the tone of our lyric poetry. Thus, the compositions, jams, mukhammas, musaddas, rubayi, etc. belonging to his pen. The existence of genres and finally the masnavi genre, the poem "Leyli and Majnun" is proof of what we said.

With his work "Leyli and Majnun", Fuzuli left such a monument to this failed love story, an immortal subject, that despite the passing of 500 years, this monument of love still touches the hearts of those who read it. It is no coincidence that Academician Krachkovsky said: "Until the West recognized the work of "Leyli and Majnun", the greatest work on the theme of unrequited love was assumed to be "Romeo and Juliet". But after meeting "Leyli and Majnun" he found out that there is such a topic in the East as well. The poetic and philosophical quality of Fuzuli's "Leyli and Majnun" is that although Fuzuli talks about a love story in this work, he reveals the mystical content of love by touching on mystical themes in the lower layers of the poem. With this, he speaks about love and glorifies the true content and essence of love, adhering to the Eastern philosophical thought of the Middle Ages.

- Professor, you are the author of the articles "The ancient period of Azerbaijani poetry", "The history of Aruz and rhyming (VIII-XVI centuries)", as well as the role played by Nasimi and Fuzuli in Azerbaijani and Eastern poetry, including the differences between the poetry of these poets, Aruz and You are a scholar who studies mugham issues in an interesting way. You are also the scientific editor of Akram Jafar's monograph about Fuzuli "Yandim avazeyi eshginle tuen". How about Fuzuli and our mother tongue?

- Fuzuli, which is the peak of our native language poetry, is also the peak of the literary language of the 16th century Azerbaijan. The history of the Azerbaijani language is very old and rich.

But Fuzuli is such a great artist that he managed to use the potential of the Azerbaijani language and Azerbaijani Turkish to the maximum extent, and demonstrated the beauty, sugar, and possibilities of this language to the whole world, including directly to the Turkic-speaking peoples. It is the result of his talent to hear this tenderness and write it down that Fuzuli has been loved and read for 530 years. From the day Fuzuli's creativity appeared, he enchanted those around him and managed to keep them under his spell. In this sense, it is not accidental that his works are studied and researched.

- Somewhat about the history of the study of Fuzuli heritage from a modern scientific and methodological point of view...

- Actually, this is not so ancient history. Thus, the foundations of the study of Fuzuli's heritage began approximately in the 40s and 50s of the last century, and the basis of these studies were laid by two great scientists, academician Hamid Arasli and professor Mir Jalal Pashayev, who occupy a prominent place in the history of Azerbaijani literary studies of the 20th century.

Thus, Professor Mir Jalal Pashayev wrote a study on Fuzuli craftsmanship as early as 1940, and in 1958 he expanded this research once again and published it under the name "Fuzuli craftsmanship". With this, he laid the foundation of the school of poetics in the history of Azerbaijani literary studies, Azerbaijani Fuzuli studies, and encouraged the study of Fuzuli craftsmanship. Academician Hamid Arasli first prepared the scientific-critical text of Fuzuli's "Divan" in Turkish in 1944 and republished this "Divan" in 1958. Thus, on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of Fuzuli's birth, Fuzuli studies has undergone a great development from the past period to the present day. And that's it, these days, Mr. President has again issued an order regarding the 530th anniversary of Fuzuli, and has taken care of the field of studying, promoting and promoting the heritage of this great poet.

- Thank you for the interesting interview.

Ali NAJAFKHANLI
XQ