Nizami Ganjavi - the one & only
- Maria Jagodzińska
- 3 sty 2022
- 3 minut(y) czytania
Zaktualizowano: 12 sie 2023
2021 was a year of celebration of 880th anniversary of birth of Nizami Ganjavi. Who was he, what he did that makes him a special and unique artist and why he was and still is alive in mass culture?
Source: https://apa.az/en/literature/hungary-to-erect-nizami-ganjavis-monument-403357
About Nizami`s life & creations
Nizami Ganjavi was born in 1141 in Ganja (from the name of the city comes his surname). He is a father of Persian poetry and inventor of a new style in literature. His gazels are the most famous of his poems, not only because of its beauty, but also the level of complication. Nizami is told to be an only artist who was able to put such a lot of informations and beauty into his poems.
Inside the book, source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nizami_Ganjavi_-_Alexander_the_Great_Meets_Nushabah_in_her_Palace_-_Walters_W610284A_-_miniature.jpg
He is an author of Khamseh, pentalogy of poems respectively containing The Treasury of Mysteries, Khosrow and Shirin, Layla and Majnun, Seven Beauties and Book of Alexander the Great. Translations cannot show the true craftsmanship of Nizami and that is why people are still learning Persian in order to read his pieces of literature.
His personal life is barely known, some facts are:
he was orphaned and educated well by his second family;
he was married three times;
he was half-Kurdish (mother);
his full name is Jamal ad-Din Abu Muammad Ilyas ibn-Yusuf ibn-Zakki;
he lived his entire life in Ganja;
knowledge of Greek let him study books of ancient Greek philospohers;
he has studied many disciplines and was excellent in medicine and astronomy.
Inspiration for many
To find a piece of art inspired by Nizami is not a hard task. Let me mention that both Goethe and Shakespeare were relying on Layla and Majnun while writing tragic stories of their dramatic heroes. Students in European schools are not being told about it (unfortunately) while discussing the lectures. The first translation into European language (French) has been made by a Polish orientalist who was living in Baku.
Museum of Azerbaijani Literature in Baku, source: https://eastroute.com/es/azerbaidjan/museum-of-azerbaijan-literature-nizami-ganjavi/
As for Azerbaijan, Nizami`s literature has been an inspiration for crucial cultural creations. The first opera in both Muslim and Oriental worlds composed by Uzeyir Hacibeyli, showed for the first time in 1908 is based on Layla and Majnun and has the same title. 800th anniversary of birth of Nizami has been marked by the Gara Garayev`s ballet Seven Beauties.
Scene from Seven Beauties, source: https://www.azernews.az/culture/69128.html
Nowadays, Eric Clapton`s song Layla also was inspired by Nizami`s Layla and Majnun. This song has been ranked by Rolling Stone`s on 27th place at the list of 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Quotes
Free is a man who has no desires.
He who searches for his beloved is not afraid of the world.
If the fire of the love to you wouldn’t dry them
the floods of tears for you would sweep me away
And if the water from my two eyes wouldn’t come to my aid
the fire of the grief over you would burn my heart wailing.
Inside Layla and Majnun, source: https://shopipersia.com/product/layla-and-majnun-poem-book-by-nizami-ganjavi/
In the hour of adversity be not without hope, for crystal rain falls from black clouds.
In the book of life every page has two sides: we human beings fill the upper side with our plans, hopes and wishes, but providence writes on the other side, and what it ordains is seldom our goal.
Heritage and remembrance
Azerbaijanis cultivate the memory of Nizami Ganjavi in multiple ways. As it has been mentioned above, their artists have been inspired by his literature and 2021 was called a year of Nizami Ganjavi, but this is only a part of what is being done. In Ganja, there stands a mausoleum with beuatiful sculptures on the left, which are showing a figure of Nizami surrounded by characters from his stories. In Azerbaijani (and not only) museums there can be found his manuscripts. Nizami Ganjavi International Center is an organization with headquarters in Baku. He is called to be a national poet if Azerbaijan, but is honored also in other Turkic countries, like Kazakhstan or Turkmenistan because of his influence on poetry of those countries.
Mausoleum and monuments in Ganja
Taking everything into account, it is told that there was no greater poet than Nizami, his pieces of literature are syncretic, combining all the past and future epoques (from the point of view of 12th century) and he still is an inspiration for artists known worldwide.
Sources
Comments