Dr. Hamid Notghi
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| Dr. Hamid Notghi |
Our enemies have long tried to erase even the smallest trace that reflects our identity. When that wasn’t possible, they attempted to ignore and make us forget clear evidence by means of interpretation, relying on the weakest of sources. Among them were those who betrayed us knowingly and deliberately, as well as many who, without realizing it, went along with the dominant atmosphere of the time.
The primary target of these enemies and their allies was, of course, our language. Had they succeeded in denying the language, our literature and its history would have disappeared on their own.
As we said, the main target was our language. They attacked it from several angles. First, they took advantage of the sincere and longstanding relationship that Azerbaijani intellectuals had with the Persian language and culture. Relying on this relationship, they attempted to create a sense of coldness or detachment toward the mother tongue.
When education and instruction in the mother tongue become impossible, and the language is confined only to daily and superficial interactions, words are forgotten, its treasure is depleted, and the language becomes impoverished. Eventually, it becomes a burden for the intellectual. Unaware of what's happening, they fall for the lies of this hidden propaganda.
Plagued by an inferiority complex, they begin to deny themselves and their language. Instead of giving their children the beautiful names that were once traditional, they choose Persian or European names that an Azerbaijani Turk cannot even pronounce properly. They do not speak to their children in their mother tongue, and in the end, they become someone "caught between two mosques without a prayer" — someone who belongs to neither, who is identity-less and characterless. As Ferdowsi put it:
«نه تورک و نه دھقان نه تازی بود / سخنھا بکردار بازی بود»
"Not Turkish, not peasant, not Arab / His words are mere entertainment."
To identify this betrayal, one must go as far as to recognize the treachery of equating Iranian identity with Persian-ness. In fact, Iranian identity is the shared and honorable characteristic of all the peoples living in this country. An Azerbaijani, with their unique language, culture, and other features, is not one step behind any Persian in terms of Iranian identity. We have proven this not with words, but with our blood, with countless heroes and martyrs — no need to look far — we have proven it thousands of times with our Sattar Khans and Khiabanis.
Anyway, under these circumstances, monopolizing Iranian identity as something exclusive to Persians, and attempting to dissolve other peoples into Persian-ness — in other words, a policy of assimilation — has continued to this day. Putting aside the social, military, economic, and geopolitical plans of this policy, we will try to examine the issue from the perspective of language, literature, and culture.
To this day, the peoples of Iran have not had a proper history written about them. What has been forcibly fed into our minds as “history” consists of propaganda in service of Aryan chauvinism. In this so-called "history," it is not the masses of people who take the stage, but rather a parade of monarchs. Even in this official portrait gallery, non-Persian faces are often depicted in the ugliest way.
The distortions do not stop there. Non-Persian peoples are labeled as “enemies” or “savages,” and those who lived in tents are mocked and belittled. Their negative traits are exaggerated under a magnifying glass, while their positive qualities are quietly passed over.
When it comes to great scholars, poets, spiritual guides — in short, positive figures — a different approach is taken. Even if a poet clearly states in ten places in his poetry that he is from Tabriz, and even if he wrote Turkish ghazals alongside his Persian ones, they still insist on calling him “Saib Isfahani” rather than “Saib Tabrizi,” always finding some excuse. Just as they changed the musical mode Bayat Turk into Bayat Isfahan, they try to relocate Nizami from Ganja to Qom based on flimsy pretexts.
In pursuit of this agenda, they consider anything to be fair game. We want to illustrate this with a small example: In the foreword of the divan of “Qatran,” published in Baku in 1967, Prof. Dr. Begleri presented striking examples of this issue.
Let’s read the following lines carefully:
“Although Qatran was from Tabriz, the heart of Azerbaijan, it seems that ‘Rezazadeh Shafagh,’ like some authors who call him ‘Jili,’ ‘Gili,’ or ‘Deylemi,’ intended to separate him from Azerbaijan. However, neither Shafagh’s mistaken views nor any doubt can diminish the fact that the poet is from Tabriz.”
“Just as some called him ‘Jili’ or ‘Gili,’ we believe this mistake stemmed from the fact that from Hamadan north to the Caucasus boundary, the Persians called this region ‘Kuhestan’ (Mountainous). After the Arab invasion, the Arabs called it ‘Jabal’ (Mountainous). The people living in this area were called ‘Jabali’ (mountain dwellers). We think that in Qatran’s selected works, which have come down to us as an ancient document, the poet Anvari Abivard [(1126–1189)] wrote it as ‘Al-Jabali al-Azerbaijani’ and not ‘Al-Jili al-Azerbaijani,’ and later some clerks, out of ignorance, wrote ‘Jili’ instead of ‘Jabali.’ Our careful researchers, disregarding the great word ‘Azerbaijani’ and ignoring all existing evidence and the poets’ divans, have considered Qatran too much for Tabriz. Who said ‘a sword cannot cut its own sheath’? That is a lie. These ‘snakes’ have been trained specifically to ‘bend into their own nests.’”
In the mentioned book, the same scholar and researcher wrote about Qatran’s mother tongue and Nasir Khusraw’s famous note, which we want to draw the reader’s attention to:
“When Nasir Khusraw Alavi (1004-1088) traveled westward in 438 AH (1046-1047 CE), he met Qatran in Tabriz. Nasir Khusraw wrote about this meeting: ‘I saw a poet named Qatran in Tabriz who wrote good poetry, but did not know Persian well. He came to me, brought the divans of Manjigh and Daqiq, and read them. He asked the meanings of difficult words; I told him and wrote down explanations. He read his own poems to me…’ From this brief but important note by Nasir Khusraw Alavi, the poet’s name and his poor knowledge of the Persian language emerge clearly!”
Some bourgeois scholars have tried to explain this by saying Qatran only knew the “Azeri” dialect of Persian well, and did not know the “Dari” dialect, which was the dominant literary and spoken language in Khorasan at the time. However, this is not true.
Because Qatran himself, in one of his poems, pointed out that he wrote poetry in the “Dari” dialect of Persian and for the first time opened the way and door for other poets to write in this language:
"He envied me for writing poetry in the Dari dialect,
I composed Dari poetry where other poets did not."
It is clear from this couplet that Qatran considered himself the first and pioneering poet in Azerbaijan to write poetry in the “Dari” dialect of the Persian language. However, since Persian was not his mother tongue, Qatran, like other Azerbaijanis, had a good command of the literature created in that language, but his spoken Persian was weak. This is why Nasir Khusraw Alavi wrote the above-mentioned note about him.
Regarding Qatran’s asking Nasir Khusraw the meanings of some difficult words, it should be noted that at the time Nasir Khusraw came to Tabriz, Qatran was compiling his famous explanatory Persian dictionary called “Al-Tafasil.” His asking Nasir Khusraw about some words was apparently related to the preparation of this book. We do not include here the later evidence the professor presented about Qatran’s language being Turkish.
It seems that the foundation of the policy of cultural destruction imposed upon us was built on such interpretations, explanations, and lies. Another “literary figure” who did not know our language had also been eager to consider the “Dede Korkut” epic as too much for us to claim. After depriving us of Qatran, Nizami, Saib, Dede Korkut (and, due to prohibitions, Fuzuli, Khatai, Nasimi…), after putting the masses to sleep with this kind of talk, the final attack on our language began. This time, the so-called "authority" went so far as to label Azerbaijani grammar a “montage,” thereby deepening our sense of humiliation by implying that even for our own language, we need a “guardian” who doesn’t understand it. After these crude fabrications came labels like “borrowed language” or “a legacy from the Mongols.” These ignorant and disgusting lies were repeated in an atmosphere poisoned by people like “Dr. Mohseni” and “Mostowfi,” under conditions of intense exploitation and outright imperialist chains. Speaking one’s mother tongue in schools was banned. Even our preachers and elegy reciters were forced to address the public in a language the people did not understand.
Now that we have the chance to break these heavy chains from our feet — let’s take a look: where do we stand?
The lies that were put forward — the propaganda and slander campaigns that lasted for years — still haven’t been properly addressed. Our efforts to read and write in our own language are limited. There are no greeting cards in our mother tongue for holidays. We have no press. Not even a daily newspaper is published. Still, no one has come forward to debunk the nonsense and myths like “Genghis brought it” or “The Mongols took it away.” Still, very few of us write to each other in our own language.
We have not yet recovered from the blows we suffered during this two-generation-long dark period.
Even today, there are still many who believe the lie that our language is a “souvenir from foreigners.” A small example is enough to completely uproot this slander and myth:
In 1958, the “oldest and most complete divan” of the great poet Fuzuli was published in Baku. This was a photo-print edition of a manuscript completed in the year 980 AH (1572 CE). Professor Hamid Arasli wrote a foreword for this book and listed all the lithographic editions of Fuzuli’s Divan. From page 3 of this foreword, we take the following record exactly as it appears:
“The following editions of Fuzuli’s Divan exist:
Tabriz – lithographic – 1244 (1828), Tabriz 1266 (1849), Tabriz 1270 (1854), Tabriz 1274 (1857).
Fuzuli's Divan – Bulaq Press – Cairo – 1254 (1838), Bulaq Press – 1256 (1840).
Istanbul – lithographic – 1268 (1851), Istanbul 1268 (1852), Istanbul – printing press – 1284 (1868),
Istanbul 1286 (1870), Istanbul 1288 (1872), Istanbul 1291 (1875), Istanbul 1296 (1879),
Istanbul 1308 (1915), Istanbul 1924, Istanbul 1948, Istanbul 1950.
Khiva 1300 (1882). Tashkent 1311 (1893), Tashkent 1312 (1894), Tashkent 1325 (1908),
Tashkent 1334 (1913), Tashkent 1915.
Baku 1944, Baku 1958.”
This record sheds light on a striking point: By the year 1958, Fuzuli’s Divan had been published no fewer than 33 times. The first edition was printed in 1828. And did you notice where? In Tabriz! Later, it was published in Bulaq (Cairo) in 1838, in Istanbul in 1851, and in Tashkent in 1893. But in Baku, not until 1944.
Before its first publication in Istanbul, this book was printed three times in Tabriz! This means that our ancestors had such a deep love for their own literature and language that the great Fuzuli’s divan was printed in Tabriz first—long before it was printed in Turkey, the Caucasus, or other countries. And not just once, but six times in 29 years! So it’s clear that these "words" were not put into our mouths by Turks from Turkey or by people from the Caucasus. It shows that our love for Fuzuli, and through him for our language and literature, was proven long before either the Turks of Turkey or those on the other side. This love boiled within us, blossomed in our lands, and bore its first fruits here.
It was only after the era of great crimes and betrayals that alienation took root, that foreign melodies were forced into our mouths, that the devil stole our spirit, and that the enemy targeted our identity. As you can see, the wave of consecutive publications of Fuzuli’s divan stopped in 1856! In other words, we were pushed from the role of writers and publishers into the role of mere readers. And later on, in the hell of chauvinism we lived through, we even forgot how to read in our own language.
Now, at this historic moment, we must stop and reflect: what must we do to return to our former healthy state, to have the right to write and create in our own language like any human being, and to exercise this right? Of course, many things: first and foremost, to know ourselves and free ourselves from this accursed feeling of humiliation imposed on us. We must take pride in our identity, language, and literature, but we cannot reach this goal without truly understanding our past.
1- foreign
2- Professor Gholamhossein Bigdeli, Qatran-e Tabrizi-ye Irani, p. 16
3- See also: Zabihollah Safa, History of Iranian Literature, Tehran, 1336 [1957], p. 442; Seyyed Ahmad Kasravi, Qatran as an Azerbaijani Poet, “Armaghan” journal, Tehran, 1310 [1931], No. 12
4- Professor Gholamhossein Bigdeli, Qatran-e Tabrizi-ye Irani, pp. 4-5.
پروفئسور حمید نطقی: نه ائتمک؟
Original Turkish Article:
https://www.achiq.info/yazi%204/nitqi%20ne%20etmek.pdf
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Keywords: Azerbaijani Identity, Turkish Identity, Language Suppression, Cultural Assimilation, Persian Chauvinism, Historical Revisionism, Mother Tongue Rights, Azerbaijani Literature, Turkish Literature