Abstract
DYNASTY OF TAZKIRA WRITERS
The term “Azerbaijanian tazkira writing” means tazkiras of Azerbaijanian authors in Turkish and Persian languages. Like the Ottoman tazkira writing, Azerbaijan tazkira writing also has been formed and developed under the influence of Herat tazkiras since the 16-th century. Azerbaijan tazkira writing, which crossed the way of rich development, remained outside from the systematic and theoretical studies. From 46 tazkiras, which were written by Azerbaijanian authors, only 8 tazkiras were published in Azerbaijanian Turkish language.
When we systematized Azerbaijanian tazkiras in writing epoch and place, we found that Azerbaijanian authors had completed 4 tazkiras in XVI century, 2 tazkiras in XVII century, 5 tazkiras in XVIII century, 22 tazkiras in XIX century, 12 tazkiras in XX century and 1 tazkira in XXI century. They wrote these tazkiras in different geographical regions, such as Ardabil, Tabriz, Isfahan, Shamakhi, Lankaran, Shusha, Kutahya, Haydarabad, Mecca, Baku etc.
Azerbaijanian tazkiras are from points of views of linguistic peculiarities and the preparation methods and contents are original. If we estimate these tazkiras from linguistic point of view, we may classify them into 5 groups: a) tazkiras with prose and poetry parts written in Turkish; b) tazkiras with prose parts written in Turkish and poetry examples in Turkish and Persian; c) tazkiras which have both prose and poetry parts written in 2 languages (Turkish and Persian); d) tazkiras with prose parts in Persian, but poetry examples in 2 languages (Turkish and Persian); e) tazkiras with both prose and poetry parts written in Persian.
According to geographical coverage, Azerbaijan tazkiras may be classified into 3 types: generally Eastern, generally Azerbaijanian and local tazkiras. According to time, Azerbaijanian tazkiras consisted of limited and unlimited works.
Azerbaijanian tazkira writers introduced poets based on their social status, alphabetical system of pan-names, geographical regions and chronological principle. Also, a few of our tazkira writers completed their works according to genres of literary examples. We also found unsystematic tazkiras in our literature.
Authors of some Azerbaijanian tazkiras were Princes. So, a number of tazkiras were completed by Qajar Princes, sons and grand-sons of Fath Ali Shah. Qajars are from Azerbaijanian Turks by origin and for nearly 130 years they ruled in Iran as “Shahs”. As the result of our research we can say that in other Turkish people we did not find a rich tradition of tazkira-writing written by a huge number of writers originated from a dynasty. Nine (9) Qajar Princes (Mahmud Mirza, Sayfuddawla, Sultan Muhammad Taghi, Bahman Mirza, Hulagu Mirza, Khudaverdi Khan, Muhammad Baghir Khan, Haydarkulu Mirza, Muhammadkulu Mirza and Ali Riza Mirza) wrote 11 tazkiras in Persian and therefore enriched the history of tazkira-writing. In this current article we present information on their tazkiras in chronological order.
Keywords
tazkira, Gajars, Azerbaijanian Turks, Persian, XIX century.