{"id":181285,"date":"2016-12-16T17:01:03","date_gmt":"2016-12-16T17:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.meydan.tv\/article\/the-ashes-of-a-song-smoldered-away\/"},"modified":"2021-10-29T13:41:35","modified_gmt":"2021-10-29T09:41:35","slug":"the-ashes-of-a-song-smoldered-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.meydan.tv\/en\/article\/the-ashes-of-a-song-smoldered-away\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ashes of a Song Smoldered Away"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n \n \n 25 years have passed since the death of the outstanding khananda (singer) Sakhavat Mammadov \n <\/i> \n <\/b>\n<\/p>\n
\n Autumn 1991 stood out for all citizens of the disintegrating Soviet Union.\n<\/p>\n
\n After the failed August putsch of 1991, it had already become clear to everyone that the superpower and \u2018hope of the world proletariat\u2019 was living out its final months.\n<\/p>\n
\n In the state of affairs that had taken shape, almost all the republics of what was in fact already the \n \n former \n <\/i> \n USSR declared their independence at the same time that very real war was heating up in Azerbaijan. That autumn, the Karabakh conflict, which began in the winter of 1988, transformed into the open, bloody confrontation of two republics of the former superpower \u2013 Armenia and Azerbaijan.\n<\/p>\n
\n Then, on September 22, 1991, the presidents of Russia and Kazakhstan, Boris Yeltsin and Nursultan Nazarbayev arrived in Stepanakert with a peace-building mission, and were accompanied by the president of Azerbaijan, Ayaz Mutallibov.\n<\/p>\n
\n However, even the mediating initiative of this caliber of guests didn\u2019t bring about an improvement in the situation. On the contrary, after these initiatives the bloody, apocalyptic conflict only gained strength and an ethnic war filled with frenzied hatred burned at its full strength (although \u2018internationals\u2019 made appearances on both sides), the result of which was innumerable victims and destruction on both sides.\n<\/p>\n
\n The war that was unleashed that dire autumn of 1991 continued, with varied success, until the beginning of May, 1994, when a ceasefire agreement was reached.\n<\/p>\n
\n \n An ethnic war filled with frenzied hatred burned at its full strength \n <\/i>\n<\/p>\n
\n But that autumn, in addition to the start of a bloody war, yet another unbearable tragedy took place \u2013 on September 30, 1991, Sakhavat Mammadov, the \u2018golden voice\u2019 of Azerbaijan, renowned at his 37 years of age, tragically passed away in a car crash which took place in unclear circumstances.\n<\/p>\n
\n \n Background in brief: \n <\/b> \n the khananda (a professional folk singer, who performs mugham in the countries of the Middle East) Sakhavat Amirkhan oglu Mammadov was born on October 23, 1953 in the village of Abdal – G\u00fclabli in the Agdam district. In 1971 he entered the Asaf Zeynally Music School, took lessons in mugham from the renowned khananda Hajibaba Huseynov, and continued his education in the Azerbaijan State Institute of Arts. In 1989 he formed the instrumental ensemble Karabakh. His new interpretation of mugham, unusual strength of voice and inspired gift for performance won him recognition and fame.\n<\/p>\n
\n He was often called the \u2018Karabakh Nightingale\u2019 for his unique tone of voice and magnificent performance of mugham. But the khananda\u2019s calling card became the song \u201cAzad bir qu\u015fdum\u201d (\u201cI was a free bird\u201d) from the play \u201cIn the Year 1905\u201d (\u201c \n \n 1905-ci ild\u0259 \n <\/i> \n \u201d) by the outstanding Azerbaijani playwright, poet and screenwriter Jafar Jabbarly:\n<\/p>\n
\n \n I was a free bird, \n \n From the nest I took wing, \n \n I happened into a garden \n \n In such youthful years. \n <\/i>\n<\/p>\n
\n \n I crossed paths with a hunter, \n \n Who shot me straight through the heart, \n \n And I fell to the ground \n \n In such youthful years. \n <\/i>\n<\/p>\n
\n The play \u201cIn the year 1905\u201d tells of the love of an Azerbaijani boy, Bakhshi, and an Armenian girl, Sonya, set in the Caucasus in the midst of the bloody events of 1905, and was written by Jabbarly in 1931.\n<\/p>\n
\n The tragic clash of two peoples, the colonial policies of the Russian superpower, the figures of revolutionaries and the imperial authorities, simple workers and peasants, the local elite and the national bourgeoisie, incredibly illustrative and at times unclear in their opposition to one another, served as a clear description of that hopelessly dark time.\n<\/p>\n
\n \n He was often called the \u2018Karabakh Nightingale\u2019 \n <\/i>\n<\/p>\n
\n The central characters in this play \u2013 Sonya and Bakhshi, from the renowned Karabakh village of Tu\u011f, which at that time was located in the Shushinsky Uyezd of the Elisabethpol Governorate, which was half Armenian, half Azerbaijani. All the play\u2019s narrative is told from the point of view of the narrator \u2013 Elder Bakhshi.\n<\/p>\n
\n In the first scene, during a dance by the leading heroine Sonya, the play\u2019s author tells the following via the narrator:\n<\/p>\n
\n \n \u201cElder Bakhshi: They have common melodies, common songs, common dances, a common wedding and common way of life.\u201d \n <\/i>\n<\/p>\n
\n The impetus for composing this play was provided by the writer\u2019s trip to Georgia and Armenia in summer of 1929, during the month of cultural unity of the peoples of Transcaucasia, where the author, while on a walk, saw that, \u201c \n \n in essence, these two peoples comprise one people. And if that is the case, then what was it that at one time drove these peoples to bloody clashes?\u201d \n <\/i> \n ( \n \n Outline of the History of Azerbaijani Soviet Literature \n <\/i> \n , publisher \u2013 Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1963).\n<\/p>\n
\n Clearly the tragedy of this dreadful inconsistency had such an effect on the author that he decided to bring to life heroes from both peoples in literature and describe those tragic events via an artistic lens.\n<\/p>\n\n \n Jafar Jabbarli (1899 – 1934), play – writer and poet \n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n The play\u2019s finale, despite the storms of socialist realism raging through literature and aesthetics at that time, is tragic: \n \n \u201cHaving sang the first part of the melody, Sonya fell silent, closed her eyes and ceased to move. Forever. Bakhshi bent over her. For the first and the last time he kissed her cold lips. They brought Sonya and buried her in Baku. \n <\/i> \n \n And the elder Bakhshi took in little Bakhshi. \n <\/i> \n \n \u201d \n <\/i>\n<\/p>\n
\n \n The tragedy of this dreadful inconsistency had such an effect on the author. \n <\/i>\n<\/p>\n
\n Fate was merciful to the author \u2013 in addition to his colossal artistic gift, he was also gifted with an early death. Jabbarly died at a young age in 1934, in this way \u2018evading\u2019 the \u2018big purge\u2019 at the end of the \u201830s, the label of \u2018enemy of the people\u2019 as a former M\u00fcsavatist, as well as the charms of that period: torture in the prisons of the NKVD and oblivion.\n<\/p>\n
\n Perhaps the heavens were merciful to the singer as well, and chose the best fate for him, so that he didn\u2019t see the ashes of the villages of Karabakh?…\n<\/p>\n
\n Sakhavat Mammadov was buried in Agdam, in his home village of Abdal-G\u00fclabl\u0131. At that time, in autumn of 1991, fierce fighting was already taking place there, and on May 15, 1992 the village was even almost seized by Armenian fighters, but they were then beaten back by Shirin Mirzoev\u2019s battalion.\n<\/p>\n
\n \n Perhaps the heavens were merciful to the singer as well, and chose the best fate for him?… \n <\/i>\n<\/p>\n