Western scholars are often surprised to learn from their
Russian colleagues that for Russia Islam is not external and
exotic, but rather domestic and familiar, linked by thousands
of ties with Russian history and life. Numerous examples
exist. One of them is the study in the former USSR
of the legacy of the Muslim Middle ages’ greatest poets.
Throughout the Soviet period, a firm priority existed to
study those whose birth and biography tied them to the
lands that were part of the USSR. This tendency developed
along various lines. Poems by a number of outstanding poets
of the Muslim East were translated and published, broad
efforts were made to popularize their works, and they
became part of the general cultural heritage of the USSR
and its peoples. Where I live, many still remember the commemorative
gatherings for the 800-year anniversary of
Niẓāmī and the 500-year anniversary of Nawa’ī organized
in cold, hungry, besieged Leningrad in the Hermitage at
the initiative of its director, Academician I. A. Orbeli. It
was a truly heroic feat. One of the participants wrote many
years later: “Our front honoured Niẓāmī just as Niẓāmī
honoured heroes” [1]. Though the city was barely alive, research
and translation continued in the face of all odds.
“The Blockade Diary” by the marvelous Russian Iran
scholar A. N. Boldyrev contains the following entry for
January 9. 1942: “I received in the Hermitage yesterday
100 g of fir vitamin and 654 rub[les] by agreement, more
than enough for Nawa’ī and Niẓāmī”...
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