Sayat’-Nova, an 18th-century troubadour. A Biographical and Literary Study
By (author) C.J.F. Dowsett
This book investigates the life and work, and the literary and historical background, of the most popular Armenian poet and minstrel of the early modern era, Arut’in called Sayat’-Nova (c. 1712-1795). The most important of his songs in Armenian, Tiflis Armenian, Georgian and Azeri Turkish, one in four languages (these plus Persian), are edited in a unified transliteration from the original Georgian and Armenian scripts on the texts in the Tetrak, a 1765/6 MS in at least partly his own hand, and versions made in 1823 at St. Petersburg by his youngest son Ioane, with notes on variants, loanwords, cryptica (“trobar clus”), puns, etc. Six odes in poor Russian, hitherto ignored, are examined for motive and sentiments. Chapters are devoted to versification, genres and influences (mainly Persian), an attempt being made to analyse the attraction of his verse. Comparisons are drawn with the work, and where relevant the lives of Sappho, Ovid (fellow exile), Hafiz, Bernard de Ventadorn (fellow victim of the backbiter), Shakespeare (and his Dark Lady), etc. Sayat’-Nova’s poems are mainly love-songs, others, mainly in Georgian, are complaints to his patron (eulogised as “the Emperor of China”, etc.) concerning injustices at his hand and those of Georgian courtiers who held him, and Armenian Orthodox (which he was proud to be, as he declared in Azeri) among Georgian Orthodox and Muslims, for an unwelcome upstart. His religious odes (ilahis) and his religious views, to some extent coloured by Islam, are discussed. According to tradition, he died a martyr, refusing to apostasize when challenged by the troops of Agha Mahmad Khan on the invasion of Tiflis in 1795. Sayat’-Nova considered himself a builder of bridges between the various ethnic cultures of Georgia in whose languages he sang, reflecting the statesman-like aspirations of his royal patron. The present work is one of the few to treat the poems in each language on an equal basis.
- By (author) C.J.F. Dowsett
Other Titles in this Series
Histoire de Zosime sur la vie des Bienheureux Réchabites
Les versions orientales et leurs manuscrits
Volume 664, 135
Religious Poetry in Vernacular Syriac from Northern Iraq (17th-20th Centuries). An Anthology
V.
Volume 628, 241
La versione siriaca della Vita di Giovanni il Misericordioso di Leonzio di Neapolis
V.
Volume 680, 264
An Andalusian Arabic Version of the Four Gospels
(Bayer. Staatsbibl., München, cod. arab. 238)
Volume 663, 54
The Armenian Scholia on Dionysius the Areopagite. Studies on their Literary and Philological Tradition
Volume 625, 122
The Patristic “Masora”
A Study of Patristic Collections in Syriac Handbooks from the Near East
Volume 689, 265
Mundus primus
Die Geschichte der Welt und des Menschen von Adam bis Noach im Genesiskommentar Ephräms des Syrers
Volume 641, 128
Catalogue of Coptic and Arabic Manuscripts in Dayr al-Suryan. Volume 3
Arabic Theology
Volume 694, 143
The Scala Magna of Shams al-Ri’asah Abu al-Barakat. Volume II
Apparatus of Variant Readings, Indexes
Volume 685, 56
The Syriac Versions of the Writings of Cyril of Alexandria. A Study in Translation Technique
Volume 626, 123
Catalogue of Coptic and Arabic Manuscripts in Dayr al-Suryan. Volume 1
Coptic and Arabic Biblical Texts; Coptic Language Resources, Including Biblical Lexica
Volume 677, 139
Similar Books
‘For You I Study, For You I Work, For You I Live, For You I Am Ready To Even Give My Life’
Essays in Honour of Francis (Frank) J Moloney, SDB
A Late Antique Harrowing of Hell and Its Medieval Reception
Eusebius of Alexandria's Sermons 15 and 17 (CPG 5524; 5526) and their Latin Rewritings
Volume 99
Drunk the Potion, No Whit Charmed
The Doctrine of Pure and Perfect Souls from Iamblichus to Damascius
Extracanonical Traditions and the Holy Land
Texts, Rituals, and Material Culture in Late Antique Palestine
Fear, Fear of God, God-Fearers
Philological and Historical Perspectives on the World of Ancient Judaism and Christianity
Legal Visuality
Exegesis, Ambiguity, and Dissimulation of the Donation of Constantine in the Early Modern Period
Liturgia semper reformanda
Adaptations and accommodations in the liturgy in light of canon 838 of the Code of Canon Law
Pre-Christian Religions, Rituals, and Beliefs in Central and Northern Europe
Interdisciplinary Investigations
Volume 5
Punning in Odd or Elegant Constructions in Jeremiah
The Convergence of Linguistics, Rhetoric, and Textuality in the Hebrew Text of Jeremiah
The Therapeutae as the Best Paradigm for the Contemplative Life
A Contextual Reading of Philo of Alexandria's De Vita Contemplativa