Sayat`-Nova: Within the Near Eastern bardic tradition and posthumous
[Thesis]
Xi Yang
Cowe, Peter S.
University of California, Los Angeles
2016
320
Committee members: Beken, Munir; Cowe, S. Peter; Ingenito, Dominico
Place of publication: United States, Ann Arbor; ISBN=978-1-339-39999-7
Ph.D.
Near Eastern Languages and Cultures
University of California, Los Angeles
2016
AšuI/aşik/aşiq (from the Arabic 'āshiq, or lover) is a skilled bard's composite performing art-- a unity of prose narrations, songs, instrumental accompaniment, and appropriate gesture. Of sixteenth-century Turkic origin, the art spread over a vast area covering modern Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, and further. In the mid-eighteenth century Sayat`-Nova, the best-known Armenian ašuI, was active in Tiflis (modern Tbilisi), the capital of Eastern Georgia. His songs were written in at least three languages--Armenian, Georgian and Azerbaijani--and won praise for their ardent emotion and artistic perfection. But despite his importance in Near Eastern culture, two issues in Sayat'-Nova studies have rarely been studied. First, fully appreciating Sayat'-Nova requires contextualizing his work within the developing Armenian ašuI tradition and the international ašuI/aşik/aşiq tradition in the Near East. Second, the history of Sayat'-Nova studies as a field and its growing popularity in relation to twentieth-century Armenian nationalism and Soviet cultural policies demands attention as well.