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Set in the years of the Russian
Revolution and the rise of the Soviet Union, Said’s tale of an
Azerbaijani Muslim boy in love with a Georgian Christian girl is
both tender and disturbing.
The novel,
begins as Ali Khan Shirvanshir is finishing his last year of
high school: "We were a very mixed lot, we forty schoolboys
who were having a geography lesson one hot afternoon in the
Imperial Russian Humanistic High School of Baku, Transcaucasia:
thirty Mohammedans, four Armenians, two Poles, three Sectarians,
and one Russian."
The
multi-ethnic Baku, it seems, stands at a crossroads between West
and East. As the smug Russian Professor informs his pupils, it
is their responsibility to decide "whether our town should
belong to progressive Europe or to reactionary Asia."
For Ali Khan
Shirvanshir there is no doubt—he belongs to the East. His
beloved Nino, however, is "a Christian, who eats with knife
and fork, has laughing eyes and wears filmy silk stockings"
— in short she epitomises the best of the West.
But in the far
away West, there are rumblings of war. When the Russian
Revolution begins, Ali Khan chooses not to fight. The Czar’s
fate is of little interest to a Muslim living in far away
Transcaucasia. But the young man senses that another, greater
danger is gathering on his country’s borders. It is that of an
"invisible hand" trying to force his world into new
ways — the ways of the West. He assures his worried father
that, like his ancestors, he is willing to die in battle, but at
a time of his own choosing. In the meantime, he courts Nino and
eventually marries despite the growing scandal and opposition to
the match.
This union of
East and West is a difficult one as Ali Khan finds himself lured
increasingly into more European ways. When Soviet troops invade,
however, he must choose once and for all whether to stand for
Asia or Europe.
One of the many
pleasures Ali and Nino offers is Kurban Said’s lovingly
rendered evocations of Muslim culture. Another is his
compassionate portrait of the protagonists’ difficult but
profound relationship.
Modern readers
attempting to read this classic in the wake of the fall of
Communism, outbreaks of sectarian violence, and the rise of
religious fundamentalism will find disturbing parallels.
There are
cautionary moments in this little chronicle of cultures
colliding and a way of life brutally destroyed.
But in the end,
however, it is not historical accuracy, rather the charm and
passion of the title characters that lifts Said’s only novel
into literature’s highest ranks.
Standing at the
crossroads of Asia and Europe, Baku brings together the East and
the West, Muslim and Christian, tradition and modernity — Ali
and Nino. Forces more destructive than harsh conventions are
gathering on the horizon, and when World War I breaks out, the
tranquil oasis of Baku is drawn into a series of events it
cannot predict or control. Ali decides not to join his friends
in fighting against the Germans for the Czar nor in fighting
with the Turks against the Czar. When the Red Army marches into
Baku, Ali is forced to choose between his love for his country
and his love for Nino, a choice that sets the stage for the
novel’s heroic and heartrending conclusion.
In this city
where Orient and Occident collide, they are inevitably caught up
in the events of World War I and the Russian Revolution. And
both must confront the divided world that surrounds them as well
as their own deepest needs.
With the
funamentalist backdrop of recent years and the ethnic and social
complexities that have accompanied the collapse of the Soviet
Union, "Ali and Nino" has gained an unexpected and
echoing topicality, making its remarkable story especially vivid
today.
At once an
unforgettable tale of love, adventure and personal heroism,
"Ali and Nino" has persisted in readers’ memories
just as the strange background of its author’s life has
continued to perplex all who look into it. While Ali and Nino’s
passionate love is at the centre of the book’s events, this
novel is more than just a love story.
The story takes
the readers on a fascinating and remarkably insightful journey
to Baku, Tbilisi, the Karabakh, Tehran and the mountains of
Dagestan.
The union of
Ali and Nino is not just a union of Europe and Asia, as an
outsider may rush to conclude, but a union of two of the many
distinct and yet related cultures of the Caucasus.
It gives its
reader a full picture: of love and passion, of war and
revolution, of honour and disgrace and of mountains and deserts.
There is the cosmopolitan Baku, the bustling streets of Tbilisi
and ailing Tehran; Islam, Christianity, and newly born Bahaism.
Most
strikingly, describing Ali’s thoughts, Said speaks of his love
for his land — even if that happens to be the dry land around
Baku. The attention to detail is stunning and remarkable.
Said reminds
his reader about this time and again. Nino is horrified in
Tehran, whereas Ali feels out-of-place at a party for the
British at his new Baku home and refuses to go to Paris. He
tells Nino: "I’d be just as unhappy in Paris as you were
in Persia. Let us stay in Baku where Europe and Asia meet."
Laden with
symbolism, it talks of tolerance for people, their beliefs and
their cultures. It raises questions that we raise as we attempt
to define our ever-evolving identity. It is also about the
choices we all make as we build our new countries. The events
described in this book strangely resemble our own day.
The ending is
hauntingly tragic, but one that lasts forever: Ali, dies on a
bridge in Ganja, a city in northern Azerbaijan, just as his
ancestors from the House of Shirvanshir did defending this land.
Unlike them, though, Ali dies not fighting in an army of someone
else’s empire — but in the ranks of his new country, the
first Republic of Azerbaijan.
The book ends
with a note written by Ali’s friend Iljas Begh: "Ali Khan
Shirvanshir fell at quarter past five on the bridge of Ganja
behind his machine gun... The life of our Republic has come to
an end, as has the life of Ali Khan Shirvanshir."
About Kurban
Said The life of Kurban Said is surrounded by mystery and is by
all accounts a story as exotic as "his" novel.
The authorship
of "Ali and Nino" has been the subject of speculation
and controversy. What little evidence exists is ambiguous and
partially obscured by the Nazi repression surrounding the book’s
publication in 1937.
Its mysterious
author was recently the subject of a feature in The New Yorker,
which has inspired a forthcoming biography.
Some believe
Kurban Said was the pen name of Essad Bey, which is actually the
assumed name of Lev Nussimbaum.
Still others
argue the book was written by Bey and the Baroness Elfriede
Ehrenfels.
Elfriede
Ehrenfels was born in 1894 into an illustrious Austrian family.
She published one other novel, "The Girl from the Golden
Horn," as well as articles, short stories and philosophic
works on Plato.
Lev Nussimbaum
was born in Baku in 1905, the son of a Jewish businessman. He
later converted to Islam, reinventing himself as a man of the
desert and changing his name to Essad Bey.
Its not clear
if the mystery of Said’s true identity will ever be proven.
But this amazing book truly belongs to a man named Said — a
man who truly knew about love.
And whatever Said’s
antecedents, "Ali & Nino" will live on in the
annals of literature.
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