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Essays on modern Azerbaijani literature: the galaxy of Rafiq Tag - Tehran Alishanoglu

21-11-2022 [ 14:35 ] [ read:92 ]
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Rafiq Taghi (1950-2011) is a well-known figure of independence period literature, writer and publicist. He gained fame as a story and essay master and enriched modern Azerbaijani storytelling with ideas and artistic innovations.

Rafig Taghi, who has been engaged in artistic creation since his youth, chose the profession of writing along with medicine, his great talent, his writings that brought the painful problems of the day to literature, and his sharp pen made him famous in a short time. Rafig Taghi started his creativity with poetry, his first poem was published in 1968 in Masalli's "Caghirish" district newspaper. Although his first story "Fergana" was published in "Ulduz" magazine in 1977, his intense press activity and approval of the writer's pen coincided with the period of independence. During these years, Rafiq Tagi's numerous stories, essays, poems, articles, essays and portraits were published in the periodical literary press of Azerbaijan and foreign countries, causing wide public resonance and creating serious polemics.

Rafik Tagi's first book of stories called "Next to the Stars" (Baku, Yazichi, 1987) was published in the late Soviet period, during the years of independence "For the sake of my enemy" (Baku, Yazichi, 1991), "Positive. Negative" (Baku, "Shur", 1996) ), "The Young Count of Canterbury" (Baku, "Adiloglu", 2005) story books, in two volumes: "Prince Dipendra's love. My extreme poems and stories" and "Tall Lilliput. My extreme poems and stories" (Baku, "Adiloglu", 2005 ), "Stories" (Baku, "Ali and Nino", 2010) books were published. These books, printed in Cyrillic-based (the first three books) and Latin script alphabet, present to the readers 179 stories and 49 poems of Rafig Tagi as a whole. With the intention of popularizing the writer's works, after his death "Twilight Publications" published the books "Next to the Stars" (Baku, "Alatoran", 2013), "Close to the Past" ("Positive, Negative") from among the "Cyrillic to Latin" project started by Rafik Tagi during his lifetime. (Baku, "Alatoran", 2014) republished, released a collection of his last stories "Katila didactic lessons. 13 stories" (Baku, "Alatoran", 2022). Although it resonated widely in the press, Rafiq Tagi's essays were not published in book form during his lifetime. Only the four volumes (1, 2, 3, 6 volumes) of the multi-volume work prepared at the initiative of the writer's brother Ilgar Tagi are "Stories", the 4th volume "Selected essays", the 5th volume "Interviews. Articles about him" (Baku, " Law", 2021) was released.

Rafiq Tagi's role in Azerbaijani literature is mainly seen as a storyteller. Following the realist storytelling of Jalil Mammadguluzade and Abdurrahimbey Hagverdiev, and the neorealist storytelling of Anar, Elchin, and Akram Aylisli from the 60s, Rafig Taghi was lucky to create a completely new, original story type. In the years of independence, every printed story of the writer aroused great interest, story books were welcomed as an event.

In the early 1990s, in the preface to the book "For the sake of my enemy" (1991), the folk writer Elchin specifically emphasized: "The psychology of creativity is a mystery-god and consists entirely of unexpected things. However, today's truth is that Rafig's stories have an original structure, "graphic development" and especially tries to speak about the life we live and are surrounded by with the ability to observe. Here, perhaps, his doctoring is doing its job. In any case, the experience of Chekhov and Bulgakov gives rise to this idea" (Elchin, Fifteen Years Ago and Fifteen Years Later //Rafiq Taghizade, For the sake of my enemy. Baku, "Yazichi", 1991, pp. 3-6)

At the end of the last century, the conclusion of literary criticism about Rafiq Taghi is as follows: "But let's be objective, Rafiq Taghi is the last event in our story-telling in general. There is a story, a story, a plot - who knows how to write what comes to his head or mind. And there is the genre, you breathe, you create the story (!), you not only sign under it, but also put your stamp on it... - see, the century has ended with Rafig Taghi; whoever finds the opportunity to add something here is unbelievable" (T. Alishanoglu, XX The story of Rafik Tagi from the last stories of the century // "Rezonans" newspaper, February 2000).

Rafiq Taghi is a master of the short, concise story; builds the development not on a specific story or plot, but on a character, a hero, and with "graphic" lines around him, he can create a whole "social aggregate" - the image of both the person and the time he covers. From this point of view, the story of Rafik Taghi can be compared with A. Hagverdiyev's portrait-stories at the beginning. The writer's first compact books included 101 stories, including 13 ("Next to the stars"), 41 ("For the sake of my enemy"), 47 ("Positive, negative"), mostly in 2-4 page texts, dozens of characters, life characters, human individuals - has found its image, embodiment. Mehdi Beyazid, the hero of the literary scene, said that after Jafar Jabbarli, we had perhaps one Rafiq Taghi who discovered so many characters in life and brought them to literature....