SUMMARY:

The article explores the revival of ancient epic poetry in post-Soviet nation-building. In particular, it focuses on the uses and abuses of the epic Kitabi Dede Korkud (“The Book of my Grandfather Korkud”) by leading historians, especially the authors of history textbooks, in post-Soviet Azerbaijan. Applying mythological motives, the authors of history textbooks present the confrontation between Armenia and Azerbaijan as an eternal assault of the enemy-nation against the nation-sufferer. The epic Kitabi Dede Korkud emerged during the 10th-11th centuries as part of the verbal poetic tradition of the Oguz Turks in Central Asia, from where they resettled to Anadolu and the territory of present-day Azerbaijan. It describes the enemies of the Oguz at the time – the Kipchak tribes. In later versions, the collective image of Christians came to occupy the place of the Kipchaks. And with time the “Christians” evolved into Georgians. The article presents an overview of the scholarly study of the epic by such renowned figures as Bartold, Zhirmunskiy, and Badalov, who treated it as a piece of literature and a source on the nomadic Oguz lifestyle. The text of the epic is available in a 16th-century version and is known in two manuscripts. The new Azerbaijan national history textbooks adapt the epic to the current political situation, giving preference to conflict with the Armenians. Legendary events are presented as real and are used to reconstruct the eternal “national” enemies (Armenians), friends (Turks), national values, ethnic genealogy, and territory (and to confirm the territorial pretensions of Azerbaijan). The author notes that it is difficult to say how successful the new textbooks are in circulating this ethno-centrist version of history. But one should not underestimate their impact on the formation of children’s and teenagers’ self-perceptions and group identity, in particular vis-а-vis neighboring regions.