Images of the Samanid epoch (9th-10th centuries ad) in modern Tajikistan’s poetry

The Samanid epoch (9th-10th centuries AD) is one of the most prominent themes in modern Tajikistan’s history politics. Along with Zoroastrian culture and Aryan past, references to the Samanids form a specific memory triad. Hence modern Tajikistan appears to be a promising research field within memory studies. One of the peculiar ways memories of the Samanids are being revived today is the representation of their history in poetry. In this article, we are attempting to analyze two collections of poems: “?афт сипе?р” – “Seven Heavenly Spheres”, or “Seven Fortunes” (A. Sayfulloev, 1999) and “Эъ?ози Ра?мон” – “The Miracle of Rahmon (148 authors, 2011) and comment on some literary findings from a historian and anthropologist’s perspective. Another subject worth mentioning is the genre diversity of the poems featured in the books. Among the recurring motifs are: the image of amir Ismail Samani (reigned 892-907 AD) as an ideal ruler, the Sassanid military leader Bahram Chobin, the continuity between the Sassanid and Samanid epochs and modernity, the cities of Samarkand and Bukhara, the wall of Bukhara, symbolism of a crown, the Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda, and the ancient Iranian concept of farr. Moreover, we are going to focus on stylistical pecularities inspired by classical Persian texts.

Tajikistan, historical memory, memory studies, literature, poetry, cultural anthropology, the Samanids