N. Sh. Khisamov

East-West Synthesis in Tatar Poetry of the Beginning of the 20^th Century

50^th Annual Meeting of the PIAC, Kazan 2007

At the beginning of the 20^th century the way of life of the Tatar society was rap­idly changing, becoming more European. Above all, it affected culture and mainly literature. Poetry had always been the most sensitive and responsive kind of litera­ture. Through the centuries it had developed in the course of the Muslim Oriental po­etic traditions. At the end of the 19^th – beginning of the 20^th century it continued to belong to the eastern poetic culture. Poets wrote verses on the basis of the traditional genre forms of eastern poetry.

But at the beginning of the 20^th century a mighty stream of images, motifs and forms of a different type of culture invaded Tatar poetry. A process of thorough reno­vation began to take place in Tatar poetic culture. For Tatar poets Russian and west European poetry became a beneficial school of renovation of poetic thinking. In the works of the Tatar leading poets, such as Tukay, Derdemend, Sagit Rameyev, there appeared motifs, forms, metres, rhythms, notions and ideas unknown to the tradi­tional practice of the Tatar artistic thought. It manifested itself, above all, in the social acuteness of the world perception, in the philosophical liberty of the lyrical hero, the example of it is the free translation of Lermontov’s “Prophet” performed by Tukay. The Tatar poet enriched its contents by some features from the history of Muslim prophets. For instance, from the life of Mohammed, he deepened the conflict colli­sion of the ignorant mob and the prophet bringing the light of truth. There is a princi­pal novelty for the poetry of Muslim East in this phenomenon: the lyrical hero him­self embodies the image of the prophet and speaks from his own self. It would have been impossible in the conditions of eastern Muslim orthodox. The Tatar poet created here the spirit of European freedom of thought.

In the translations of Dermedend and Sagit Rameyev a renovation of stanza po­etic form took place. It exercised a great influence on their own creative work. The translations of Schiller performed by S. Rameyev brought into the Tatar poetry the character of a proud hero-individualist. The palette of the Tatar poetry became mani­fold and rich. The East-West synthesis became a factor of the rapid development of the Tatar poetry at the beginning of the 20^th century.