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AKRAM AYLISLI, VILLAGE PROSE, WORLD LITERATURE by PETER ALOIS ORTE A THESIS Presented to the Department of Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts June 2019 THESIS APPROVAL PAGE Student: Peter Alois Orte Title: Akram Aylisli, Village Prose, World Literature This thesis has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts degree in the Department of Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies by: Professor Katya Hokanson Chairperson Professor Jenifer Presto Member and Janet Woodruff-Borden Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded June 2019 ii © 2019 Peter Alois Orte iii THESIS ABSTRACT Peter Alois Orte Master of Arts Department of Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies June 2019 Title: Akram Aylisli, Village Prose, World Literature This thesis takes Akram Aylisli’s Farewell, Aylis as an occasion to dwell on World Literature. Tracing Aylisli’s development as a Soviet writer of Azerbaijani “village prose,” I follow the displacements of the village enacted in his recent works. These displacements reflect Aylisli’s response to the violent events associated with the end of the Soviet Union in the South Caucasus. While carrying on the traditions of “village prose” in a way, Aylisli stands against the chauvinistic forces that conscripted many of its leading figures in Russia. Aylisli’s response rather involves 1) addressing taboo histories of communal violence denied by nationalist mythologies and 2) claiming kinship with authors beyond the established national literature of Azerbaijan. In this sense, he practices a version of the idea—old, yet revolutionary—that “poetry is the universal possession of humankind.” This thesis contains previously published material. iv CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: Peter Alois Orte GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon-Eugene University of Wisconsin-Madison DEGREES AWARDED: Master of Arts, Russian, 2019, University of Oregon PhD, Comparative Literature, 2014, University of Wisconsin Masters of Arts, Comparative Literature, 2008, University of Wisconsin Bachelors of Arts, Comparative Literature, 2004, University of Wisconsin AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Russian Literature and the South Caucasus Translation and Comparative Literature PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Instructor of Record of Russian, University of Oregon, 2 years Instructor of English and Composition, ADA University, 3 years GRANTS, AWARDS, AND HONORS: Fellowship, Teacher Training, American Councils, 2019 Special Opps Award, Conference travel, University of Oregon, 2019 IREX USREP fellowship, Conference travel, IREX 2018 Global Oregon Summer Translation Award, translating Sayat-Nova, University of Oregon, 2018 v PUBLICATIONS: Orte, Peter. “Waslaw Nijinsky and the Absence of the Work,” Poljarnyi Vestnik: Norwegian Journal of Slavic Studies, 20 (2016), 80-101. Orte, Peter. “Lermontov’s Ashik-Kerib and the Lyric Hero,” Slaviс and East European Journal. (forthcoming) vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express my thanks, both manifest and secret, to Jeni Legg. I thank my parents, Phil and Daynee, from whom I hope to have inherited the ethic of healers, alas, without the skill; I express my deepest thanks to Akram Aylisli, who suffers now, and yet helped me; to Katherine Young, who translated his wonderful books and who has worked to draw attention to his plight; to my friends, Giulia Dadashova, Yalchin Muallim, and Rahiliya Geybullayeva, who first taught me Russian in Baku; to Murad Jalilov, with whom I shared the experience of Oregon; and to all my teachers, who have suffered me to learn from them: Professors Katya Hokanson, Jenifer Presto, Yelaina Aleksandrovna Kripkov, Roy Bing Chan, Julia Aleksandrovna Nemirovskaya, Heghine Hakobyan, Max Statkiewicz, Maria Irene Ramalho de Sousa Santos, and Próspero Saíz. I would also like to thank IREX, from whom I received funding to attend a conference related to this project. vii I dedicate this thesis to Akram Aylisli, who has proven dedication in deed. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. AKRAM AYLISLI, VILLAGE PROSE, WORLD LITERATURE ..................... 1 1.1 Introduction: World Literature and the Global Novel .................................... 02 1.2 Akram Aylisli .................................................................................................. 06 II. YEMEN ................................................................................................................ 10 III. STONE DREAMS ............................................................................................... 22 IV. A FANTASTICAL TRAFFIC JAM ..................................................................... 45 V. CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................... 63 VI. APPENDIX ........................................................................................................... 64 REFERENCES CITED ............................................................................................... 66 ix CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION In November 2018, Akram Aylisli’s Farewell, Aylis: A Non-Traditional Novel in Three Parts was published by Academic Studies Press’ Central Asian Literature in Translation Series. The book represents Katherine Young’s authorized English translation from Aylisli’s Russian versions of Iemen (1992), Kamennye sny (2011), and Grandioznaia probka (2011).1 Together with a Latvian translation, which appeared in a small print run in 2015, Farewell, Aylis represents the only complete, authorized publication of Aylisli’s non-traditional novel. Coming six years after the violent reaction that met the initial publication of Aylisli’s controversial Kamennye sny, or Stone Dreams, in Azerbaijan, this publication is welcomed by many who hope that it will bring attention to the issues raised by the novel and the political persecution that has been brought to bear against Aylisli in Azerbaijan.2 As this book has been very important to my own development as a scholar,3 I take its appearance in English as an occasion to revisit this 1 This is an English translations from the Russian of works originally written in Azerbaijani, two of which the author translated himself. See Katherine Young’s interview with Paulette Beete from August 2016 in Art Works Blog, where she says: “[Aylisli] himself translated Stone Dreams into Russian, and he says that his version in Russian is better than the original in Azeri,” which he was not allowed to publish in Azerbaijan.” This thesis will address the question of translation by referring to the Russian and Azerbaijani texts when possible. 2Aylisli has received support from the international community and from some within Azerbaijan. “A number of prominent Russian writers, members of Russia’s PEN CLUB such as Sergey Kaledin, Lev Anninskiy, Victor Erofeev and Boris Akunin (a.k.a. Georgi Chkhartishvili), as well as a number of Azerbaijani writers and intellectuals, including famous writer and screenwriter Rustam Ibragimbekov, also spoke out in defence of Aylisli […]” (Mamedov, “Scandal”, 48). Beyond this, an entire issue of the second volume of the journal Caucasus Survey (2014) is devoted to Aylisli. More recent articles surrounding the new translation of the novel include pieces from Calvert Journal, Euasianet, and Mamul, references to which can be found at the end of this thesis. 3 I worked at ADA University in Baku from 2012-2015, where I taught a class dealing with Aylisli’s novel. As a result of my experience there, I read a conference paper in Prague on the Day of Remembrance of the Armenian Genocide. The proceedings of the conference were published as “Proceedings of IAC-SSaH 2015: International Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities.” 1 non-traditional novel in terms of how it relates to current discourses surrounding “translation,” “national,” “world” and “minor” literatures. More explicitly, this translation of Aylisli’s work is a chance to examine the writer’s mature reflections on his vocation as he negotiates the transition from “village prose,” the mode with which his early work has been most closely associated, to the “global novel,”4 perhaps the most recent manifestation of “world literature.” 1.1 Introduction: World Literature and the Global Novel What is World Literature? asks Damrosch in his influential analysis of this central concept of the humanities, explaining that, ever since Goethe announced that “poetry is the universal possession of mankind, revealing itself everywhere and at all times in hundreds and hundreds of men […] the epoch of world literature is at hand,” the nature of world literature has been “extraordinarily elusive” (Damorosch 1). While it has typically 4 Aylisli does not identify himself with either of these movements, which he thinks are the inventions of critics (personal correspondence). Be that as it may, they are useful points of departure for discussing his work. The “global novel” will be discussed in more detail below. With regard to “village prose” According Kathleen Parthé’s The Radiant Past, “village prose” represents the most significant literary movement in the Soviet Union from the 1950s to the 1980s. Parthé calls it a “nostalgic” or “rear-guard” reaction to Soviet Realism’s orientation toward the “radiant future” and its positive portrayal