Multiculturalism and Revolutions in the Caucasus: Ali and Nino

2017 أكت وب رOctober2017 الحضارة Civilization المنفتحةOpen 24 Açık Medeniyet Ekim 2017 acikmedeniyet.com Kurban Said’s 1937 novel Ali the table. He commands Nino’s full states were formulated after WWI, and Nino tells the story of attention. His gallantry, offset by the book and more so the film a pair of lovers from Baku whose the setting, is reminiscent of War provides an insight as to what was lives are dramatically altered in and Peace. And, as in Moscow, there happening in Turkey’s northeastern the aftermath of the revolutions are revolutionaries demanding borders, and the fall out form the and new nation states arising post freedom, and capitalists – Nino’s Soviet Revolution. It also alerts us World War I. Although, from the father among them – in Baku to areas of multiculturalism that juxtaposition of names, the premise attempting to silence these critics we don’t usually talk about or see seems to be an ‘intercultural love in order to maintain the status quo, represented in media. story’, the trials and tribulations of business as usual. The tension in Starting with the elusive authorship Ali and Nino, a Muslim Azeri and a Baku is presented as not so much of the book – critics attribute the Christian Georgian, stem more from between the different ethnicities name Kurban Said variously to jealous rivalry and the vicissitudes but between Azerbaijan and Russia. an Azeri and to a German baron- Nagihan HALİLOĞLU of war than from irreconcilable Ali and Nino are not Romeo and baroness couple- Ali and Nino is differences between their life Juliet; their families respect one the product of a cosmopolitan Multiculturalism styles. The lovers’ fate being bound another, and when, in the film, world that had collapsed with WWI and revolutions to larger revolutions in the world Nino decides to run away with Ali, comes across more strongly in the her parents are scandalized, not but was still resisting extinction in the caucasus: successful 2016 film version directed because they think Ali is beneath between the two world wars. Ali and Nino by Asif Kapadia, than in the novel them, but actually for the sake of It is interesting to read in Tom which lingers over Ali’s brooding that form and convention. Ali and Nino Reiss’s account of Nussimbaum’s Nino might not fit in within a harem have now, in a way, become stock life that as a remnant of this context. These musings, however, figures representing the various cosmopolitanism Nussimbaum mostly remain conjecture on Ali’s part, and the discussion between the lovers, and later as man and wife, continue as to what kind of living quarters they will set up once the wars have ended and Ali – who has killed his Armenian rival and is afraid the man’s family will take revenge – can return to Baku. Their love flourishes in makeshift homes in the mountains of Dagestan and during a brief sojourn in Iran before its ultimate test against the rigours of keeping a house as a married couple. Kurban Said is thought to be the penname of Lev Nussimbaum, or so researchers agree. Tom Reiss has written a fascinating book called The Orientalist tracing the life of this enigmatic character. On the cover of the book Nussimbaum is pictured as an Ottoman in a fez – one of the personas he assumed in forces that pull the Caucasuses in liked to style himself as an Ottoman his peripatetic life, which took him different directions. So much so gentleman. It is interesting to note to Berlin and even to Hollywood. that, the beautiful contemporary this choice: Germany, where he Nussimbaum was from a Jewish sculpture on the Batumi quay, felt he culturally and intellectually family in Baku, and apparently ‘Man and Woman’, of two moving, belonged, had started to persecute was socialized by the different perforated metal figures getting Jews, and the Ottoman model of communities that lived in the town. closer and then drawing apart have cosmopolitanism seems, for him to His descriptions of its architecture, been nicknamed Ali and Nino. have been a refuge. its people and Ali’s feeling for Following their adventures Ali and Kurban Said’s interest in the Nino appear very true to life – a Nino set up home in Baku after Ottoman Empire found expression mindset shaped by being among the declaration of the Azerbaijan in his only other known novel Girl the ‘benevolent’ ruling class in a Democratic Republic in which he from the Golden Horn, in 1938. This multicultural city. plays a prominent role. The film time, Said tackles another mixed Ali Khan Shirvanshir, to give him gives ample space for these political marriage, between an Ottoman his full, impressive name, came scenes in which Halit Ergenç, woman and a Viennese doctor, who from a traditional, noble family Sultan Süleyman of Magnificent and yet was also well-versed in Century, plays Fatali Khan, the in turn is a Bosnian who tries to European manners. The film opens first Prime Minister and provides downplay his Muslim heritage. As a with an opulent scene in Nino’s for some metatextual Ottoman/ text that straddles the Ottoman and parents house where they are Turkish presence. Ali and Nino Habsburg empires, it offers many celebrating her birthday. All the host foreign dignitaries to garner points of comparison, and indeed, men are immaculately accoutred, support for the newly fledged but leaves the reader hoping for a film and Ali who use late and who tragically short-lived republic of version at least as well made as is even more so than the non- Azerbaijan. Immersed as we are in Kapadia’s Ali and Nino. Muslim people assembled round how the Balkan and Middle Eastern .

Load more