ALI ILDIRIMOGHLU THE GLOWING LINES «ТЯЩСИЛ» БАКУ—2011 Translated into English by: Baylar Islamkhan oghlu Hajiyev Edited by: Graham R.Smith Ali Ildirimoghlu A48 The Glowing Lines. Бaкu, «Tяhsil», 2011, 288 p. The famous writer-publicist, Honoured Journalist of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ali Ildirimoghlu has published thousands of critical articles, essays, topical satires and stories. He has authored such works of art as the “Light Houses”, “To write or not to write”, “Chinarli”, “Sorrow”, “Telepathic”, “The indelible tracks” and the novels such as “The same man”, “The willy-nilly diplomat” which have won the sympathy of their readers. Ali Ildirimoghlu’s new novel-memoir “The Glowing Lines” is edifying for grounding on the origin, customs and traditions, moral values of our nation.The novel calls the readers to manhood, nobleness, to protect our national values and not to reconcile with ignorance and imperfection that we face in society. Here, the stories are told in simple language of ordinary people, which is a kind of history of our past, present and everybody should read and know them. 4702060201 A 2011 © «Tяhsil», 2011 053 ALI ILDIRIMOGHLU KNOWN AND UNKNOWN TO ME Who will soothe that baby? Ali’s mother Firanguiz will smile at him once again. He hardly felt the care from his mother, he could not return his duty to his mother as a son. “I fell ill, they said it was measles. Nearly losing conscious- ness I put my head on her knees and I could hardly concentrate. I winced sometimes, hardly opening my eyes and looking at my mother. The tears were rolling down on her cheeks like heavy rain. And that’s all! I can’t remember anything more about my mother. I know only one thing that she disappeared forever when I was six. She vanished without trace! I was weeping and fretting day and night. My relatives were comforting me and playing with my mind by saying that Firanguiz was not dead, she had simply fallen ill and was taken to the doctor in the city centre. They assured me that she would come home soon. And I impatiently waited for her to return.” That baby was Ali Ildirimoghlu who was born in the village of Aligoulouushaghi and now is living in his Eighth Decade. His mother Firanguiz’s grave is in her motherland Balahassanli. That was Ali Ildirimoghlu’s childhood. Now being at the peak of his old age he is standing and looking out and remembering the black-white, joyful-sorrowful, successful-unsuccessful days and months of his life and the dearest, affectionate people that are passing one by one in front of his eyes. The frosty wind and freezing weather of the past years makes him feel feverish. Ali Ildirimoghlu is very sad. His native lands of Gubadli (his countrymen’s graves as well) are moaning under the Armenian occupation. The winds, cool breeze, mountain rivers, ice-cold springs, grasses, flowers and roses of that land are calling Ali Ildirimoghlu and us for our help. 3 Ali Ildirimoghlu remembers the years gone by and a wave of joy rises in his heart because the seventy years of his life did not belong only to himself. Ali Ildirimoghlu’s life is mixed with the lives of those who loved him as a human being: his friends, his children and others. This life transferred to books in the form of meaningful words and feelings. This life has been scattered throughout the land of Azerbaijan and mixed with the woes, the joys and successes of his creative activity as a journalist, publicist and a writer. To cut a long story short it is worth looking out from the pinnacle of a wise, perfect seventy year old life! At the beginning of this book I mentioned his languor for his mother was not in vain. For me a Mother means the whole world. And the existence of that world in Ali Ildirimoghlu’s “The Glowing Lines“ has increased my respect and sympathy for the author a hundred times. I have never seen Ali Ildirimoghlu up to now (Can you imagine!) and I have created his image only from his writings. For me the life of Ali Ildrimoghlu begins with his love and languor for his mother and her grave. II Writer and publicist Ali Ildrimoghlu’s “The Glowing Lines“, presented to its readers is a memory rich novel full of documents, facts and interesting information. I would like to call this novel a documentary, but in a documentary novel the documents, the facts and the sources play the leading role. Alongside with these important aspects in Ali muallim”s (muallim – a form of address to a respected and intelligent man, but the word itself means “a teacher” – trans.) novels are lively and warm memories that draws the readers’ attention in more deeply. Naturally those memories embrace the exact time of month, date and year. But these memories, feelings and emotions are so sensitive (sometimes hot- tempered) and plaintive that they prevail over the documentary- based truth and overstep the limits of this sphere. 4 That’s why “The Glowing Lines” is more interesting as a memory rich novel. III Memoirs, as well as a memory rich novel have never been sim- ply a biography of a person but the world of that person. Of course, it is not a complete and entire world but a literary world of words and word pictures. A world revived in live descriptions… Ali muallim has created his world in “The Glowing Lines”. And for me as a reader and a master of words, after observing Ali Ildirimoghlu’s world, his humane portrait rose before my eyes: Ali Ildirimoghlu – Azerbaijani, born in Gubadli, the fellow-countryman of Gachag Nabi, Hajar, Igid (Brave) Amrah, “Kishi (Manly) Tavat” and Sultan bey. Ali Ildirimoghlu grew up in that land and imbided water and air of that land to his spirit. If he is now proud of such brave people of that land permitted the life he lived…(Today 20% of our Azerbaijani territory is occupied by Armenians including Gubadli where Ali muallim was born. And today people of our country, where this world is going to the dogs, if they could look back into the past and understand who Nabi, Tavat, Hajar were …then in our veins would boil not only blood but fury, spite and disgust against our enemies). Ali Ildirimoghlu is a man who loves his land, his country and his birthplace. He should be living out his life in Lachin, Shusha, Gubadli, or Kalbajar – in the lap of mountains, not found in the shelter of an old and folded up mulberry tree in Shuvalan – in a suburb of Baku. But this mulberry tree has grown in his motherland as well. Doesn’t this mulberry tree remind him of the past recollections? “For ten hundred years this mulberry tree has existed in this way. …Now it has grown old and bent over completely. Once when it was a young tree, a gardener took care of it willingly, weeded it, loosened its root in time, irrigated it, and it’s owner rejoiced seeing its shoots. Now it lives a hard life.” And Ali muallim’s love for that mulberry tree moves me to tears. I don’t know from which prism Ali muallim looks at that 5 tree. But I see parallels in the destiny of the mulberry tree and Azerbaijan. In every sentence of “The Glowing Lines” I feel Ali Ildirimoghlu’s love for his native land.No, his love for the mother- land is not limited to only his birthplace,to the region where he was born as the most of us do in that way. However it is also clear that the GREAT LOVE FOR AZERBAIJAN that Ali Ildirimoghlu has begun from his childhood love of his village Aligoulouushaghi. And I felt this love sufficiently in the “Glowing lines”. IV Reviving Ali Ildirimoghlu’s humane portrait in front of my eyes (I should mention that Ali muallim and my father are nearly of the same age) I remembered the Soviet period in which I lived as well. Yes, I am the descendant of that period as well as Ali muallim. I have been a pioneer, a comsomol, a communist during that time. I grew up in the spirit of that epoch, I have loved genius leaders of that period as well under the influence of propaganda. But now I can’t bring myself to draw a black line on everything as the others do. How a man can spit on the way he has passed, on the history he has lived? As we see from his works Ali muallim doesn’t spit on everything of the Soviet period because just that period ranked that poor country boy among the famous and respected intelligentsia. That epoch played a great role in Ali Ildrimoghlu’s becoming famous as a writer and a publicist. A human being, especially, men of art could be a slave of the period he lives in or could not reconcile himself to the epoch spiritually and inwardly. Ali muallim belongs to the second group of people. Reading “The Glowing Lines“ I felt that Ali Ildirimoghlu being a regional correspondent (in some regions) of the Azerbaijan Communist Party newspaper “Communist“ he was able to call a spade a spade and he had never trembled in front of high ranking officials. As he wrote the truth he was often discussed in the highest instances but he had always won, 6 because he fought for justice and the truth was on his side (I have visited Nakhchivan for several times.