The Story of Barzu Story The IRANIAN IRANIAN SERIES SERIES The ancient Persian storytelling tradition has survived until the present day among the Tajik villages in the Gissar mountains of Uzbekistan. This book THE STORY OF BARZU explores the story of Barzu and demonstrates that the historical AS TOLD BY TWO STORYTELLERS Transoxania, since the time of Alexander the Great, has always been a melting pot of diverse shared cultures. In the village of Pasurxi, near FROM BOYSUN, UZBEKISTAN Boysun in the Surxandaryo region of contemporary Uzbekistan, a vivid oral tradition exists on the basis of stories from the Persian Book of Kings R. RAHMONI AND G.R. VAN DEN BERG (EDS.) or Šohnoma (Shahnama), composed more than a thousand years ago by the poet Firdavsi (Ferdowsi). These stories deal with the hero Barzu who is presented in the stories from Boysun as the offspring of Suhrob, one of the most tragic heroes of the Šohnoma, and his father, the legendary champion Rustam, ruler of Sistan. The storytellers Jura Kamol and Mullo Ravšan composed two different versions of the story of Barzu in the Tajik as spoken in the Surxandaryo region. They used to tell their stories during evening gatherings in the village. Two versions of the story have been recorded, transcribed and analysed by Ravshan Rahmoni and translated by Gabrielle van den Berg. Ravshan Rahmoni is professor of Tajik literature at the Tajik State University in Dushanbe and works on Tajik oral traditions, specifically those of the Surkhandarya region in Uzbekistan. Gabrielle van den Berg is lecturer in Persian at the University of Leiden. R. Rahmoni and G.R. van den Berg (eds.) den Berg R. Rahmoni and G.R. van “The aim of the authors is comparable to the noble mission of the author of the most famous version of the Shahnama epic tradition written down a millennium ago by the poet Firdawsi, who adapted many stories of Persian, Scythian and Parthian folklore and created an iconic collective national identity symbol.” Dr F.I. Melville, University of Cambridge WWW.LUP.NL 9 789087 281168 LEIDEN UNIVERSITY PRESS The Story of Barzu barzu-derde.indd 1 3-6-2013 16:07:43 iranian studies series The Iranian Studies Series publishes high-quality scholarship on various aspects of Iranian civilisation, covering both contemporary and classical cultures of the Persian cultural area. The contemporary Persian-speaking area includes Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Central Asia, while classi- cal societies using Persian as a literary and cultural language were located in Anatolia, Caucasus, Central Asia and the Indo-Pakistani subcontinent. The objective of the series is to foster studies of the literary, historical, religious and linguistic products in Iranian languages. In addition to research mon- ographs and reference works, the series publishes English-Persian critical text-editions of important texts. The series intends to publish resources and original research and make them accessible to a wide audience. chief editor A.A. Seyed-Gohrab (Leiden University) advisory board of iss F. Abdullaeva (University of Cambridge) G.R. van den Berg (Leiden University) J.T.P. de Bruijn (Leiden University) D.P. Brookshaw (Stanford University) N. Chalisova (Russian State University of Moscow) D. Davis (Ohio State University) F.D. Lewis (University of Chicago) l. Lewisohn (University of Exeter) S. McGlinn (unaffiliated) Ch. Melville (University of Cambridge) D. Meneghini (University of Venice) N. Pourjavady (University of Tehran) Ch. van Ruymbeke (University of Cambridge) S. Sharma (Boston University) K. Talattof (University of Arizona) Z. Vesel (cnrs, Paris) R. Zipoli (University of Venice) barzu-derde.indd 2 3-6-2013 16:07:43 the story of barzu as told by two storytellers from boysun, uzbekistan R. Rahmoni- and G.R. van den Berg (eds.) Leiden University Press barzu-derde.indd 3 3-6-2013 16:07:43 Cover design: Tarek Atrissi Design Lay out: Hanneke Kossen, Amsterdam Amsterdam University Press English-language titles are distributed in the us and Canada by the University of Chicago Press. isbn 978 90 8728 116 8 e-isbn 978 94 0060 035 5 (pdf) e-isbn 978 94 0060 118 5 (ePub) nur 630 © R. Rahmonī, G.R. van den Berg / Leiden University Press, 2013 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or trans- mitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. barzu-derde.indd 4 3-6-2013 16:07:43 Contents introduction – The Barzunoma in Boysun 7 Ravšan Rahmonī Translator’s Note 17 Gabrielle van den Berg The Story of Barzu as Told by Jūra Kamol, Pasurxī, Boysun, 1995 19 The Story of Barzu as Told by Mulloravšan, Pasurxī, Boysun, 2007 83 appendix 1 – The Cyrillic Transcript of the Story of Barzu by Jūra Kamol as recorded in the Dialect of Pasurxī 105 appendix 2 – The Roman Transcript of the Story of Barzu by Mulloravšan as recorded in the Dialect of Pasurxī 135 Bibliography 143 barzu-derde.indd 5 3-6-2013 16:07:44 barzu-derde.indd 6 3-6-2013 16:07:44 introduction The Barzunoma in Boysun For more than 30 years, I have been collecting different types of folkloric texts from Tajiks and speakers of Tajik. The texts collected originate from Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Uzbekistan. Whilst collecting the mate- rial, I have focused in particular on the epical tradition of the Šohnoma or ‘Book of Kings’. In the regions of Central Asia there existed Šohnomakhonī or the recit- ing of the Šohnoma, alongside storytelling on the basis of the Šohnoma and other epics. I have been informed by old men who are literate in the Per- sian alphabet and who I have interviewed in the last 30 to 35 years, that the recitation of the Šohnoma as well as the Šohnoma storytelling tradition, in addition to the oral and written stories that have been composed as a sup- plement to the Šohnoma, and alongside all kinds of stories, fairytales, leg- ends and poems thrived amongst the Tajiks in the territory of Uzbekistan, in places such as Bukhara, Samarkand and Boysun. A number of scholars have referred to this tradition, including Muhammadjon Šakurī, who made the following remark: On long winter nights my aunt used to read books and the women of the neighbourhood used to gather and listen. She read about the heroes from the prose Šohnoma, she read from the Abūmuslimnoma, from the Zamchinoma, from the Hamzanoma and from other epics, and about the generosity of Hotim Toi, or she exulted in the wonders of the Thousand and one Nights. And there were other things. Sometimes we listened to the Šohnoma of Firdavsī, or the Devon of Hofiz, or a selection of the Devon of Bedil and the like. (Šakurī 2005: 158) I have not only heard these kinds of references from older people, but I have also been able to make recordings by means of a tape recorder and a video camera. One of the regions that I have been looking at regularly and closely is my birthplace, the village of Pasurxī, in the region of Boysun in barzu-derde.indd 7 3-6-2013 16:07:44 8 | The Story of Barzu present-day Uzbekistan. In the village of Pasurxī it had become a tradition in the nineteenth and in the early twentieth century to tell stories from the Šohnoma. In the first half of the twentieth century there were old men who told stories from the Šohnoma and who knew large parts of it by heart. Storytellers such as Mullo Šarif (1888-1972), Mullo Qosim (1882-1966) and Jūra Kamol (1921-1997) used to tell stories from the Šohnoma in response to people’s interest in and love for these tales. Mullo Šarif relied on his gentle, eloquent voice and the movements of his hands, as well as on his ability to recite parts of the story in verse, which he sang like a singer. Jūra Kamol, on the other hand, used to rise when he told stories from the Šohnoma: he spoke in a loud voice and at moments of anguish he used to mimic the war on the battlefields. During accounts of Rustam, Sūhrob, Isfandiyor, Siyovuš, Barzu and others he would cry out loud. At the end of the story of Rustam and Sūhrob he would cry just like Rustam, mourning his dear son. During the storytelling session, when a hero would throw his enemy to the ground, Jūra Kamol would cry out ‘Yo Rustami doston’ (‘Oh Rustam son of Doston!’) and ‘Yo Alī madad!’ (‘May Alī help us!’), while he mimicked the enemy lying on the ground, and rising up again. He even neighed like the horse during those sessions. He accompanied his performance with shout- ing, pleading, preaching and yelling, with roaring laughter and by bursting into tears: this vivid performance was characteristic of Jūra Kamol, reminis- cent of the storytellers of old. In order to keep the audience’s attention, he sometimes changed his manner of speech, or he would fall silent and looked at his audience for several seconds, upon which he would suddenly cry out ‘Ha!’ ‘Yes!’, before continuing on with his story. I have also recorded this manner of Šohnomakhonī and the telling of sto- ries from the Šohnoma by the sons of Mullo Šarif, Rahim Šarif (born 1925) and Wohid Šarif (born 1941), and by his grandson Qahhor Rahmon (1931- 2005), as well as by the son of Jūra Kamol, Mulloravšan Kamolov (born 1956).