The work “Ashik-Kerib” is a Turkish fairy tale written by MV Lermontov, being in the first exile in the Caucasus. He was exiled there in 1937 for his fateful poem, The Death of a Poet. He was terribly struck by the senseless death of A.S. Pushkin, and he blamed the entire secular conspiratorial nobility with Tsar Nicholas I. And now, living in the Caucasus among beautiful mountain peaks and rivers, in his spare time from his work, he studies local folklore. And it is not at all surprising that he heard the ancient legend of love that the whole Caucasus, the Middle East and Central Asia knew , did not leave him indifferent and inspired to create this wonderful fairy tale.
Summary
“Ashik-Kerib” begins with the fact that once upon a time a very rich Turkish merchant lived in the city of Tiflis. And he had a lot of gold. But his main wealth was his only beautiful daughter named Magul-Megeri.
Once, a very poor wanderer Ashik-Kerib saw this beauty and immediately fell in love with her. But he was too poor to count on such a bride. However, he had a big and pure heart. He knew how to play the saz and glorified the ancient warriors of Turkestan in his songs.
He had almost no hope of receiving the hand of his beloved. And from this he felt very hard at heart. And then one day, when he was sleeping under a vineyard, Magul-Megeri was walking by with her cheerful friends. One of her friends jumped up and began to wake Ashik-Kerib with the words: "This is not the time to sleep when your gazelle passes by." The guy immediately woke up. And Magul-Megeri came up to him. They got into a conversation. Ashik-Kerib told her about his sadness and love for her, greatly regretting that her father would never pass off his beloved daughter as a poor tramp. But Magul-Megeri said that her father is very rich and will reward her with gold, which is enough for them for two. Just let him ask for her hand. But Ashik-Kerib was a proud young man and did not want to later be blamed for the fact that he was once poor.
Plot development
He gives the word to Magul-Megeri that for exactly seven years he will wander around the world and amass wealth, and then he will definitely come for it. And if this does not happen, then he is ready to die in the hot desert of a foreign land. Magul-Megeri had to agree. But she warned him that if he did not return at the appointed time, she would marry Kursud-bek, who had long been married to her.
And then Ashik-Kerib came to his mother, asked for her blessings, kissed his sister and left. When he left the city, he was caught by a rider. It was Kursud-bek who also wanted to travel with him. However, when they approached the river and Ashik-Kerib, having thrown off his clothes, swam to that shore, the cunning Kurshud-bek did not swim after him, and grabbing the clothes of the poor man, he rode away. He did this in order to show the things of Ashik-Kerib Magul-Megeri and his mother and thereby convince them that the young man drowned. However, the wise Magul-Megeri did not believe his story and still preferred to wait for her lover.
Denouement
Meanwhile, the poor wanderer walked on foreign land and sang to people for a piece of bread. But once in the city of Khalaf he was lucky. When he sang sweetly in the coffee house, glorifying his beautiful Megul-Megeri, he was heard by the great Pasha, who was inspired by his singing and invited him to his place. From that moment on, gold and silver rained down on him day after day. He began to live happily and richly. And probably, he forgot his Megul-Megeri, or maybe not, but the term was drawing to a close, and he was not going on the road. And Magul-Megeri decided to remind herself. She sends a golden dish with a merchant from Tiflis (he had forty camels and 80 slaves), so he traveled to eastern cities and flaunted this dish until his master was found. And the owner was finally found. Ashik-Kerib, seeing the dish, remembered Megul-Megeri and urgently climbed on the road. But suddenly he realized that he would not have time, and out of despair he prayed to Allah and wanted to throw himself off the cliff. But suddenly I saw a wonderful rider on a white horse, who decided to help him and promptly transported him to his native places. As it turned out later, it was Haderiliaz himself (George the Victorious).
A happy ending
Now, having arrived in Tiflis on time, Ashik-Kerib was worried that people would not believe him when they found out that he reached the city in an instant, because two months would not be enough for him to get here. Then the horseman gave him a clump of earth from under the hooves of his horse and said that he should rub the eyes of the blind woman with her and disappear. When Ashik-Kerib came to his home, and this was already in the evening, his mother and sister were at home. The mother was blinded by tears over her son and had not seen anything for seven years. Women let the wanderer spend the night, but did not recognize Ashik-Kerib in him.
Then he asked for his saaz, which was hanging on the wall. Leaving gold coins as collateral, he went with him to the wedding. It turns out that Kursud-bek arranged a wedding feast and is already marrying Magul-Megeri. That night she was to become his wife. But the bride herself was not up to the fun. She sat behind a rich chapra with her friends and held a dagger in one hand and a poison bowl in the other. But when the traveler began to sing and began to tell in his songs what he saw, she immediately recognized the voice of her Ashik-Kerib, cut the curtain and rushed to her beloved in an embrace. Sister, having seen all these wonderful events, ran and brought her mother. And then Ashik-Kerib, so that everyone believed his stories, smeared the eyes of the blind mother with earth, she immediately received his sight and recognized her son.
Genre of "Ashik-Kerib"
Well, what can we say about all this? The good news is that “Ashik-Kerib” is a fairy tale with a happy ending, where the mother rediscovered her son, sister - brother, bride - groom. And Kashudu-bek Ashik-Kerib proposed to marry the younger sister of Magul-Megeri, who was no less beautiful than the eldest. And in an instant, all the heroes of this beautiful fairy tale became happy. The fairy-tale genre of the work “Ashik-Kerib” already speaks for itself.
Taking a plot of this kind as a basis, Lermontov inscribes components very characteristic of a fairy tale into it. There are positive and negative heroes, donors and helpers, wonders and adventures. Lermontov retained all the fabulous canons, and the result was a magnificent work with ashik color “Ashik-Kerib”. This fairy tale was published after the poet’s death in the collection “Yesterday and Today” by V. A. Sologub in 1846. Then she was very much interested in cultural figures of the Caucasian peoples. They really liked the light narrative genre of “Ashik-Kerib”, and then it was decided to translate it into different languages: Azerbaijani, Armenian, Georgian, Kabardian and others.
Ashug-Garib
The genre of the work “Ashik-Kerib” is presented as the next folkloric treatment by Lermontov of folk legends and myths, which he was very keen on at that time. It is likely that it is a kind of Azerbaijani dastan - a special art of telling epic stories. Presumably, “Ashik-Kerib” is a Turkish fairy tale, in any case, as the poet himself defined it. And initially, most likely, it had the name "Ashug-Garib." The word “ashik-ashug” means “folk singer”, saaz means a musical instrument, but the word “kerib-gharib” means “poor wanderer”. Mikhail Lermontov “Ashik-Kerib” turned into a wonderful creation of Russian fairy-tale literature, which to this day is read by descendants.