Description

This is a rare first Tatar translation of Ashik-Kerib, an Azeri love story, adapted by Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov (1814-1841) in Russian language in 1837 and first published after his death in 1846. The story was set in Tiflis, where the writer spent a part of his life.

The original title was Ashik Kerib, A Turkish Folktale (Турецкая сказка), which was in our publication changed to An Eastern Tale.

The book was printed in Kazan in 1918, which was a turbulent year in the city history. After becoming one of the centres of the Revolution of 1917, a Congress of Muslims from central Russia and Siberia founded in 1918 the Idel-Ural State, also known as a Volga-Ural State, a short-lived independent state of Turkic peoples and Volga Germans. The Bolsheviks supressed the state and annexed Kazan to the Soviet Union. In the same year, the city was briefly sieged by the Czechoslovakian Legion.

As some inhabitants of Kazan sympathised with the Bolsheviks, hoping to receive more privileges than under the Tsarist Russia, the others opposed the Communism and joining the Soviet Union.

The test, mounted on the last page, lists other publications by the publishing house Brothers Karimnov, which was specialised in the Tatar publications in Kazan.

We could not find any institutional copies of the book on Worldcat.