A UNIQUE LITERARY WORK OF THE EAST

Аннотация

Проходят годы, десятилетия, века, но не угасает интерес читателей, специалистов-филологов, историков-востоковедов к выдающемуся литературному творению под названием «Тысяча и одна ночь». Эти сказки с изумительным совершенствованием выражают гармонию и необычайную силу цветистой, «узорчатой» фантазиинародовВостока:арабов,персов,индусови других народов. В статье рассматриваются научные представления о создании «Тысячи и одной ночи» — уникального произведения восточной литературы. Научные гипотезы российских, европейских и узбекских востоковедов о происхождении этого шедевра представлены как предмет дискуссий. В то же время приводится информация о композициипроизведения. Ключевые слова:«Тысяча и одна ночь», историческая поэтика, источники, мастерство, художественно-изобразительныесредства. page456 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ISSN:2692-5206,ImpactFactor:12,23 AmericanAcademicpublishers,volume05,issue02,2025 Journal: https://www.academicpublishers.org/journals/index.php/ijai A medieval Arabic philologist would probably have been extremely surprised if he had learned that Arabic literature would enter world culture primarily through folk tales and short stories, which on holidays were told in markets and coffee shops to amuse the crowd and, unlike court poetry and learned prose, were treated bypurist philologistsas “lowgenre”. Meanwhile, humanity has now recognized that the famous collection of Arabic fairy tales is one of the most famous monuments of world culture. Shahrezada's story is striking in its strangeness: by telling her fairy tales and interrupting the story at dawn in the most interesting place, the resourceful Shahrezada saves her life, forcing her husband to forget about the execution, because King Shahriyar promised to execute every new wife at the end of the wedding night. The book “A Thousand and One Nights” is mentioned in numerous historical chronicles oftheearly and lateMiddleAges. It was not the creation ofany oneauthor. Parts ofthisamazing collection of fairy tales were formed and polished over the course of many centuries, and only by theXVI-XVII centuries did ittake shapein theform inwhich itis known to themodern reader. The basis of the literary monument, apparently, was the Arabic translation of Indian and Iranian fairy tales, which were included in the Iranian collection “Hezar Efsane” (“A Thousand Legends”), the existence of which was reported by Arab sources back in the tenth century. For almost ten centuries, professional Arab storytellers and scribes have included more and more stories of local and foreign origin in the capacious framework of the “A Thousand Legends”, redoing them and arranging them at their discretion, which led to differences in the composition andcompositionof theextantmanuscripts of thiscollection. If we make a brief historical digression, then, apparently, we can make the following summaries: 1) the primary element and the main core of the "A Thousand and One Nights" is the Arabic translation ofthePersian collection "HezarEfsane" made in the9th or10thcentury; 2) the book "A Thousand and One Nights" does not have a separate author or compiler; it is an evolutionary creation ofmany generations of alongchain ofspecialists-narrators and scribes. I think this explains the “disparity” of the language of presentation: in some places it is almosthighly classical, whilein others it isalmost vernacular. It should be noted that Western scientists have shown great interest in studying the collection of fairy tales. The works performed by such researchers as Zotenberg, MacDonald, Litman, and Chauvin are of great interest. Considering Egypt to be the birthplace of the “A Thousand and One Nights”, Chauvin argued, for example, that the book of fairy tales had at least two authors: one of them was an Egyptian, and the other a Jew who converted to Islam. Hence, in his opinion, the large number of Jews in the collection and the abundance of narratives about "infidels" who subsequently embarked onthepath oftrue faith. Chauvin even mentions the name ofthisJew, acertain Ibrahim Maimun, who lived around1518. page457 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ISSN:2692-5206,ImpactFactor:12,23 AmericanAcademicpublishers,volume05,issue02,2025 Journal: https://www.academicpublishers.org/journals/index.php/ijai However, this theory was sharply criticized by one of the prominent researchers of “A Thousand and One Nights”, Estrup, who wrote that Chauvin's conclusion about Ibrahim Maimun was not worth a damn. [1,204] In Russia, the study of the collection of fairy tales begins at the beginning of the 20th century, when such remarkable researchers as I.Y.Krachkovsky, A.E.Krymsky, and later B.Ya.Shidfar, I.M.Filshtinsky entered the Oriental studies arena. In Uzbekistan, the study of the book “A Thousand and One Nights” began a long time ago. In 1930, an original translation of fairy tales into Russian appeared in Tashkent, masterfully executed by M.A.Salye. [2.8t]. T