LITERARY-CRITICAL REMARKS IN THE BABUR-NAME

Аннотация

This article focuses on examining Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur’s approach to literature and his literary-critical thoughts as presented in his Babur-name. The paper analyzes Babur's engagement with literature, his comments on literary figures, and his reflections on literary criticism within his memoirs. Babur, through his work, provides insights into the social and cultural role of literature in his time. The article delves into Babur's objectivity in evaluating works, his reflections on poetic activity, and his historical judgments on literary practices in the Timurid period. His remarks on the works of poets and intellectuals in the context of his reign highlight the significant interplay between literature and politics, showing how Babur's personal experiences shaped his views onliterary traditions and theirsocial implications. Keywords: Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur, Babur-name, literature, literary criticism, Chagatai literature, Uzbekliterature, Timurids, poets, literary studies Among the many interests of the author of Babur-name, Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur,1 is literature, especially contemporary literature. As usual, he does not mince his words here and often expresses himself in a blunt manner. While he strives for objectivity and reasoned judgment in most cases, this is not entirely assured in cases where, in his opinion, certain basic principles have been violated by those criticized; this is especially true in the case of his (in the truest sense of the word) sworn enemy, the Uzbek leader Muhammad Shaybani. This article attempts to summarize Babur's most important literary-critical (and literary-historical) remarks. The question of his own work, the literature read in Babur's circle, or which literature he cites on various occasions in his memoirs outside of his literary-critical remarks must remain unaddressed here. The material we wish to examine is very heterogeneous. It includes biographies of poets in the passage on Sultan Husayn Mirza of Herat (1469-1506), remarks of varying length on poetic activity in other biographies, mentions of literary figures in descriptions of milieus, and references to literature through quotations in various text types (historical narrative, description of milieu, description of characters, biography, interspersed episodes). The material ranges from detailed remarks on the work of individual authors, both on a formal level (in the context of a self-review)2 and on a content level (enriched with biographical information and illustrative episodes), to succinct mentions of poetic activity, the presence, or the origins of a poet. Some of the accounts are illustrated with quotations from the person being discussed. Authors of various types ofliterature include: Islamicjurists, Shaykhulislam, mullahs, other dignitaries, (anonymous) astronomers, professional poets, and educated amateur poets such as emirs, princes, sultans, and khans, as well as Babur himself.3 The image Babur conveys of literature also provides insight into the social role(s) of literature at the time. It should be noted here that poetry (in Persian and Chagatai), at least for those who came from the "civilized" regions of Mawarannahr and https://ijmri.de/index.php/jmsi volume 4,issue2,2025 230 Khorasan (both Timurid), was a fairly widespread "cultural practice." The fact that they wrote poetry is treated in the samecontext as theirmilitary achievements in the case of sultans, princes, and emirs, and in the same context as the fulfillment of their respective professional duties in the case of clergy, scientists, and others. This, of course, is initially only Babur's perspective – but thisis precisely what underpins the relevance ofhis remarks: he proves himself to bean alert and, in many cases, objective observer and critical mind in many other areas as well, and (ultimately, as a pâdišâh), hehas, based onhis biography, promoted the literary-critical positionhe advocated through his own initiative or influence on those around him – as this essay also shows (along with many other works on Chagatai literature, which, of course, also and sometimes primarily make use of the information contained inthe Babur-name). What dowe learn about the approach to literature in Babur's time? Babur and his entourage were bilingual (Persian-Chagatai), and thus poetry and recite (sing) were written in both languages, which is impressively documented on the occasion of a wine-fueled excursion (249b/German 6384). Apparently, among poetry enthusiasts in Babur's time, the creation of chronograms, i.e., writings in which the added numerical value of the Arabic letters indicates the date of an event, was a fashion. Three Persian poems referring to the historical events of Ulugh Beg and his patricidal son Abdullatif Mirza are cited without an author's citation;5 the third of these poems contains in its last line the chronogram of Abdullatif Mirza's death (and here the precise Arabic transcription really plays a role): Bâbâ Ḥusayn kuš