THE GOSH OF ASHUG ALASKAR

He spent many years in this world. He had seen everything, loved and been an ashug. [saz player] And it was God-given. Many a wedding and folk art show was remembered because of his participation and his performance. He was treated everywhere with respect, esteem and love. But melancholy overcame the old ashug, because he was far from his native Gosh and from the unique place where he was born, to the beauty of which he devoted his verse and his songs. They demolished Ashug Alaskar's homeland and trampled it underfoot…

This region situated on the vast lands along the shores of Lake Gosh, which nature bestowed with wondrous beauty, was now under the heel of the invaders. Gosh, the homeland of Ashug Alaskar, has suffered much grief. Before the Iravan Khanate was joined to Russia at the beginning of the century Gosh was part of it, and then of the Iravan Guberniya, but now…

The people of Gosh were tied to the soil. The bountiful earth was their foster-mother. They engaged in farming, land husbandry, beekeeping, horticulture and carpet-weaving. In this region everyone - large and small - loved the saz [stringed instrument], and poetry. So they called Gosh the land (country) of ashugs.

Alimammad kisi, who lived in the village of Agkilsa, was also a devotee of words and music. He even composed verses. The ashugs performed their verses as maestros. And Alimammad kisi was able to feed his family through farming and carpentry. After he had finished his work on the farm he brought the timber from the Kalbacar woods and made ploughs, churns, spinning wheels, shovels and buckets to sell later. He had a large family: four sons - Alaskar, Salah, Xalil and Mahammad - and daughters Fatma and Gizxan. A family of eight somehow got by on his earnings. As the children grew so did family cares. 

Alaskar was the eldest son and first child of Alimammad kisi. He was born on 21 March 1821, the day of the Novruz festival. As the eldest child in the family he was the first to help his father. Already at the age of 14 he began working for a rich man called Karbalein Qurban. He worked there for four years. Alaskar earned the respect of those around him for his facile nature and polite manner. Karbalein Qurban, who treated him like a son, even dreamed: "If only he would always be here."

But Alaskar…wandered around this house like a beast wounded in the heart. Love blossomed between him and Sahnabana, Karbalein Qurban's daughter. Although the young people tried to keep their relationship secret, news of this soon got around and reached Karbalein Qurban himself. He was very happy about this: if Alaskar married his daughter he could have her with him for keeps. But Maharram, Karbalein Qurban's brother, planned to have his son Mustafa marry Sahnabana. This man, who was nicknamed "Pullu Maharram" because of his wealth, was brutal and merciless. Hearing about the love between the two young people, he became very angry. He banished Alaskar from his brother's property and took Sahnabana to marry his son.

The bitter separation broke Alaskar. Aware of his son's plight, Alimammad kisi decided that the saz would help to cure him…So he bought a saz in the Kalbacar village of Qanlykand and gave it to his son. His instinct did not deceive his paternal heart. Alaskar's fingers very soon got used to the saz and he used it to pour out his heart.

Up till then Alaskar had not had any special education. But like the other people of Gosh, from a very early age he listened to Hadiths, fairy tales and stories told by the mullahs, the dervishes and the ashugs. Thanks to his phenomenal memory he was able to remember everything he heard. He also inherited many of the secrets of the art of the ashugs from folk storytellers and aqsaqals [elders]. Alaskar composed his first verses in his early youth precisely under their influence. His separation from his beloved brought him ever close to the saz and to the word of poetry.

His father took him to see Ashug Ali from the village of Qizil Vang, who taught Alaskar the secrets of ashug art and the ability to run festivities and weddings by himself. He was Ashug Ali's pupil for five years. Very soon Alaskar himself rose to fame as an ashug.

On one occasion at a festival in the village of Qizilbulag in Gosh, in the home of Boyuk Aga, in an oral competition the young ashug came face to face with his mentor. After this meeting legends were handed down. Some claimed that Ashug Ali deliberately conceded to his pupil in order to bring glory to him, but others believed that young Alaskar beat his mentor in an honest verbal duel…Whatever the truth of the matter, the rules stated that the defeated ashug had to give up his saz to the victor which Ashug Ali did, handing his saz to Alaskar. The young ashug was faced with a dilemma: victory over such a seasoned ashug as Ashug Ali and possessing his saz were an event worthy of the subject of a whole epic. But that day Alaskar demonstrated his perfection not only in the art of the ashug but also in the spiritual sense. Bowing his head before his mentor he said respectfully: "Woe to the pupil who shows disrespect for his mentor."

From the 1850s Ashug Alaskar's name began to be mentioned in the same breath as Gos's most seasoned ashugs. His renown spread rapidly to the neighbouring regions and he became famous throughout Azerbaijan. He was soon recognized as a great artist in Turkey, Iran and Dagestan. With his saz over his shoulder he travelled to various regions and shared happiness and grief with the people and cursed their oppressors.

His impromptu verses passed from mouth to mouth. Pupils flocked to him to share the secrets of ashug art. As a consequence, most of his pupils won renown as eminent artists in words.

Alaskar charmed his audiences not only with his beautiful voice and unique delivery but also with his courtesy and tact. His verses were imbued with love. He rhapsodized the beauties whom he encountered during his travels. He was tall, broad-shouldered and had black eyes and eyebrows. He wore a long arxalik with a cuxa at the top.  He had a myast on his feet and a sheepskin hat on his head. His round face was encased in a beard. Being left-handed Alaskar played the saz in this manner. He had a high and pleasant voice.

Alaskar was 40 and still unmarried. He was unable to forget his first love, Sahnabana. His family and friends tried to get him to see reason and as a result he married a girl called Anaxan from the village of Yansaq in Kalbacar. Within three to four years he moved and even lived there for a year. But still he returned to his native village. He could not live without Gos, he missed it so much.

…The years passed. Alaskar was now the head of a large family. He had six daughters - Nigar, Heyrans, Gulnis, Basti, Asli and Zumrud - and three sons - Basir, Abdulazim and Qalib. All his sons had a leaning towards poetry but only Qalib became an ashug.

Although Alaskar was indeed a great ashug, he never forgot about the land. He ploughed, sowed and mowed. And, like his father, he learned how to be a carpenter.  

The 20th century brought tumult to his life. The socio-political situation in the Caucasus was tense. Taking advantage of this, in 1905 the Armenians again stooped to provocations, began pogroms and sowed discord among the peaceful Turkic population. The situation deeply saddened Alaskar and he began to compose verses full of lament and grief.

In his advanced years several misfortunes struck him one after the other. When in 1908 his brother-in-law Molla Rahim returned to his native village of Agkilsa after 28 years in exile in Siberia, Alaskar's son Basir accidentally shot him dead.

In 1915 his young nephew and favourite pupil Ashug Qurban passed away. His grief at this loss was so strong that afterwards Alaskar gave up the ashug and never again took up the saz. A year later his son Basir shot an old villager during an argument. The latter wanted to force Alaskar's middle son Abdulazim to work but he refused. So the old man lashed him with his whip. When he heard about this Basir shot the old man and fled. In his place Abdulazim and another of Alaskar's nephews were charged and arrested. The old ashug spent eleven months visiting courts, even travelling to Tiflis, before getting their release. The old man was pulled round by a friend of his, a doctor from the village of Qanly in the Gos region, Haci Nagi. Although the sides made peace, putting an end to the enmity, Basir was on the run until the Tsar's reign ended.

One misfortune followed another. Another of Alaskar's nephews died in 1917. And in March 1918, yet again taking advantage of a time of turmoil, the Armenians began to mercilessly slaughter completely innocent Turks and wipe their villages from the face of the earth. The people of Gos faced terrible hardship. The Armenians brutally killed anyone who came into their hands. Those Azerbaijanis who survived tried to flee but many perished in the snowstorms in the mountain passes. This fate befell Sahnabana, Alaskar's first love, for whom his heart was sick every time he met someone.

The year was 1921. The last three years had brought him no respite. After his banishment from Gosh, Alaskar lived for two years with a family in the village of Yansaq. The days when he had sung and danced there were in the distant past. Now Alaskar was a miller. Then they moved to Tartar. Everywhere he was met with reverence and respect. But Alaskar's heart longed for Gosh, for the heights of Murov, Srynar and Musoy and the mountain plateau of Xacbulag… He poured his weeping heart out into his verses.

But the ancient region of Gos had survived the times of trouble. At the time of the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic, Gos became a part of it as primordial Azerbaijani territory. However, during the Armenian aggression in 1918-1919, the population of Gosh, who had been subjected to brutal annihilation, were forced to abandon their homes to save themselves from the merciless Dashnaks.

The Armenians quietened down, but only temporarily, and only after Soviet power was established there. The people of Gos returned to their homes. In 1921 Alaskar also returned to Agkilsa where he spent the last years of his life. Having at one time adorned any festive occasion or wedding with his presence, Alaskar was now an old man. In his poetry he longed for those times and complained about old age and illness.

Legends were passed down about him even when he was alive. They say that he himself predicted the day of his death. Ashug Alaskar was born in the spring, and it was in the spring that he left this mortal world. He died on 7 March 1926 at the age of 105 in his native village of Agkilsa. He was buried there in the village cemetery.

Ashug Alaskar left his people a huge treasure chest of literature. He worked in all genres of folk art. He knew that his works would live on as long as the Azerbaijani people existed, and that his gosmas, geraylis, dodagdeymez, muhammas, gyfylbyands, tejnis, divanis and ustadnames would always be performed by ashugs at weddings and folk festivals. He taught many ashugs. And now he has gone, poets and ashugs are learning from his works and striving to possess the secrets of his skill. Happy is he who even after death is needed by his people and is hugely loved by them…

At the end of the 1980s the Armenians again attacked the Azerbaijanis who had been living in Western Azerbaijan since ancient times. There were more pogroms, atrocities and the annihilation of the unarmed innocent population. Once again the Azerbaijanis were banished from their lands. The graves of our forefathers and ancient monuments were desecrated and destroyed. The Armenians did not even spare the grave of the great poet, Ashug Alaskar. Today his spirit is sad and perturbed - remember, his grandchildren and great grandchildren are a long way from Gos and they miss it. And Gos is lonely without them…