مرواريد، يونس. مراغه: افرازهرود از نظر اوضاع، طبيعى، اجتماعى، اقتصادى، تاريخى. تهران: ناشر ذکر نشده، ١٣۶٠، ٧١۵ص.
Murvarid, Yunus. Maraghah: Afrazahrud az Nazar-i Awzaʻ-yi, Tabiʻi, Ijtimaʻi, Iqtisadi, Tarikhi. Tehran: s.n., 1982, 715pp.
ABSTRACT
Maraghah (Afrazehrood) from the Perspectives Pertaining to its Natural Environment, Society, Economy, and History
مراغه: افرازهرود از نظر اوضاع، طبيعى، اجتماعى، اقتصادى، تاريخى
The goal of writing this book was to rescue a series of experiences from being forgotten so that future generations can be familiar with the history and narratives of the residents of the city of Maraghah. As is evident from the title of the book, its target audience is a wide range of researchers. Yet given that throughout the text, there is slightly more emphasis on the architecture and literature of this city, naturally it will be of more interest to architects and fans of Persian and Turkish literature.
The writer, who is himself a native of Maraghah, is very conscientious in following a researcher’s neutrality. As such, he has limited his account to gathering reports and documents pertaining to this city’s natural environment, economy, culture, society, and history. This has meant that large segments of the first parts of the book which are devoted to the city’s social, population, and geographical specificities are filled up with statistics and graphs based on the reports of government ministries and offices.
However, when the text covers the city’s historical buildings, the style of the text takes on an architectural rhythm. In this section, the author has included descriptions of the cultural elements that have had a role in the formation of each building. A nice example of this is to be found in his description of Kabud Dome. In this story, Khwajah Nasiruddin Tusi cleverly saves himself from being buried alive alongside the mother of Hilaku Khan. The book includes other examples that are similar to this as well. Similarly, in recounting the lives of the city’s well known figures, who are generally writers and poets, the book attempts to include examples from their prose and poetry. This use of direct quotes reduces the overall dryness of the text. Although the book is in Persian, no translations are provided in the many cases where the quotations are in Turkish.
The book has attempted to place copies of original documents within the text. However, in some cases, formatting errors are evident in the typography.
The historical section of the book also has a purely descriptive approach which appears to avoid analysis of events. However, the events have been set in a way to explain how the democratic movement in Azerbaijan was formed. Symbolically, the text ends with an account of December 12, 1945. On this day, the Maraghah base fell to the democrats and the Azerbaijani government’s rule in the Maraghah area effectively began.
Iradj Esmailpour Ghouchani
Translated by Niki Akhavan