Dagestan Old Printed Books in Avar Language in Department of National Literature in the Russian National Library (St. Petersburg)

Abstract

The article gives a general description of old printed Dagestan books stored in the Department of National Literatures of the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg and an annotated description of the most popular Avar-language writings in Dagestan in Ajam. The Department of national literature of the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg has the richest literature in 98 languages, ranging from 17th-century printed editions to modern literature. The library has 159 books in the North Caucasian languages. The books are published in the printing houses of Muhammadmirza Mavraev in Temir-khan Shura, A. M. Mikhailov in Port-Petrovsk, Ibnuhajar Nahibashev in Khasavyurt. The works are written in Arabic, Chechen, Avar, Lak, Kumik and Dargin languages. Avar writing passed a rather long and complicated way of formation and development. The numerous works of Avar written language that have come down to us testify to the gradual process of adapting the Arabic graphic system to the phonetic features of the Dagestan languages. The earliest of them date from the XIII–XIV centuries. The formation of the Ajam letter system contributed to the appearance in the languages of the peoples of Dagestan a large number of works of various genres written by Dagestan scholars or translated into national languages. The emergence of typography in Dagestan at the end of the 19th — beginning of the 20th century accelerated the development and dissemination of the Ajam written language and literature. The geographical dispersion of the storage places of old-printed Dagestan books complicates our understanding of their quantitative indicator. Annually conducted by the staff of the Department of Oriental studies of the Institute of history, archaeology and Ethnography of the DFC RAS archaeographic work with expedition trips to different regions of Dagestan indicates the existence of many undiscovered written sources on the history of Dagestan book culture. The identification of old printed books, their fixation and research remains a relevant task today. In the article we tried to give an extended description of old-printed books in Avar language, located in the Department of National Literatures of the National Library of Russia. Book descriptions are supplemented with information about the authors of books, the characteristic of works, copyists, which are drawn from prefaces, colophons and extra-text entries. The information contained in the article can be useful in compiling catalogs and descriptions of old printed books in Dagestan languages.