XVIII CENTURY AZERBAIJAN HISTORICAL REALITY AND LITERATURE

Abstract

Throughout the entire history of mankind, literature has been a fact of the time of its creation. When we look at the issue both in a universal context and in a local one, we see approximately the same picture. Just as Homer is a fact of ancient Greece, the work of the genius Azerbaijani poet Nizami Ganjavi of the 12th century is considered to be the fact of the mighty Seljuk Empire, the state of the Atabays of Azerbaijan. Khagani Shirvani's literary heritage, dominated by rebellious and grievous motives, was a literary phenomenon caused by the state of the Shirvanshahs, the Akhsitan dynasty. The invasion of the Mongols, the invasion of Emir Timur, the period-specific manifestations of discontent against oppression and slavery, the spread of philanthropy and the phenomenon of Imadaddin Nasimi.. The work of Alishir Navai, the Uzbek-Chagatai poet and statesman of the 15th century, the author of the first “Khamsa” in Turkic, and the great Turkic culture, which was called the Timurid renaissance, were echoes of Huseyn Baygara's rule which lasted 37 years, in culture, science and literature. The establishment of the Safavid state of Azerbaijan in the XVI century and the fact that Azerbaijan remained the “metropolis and central province of the state” (Efendiyev, 2007: 11) throughout the century, the domestic and foreign policy has had a direct impact on the change of the direction of literature. The biggest event was the stabilization of the tradition of writing in the Azerbaijani language, the preference for the folk language, and the rapid development of ashug poetry. If in the literature of three centuries ago there was a palace splendor, then in the poetry of this period there is already a roar of battlefields, heroic motives surpass love poems, ashug poetry, which is closer to the people, and therefore has a lot of influence and propaganda power. The 18th century Azerbaijani literature is also a “mirror that shows the straight and the crooked” of its time. The article examines the most important events in the history of Azerbaijan of the XVIII century, their influence on the development of literature and features of their reflection in artistic works.