Jeyhun Hajibeyli

Later he went to St. Petersburg under the sponsorship of oil baron millionaire Murtuza Mukhtarov where he entered the Law Department of the university there.

In 1919, Jeyhun Hajibeyli, 28, accompanied the delegation of the newly organized, independent Azerbaijan Democratic Republic to France led by Alimardan bey Topchubashov to take part in the Versailles Peace Conference.

It was discovered from these documents that Jeyhun Hajibeyli also wrote narratives and stories, and was involved in scientific research work.

Bayram Aghayev, a member of the staff of the Nizami Literature Institute who is a Philology Sciences Candidate prepared this work for publication that had previously been released in Paris in Asia Magazine in 1934.

From the first words that Jeyhun Hajibeyli wrote in this monograph, we can see that he had begun work on this Karabakh Folklore volume prior to the Revolution (1920) when he was still in his Motherland.

This work was written at the request of famous Turkologist V. V. Radlov (1837–1918) who played a historical role in deciphering the Orkhan-Yenisey literary monument.

After the academician died, his successor the famous Orientalist, Professor A. N. Samoylovich studied the short research and praised it in an article.

Hajibeyli had to seek asylum in France isolated from the sphere of Russian Orientalists’ that he had developed networks and connections with and also separated from his native land Karabakh, Azerbaijan which was the object of his research.

This concise collection is a good source for Europeans who want to learn about the East and about the Azerbaijani language, about Azerbaijan and about the ethnography of its inseparable part—Karabakh.

Karabakh folklore consists of 33 small sections—bayatis, praises, supplications, threats, vows, elegies, lullabies, endearments, jokes, humorous anecdotes used by ordinary people.