Kurban Said

The root of the word originates in the Semitic languages, and connotes "sacrifice", a traditional religious concept common to Middle Eastern cultures.

Thus "Seyid Kurban" would more accurately convey the meaning "someone of sacred descent who has been sacrificed", which is exactly the theme of the novel Ali and Nino.

"[5] In addition, he had referred to himself as gurban in correspondence with Azerbaijani Soviet authorities in 1925[6] when he was seeking permission to return home from Europe after having been on a diplomatic assignment abroad representing the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR) government, which was in opposition to the Bolsheviks.

Chamanzaminli realized that historic circumstances made him a likely victim of politics, as most ADR government officials had been killed when the Bolsheviks came to power.

It would have been suicidal to return to Baku with the manuscript in hand, as the Bolsheviks had executed most of the government officials of the former regime and any opposition.

[7] As it was, a decade later, the Azerbaijan Writers Union in 1937 were under orders from Stalin to purge anyone from their ranks who did not embrace the Soviet ideology.

Yusif Vazir Chamanzaminli was accused of introducing "counter-revolutionary" ideas through the anti-heroes of his novels, and soon afterwards, he was arrested and sentenced to the GULag, where he died in 1943.

Lev Nussimbaum, who wrote in German under the pen name of Essad Bey,[9] is also linked to the pseudonym "Kurban Said," and by some observers to the novel Ali and Nino.

"Years of collecting every shred of evidence I could of his existence revealed that ... Lev's simplest statements about himself—name, race, nationality—are the ones that can least be trusted.

The problem with the "Der Mann" narrative is that though it started out as a semi-autobiographical account, it quickly lapsed into a tale of vengeance within a fictional framework about a "Dr.

[19] Bello Vacca, an Italian born in Tripoli, who often went by the alias Ahmed Giamil Vacca-Mazzara also laid claim to the pseudonym Kurban Said.

[24] Vacca also is the person who arranged and financed the Muslim-style gravestone capped with a stone-carved turban for Essad Bey,[25][26] who is buried in the sea coast town of Positano, Italy.

In 1944 – two years after Essad Bey's death – it was Vacca who arranged for the translation of "Ali and Nino" into Italian for the first time.

The motivation became evident in correspondence from Vacca to Omar Rolf Ehrenfels asking his advice in regard to approaching Hutchinson Publishers (London) who he said had not paid Essad Bey for the biography of Reza Shah.

Vacca sought to claim the money and told Ehrenfels that he had his papers all in order as proof of the kinship relationship.

Vacca claimed that the creation of the name "Kurban Said" was totally accidental—the result of a misunderstanding—which later became a private joke between him and Essad Bey.