BAKÜ’DE BULUNAN ÜÇ DERBENDNÂME NÜSHASI ÜZERİNE

Derbend-namehs are historical pieces dealing with the Khazarian period of Caucasia, Dagestan in particular. They start with Khazar - Sassanid relations and proceed with Khazar – Umayyad and Khazar Abbasid relations and wars. They are written with a Persian-Islamic perspective and the Khazars are the other in the work. The first Derbend-nameh in Turkish is thought to be written at the end of the Sixteenth Century by Muhammad Avvabi Aktashi of Endirey in `pure Turkish` by the order of the Crimean Khan Samiz Giray Khan after the conquest of the lands between River Kuma and the Caspian Sea. It is understood that Muhammad wrote his work by using the best of the Persian and Arabic sources on the history of the region. This Sixteenth Century Turkish work is translated into Persian at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century by a certain Aliyar. The first known study on Derbend-nameh in the scholarly world is to be Bayer`s dissertation named de muro Caucasea `The Caucasian Wall` in 1726. In 1829 M. Klaproth published an extract of a Derbend-nameh copy in Journal Asiatique and in 1851 Mirza A. Kazem-Beg published the text of another copy in St. Petersburg with notes and remarks in comparison with other Islamic works related to the subject. Kazem-Beg records that he personally had witnessed the public readings of Derbend-namhes by the `curious and semi-civilized young men of Derbend`. Hacısalihoğu regards these public readings as the curiosity of learning the history of the homeland and consequently as the beginning of Azerbaijani historiography. This remark should be approached with suspicion since as it was mentioned previously the Khazars in work are staged as the other and the texts is full of indignities towards Khazars as infidels, devilish, damned etc. Despite the fact that Khazars are not directly mentioned as Turks in the text, it is full of hints of it. Personal names and titles as Beshengi, Hakan, Barsiq, Tarhan and etc. are clues that a person with the consciousness of curiosity for learning the history of the homeland would not and could not miss. Therefore such a person reading the Derbend-nameh would be offended rather than learning the history of the homeland. These public readings should be taken as the Caucasian parallels of the Anatolian tradition of reading Battal-namehs and Danishmend-namehs. Unfortunately Derbend-namehs, which are very valuable sources with regards to Khazar period Turkic history and the history of Dagestan still have not been translated into contemporary Turkish. However, reference to the Derbend-nameh in the works of Turkish historioans like Akdes Nimet Kurat, A. Zeki Velid Togan and Nihat Çetinkaya indicates that the Turkish history writers are aware of its existence. Twelve copies of Derbend-namehs are registered in the Turkey Manuscripts Catalogue and these registered copies are present in the libraries of Georgia, Russia and France. It is quite possible that one of the six copies present in Moscow is the one published by Mirza Kazem-Beg. However, the copy, which the extract of was published by Klaproth, was recorded to be in Berlin. This copy seems to be missing. Additionally Klaproth recorded that another Derbend-nameh copy was present in Gottingen. This copy is missing as well. It is hard to tell whether the missing of the German copies of Derbend-nameh are due to the turbulent years of the first half of the Twentieth Century or are just a result of library mistakes. Another interesting point is the non-existence of copies of such a widespread work in the libraries of Turkey. This is an issue that should be tackled. Perhaps there are copies in Turkish libraries tagged under inaccurate names. Likewise three more copies exists in Azerbaijani Capital Baku at the Məhəmməd Füzuli Manuscripts` Institute of Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences. These three copies registered with the numbers M-37, B-333 and A-613 contain very valuable material with regards to the history of the Turkish language. Although these works belong to the Azeri field of Turkic they also display characteristics of being written with mixed-language. The copy numbered M-37 is the one out of the three with the closest language to contemporary Azeri. Leastwise the copy contains some Kipchak Turkic characteristics. The copy numbered B-333 is the longest of the three copies. Although the copy carries Azeri characteristics it sporadically approximates to Ottoman Turkish. It is the copy containing the most Arabic – Persian elements and the least Kipchak Turkic elements out of the three. The copy numbered A-613 is the one with the most interesting language in spite of being incomplete. Again the work displays Azeri characteristics. However, it contains many Kipchak features.