“Heydar Babaya Salam” is a modern poem in this language, which was the main language used by the Sufi poet Nasimi and the first to be used by lute-playing bards called ashiks. For 10 points each:
[10h] What language’s poetry was pioneered by a ruler who named his progeny after Shahnameh characters? That ruler used the pen name “Khaṭā’ī” to write the Dahnama in a predecessor to this modern Turkic language.
ANSWER: Azerbaijani [or Azeri; or Azeri Turkic or Azeri Turkish; accept Northern Azerbaijani, Southern Azerbaijani, or Iranian Azerbaijani; accept Turki or Torki; reject “Farsi” or “Persian”; reject “Turkish”] (“Heydar Babaya Salam” is by Mohammad Hossein Shahriar. The ruler is Ismā‘īl I, the first Safavid shah.)
[10m] This author’s parents took him to Azerbaijan to cure his childhood maladies, inspiring him to transcribe the folk tale “Ashik Kerib.” Princess Mary appears in a novel by this Russian author of “Death of a Poet.”
ANSWER: Mikhail Lermontov [or Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov] (The novel is A Hero of Our Time.)
[10e] This leader supported the recognition of Nizami as Azerbaijan’s national poet. A namesake epigram by Osip Mandelstam criticizes this Soviet leader, who used the pen name Soselo to write Georgian poetry.
ANSWER: Joseph Stalin [or Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin; or Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; or Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; accept “Stalin Epigram”]
<AP, World Literature>