News

On September 12, a symposium was held in Riga, Latvia on the theme "The legacy of the great Azerbaijani poet and thinker Nizami Ganjavi and his influence on the promotion of universal values".

Mr. Elnur Sultanov, the Ambassador of the Republic of Azerbaijan to the Republic of Latvia, opened the event with an opening speech, first of all he talked about the rich literary heritage of the great Azerbaijani poet and thinker Nizami Ganjavi and wished the participants success.

Then the executive director of the National Library of Latvia, Dzintra Mukāne, made an introductory speech.

At the symposium, Adiba Ismayilova, PhD in history, deputy director for scientific affairs and library-information service, representing the National Library of Azerbaijan, gave a speech in English on the topic "Nizami Ganjavi's heritage in world libraries".

During her speech, she said that the people of Azerbaijan have an ancient and rich literature and culture, and one of the prominent representatives of this literature is the genius Azerbaijani poet Nizami Ganjavi, who lived and created in the 12th century.

A. Ismayilova first informed the participants about the life and work of the great thinker Nizami Ganjavi, and that universal values, truth and justice, friendship between people and the embodiment of hard work are widely featured in his poems included in the world famous "Khamsa" and brought to the attention of the participants that humanism, a fair society and state, human rights and freedoms, and friendly relations between humans and peoples are the foundation of the poet's literary heritage.

A. Ismayilova noted that last year marked the 880th anniversary of the birth of a prominent representative of world literature, the great Azerbaijani poet and thinker Nizami Ganjavi. On the occasion of the 880th anniversary of the genius poet, the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Mr. Ilham Aliyev, by his Decree dated January 5, 2021, declared 2021 as the "Year of Nizami Ganjavi" in our country as a whole and a large number of events - scientific conferences, book exhibitions and presentations, symposia, literary and artistic gatherings and other events - were held throughout the year both in our country and abroad in order to promote the creativity and ideas of the great poet.

In the continuation of her speech, the speaker talked about the projects implemented by the National Library of Azerbaijan with the Ministry of Culture in connection with the "Year of Nizami Ganjavi". She said that the National Library of Azerbaijan has done significant work in the direction of bringing digital copies of the manuscripts belonging to the classics of Azerbaijani literature preserved in the national libraries of the world within the framework of the project "Returning our national and moral values to the Motherland" implemented with the support of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation. On the basis of the obtained manuscript copies, electronic databases were prepared by the library staff. When creating such databases, library professionals use not only documents in the library's collection, but also materials from other libraries and Internet resources (of course, within the terms of copyright). Then she showed the electronic database "Nizami Ganjavi's heritage in world libraries" to the participants of the event. She noted that 155 copies of Nizami Ganjavi's "Khamsa" have been collected in the electronic database. In the year of Nizami, electronic copies of these manuscripts entered the National Library from the libraries and museums of Turkey, USA, Germany, France, Great Britain, Poland, Czech Republic, Russia and Kazakhstan.She visually introduced the participants to the copies obtained from British, Turkish, Czech, French libraries, as well as Tehran and Manchester University libraries on the electronic database. At the end of her speech, A. Ismayilova presented to the event participants the book "Nizami Ganjavi - Bibliography" published by the National Library as an anniversary gift and containing about 8,000 sources.

In the continuation of the event, Kaspars Klavins, head of the Center for Korean Studies, professor of the Faculty of Human Rights of the University of Latvia, spoke on the topic "The role of Nizami in the context of science and philosophy"; Boriss Avramecs, professor of the department of musicology of the Latvian Academy of Music named after Jazeps Vitols, on "Regularity in Music"; doctor of technical sciences, professor Nigar Sultanova on "Subtlets of philological translation of Nizami's poems"and others spoke.

At the end of the event, A. Ismayilova  donated books such as Nizami Ganjavi-Khamsa", "Yevgeni Bertels. Great Azerbaijani poet Nizami" (in Azerbaijani and Arabic languages), "The role of Nizami Ganjavi's poem "Iskandername" in intercultural dialogue (in Greek)", "Nizami Ganjavi. Bibliography", "R. Abbasly Nizami Ganjavi-The Turkic Poet" and the CD "Sozleri Nizaminindir" to the fund of the Latvian National Library.