Kurban Said’s Ali & Nino, and the Nachararyan Factor

Abstract Published just prior to WWII in German, allegedly by a Jewish convert to Islam who had fled the Bolshevik Revolution, and currently dubbed the national novel of Azerbaijan, Kurban Said’s Ali & Nino gets less attention than it deserves. And to the extent that this little-known work of classical stature is recognized by the international reading public, it is for its combination of the East-West dichotomy and cosmopolitanism. But even as Kurban Said’s love story between a Muslim bachelor, Ali, and a Georgian damsel, Nino, does favorably present cosmopolitan yearnings within the framework of westernization, this article highlights the evil Armenian leitmotif in it, through surveying the misdoing of Ali’s rival Nachararyan and how that relates to ethno-political conflict in the Caucasus.