Tradition and Structural Model in Divan Composition Among Turkic Women Poets: The Case of Uvaysi’s Divan

The article examines the manuscript divan preserved under inventory no. 1837 in the collection of the Al-Biruni Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan, applying source-critical, codicological, paleographic, comparative-textological, and genre-based methods. The study identifies the composition of the divan, its genre system, the arrangement of poems, and the textual and structural differences between the manuscript and its published editions. Particular attention is given to the place of such genres as hamd, na‘t, munajat, ghazal, mukhammas, takhmis, and musaddas in Uvaysi’s oeuvre, as well as to the religious and Sufi traditions reflected in the structure of the divan. The takhmis poems composed on ghazals by Nava’i, Fuzuli, Amiri, and Vazir are shown to represent Uvaysi’s distinctive form of artistic emulation and creative dialogue with her literary predecessors. Comparative analysis also reveals the omission of certain poems, textual variants, and compositional changes in editions published in different periods, thereby demonstrating the particular importance of studying Uvaysi’s literary legacy on the basis of primary manuscript sources. The study concludes that Uvaysi’s divan both continues the classical tradition of divan composition and constitutes an independent work shaped and developed through the poet’s individual creative and poetic vision. The manuscript contains 306 poems: 267 ghazals, one musalsal, 12 independent mukhammas poems, 19 takhmis poems, and seven musaddas poems.