This post is about a book with a strange history. Written under the pen name Kurban Said, it was originally published in German, in Vienna, in 1937. After World War II, it was rediscovered in a second-hand bookshop by Jenia Granam, who gave it a global audience by translating it into English. (The authorship story is fascinatingly convoluted, but that will be a subject for another day.)

The current post is actually 15 months late... We first encountered the story of Ali and Nino in Batumi, Georgia (see the picture at the top), and I read the book, which I procured in Baku, Azerbaijan, when we arrived back in Malaysia after our epic trip. That was when I promised a Velvet Cushion post.

Well, here it is. All the other photos are taken from our time in Baku.





The book charts the love story of Ali, an Azerbaijani Muslim, and Nino, a Georgian Christian. It is set in the wake of World War I, and while most of the action takes place in Baku, we're also taken to Georgia, Persia, the Karabakh, and the bit of the Caucasus that is now Russia.

The most enjoyable elements for me were the headstrong characters, the impressionistically expressed sense of place, and the ever-present backdrop of geopolitics.

Ali is in many ways unlikeable. He is spoilt and rich, full of strange notions of honour, and more objectionably conservative and dualistic than someone of his obvious intelligence should really be.

And yet it is also true that his actions speak louder than his words. He loves Nino. When she is abducted by Nachararyan, an Armenian, he kills the perpetrator, but protects Nino (even though his friends urge him to kill her, and his father later reproaches him for not having done so). He later forgives her, even though she admits to some degree of consent. He strives for her happiness to the extent that circumstances permit.

Nino is, by her own admission, not intellectual. But she knows and speaks her own mind. She does not hesitate to disagree with Ali’s take on life. She is free with her affection toward him, but she warns him repeatedly never to opt to kidnap her, as was customary at the time. She is brave and adaptable, but she will not submit to the social rules they encounter during their time in Persia.



It's a highly evocative book. Just a few words and details and we have before us the desert heritage of Baku; the easy, pleasure-filled cosmopolitanism of Tiflis; the sultry languor of Persia; and the harsh, stark simplicity of Dagestan.

But it is all very black and white. This is this. That is that. There is no shade or nuance or sense that things are culturally constructed and ever-changing.

Professor Sanin's geography lesson in the opening chapter goes like this:

"'Some scholars look on the area south of the Caucasian mountains as belonging to Asia, while others, in view of Transcaucasia’s cultural evolution, believe that this country should be considered part of Europe. It can therefore be said, my children, that it is partly your responsibility as to whether our town should belong to progressive Europe or reactionary Asia.'

"The professor had a self-satisfied smile on his lips."

Two students -- the dull Mehmed Haidar and the bright Ali Khan Shirvanshir -- reject this characterization, and say they would prefer to stay in Asia.

Nino, however, when told of this exchange, sides with the professor:

"Ali Khan, you are stupid. Thank God we are in Europe. If we were in Asia they would have made me wear the veil ages ago, and you couldn't see me."





Let me expand on this by way of topics.

-- Baku --

Ali loves Baku. And he loves the apparently immutable tradition that he thinks it stands for:

"I loved my room on the second floor of our house... Dark carpets... a low divan, two small stools inlaid with mother-of-pearl, many soft cushions, and among all this, very disturbing and unnecessary, books of Western knowledge... I... went up to the flat roof of the house. From there I could see my world, the massive wall of the town's fortress and the ruins of the palace... Through the labyrinth of streets camels were walking… In front of me rose the squat Maiden's Tower... And behind the tower the sea began, the utterly faceless, leaden, unfathomable Caspian Sea, and beyond, the desert – jagged rocks and scrub: still, mute, unconquerable, the most beautiful landscape in the world... Life was beautiful and simple, seen from the roof of our house in Baku...

"Europe's geographical border began in the Outer Town... Inside the Old Wall the houses were narrow and curved like oriental daggers. Minarets pierced the mild moon...

"Much blood has flowed through the centuries in the alleys of our town. And this blood makes us strong and brave...

"Sometimes at night shrouded figures slip through the alleys. A dagger strikes like lightning, a little cry, and justice is done. Blood-feuds are running from house to house... Our old town is full of secrets and mysteries, hidden nooks and little alleys. I love these soft night murmurs, the moon over the flat roofs, and the hot quiet afternoons in the mosque’s courtyard with its atmosphere of silent meditation."



-- The desert --

Ali loves the desert, too: "I love simple things: wind, sand and stones. The desert is simple like the thrust of a sword. The wood is complicated like the Gordian knot. I lose my way in the woods..."

An elder who is present at the Karabakh picnic where Ali expresses this view agrees: "Maybe that is the one real division between men: wood men and desert men... The woods are full of questions. Only the desert does not ask, does not give, and does not promise anything... The fanatic comes from the desert, the creator from the woods. Maybe this is the main difference between East and West."

Returning from Karabakh, the summer holiday interrupted by the outbreak of World War I, Ali takes the train: "Yellow sand, stretching far into the distance, little bald hills, soft and round, weatherbeaten rocks, glowing red..."

When he discusses his desire to marry Nino with his father, the desert is again the backdrop: "The desert is the gate to a mysterious and unfathomable world."

And the desert is the scenery against which the global war plays out: "Camels came into town from the desert, with long sad steps, carrying sand in their yellow hair, looking far into the distance, with eyes that had seen eternity. They were carrying guns on their humps, the barrels hanging down their sides, crates with ammunition and guns: loot for the big battles."





-- Essentialism --

The desert is also the "self" to which everything else is the "other": "This was where I belonged, to the camels, to the men leading them, to the sand! What is it to me, this world behind the mountains? These Europeans with their wars, their cities, their Czars, Kaisers and Kings?... [W]e have a different way of being clean or dirty, good or bad, we have a different rhythm and different faces. Let the train rush to the West. My heart and soul belong to the East."

This is an example of the "Occidentalism" that Ali repeatedly expresses. He does not submit to Western ideas of superiority. But he propounds and defends the gulf between East and West.

"Asiatics" are lumped into one basket, as the following quotes, on very different subjects, illustrate:

-- "Like all Asiatics", Ali pontificates, the man who has served and guarded him in Karabakh, "wants to shed blood". His friends, Iljas Beg and Mehmed Haidar, go off to fight for the Russians, caring little who won the war overall, because "the blood lust of the Orient had awakened in them".

-- "An Asiatic room is always cool."

-- "How marvellous, that we're in Asia, in wild, reactionary Asia! We have no smooth roads for Western cars here, just rough paths for Karabagh horses."

The description of their accommodation in Persia similarly evokes all the stereotypes: coolness; cushions, mats, and bolsters; nightingales; rose bushes blooming round a fountain; cypresses; peacocks...

In the midst of all this, however, Said knows how to send up this kind of "othering". He records a conversation that Ali witnesses in Persia:

"'I am always absolutely content when I come back to Persia,' said a gentleman who represented the Persian Empire at a European court. 'There is nothing on earth we Persians need to be jealous of. One can really say there are only Persians and barbarians in the world.'

“'One could count in a few Indians, perhaps,' said the Prince. 'When I was in India a few years ago I met some people who were quite civilised and nearly came up to our standards of culture.'"

This complacency leaves the Persians wide open to the depredations of the British, who offer "security" not in exchange for "culture", as the Prince would have it, but in exchange for oil. This is clearly understood by Ali's much harder-headed cousin, Bahram. "Iran," he says, "is falling to pieces while old men sit about reciting poetry... Far too long has our country been in the tired hands of Princes and poets. Persia is like the outstretched hand of an old beggar. I want it to be the clenched fist of a young man."

Ali is not convinced by Bahram’s developmental ambitions: "Suppose you get what you want. When you have built your asphalt roads and forts, and when you have sent the worst servants to the most modern schools -- what will become of the soul of Asia?" It will be housed in a big museum, Bahram replies, tartly.

Later, when Baku is the capital of the newly independent Azerbaijan, Ali converses with a British civil servant, very favourably comparing his country’s development prospects with Persia's. His interlocutor replies: "I was a Consul in Persia for twenty years..., and I feel it is a great pity to see the old solid forms of oriental culture crumble, and the Orientals of today trying to imitate us, and despising their ancestors' customs. But they may be right. After all, it is their affair to choose how they want to live."

But Ali maintains his black-and-white view to the very end. Offered a posting to Paris, he protests to the minister: "I hate this Western world, these strange roads, peoples and customs." To Nino he is even more emphatic: "I would die away from the Orient, like a fish out of water... For me it would be just as impossible to live in Europe as it was for you to live in Asia. Let's stay in Baku, where Asia and Europe meet."



-- Women --

Early in the book, Ali expresses, apparently without irony or critique, some very harsh views about women: "The women's place is in the anderun, in the inner part of the house. A well-brought-up man does not talk of them, nor does he enquire after them or ask to give them his regards. They are a man’s shadow, even if the man only feels happy in the shadow. This is good and wise... Creatures without sense must be watched, lest they bring disaster on themselves and others. I think this is a wise rule."

According to Ali's uncle, visiting from Persia, the West is a strange world, "and the strangest thing of all is the way they treat their women. Women... walk about the palaces naked, and nobody is disgusted."

Listening to Ali’s defence of the usefulness of the veil, Nino replies: "You will always be an Asiatic, Ali... Do you think seventeen-year-old girls and nineteen-year-old boys talk about such things in Europe?... Then we won’t talk about them either."

Ali is surprised that his religious friend, Seyd Mustafa, expresses no opposition to his marrying Nino. But the reason is less than illuminating. Why should Nino become Muslim, he ponders: "A creature without soul and intelligence has no faith anyway. No Paradise or Hell is waiting for a woman. When she dies she just disintegrates into nothing. The sons must of course be Shiite."

Ali's father, too, is wholly unreconstructed: "Women are like children, only much more sly and vicious... Cover her with presents if you want to, give her silk and jewels. But if you ever need advice, and she gives it to you, do the exact opposite... Generally speaking it is not a good thing to love a woman. One loves one's homeland, or war."

Later, Nino and Ali take on a diplomatic role in the newly independent Azerbaijan, apparently demonstrating that these strict views have changed. Yet Nino demonstrates that women lose out whether liberalism or conservatism prevail. She feels "dishonoured" in Persia, because she is treated "like a very expensive and fragile thing". Nevertheless, when she assumes her role as politically useful social hostess, she feels acutely that she is being used: "What are all these men to me? I don’t want them to look at me like that."





-- World War I --

When the war breaks out, Ali feels no compulsion to fight on behalf of the Russians, despite his family’s military tradition.

Nachararyan, the Armenian, similarly holds back: "There is a high wall between us and the Russians. That wall is the Caucasus. If the Russians win our country will become completely russified... We will become European-Asiatic bastards, instead of forming the bridge between the two worlds. No, whoever fights for the Czar fights against Caucasia."

Answering Nino’s argument that the Georgians invited the Russians in to defend them against the Persians and the Turks, Nachararyan contends: "I concede: the Russians brought peace to the country. But we, the people of Caucasia, can now keep that peace without them. They pretend that they must protect us, one against the other... Surely the time is past when the Caucasian peoples had to think of Persia as an enemy. The enemy is in the north, and this same enemy is trying to tell us that we are children who have to be protected from each other."

When it looks as though the Ottoman Sultan is prevailing against Britain and Russia, Ali is congratulated for his foresight. But his severe friend, Seyd Mustafa, is less impressed: "Here in our Shiite town, men are longing for the Sunnites to come and destroy our faith. What does the Turk want?!"

Ali asks what the alternative is. "Iran’s sword is rusty," he says. "Whoever fights against the Turks is helping the Czar." His friend has no reply: "Mustafa was shrouded in a terrible sadness. He looked at me, and it seemed that all the despair of a dying millennium was in his eyes. 'What shall we do, Ali Khan? I do not know.'"



Deep chasms also run through the Caucasus itself:

When Nachararyan, fat and rich, sat sipping his champagne, talking of mutual love between the peoples of the Caucasus, Mehmed Haidar's face become dark, and he said: "I believe, Mr Nachararyan, that you need not worry about that. After the war there'll be only very few Armenians left anyway."

When visiting Tiflis, Ali muses: "Georgians seem to me like noble deer, strayed amongst the jungle mixture of the Asiatics. No other Eastern race has this charm, these graceful movements, this fantastic lust for life and healthy enjoyment of leisure... Was this the gate to Europe? No, of course not. This was part of us, and yet so very different from the rest of us. A gate, but leading where? Perhaps to the last stage of wisdom that gradually becomes unheeding playfulness."

Georgia, he is told, "is being squeezed to death between the two claws of a red-hot pair of tongs" -- between the Germans and the Russians. There is a melancholy to his depiction of Georgia. His neighbours' conversations about their ancient families "sounded like echoes coming from long lost centuries".

One of Nino’s cousins comments: "It is wonderful to be a Georgian, even if Georgia perishes. You sound hopeless. But has it ever been otherwise in the Land of Tamar? And yet our rivers run, our vine grows, our people dance. It is a fair country, this our Georgia. And so it will remain, for all its hopelessness."

Nino reflects, while they are holidaying in Tiflis, "We ought to be blood enemies... I love you, just simply you, as you are. But I'm afraid of your world... It is stupid of me to make you responsible for every Mohammedan who ever killed a Georgian... But you see: I, your Nino, I too am a tiny piece of this Europe that you hate, and here in Tiflis I feel it more than ever. I love you, and you love me. But I love woods and meadows, and you love hills and stones and sand. And that's why I am afraid of you, of your love and your world."



When the war starts to go well for Russia -- "half of Turkey and half of Persia were cowering under Nikolai Nikolayevitch's dark shadow" -- some of Baku's elite start to worry that Russian dominance will mean the end of Muslim identity, while others see it as an opportunity to exploit, on the grounds that "the weaker the great powers are after the war, the nearer is freedom for us".

At one point, a letter from the voluble Arslan Aga brings world news to the Dagestan fastness where Ali and Nino have taken refuge from the vengeance of Nachararyan's family: "The prisoners have left prison and are now about freely... [T]he police are now where the prisoners used to be... There are no soldiers any more, either... I can hear you asking: 'Why doesn’t the Czar send a new police force and a new Governor?' Let me tell you: there isn't a Czar any more either. There just isn't anything any more." Not only has the Russian revolution taken place, but the vengeance-bent family has gone home.

But their respite in Baku is short-lived. Having lost against the regrouped Russians, Ali and Nino flee to Persia, their identity again up for grabs. Ali cries: "Father, Asia is dead, our friends are dead, and we are exiles." His father disagrees: "Asia is not dead. Its borders only have changed, changed forever. Baku is now Europe. And that is not just a coincidence. There were no Asiatics left in Baku any longer." The conversation continues:

"'Father, for three days I have defended Asia with machine-gun, bayonet and dagger.'

"'...You and all the men who fought with you -- you are not Asiatics any more. I do not hate Europe. I am indifferent to it. You hate it, because there is something European in you. You went to a Russian school, you have learnt Latin, you have a European wife. How can you still be an Asiatic? If you had won, you yourself would have introduced Europe in Baku, even without realising it, or intending to. It does not really matter whether we or the Russians build the new factories and highways. Things could not go on as they were. Being a good Asiatic does not mean killing many enemies, wildly lusting for blood.'"

The next turn of the wheel brings the Free Republic of Azerbeidshan, proclaimed in Gandsha, with Turkish armies closing in on Russian-occupied Baku.

Once that closing in is completed, Ali and Nino are able to return: "The unaccustomed feeling of political independence stirred me profoundly, and I loved the new coat of arms, the uniforms and laws. For the first time in my life I was really at home in my own country."

But his friends are already "quarrelling violently about the basic ideas of the new state". Can development and reform remain compatible with Islam?

Turkish reverses force a withdrawal of the Pasha’s troops, and not long later it is British troops who are occupying Baku, along with New Zealanders, Canadians, and Australians.

The die rolls again. As Ali and Nino adjust to life as a new family, "people in far-away Europe played with borders, armies and states". Turkey and Persia are both weakened. The British are about to pull out. Meanwhile, millions of Russians "are pressing down on us, thirsting for our oil".

The Russians arrive in Baku, "and the Republic of Azerbeidshan has only a few more days to live". Nino and the baby board the train to Tiflis. Ali Khan dies bravely defending an impossibility.