Heritage of Folklore studies of Salim Rafig Rafioghlu

Abstract

 Folklore studies occupy a unique position in the research of Salim Rafig Rafioglu (1905-1980), one of the leading figures in Azerbaijani emigration literary studies. “Analysis and comparison of Azerbaijani and Anatolian folk stories” is the first study paper written by the scholar in this field, and it has not been published yet. This work was completed in 1934 as a graduation thesis at Istanbul University. The study makes it evident that the author intended for the term “folk stories” to refer to both epics and fairy tales. Salim Rafig systematizes those examples in terms of subject and combines them into six groups. The author follows the fairy tale motifs in both Azerbaijani and Anatolian folk stories, and gives comprehensive information on each one in the next chapter. Salim Rafig highlights the religious themes in fairy tales by examining the impact of Islam and shamanism on folk literary examples. From this point, the scholar first classifies the stories according to motifs.  Salim Rafig was also engaged in ashug creativity, and published selected examples of ashug literature in the “Addition” part of his book titled “Azerbaijani Literature – Selected lines”. The scholar thereby created conditions for the study of those samples.