Heydar Aliyev and our “mother book”

Abstract

Heydar Aliyev’s historic decree on the 1300th anniversary of the epos “The Book of Dada Gorgud” that he called “Mother Book” promoted the necessity to rethink about this epos, the period of creation of this epos, ideological and artistic features and the language of this epos. Heydar Aliyev signed the Decree on celebrating the 1300th anniversary of the epos “The Book of Dada Gorgud” on April 20, 1997 and achieved to hold the events at the level of UNESCO on the occasion of this anniversary. The anniversary “The Book of Dada Gorgud” passed into history as one of the first great scientific and cultural events created a revival in Azerbaijani folklore studies and Azerbaijani humanitarianism as a whole. Heydar Aliyev highly appreciated an inspiring role of “The Book of Dada Gorgud” in protecting our independence and territorial integrity and considered it important to mention the difficulties that folklore studies faced in the study of this epic. During the Soviet era, Heydar Aliyev took care of studying and promoting the epos “The Book of Dada Gorgud” sometimes openly, sometimes secretly; and when he was the head of the independent state of Azerbaijan made historical services to the comprehensive study and the promotion of this epic in the world, as well as opened new ways of doing things related to this epic.