THE IRAQ TURKMEN FOLKLORE IN ATA TARZIBASHI’S RESEARCHS

Abstract

Ata Tarzibashi, one of the greatest personalities raised by the Iraqi Tukmen and as a whole the Turkic world in the 20th century, worked tirelessly in such important fields as language, folklore, literature, press, etc. - the most obvious example of the people‘s historical past, national-spiritual wealth and created his fundamental works. Ata Tarzibashi, the prominent researcher who has published about 50 works in Iraq and Turkiye, has attracted attention since the middle of the last century, especially with his valuable research in the direction of collecting, publishing and researching folklore heritage.
Ata Tarzibashi not only with his fundamental work "Khoyrats and Maniis" of Kirkuk (Turkmen songs) played the most important role in the development of Iraqi-Turkmen folklore studies, but also he published his "Folk songs of Kirkuk" in the field of research of Iraqi-Turkmen folklore in 1961.
He collected his other works, as well as the examples of oral folk literature which were widely spread among the people, and published his books as "Old Kirkuk words", "Arzi-Gambar matali" and others.
By making the necessity of collecting, publishing, and researching issues of folklore in the press pages, Ata Tarzibashi was the first initiative and patriotic researcher to focus the attention of his colleagues to this direction.