Janet Afary, Kamran Afary. Molla Nasreddin: The Making of a Modern Trickster 1906-1911
Janet Afary, Kamran Afary. Molla Nasreddin: The Making of a Modern Trickster 1906-1911. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022, 398p.
Full text
1This book studies the magazine in Azerbaijani Turkish Molla Nasreddin and focuses on its most productive publication years. The satirical magazine was published in different cities of the South Caucasus over a period of 27 years, with its first years in Tiflis (1906-11) being the most fruitful. The publication supported an anti-colonial discourse of reform and progress, and was read across the Muslim world. It satirized the local elite, colonial powers, the Muslim clergy, although it was not anti-religious as such, and promoted a new discourse of equal rights for women.
2The book is more than a study of this magazine: it paints in great details the cultural and intellectual milieu of the South Caucasus at the time, insisting on the exchanges and transnational identities of the writers and artists across the region, before the advent of strong nation states. It also pays particular attention to the cartooning and discusses the artists' connections to a wider world of graphic arts. It is a rich and innovative study, well-illustrated, that relies on a vast archive in multiple languages.
References
Electronic reference
Laetitia Nanquette, “Janet Afary, Kamran Afary. Molla Nasreddin: The Making of a Modern Trickster 1906-1911”, Abstracta Iranica [Online], Volume 45 | 2023, document 1, Online since 30 December 2023, connection on 14 June 2025. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/abstractairanica/56820; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/11rum
Top of pageCopyright
The text only may be used under licence CC BY-SA 4.0. All other elements (illustrations, imported files) are “All rights reserved”, unless otherwise stated.
Top of page