Manuscripts of great poet exhibited in Azerbaijan
By Seymur Aliyev
The Nizami Ganjavi International Center and the Azerbaijan National Museum of History held an exhibition of Azerbaijani poet and thinker Nizami Ganjavi's manuscripts and other works within the great poet's 870th anniversary on Saturday.
This is the first exhibition of Ganjavi works' manuscripts collected in 40 world countries.
US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues Melanne Verveer, US Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy Philip Verveer, the US, Egyptian and Kyrgyz ambassadors to Azerbaijan and others attended the opening ceremony.
According to a special decision of the board of trustees of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center, Melanne Verveer was conferred with "Nizami Ganjavi" award for the excellent work in women's issues around the world, attracting girls to education in poor countries.
UNESCO officially announced 1991 the year of Nizami Ganjavi and held 850th anniversary of the great Azerbaijani poet.
Ganjavi's creative work was deemed the peak of Oriental Renaissance. He embodied in his poems great humanistic, socio-political ideas and moral values. Ganjavi believed that humanism is the main measure of a person. He totally denied racial, national and religious discrimination and among his literary heroes can be seen Turks, Persians, Arabs, Chinese, Indians, Africans, Greeks, Georgians and other representatives of different nationalities. His heroes struggle for the sake of justice, people's happiness and high morality. One of the main themes of the poet's creations is respect for human labor and personality.
Nizami was also a great patriot. He always tried to link all events described in his poems with Azerbaijan. Nizami merges love to motherland with heroism in the name of the nation. The poet's creative activity had an enormous impact on the development of Oriental poetry and took its honorable place among the rare pearls of world literature.