Muslim Gnostic Poetry in the Former USSR and Popular Democracies: A Century of History and Present-Day Heritages (1920s–2020s)

Multiplex Online Round Table, April 11–12, 2023

Rediscovered during the past decades, Muslim gnostic poetry has developed and circulated in the countries of the former USSR and popular democracies, from the 1920s to the present. Often written in such classical genres as the ghazal and mukhammas inherited from Arabic models, in languages as different as Albanian, Tatar, Uzbek, Persian, Uyghur and Chinese, its existence and its current continuation raise several issues.

One is the very presence, from the Western Balkans to coastal China, of long hidden and unexplored handwritten texts, produced here and there in verse under administrations inspired by Marxism-Leninism. Ignored until recently by historians and specialists of literature, this poetry questions our representations of the many historical ruptures of the past century because, notably, of its apparently conservative forms and contents.

Indeed, the modern ghazal and mukhammas oppose the apparent classicism of their form, sometimes of their calligraphy, to the innovations of the literary avant-gardes encouraged, for a while, by diverse Communist party–states. At the same time, the quasi exclusivity acquired by such genres in Sufi cenacles, their underground circulation concomitant with the escheat of Muslim gnostic expertise, and their current readings point out their modernity.

A modernity made of complex interrelations between ‘official’ and ‘parallel’ high culture, against an overall backdrop of restriction or full prohibition of religious practice. The dismantling of Sufi ritualised sociability, the loss of many Guides (murshids) led the Muslim gnostic poets of this period to stumble over the question of magisterium, and to focus more than ever on adab — the Islamicate code of values and deportment, now synonymous with ‘culture’.

This is how Sufi teaching, if not guidance, could not only survive but also develop even in the absence of Sufism. Hence, the special significance of the transmission of adabiyāt (seen as didactic literature) for gnostic cenacles that continued to meet, at smaller scale, in the post-WWII decades — before wider lettered get-togethers, in the 1970s–80s, and more recent hagiographic experiments, often published, make those cenacles known to larger audiences.

The present-day hagiography of their members as holy transmitters of Muslim gnostic high culture in repressive contexts has brought back the issue, typical of the Cold War, of Islamic dissidence under Communist rule. In a growingly competitive religious sphere, since the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, this hagiography, often conceived by heirs and disciples of 20^th-century underground masters, sometimes reflects an ethical opposition to the current state of affairs.

In connection with the RedGold ANR Research Programme, the present multiplex online round table aims at fostering an exchange of information and views on the state of the art and the perspectives of research. A first, philological axis of our collaborative work will consist of a collective reflection on the identification of primary sources and on their valorisation (e.g., through their selective publishing, transcription, edition and translation).

Programme

Tuesday, April 11

Wednesday, April 12

This event is organized with the help of EPHE, Sapienza Università di Roma, & Lanzhou University.

Download files

• Programme of the round table (.pdf)
• Poster of the round table (.pdf)
• Summary of the round table (.pdf)