Ближний Восток и его соседи

g 148 h Firuza Melville songs for the music of his Abesalom and Eteri he was rather influenced by European music, especially Italian, mainly by Verdi. Several tunes from this opera were used for the new Georgian national anthem composed in 2004 by Ioseb Kechakmadze. Leili and Mejnun, or the first opera in the ‘Muslim language’ Russian Azerbaijan on the contrary kept much closer links with Persia, which was the reason why it was the best to represent Persian literary culture in the rapidly Europeanizing Caucasian part of the Russian Empire, which was booming after the discovery of oil. In the year 1908, the first opera in the Azeri language was staged in the newly built Opera House (opened in 1911) due to the efforts of Zeynalabdin Taghiyev (1821 (1838?)–1924). Pl. 18. Mihály Zichy, Shota Rustaveli presents his poem to Queen Tamar, 1881