Ближний Восток и его соседи

g 152 h Firuza Melville adaptation of the folk muqams was awarded Stalin’s prize in 1949. 27 Amirov’s ballet Min bir gecə (‘One Thousand and One Nights’, 1979) uses the Shahrazad story from the Nights but reveals the Western perception of the Orient, either Arab, Persian, or Azeri as a generic phenomenon. Remarkably, this is the only Scheherazade produc- tion where there is actually a character called Shahrazad: the story of Diaghi- lev-Bakst’s ballet stops when the kings arrive from the fake hunt, discover the orgy in the harem and start the mas- sacre. Zobeide, having witnessed the murder of her lover, in anticipation of her own inevitable and torturous death, commits suicide. In Amirov’s ballet, Shahriyar exe­ cutes unfaithful Zobeide in black and finds his happiness with white Shah- razad, whose pas de deux lasts more or less for the entire second act. Such a blend of Odette with Zobeide and Odile with Shahrazad made the quotation of the Swan Lake paradigm with its didac- tic juxtaposition of black and white even more obvious. Ethnic shift of Scheherazade’s beloved slave: from Persian black to Russian gold Such a trimmed down version of the original tale (Scheherazade without Shah- razad) suited Diaghilev’s personal attitude towards the treacherous nature of women, whom he perceived as evil creatures by definition. It is worth noting that compared with the Arabic versions Zobeide’s beloved in Diaghilev’s bal- let is not black but golden. This feature changes his ethnicity from African to Arab: while in the Arabic texts Zobeide’s lover was a black African, in Rus- sian he is an Arab. Similarly, in the most exceptional Persian manuscript of the Nights (‘ Hezar-o yek shab ’), now kept in the Library of the Golestan Palace, 28 27 Frolova-Walker Marina. Russian Music and Nationalism. P. 289–290. 28 This manuscript (Accession No 12367) is of exceptional importance. It was completed in 1859 in seven volumes, which give in total 1142 pages, of which 1134 have up to six illustrations Pl. 18. Nigar Ibragimova as Shaherezada and Anar Mikailov as Shahriyar in Fikret Amirov’s ballet One thousand and one night, State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet, Baku, October 2021