Peculiarity of Historical Themes in Azerbaijan and English Literature in the Second Half of the 20th Century (on the Example of the Works by Aziza Jafarzade and Mary Stewart)

The main purpose of this article is to consider the conceptual approach of the patriotic attitude to the historical roots and individuality of nations in works of fiction on historical themes by outstanding writers who lived in different countries in the same century. In their works, Mary Stewart and Aziza Jafarzade wrote about the historical environment, human relations, religion, the struggle for their beliefs, and other issues. One thing that unites writers is that their appeals to historical works coincide with their age of wisdom. Writers created their works, feeling the spirit of the historical realities of their countries, and skillfully used the artistic imagination to depict events of the long past. This article mainly compared Mary Steward�s �Arthur pentalogy� and Aziza Jafarzade�s �Baku-1501� historical novel and �Hun Mountain� story. The real historical person living in the 16th century AD. Shah Ismail Khatai is the protagonist of �Baku-1501� written by Aziza Jafarzade. Shah Ismail�s name is connected with the flourishing of the Azerbaijani language as both poetry and a diplomatic language. He has a special place in our history and his name is written with golden letters in the history of Azerbaijan. Of course, the appeal to this period is a manifestation of love for Azerbaijan. The same motive is clearly seen in Mary Stewart�s �Arthur pentalogy�. The love for her country aroused interest in the historical subject. Thanks to the legendary king Arthur writer decodes the real identity of the nation. The heroes of these two novels struggle for their convictions and during their reign, they become masters of the ruling. Although the exact period is not indicated in the story about the Turkic-speaking tribe �Hun Mountain�, it is possible to define the era based on historical realities. The Huns� migration to Azerbaijan falls approximately to the 4th century AD. At the same time, Aziza Jafarzade makes special stresses in the story of �Hun Mountain� to our ancient Turkish words. The period of �Arthur pentalogy� is the 5-6th centuries AD. The parallels between Mary Stewart�s pentalogy and Aziza Jafarzade�s �Hun Mountain� are that they describe the far periods of our age and the main feature of that period is that the elements of legendary motifs are inevitable.

L’icône et l’idole. Les représentations de Marie Stuart dans l’œuvre de George Buchanan

In 1561, George Buchanan definitely left France to live in Scotland where he became court poet of the Catholic Queen Mary Stewart, even if he publicly became Protestant. At the beginning, the humanist composed a few epigrams in which the queen is depicted as a good sovereign who restores the Golden Age in Scotland. A few years later, Buchanan depicted Mary Queen of Scots as a tyrant in his Rerum Scoticarum Historia, published in 1582. This article will provide a comparison between Buchanan’s different works (poetical works, tragedies and political and historical works) and show that the aesthetic choices and the references and quo- tations of ancient writers are based on Buchanan’s political thought about the Good King and the Tyrant, as we can read in the De jure regni apud Scotos dialogus, published in 1579.