On the 27^th of November we watched together with our friends in the Azerbaijani House the movie “Nesimi”. The movie was made in the 70s in Azerbaijan. Unfortunately, it was only available in Azerbaijani. The movie is about the life of the medieval mystic, philosopher and poet Imameddin Nesimi. The storyline of the movie takes place in the XIV and XV century when Timur´s armies wanted to conquer Azerbaijan. The Sufi and poet Nesimi is in the middle of the power struggle and religion conflicts of this period. He meets dervishes, rulers and sheikhs. He starts to discover the deeper meaning of life and calls upon the people for inner liberation.

After the movie was showed the Turkologist and guest lecturer of our Talk&Cay Round – Micahel Heß shared with us, during his talk, important information about Nesimi. PD Dr. Michael Heß was extensively preoccupied with Nesimi and translated his poems into German. Heß explained that “Nesimi was the voice of a religious branch which was spread in the Caspian See, the Middle East and Central Asia. This religious flow is known as Hurufismus.” Heß also talked about the way Nesimi versified. According to him “Nesimi´s works are characterised by poetic and rhetoric brilliancy combined with religious emotionality, which is spoken directly from the heart of the poet.” This mastery of artistic means was not reached by any one within the Turkish poetry. Nesimi seems to be on the same level as Hafez, one of the most famous Persian poets of his time.