Transition from Autobiography to Memoir in <i>Babur-nama</i>

Abstract

The need to study the genre specifics of Babur-nama (Trans. A.S. Beveridge) is conditioned primarily by the interest in genre modifications and transitions from one genre form (autobiographical) to another (memoir), which can be traced by the example of this work. The purpose of this study was to consider the genre nature and the development of the memoir genre in Turkic literature in the case of ?ah?r-ud-D?n Muhammad Babur’s Babur-nama. Methods of selective artistic, genre, historical and cultural, contextual, and graphic analysis were used. In particular, it preserves the features of autobiography: the development of events and the movement of the plot in chronological order, a historically truthful recreation of the realities of the 16th century, the absence of fragmentation and episodicity in the presentation. But in artistic terms, the following features of the notes are clearly expressed: the presence of the author’s voice, represented at different levels, the presentation of the text as a cohesive unity, consideration of important social and religious issues. The author’s voice was presented through the manner of personal writing, lyrical digressions (poems), philosophical maxims, critical assessment, and reasoning. A whole narrative strategy of storytelling was built in the text. It should be noted that the development of the memoir genre further influenced the emergence of historical novels and epic novels. In the future, this paper can be used to study works of art considering national traditions of cultural areas, plot-composition, and other artistic parameters of notes, comparing works of the Western and Eastern literary canon written in memoir genres.