The most important Turkmen historical record of the 19th century
Kniga razskazov o bitvakh tekintsev [The Book of Tales about the battles of the Teke]:
Turkmenskaia istoricheskaia poema XIX vieka. Izdal, perevel, primiechaniiami i vvedeniem snabdil A.N. Samoilovich. [Turkmen Historical Poem of the 19th Century. Published and translated with a foreword and notes by A.N. Samoilovich.] Saint Petersburg Imperial Academy of Sciences 1914
First edition, small 4to (28 x 19.5 cm), pp.xx, 157, [1, blank], 82, [1], [55, Turkmen text in Arabic characters], one plate. Printed Russian and Turkmen text. Bound in modern half calf over cloth. Original wrappers printed in Russian and Turkmen bound in. A very good unopened copy.
First edition of the Jaknameh of 'Abd al-Sattar Qazi, sometimes known simply as "Kazy", the most important Turkmen historical record of the 19th century, and one of only a handful of pre-Soviet Turkmen sources. This work comprises an edited Turkmen text with Russian translation, critical apparatus and commentaries, and several indexes. 'Abd al-Sattar Qazi was the leading nineteenth-century religious leader at Khiva, and his poem describes events he witnessed: the migration of the Turkmen tribes into the Caspian steppe, the unification of the Turkmens into a loose tribal confederation, and the personalities of the earliest Turkmen khans, including Nur Verdi. He provides detailed information on Persian-Turkmen relations, Persian customs, the movements of Russian troops, and notes that some "plucked their beards and moustaches like Englishmen" (verse 686). Qazi's account covers the height of the Great Game in Central Asia, and the early period of Turkmen history which was brought to an end by the gradual Russian conquest of Turkmenistan in the 1870s and 1880s. This account is both rare and little known, and remains a remarkable source. The editor and translator, Aleksandr Nikolaevich Samoilovich (1880-1938), was a Turkic specialist and director of the Institute of Oriental Studies. He became a victim of Stalin's political repression when he was arrested and executed by shooting in 1937 on the false charges of being a Japanese spy and creating a terrorist organisation.