Nostalgia in the Poetry of Gulrukhsor Safieva

Gulrukhsor (1947- ) is one of the most prominent representatives of nationalism in contemporary Tajik poetry. By experiencing cultural nationalism and by taking refuge in national and ethnic memories, she creates a deep sense of nostalgia in the addressee towards the past. This paper is an attempt to find out what definition of homeland she has expressed in her poetry from the time Soviet Union until now. Based on the tenets of Romanticism, the analysis of her poems showed that the poet has had three different and interrelated concepts of homeland in mind: geographical, historical and cultural. In her geographical homeland, she inclines towards the nation. This notion of homeland was an inseparable part of the cosmopolitan socialist framework of the Soviet Union, called the "great homeland". Regarding her historical concept of homeland as outlined in Tajik literature in the 1960-1970th</sup>, the poet has referred to the historical genesis of her ethnic group to rehabilitate it. Finally, in her cultural homeland, which is special to her mental-ideational system, the poet achieves a novel conception of homeland according to the teachings of Shahnameh not found in any other writing. Thus, all Persian –speakers come together in Shahnameh and become compatriot.