A study on a particular Assyrian literary genre named (Doriktha)

Dr. Robin Bet Shmuel ( New Book)

Source: Robin Bet Shmuel

Dr. Robin Bet Shmuel issued a number of his books in this year, which he calls the Coronavirus Year. In one of them, titled “Doriktha of the Russian-Ottoman war (1877-1878), studied a particular literary genre “ Doriktha” was written in 1877-1878 about the Russian-Ottoman war”.


Dr. Bet shmuel said that the Doriktha is an Assyrian literary genre that is written in the spoken language, not the classical language. The Doriktha was used to interpret texts from the Bible and to simplify their understanding for the general public, so the church accepted it and contributed in some way to the spread of this literary genre. He added that the poets who wrote this type, wrote it with poetic specifications and sometimes chanted it with a melody borrowed from church melodies.

Dr. Bet Shmuel asserted that the view of our literature was considered to be religious, but the Doriktha proves that there is a worldly literature that dealt with topics such as wars and the description of pandemics and natural disasters that occurred in their time.

He added the doriktha that I covered in my book is written by a writer named Estephan Jajo from Alqosh, wrote it nearly 150 years ago. In it, he described the war that broke out between the Russians and the Ottomans at that time.

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Source: SBS

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