Abdulla Avloniy. The homeland and “Ikkinchi muallim”

In “Vatanni suymak” (Loving the Homeland) Avloniy writes that the homeland is everyone’s birth-and-upbringing land and that even an animal longs for its den; Arabs love their desert and Eskimos their cold north. He cites the hadith “Hubbul-vatani minal-imoni” – “loving the homeland is part of faith”. In the poem “Vatan” the homeland is praised as a mother, she cannot be sold, and one who does not know her value is called dim-witted. The stories from “Ikkinchi muallim” teach friendship, caution and generosity: in “A True Friend” two friends in the water each ask to save the other first; in “A False Friend” one who abandons his friend in danger is called a coward; in “The Cock and the Wolf” the cock is not fooled by the wolf’s trick; in “The Harm of Quarrelling” two goats argue on a bridge and fall into the water.