The statue has been presented to the university by the Embassy of Iran, the Persian service of IRNA reported on Tuesday.

Lomonosov Moscow State University rector Victor Sadovnichy, Institute of Asian and African Studies acting director Igor I. Abylgaziyev, Iranian Ambassador Mehdi Sanai, some Tajik and Afghan diplomats and groups of students attended the unveiling ceremony.

In his brief speech, Sadovnichy pointed to the close cultural ties between the Persian-speaking nations and the Russian people, and stressed the need for the expansion of cultural and academic relations among the countries.

He also expressed his thanks to the Embassy of Iran for organizing several summit meetings of top Iranian and Russian universities over the past few years.

Earlier in November, a bust of Ferdowsi, the composer of the Persian epic masterpiece Shahnameh, was set up at the North Ossetian State University in Russia in collaboration with the Embassy of Iran.

For his part, Sanai praised Rudaki’s high position in Persian literature and his role in the spread of the Persian language in the region.

He also called Rudaki a key factor in connecting the Persian-speaking nations to each other and asked the native speakers of Persian to use hours for contemplation and study of Rudaki’s poems every day.  

Iranica called Rudaki an archpoet who stands at the fountainhead of Persian literary history.

“The extant works of this poet at the court of the Samanids in Bukhara contain the first masterpieces of Persian poetry. By its exemplary quality, this poetic corpus served as a model for subsequent generations. Rudaki, it seems, was the first to combine roles that were still distinguishable entities in the 9th-century royal court: musician, poet and his declaimer/reciter, and copyist.”

Source: Tehran Times