DUSHANBE, September 22, 2009, Asia-Plus  -- President Emomali Rahmon has congratulated Tajik people and all Persian-speaking peoples around the world on a Day of Roudaki which is marked in Tajikistan today, according to presidential press service.

In his televised appeal, Tajik leader noted that Tajikistan attached significant importance to study of historical, literary and cultural heritage of its people.

The Day of Abu Abdullah Roudaki, who is considered a founder of Tajik-Persian classical literature, has been marked in Tajikistan since 2002.

An opera “Roudaki” by Sharofiddin Sayfiddinov will be performed at the Opera and Ballet Theatre in Dushanbe today.   

Roudaki is regarded as the first great literary genius of modern Persian language, who composed poems in the Perso-Arabic alphabet or ''New Persian'' script.  Roudaki was born in 858 in Roudak (Panjrud), a village then in Khorasan, and now located in Panakent, Tajikistan.  Most of his biographers assert that he was completely blind, but his accurate knowledge of colors, as is evident in his poetry, renders this assertion very doubtful.  Roudaki was the court poet to the Samanid ruler Nasr II (914-943) in Bukhara, although he eventually fell out of favor and his life ended in poverty.