Mirza Fatali Akhundov
Encyclopedia
Mirza Fatali Akhundov former – Akhundzade (12 July 1812, Nukha – 9 March 1878, Tiflis), was a celebrated Azerbaijani
author, playwright, philosopher, and founder of modern literary criticism, "who acquired fame primarily as the writer of European-inspired plays in the Azeri language". Akhundov singlehandedly opened a new stage of development of Azerbaijani literature
and is also considered one of the founders of modern Iranian literature
. He was also the founder of materialism and atheism movement in Azerbaijan and one of forerunners of modern Iranian nationalism
.
to a wealthy land owning family from Iranian Azerbaijan. His parents, and especially his uncle Haji Alaskar, who was Fatali's first teacher, prepared young Fatali for a career in Shi'a clergy, but the young man was attracted to the literature. In 1832, while in Ganja
, Akhundov came into contact with the poet Mirza Shafi Vazeh
, who introduced him to a Western secular thought and discouraged him from pursuing a religious career. Later in 1834 Akhunddov moved to Tiflis (present-day Tbilisi
, Georgia
), where he worked as a translator of Oriental languages. Since 1837 he worked as a teacher in Tbilisi uezd Armenia
n school, then in Nersisyan school. In Tiflis his acquaintance and friendship with the exiled Russian Decembrists Alexander Bestuzhev-Marlinsky
, Vladimir Odoevsky
, poet Yakov Polonsky
, Armenian writers Khachatur Abovian
, Gabriel Sundukyan and others played a large part in formation of Akhundov's europeanized outlook.
Akhundov's first published work was The Oriental Poem (1837) written to lament the death of the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. But the rise of Akhundov's literary activity comes in the 1850s. In the first half of the 1850s, Akhundov wrote six comedies – the first comedies in Azerbaijani literature as well as the first samples of the national dramaturgy. The comedies by Akhundov are unique in their critical pathos, analysis of the realities in Azerbaijan of the first half of the 19th century. These comedies found numerous responses in the Russian other foreign periodical press. The German
Magazine of Foreign Literature called Akhundov "dramatic genius", "the Azerbaijani Molière" 1. Akhundov's sharp pen was directed against everything that hindered the way of progress, freedom and enlightement, and at the same time his comedies were imbued with the feeling of faith in the bright future of the Azerbaijani people.
In 1859 Akhundov published his short but famous novel The Deceived Stars. In this novel he laid the foundation of Azerbaijani realistic historical prose, giving the models of a new genre in Azerbaijani literature. By his comedies and dramas Akhundov established realism as the leading trend in Azerbaijani literature.
In the 1920s, the Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre
was named after Akhundov.
According to Professor Ronald Grigor Suny
:
According to Professor Tadeusz Swietochowski:
Akhundov also supported the Russians
. According to Walter Kolarz:
and Jalal al Din Mirza Qajar are the forerunners of intellectual romantic Iranian nationalism
. Akhundzadeh proudly identified himself as being of Persian stock (nežād-e Irāni), belonging to the nation of Iran (mellat-e Irān) and to the Iranian homeland ( waṭan ). He influenced Jālāl-al-Din Mirzā (a son of Bahman Mirza Qajar
) through friendship and correspondence as well as Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani. Jalāl al-Dīn Mirza (1826-70), a Qajar prince, initiated the reconstruction of Iranian national history in his Nāma-ye Khosravan (Book of the Monarchs), the first history textbook for Dar ul-Funun in simple Persian, purified of Arabic words.Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani (1854-96) followed Jalāl-al-Din Mirzā in producing a national history of Iran, Āʾina-ye sekandari, extending from the mythological past to the Qajar era, to compare and contrast Iran’s glorious past with its present plight .
with regards to Turkic
sounds. He began his work regarding alphabet reform in 1850. His first efforts focused on modifying the Perso-Arabic script so that it would more adequately satisfy the phonetic requirements of the Azerbaijani language
. First, he insisted that each sound be represented by a separate symbol - no duplications or omissions. The Perso-Arabic script expresses only three vowel sounds, whereas Azeri needs to identify nine vowels. Later, he openly advocated the change from Perso-Arabic to a modified Latin alphabet. The Latin script which was used in Azerbaijan
between 1922 and 1939, and the Latin script which is used now, were based on Akhundov's third version.
Azerbaijani people
The Azerbaijanis are a Turkic-speaking people living mainly in northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan, as well as in the neighbourhood states, Georgia, Russia and formerly Armenia. Commonly referred to as Azeris or Azerbaijani Turks , they also live in a wider area from the Caucasus to...
author, playwright, philosopher, and founder of modern literary criticism, "who acquired fame primarily as the writer of European-inspired plays in the Azeri language". Akhundov singlehandedly opened a new stage of development of Azerbaijani literature
Azerbaijani literature
Azerbaijani literature refers to the literature written in Azerbaijani, which currently is the official state language of the Republic of Azerbaijan and is widely spoken in northwestern Iran and eastern Turkey...
and is also considered one of the founders of modern Iranian literature
Persian literature
Persian literature spans two-and-a-half millennia, though much of the pre-Islamic material has been lost. Its sources have been within historical Persia including present-day Iran as well as regions of Central Asia where the Persian language has historically been the national language...
. He was also the founder of materialism and atheism movement in Azerbaijan and one of forerunners of modern Iranian nationalism
Iranian nationalism
Iranian nationalism refers to nationalism among the people of Iran and individuals whose national identity is Iranian. Iranian nationalism consists of political and social movements and sentiments prompted by a love for Iranian culture, language and history, and a sense of pride in Iran and...
.
Life
Akhundov was born in 1812 in ShakiShaki
Shaki is a city in northwestern Azerbaijan, in the rayon of the same name.Shaki is situated in northern Azerbaijan on the southern part of the Greater Caucasus mountain range, from Baku...
to a wealthy land owning family from Iranian Azerbaijan. His parents, and especially his uncle Haji Alaskar, who was Fatali's first teacher, prepared young Fatali for a career in Shi'a clergy, but the young man was attracted to the literature. In 1832, while in Ganja
Ganja, Azerbaijan
Ganja is Azerbaijan's second-largest city with a population of around 313,300. It was named Yelizavetpol in the Russian Empire period. The city regained its original name—Ganja—from 1920–1935 during the first part of its incorporation into the Soviet Union. However, its name was changed again and...
, Akhundov came into contact with the poet Mirza Shafi Vazeh
Mirza Shafi Vazeh
Mirza-Shafi Vazeh , also known as the "sage from Ganja", was a classical bilingual poet of Azerbaijani poet and Persian language who continued the classical traditions of Azerbaijani poetry from the 14th century. His verses were translated into nearly all European languages.-Early life:Mirza Shafi...
, who introduced him to a Western secular thought and discouraged him from pursuing a religious career. Later in 1834 Akhunddov moved to Tiflis (present-day Tbilisi
Tbilisi
Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form T'pilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936...
, Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
), where he worked as a translator of Oriental languages. Since 1837 he worked as a teacher in Tbilisi uezd Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
n school, then in Nersisyan school. In Tiflis his acquaintance and friendship with the exiled Russian Decembrists Alexander Bestuzhev-Marlinsky
Aleksandr Bestuzhev
Alexander Alexandrovich Bestuzhev , , was a Russian writer and Decembrist. After the Decembrist revolt he was sent into exile to Caucasus where Russian Empire was waging the war against the Circassians. There writing under the pseudonym Marlinsky he became known as a romantic poet, short story...
, Vladimir Odoevsky
Vladimir Odoevsky
Prince Vladimir Fyodorovich Odoevsky was a prominent Russian philosopher, writer, music critic, philanthropist and pedagogue. He became known as the "Russian Hoffmann" on account of his keen interest in fantasmagoric tales and musical criticism.-Life:...
, poet Yakov Polonsky
Yakov Polonsky
Yakov Petrovich Polonsky was a leading Pushkinist poet who tried to uphold the waning traditions of Russian Romantic poetry during the heyday of realistic prose....
, Armenian writers Khachatur Abovian
Khachatur Abovian
Khachatur Abovian ; ) was an Armenian writer and national public figure of the early 19th century who mysteriously vanished in 1848 and was presumed dead. He was an educator, poet and an advocate of modernization...
, Gabriel Sundukyan and others played a large part in formation of Akhundov's europeanized outlook.
Akhundov's first published work was The Oriental Poem (1837) written to lament the death of the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. But the rise of Akhundov's literary activity comes in the 1850s. In the first half of the 1850s, Akhundov wrote six comedies – the first comedies in Azerbaijani literature as well as the first samples of the national dramaturgy. The comedies by Akhundov are unique in their critical pathos, analysis of the realities in Azerbaijan of the first half of the 19th century. These comedies found numerous responses in the Russian other foreign periodical press. The German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
Magazine of Foreign Literature called Akhundov "dramatic genius", "the Azerbaijani Molière" 1. Akhundov's sharp pen was directed against everything that hindered the way of progress, freedom and enlightement, and at the same time his comedies were imbued with the feeling of faith in the bright future of the Azerbaijani people.
In 1859 Akhundov published his short but famous novel The Deceived Stars. In this novel he laid the foundation of Azerbaijani realistic historical prose, giving the models of a new genre in Azerbaijani literature. By his comedies and dramas Akhundov established realism as the leading trend in Azerbaijani literature.
In the 1920s, the Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre
Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre
The Akhundov Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater is a theatre in Baku, Azerbaijan. It was built in 1911.-History:...
was named after Akhundov.
According to Professor Ronald Grigor Suny
Ronald Grigor Suny
Ronald Grigor Suny is currently director of the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies and the Charles Tilly Collegiate Professor of Social and Political History at the University of Michigan, as well as Emeritus Professor of political science and history at the University of Chicago...
:
According to Professor Tadeusz Swietochowski:
Akhundov also supported the Russians
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
. According to Walter Kolarz:
Iranian nationalism
Akhundzadeh , Mirza Aqa Khan KermaniMirza Aqa Khan Kermani
Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani was an Iranian literary critic.Kirmānī emphasized "that it is meaning, not the mode of expression, that exerts the real influence on the reader," and thus discouraged the "destruction of the natural clarity of language .....
and Jalal al Din Mirza Qajar are the forerunners of intellectual romantic Iranian nationalism
Iranian nationalism
Iranian nationalism refers to nationalism among the people of Iran and individuals whose national identity is Iranian. Iranian nationalism consists of political and social movements and sentiments prompted by a love for Iranian culture, language and history, and a sense of pride in Iran and...
. Akhundzadeh proudly identified himself as being of Persian stock (nežād-e Irāni), belonging to the nation of Iran (mellat-e Irān) and to the Iranian homeland ( waṭan ). He influenced Jālāl-al-Din Mirzā (a son of Bahman Mirza Qajar
Bahman Mirza Qajar
Bahman Mirza was a Persian Prince of Qajar Dynasty, son of Abbas Mirza and grand son of Fat'h Ali Shah. He was Viceroy of Azerbaijan and Governor-General of Tabriz...
) through friendship and correspondence as well as Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani. Jalāl al-Dīn Mirza (1826-70), a Qajar prince, initiated the reconstruction of Iranian national history in his Nāma-ye Khosravan (Book of the Monarchs), the first history textbook for Dar ul-Funun in simple Persian, purified of Arabic words.Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani (1854-96) followed Jalāl-al-Din Mirzā in producing a national history of Iran, Āʾina-ye sekandari, extending from the mythological past to the Qajar era, to compare and contrast Iran’s glorious past with its present plight .
Alphabet Reform
Well ahead of his time, Akhundov was a keen advocate for alphabet reform, recognizing deficiencies of Perso-Arabic scriptPerso-Arabic script
The Persian or Perso-Arabic alphabet is a writing system based on the Arabic script. Originally used exclusively for the Arabic language, the Arabic alphabet was adapted to the Persian language, adding four letters: , , , and . Many languages which use the Perso-Arabic script add other letters...
with regards to Turkic
Turkic languages
The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken...
sounds. He began his work regarding alphabet reform in 1850. His first efforts focused on modifying the Perso-Arabic script so that it would more adequately satisfy the phonetic requirements of the Azerbaijani language
Azerbaijani language
Azerbaijani or Azeri or Torki is a language belonging to the Turkic language family, spoken in southwestern Asia by the Azerbaijani people, primarily in Azerbaijan and northwestern Iran...
. First, he insisted that each sound be represented by a separate symbol - no duplications or omissions. The Perso-Arabic script expresses only three vowel sounds, whereas Azeri needs to identify nine vowels. Later, he openly advocated the change from Perso-Arabic to a modified Latin alphabet. The Latin script which was used in Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan SSR
The Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic , also known as the Azerbaijan SSR for short, was one of the republics that made up the former Soviet Union....
between 1922 and 1939, and the Latin script which is used now, were based on Akhundov's third version.
External links
- Biography.
- Akhundov: Alphabet Reformer Before His Time, Azerbaijan International, Vol 8:1 (Spring 2000).
- http://mirslovarei.com/content_fil/AXUNDOV-MIRZA-FATALI-2072.html