Salman Mumtaz

Salman Mumtaz (; May 20, 1884,

Salman Mumtaz (pseudonymous of Salman Mammedamin oghlu Asgarov; May 20, 1884 – September 6, 1941) was a renowned Azerbaijani literary scholar and poet. He was born in Shaki in 1884. In his efforts to collect, publish and promote the classical literary legacy, he discovered unknown manuscripts of a number of Azerbaijani poets and ashugs. Falling a victim to repressions, he was arrested in 1937 and killed by shooting in 1941 while imprisoned in Oryol.

Mumtaz studied in Ashgabat. Since 1910, he began speaking against religious fanaticism and superstition with his poems and feuilletons in the Molla Nasreddin and other magazines. In addition to his native Azerbaijani, he was fluent in Persian, Arabic, Russian, Turkish and Urdu languages. Mumtaz prepared the works of Imadaddin Nasimi, Qovsi Tabrizi, Molla Panah Vagif, Gasim Bey Zakir, Mirza Shafi Vazeh and other Azerbaijani classic poets for publication. In 1927-1928, he published two volumes of Azerbaijani ashik poetry. He also compiled scientific texts of Khatai, Fuzuli, and others.

In October 1937, Mumtaz became a victim of the Great Purge when he was arrested and sentenced to ten years of imprisonment. He was shot in September 1941 in the city of Oryol while in prison. The 270 manuscripts collected by him were destroyed during his arrest. in the Ganjali neighborhood of Nukha (now Shaki, the city of Azerbaijan). Salman’s dad, Mammadamin was a merchant and his family lived in Central Asia for a long time. Salman’s grandfather Aghaalasgar was very rich. Shortly after his death, his wife also died, and his house was burned down. His orphaned son Mammadamin takes refuge with his uncle, who has acquired their wealth, and works for jeweler. He visits Mashhad. On his way back, he made his way through Ashgabat, because he heard that lands were being sold here for a very cheap price. Mashhadi Mammadamin buys a lot of land from Ashgabat with the gold he brought from Shaki, he builds a home for himself. In a short time, he had a caravanserai and became store owner. Mammadamin, who was preparing to bring his family living in Sheki to the new property he built in Ashgabat, died of pneumonia in 1887 at the age of 32. In 1900, Mammadamin's wife Mashhadi Zahra Khanum (1865-1938) took her younger brother Karbalai Askar from Baku and went to Ashgabat and acquire Mammadamin’s wealth. She also brings her sons Salman and Askhar to Ashgabat. Then she takes her older brother Karbalayı Movsum with her. Zahra Khanum who is related to Mirza Fatali Akhundzada, was a thoughtful and capable woman. She buys a big box and fills it with gold until her sons grow up (Salman Mumtaz later spent those golds to buy Azerbaijani handwritten books and charity work).

Since childhood, Salman Mumtaz was very interested in science; he knew Persian and Arabic languages perfectly.

Salman, who is engaged in trade at the loom of his uncle Karbalai Movsum, begins to collect Turkish (Azerbaijani) manuscripts.

Partnership with Molla Nasraddin journal Mir Fattah Musavi, who graduated from Ashgabat gymnasium, and Salman Mumtaz, who taught him. The day he graduated from gymnasium, Ashgabat

According to the Turkish literary critic Yavuz Akpınar, in 1908-1909, after the publication of "Molla Nasreddin Magazine" in Tbilisi, Salman Mumtaz was also among the writers of this satirical magazine. At the same time, he also wrote poems in classical style. Together with his friends, he founded a literary meeting in Ashgabat. In 1916, Salman Mümtaz worked hard in Ashgabat to stage Jalil Mammadguluzadeh's "Oluler,"(The dead) but the local authorities did not allow it.

Salman Mumtaz spoke against religious bigotry and superstitions with his poems and feuilletons that he wrote in the "Molla Nasreddin" magazine, which was published in Ashgabat until 1918. Mumtaz also assisted in the distribution of "Molla Nasreddin" magazine in Central Asia and other regions.

Salman Mumtaz preferred more research. Asgarov focused all his energies on collecting, researching, identifying, publishing and disseminating Azerbaijani literature.

In 1924, Salman Asgarzade was the representative of the regional agency of "Azerneft supply" department with warehouses in Nukha, Gutgashen, Zaqatala, Gakh and Lagodekhi. He also worked in the Public Education Commissariat.

Academic activity

After the establishment of Soviet power in Azerbaijan, he was active in the field of collecting, publishing and researching the classical literary heritage, and discovered several unknown manuscripts of works by Azerbaijani poets and ashiks. In 1926, Mehmed Fuad Köprülüzadeh, Ali bey Huseynzadeh and Salman Mumtaz Baku at the First Turkological Congress.

Salman Mumtaz participated in the 1st Turkology Congress held in Baku in 1926. Here, Mumtaz introduced his new book "Nasimi" and presented it as a gift. Salman Askerzadeh met here with the academician, professor Mehmet Fuat Köprülüzadeh, whose work he is closely acquainted with, and the founder of "Füyüzat" magazine, Professor Ali bey Huseynzadeh. (In 1950, Mehmet Fuat Köprülüzade came from Turkey to the USSR as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey. He again applied to meet Salman Mumtaz and get information about him officially. However, his request remained unanswered. Because Salman Mumtaz was a victim of repression had been and was no longer alive). Also, in 1926, academicians Vasily Bartold and Sergey Oldenburg, who looked at Mumtaz's personal library ("Library-Mumtaziya"), were impressed by the library's scientific structure, numerous layouts, and the wealth of manuscripts there.

Salman Mumtaz's activity and creativity were inspired to some extent by the decrees of the leadership of the Azerbaijan SSR in the fields of literature and art in 1925-1932. During this period, Mumtaz wrote various works and published new books. Professor, scientific researcher and Doctor of Philosophy in Philology A. M. Nabiyev talked about Mumtaz's works "Sarı Ashik" and "El şairləri " written during this period of his creativity in his book "Idioms and Emotions of our People".

From 1929 to 1932, Salman Mumtaz worked as the head of the pre-capitalist Azerbaijani literature section of the Azerbaijan State Scientific Research Institute.

Since 1932, he was a researcher at the Azerbaijan State Museum. At the same time, Salman Mumtaz headed the classical heritage department of "Azernashr" publishing house from 1933 to 1936. From February 1933, Mumtaz worked as a researcher at the literary heritage department of the Azerbaijan Branch of the EA of the USSR. From April 1937, he headed the literature department of the Azerbaijan branch. Also, Mumtaz was a first-class employee of the literature department of the Institute of Language and Literature of the Azerbaijani branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Salman Mumtaz was also a close friend of Maxim Gorky. He met the great writer at the first congress of Writers of the USSR. Maxim Gorky took several photos with Azerbaijani writers. In the photos, Salman Mumtaz is sitting next to Maxim Gorky. According to the information received, Gorky bought a house in Moscow for Salman Mumtaz. On June 10, 1937, Salman Mumtaz was expelled from the Azerbaijan Writers' Union. Between June 10–12, 1937, Salman Mumtaz was labeled as an "enemy of the people." Nevertheless, Mumtaz continued to collect and study rare manuscripts and books. Over many years, he gathered valuable manuscripts into his personal library, "Kitabxaneyi-Mumtaziyyə." He spent most of his time in this library. deprived of all political rights for five years, and all his property was confiscated. During the search of his house and the confiscation of Salman Mumtaz's property, 238 manuscripts related to various fields of medieval science and written in Eastern languages were seized from his apartment. Some of these unique scholarly works, which Mumtaz could not publish, were appropriated by others and later published under different names. For the 238 manuscripts seized from Mumtaz's residence, his daughter, Shahla Khanum, was compensated with 6,010 rubles and 60 kopecks. Vidadi (1936), and others were the first collections published on these poets.

Salman Mumtaz Agha noted in the preface to a book dedicated to the work of Masih Shirvani:

In 1923, Salman Mumtaz published his first research under the title "Forgotten Pages" in the newspaper Kommunist. His first significant success in this newspaper is considered to be his article One of the Azerbaijani Poets: Nasimi. İmadeddin Nasimi's life and work were examined in depth for the first time in Azerbaijani literary studies by Salman Mümtaz. In 1926, Salman Mümtaz published Nasimi's divan in the Azerbaijani language using Arabic script. During the 1920s, while researching Nasimi, Salman Mümtaz wrote that Nasimi had a brother named Shakhandan. He also noted that a famous cemetery in Shamakhi was associated with Shakhandan's name. Based on this, the researcher concluded that Nasimi was born in Shamakhi.

In 1921, Salman Mümtaz, for the first time in history, studied the life and work of Habibi and provided information about him. Mümtaz translated details about Habibi given in Persian by Sam Mirza into Azerbaijani and introduced Habibi as a talented poet. In the article he published about the poet, Mümtaz included one of Habibi's famous ghazals and Fuzuli's takhmis written in response to that poem. Salman Mümtaz was the first to provide information about Habibi's birth date. In the third issue of the journal Füqəra Füyuzatı, published in 1921, Mümtaz stated that Habibi was born between 1470 and 1475.

Salman Mumtaz and Habib Samadzade. Habib Samadzade played a role in part of Salman Mumtaz's work.

In 1930, Salman Mümtaz published Shah Ismail Khatai's Divan for the first time. For this purpose, he used a 17th-century manuscript of the Divan preserved in the Manuscripts Fund. Salman Mümtaz was the first to utilize this manuscript. The complete publication of Khatai's Divan was based on this manuscript. In 1923, Mümtaz published an incomplete list of Khatai's 17th-century poem Dahname. This list is currently preserved in Baku at the Manuscripts Institute of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences.

On March 19, 1937, Salman Mümtaz submitted a petition for the establishment of a commission regarding the first volume of Muhammad Fuzuli's works, which he had prepared for publication. The commission documented many works resulting from the scholar's years of research. According to this document, the first volume of Fuzuli's works—Qazals edited by Y. Bertels in Latin script—was in the possession of Habib Səmədzadə. The first part of the second volume in Arabic script—Leyli and Majnun—had been sent to Leningrad to Yevgeny Bertels for editing, while the second part was in Baku. The third volume, "Bengu-Bada", existed in draft form and was in Mümtaz's possession. A 260-page monograph on Muhammad Fuzuli's biography, edited by Y. Bertels, had been transferred to the archives of the Manuscripts Institute. Additionally, the document noted that the Divan of Shah Ismail Khatai, published by Mumtaz in 1934, had been edited by Bekir Chobanzadeh, Tagi Shahbazi, Ali Nazmi, and partially by Hamid Arasli. This Divan is also preserved in the archives of the Manuscripts Institute in Baku.

In 1933, while working as a junior researcher at the newly established Azerbaijan Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Salman Mümtaz compiled a list of 483 Azerbaijani poets, emphasizing the importance of studying their lives and works. He also planned to conduct in-depth research on 104 of these poets.

Folklore studies and research on the life and work of oriental poets

A page from the first edition of the first volume of Salman Mumtaz's "People's Poets", Baku. (The work was published in 1927).

Salman Mümtaz divided literature into two categories: "elite literature" (classical) and "folk literature" (oral art, folklore). He tirelessly worked on the collection and publication of Azerbaijani folklore. From the 1920s onward, Mümtaz actively pursued research in this field, collaborating with notable figures such as Veli Khuluflu, Hanafi Zeynalli and Hummet Alizadeh. As an initial outcome of his work on folk poetry, Mümtaz published Aşıq Abdulla (1927) and Sarı Aşıq (1935). Additionally, his pioneering work in systematizing Azerbaijani folk literature, the two-volume Xalq Şairləri (Folk Poets) (Volume I: 1927–1928; Volume II: 1935–1936), remains a valuable scientific resource. These works also included examples of Azerbaijani ashug poetry, contributing significantly to the preservation and study of Azerbaijan's oral literary heritage.

In addition to researching the life and works of Azerbaijani poets and writers, Salman Mumtaz also studied the activities and lives of other classics of Eastern poetry and published writings about them. The results of Mumtaz's many years of research in the 1920s–1930s on figures such as Ferdowsi, Saadi, Rudaki, Nava'i, and Magtymguly were highly regarded by literary scholars as a "new perspective" on these poets. Mumtaz also introduced Azerbaijani readers to authors such as Al-Farabi, Avicenna, Jalaluddin Rumi, Amir Khusrow Dehlavi, Abdurrahman Jami, Ilia Chavchavadze, and Rabindranath Tagore.

Salman Mumtaz in Moscow (first from the left, photo from 1934).

In 1925–1926, Salman Mumtaz published a series of articles in connection with the 500th anniversary of the birth of the poet Ali Shir Navai. Among these articles were "The Influence of Ali Shir Navai on Azerbaijani Literature" (published in Kommunist newspaper on March 4, 1926) and "Emir Ali Shir Navai" (published in Yeni yol newspaper on March 4, 1926). In these articles, Salman Mumtaz discussed the poetic and artistic characteristics of Navai's works, the language of his poems, the choice of words, and freedom from superfluous thoughts, as well as the influence of Navai's poetry on Azerbaijani literature and vice versa. For the 1000th anniversary of the birth of Firdowsi, Salman Mumtaz published a series of articles in Inqilab və Mədəniyyət magazine (issue No. 9–10, 1934). In one of these articles, Salman Mumtaz discussed the history of the study of Firdowsi’s legacy and analyzed the poet’s famous work, Shahnameh. Salman Mumtaz also conducted research on the Turkish poet Emrah, born and raised in Erzurum, and published several of his poems. This research by Salman Mumtaz was the first outside of Turkey.

Collection of manuscripts Salman Mumtaz was a collector of the works of classic literature creators. Sometimes, he would gather manuscripts by offering gold, sometimes out of gratitude, and sometimes jokingly saying, "One hand cuts off the giver of the book, two hands cut off the taker," to engage in the collection of manuscripts. Salman Mumtaz traveled across all of Azerbaijan in search of books and manuscripts, visiting cities and districts from Baku to Qakh, Derbent to Lankaran, Gazakh to Quba, and Sheki to Astara. He even traveled abroad to countries like Dagestan, Georgia, Armenia, Russia, and Central Asia in search of ancient and valuable books. For example, Mumtaz traveled to Vladikavkaz to find the work of Ismayil bey Gutgashinli, "Rashid bey and Saadet khanum." During these trips, Mumtaz often stayed in dirty and unsuitable caravanserais, sometimes going without food and water. In 1922, while on one of these trips, he contracted typhus and was bedridden for nearly six months.

Salman Mumtaz had created an unmatched and extensive library with the manuscripts he painstakingly collected. This library contained the third copy of the "Kitabi-Dədə Qorqud" epic after the ones in Vatican and Dresden, the oldest and most perfect manuscript of Muhammad Fuzuli's divan in the world, the first comprehensible copies of Shah Ismail Khatai's "Dahname" and "Nasihatname," and manuscripts of hundreds of famous and powerful Azerbaijani poets. Due to its richness, this library could be compared with the personal libraries of notable literati such as Abdulqadir Nuxavi Khaliseqarizade (1817–1879) and Muhammadali Tarbiat (1877–1940). Another advantage of this library was that most of the manuscripts Salman Mumtaz collected through his extensive research were in the Turkish language.

In addition, Salman Mumtaz collected these manuscripts under very difficult historical circumstances – during this period, individuals who were found with documents written in Arabic script were either shot along with their families or exiled to Siberia. The 1937 repressions dealt a severe blow to the Turkic peoples within the USSR. The decisions made at the First Turkological Congress in 1926 regarding a unified Turkish alphabet and spelling, as well as the emerging Turkish spiritual unity, were largely dismantled by the authorities. Almost all participants in the Congress were declared "panturkist," "nationalist," or "counter-revolutionary," subjected to repression, and executed. The term "Turk" was banned (from 1936 onwards, Azerbaijanis were officially referred to as Azerbaijanis in their nationality). To prevent the Turkic peoples from studying their own history, history books were prepared and altered by foreign authors to keep the history from being fully understood. Ancient Turkish manuscripts and all books written in the Arabic script were destroyed. Salman Mumtaz and his library fell victim to this policy. In October 1937, when Mumtaz was arrested by NKVD officers, all his manuscripts, loaded into two large trucks, were confiscated.

Years later, following a request from Salman Mumtaz’s daughter Şəhla Mumtazzadə to reclaim her father's legacy, information about the fate of Salman Mumtaz's library was obtained with the initiative of Yusif Məmmədəliyev, the president of the Academy of Sciences of the Azerbaijan SSR, and Süleyman Rəhimov, the chairman of the Writers’ Union of Azerbaijan SSR. In 1957, Petrosyan presented a report stating the following: "On October 9, 1937, when Salman Mumtaz was arrested, his personal property was confiscated—12 different books, various dramaturgical materials, 3 bags, and a suitcase of manuscripts, and a package of special materials. However, we have no further information about the subsequent fate of these materials." When asked later about the fate of these manuscripts, Aron Rıbakov, who was involved in their confiscation on October 9, 1937, replied, "They were all Qurans." The archive from the "Coastal" department of the Azerbaijan SSR NKVD stated that based on the directions of writers and scholars familiar with Mumtaz’s activities and library, a list of 238 works would be made, and these works would be located and preserved. Imam Mustafayev, the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan SSR, initiated this effort, but it was later found that all of Salman Mumtaz’s manuscripts had been destroyed in a fire in the NKVD courtyard.

Currently, only a very limited amount of material remains in Salman Mumtaz's library. These remnants include books and documents that he donated to the Hermitage, the Azerbaijan branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, as well as manuscripts he had worked on, written, and planned during his time there. Additionally, there are manuscripts and other materials that were overlooked during the arrest night and later presented to the Republic Manuscript Fund (now part of the Manuscript Institute of the Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences).

Memory

Since September 17, 1996, the State Archive of Literature and Art of the Republic of Azerbaijan has been named after Salman Mümtazstreet named after Salman Mümtaz in the city of Sheki. A corner dedicated to Salman Mümtaz is available in the National Library of Turkey. In 2002, historian-journalist Ədalət Tahirzadə explored Salman Mümtaz’s life and work, publishing a 16-page biographical sketch titled "Salman Mümtaz. Biography Sketch" with the "Kür" publishing house. This book is one of the most valuable sources of information about Mümtaz.

In 2013, a film titled "Salman Mümtaz" was produced by the "Azərbaycantelefilm" Creative Union of Azerbaijan Television. The short script, written by Xaliq Rəhimli and adapted by Murad Quliyev, reflected the life and works of the scholar and researcher Salman Mümtaz. The documentary film was shot by the operator Zahid Bağırov.