Bakhtiyar Vahabzadeh

Azerbaijani poet and dramatist

Bakhtiyar Mahmud oghlu Vahabzadeh (; August 16, 1925 – February 13, 2009) was an Azerbaijani poet, dramatist, lyricist and translator as well as a college professor and politician. He is often regarded as one of the greatest contemporary poets of Azerbaijan.

Vahabzadeh was born in 1925 in Nukha (now Shaki) where his bust now stands on a central square. With his family he moved to Baku in 1934 and later studied philology at Azerbaijan State University (now Baku State University). He would remain there as a professor till 1990 except during 1962–1964 when expelled for nationalist leanings. During that time he survived dire poverty by selling his wife's jewellery. They had three children, Gulzar, Isfandiyar and Azer. Isfandiyar was named Azerbaijan's ambassador to Moldova. Vahabzadeh died in Baku on February 13, 2009, aged 83. His memorial celebration was attended by the President of Azerbaijan.

Vahabzadeh presented his doctoral thesis on the Azerbaijani poet Samed Vurgun in 1951. In 1952, afraid that his anti Stalin sentiments and critical sentiments towards certain elements of the post World War II Soviet system would be discovered, he destroyed the majority of his early poetic works, albeit keeping just a small sample by hiding the manuscripts in his mother's prosthetic leg. Over his career he wrote on numerous themes, notably country (Azerbaijan), family, nature, language and freedom. For years his articles and poems appeared in the review Türk Edebiyatı having gained acclaim in Turkey for Yel Kaya'dan Ne Aparır? (What Does the Wind Steal from the Stone? ), an article published in Varlık that set out to answer critics of the medieval poet Fuzuli. Vahabzadeh won the Azerbaijan SSR state prize as honoured arts worker in 1974, won the state award for the whole USSR in 1984 and was named People's Poet a year later. In 2002, Vahabzadeh received the Commodore Medal from the Romanian Ministry of Culture for his poetry book titled Benim Garibim (My Poor).

Vahabzadeh's poem Gülüstan was written in 1959. It laments how the Aras River has separated Azerbaijani speaking people in the Azerbaijan SSR of the Soviet Union and Iran and is a symbol of the pan Turkism doctrine, that seeks incorporation of the Turkic people of Iran. The poem is part of a literary genre conceived in the Azerbaijan SSR of the Soviet Union, the context of which is related to Iran's Azerbaijan region. This Soviet Azerbaijani literary genre, also referred to as "a literature of longing", had become dominant in the 1950s and 1960s in the Azerbaijan SSR.

Vahabzadeh translated into Azerbaijani as Abydos gəlini, Lord Byron's 1813 work Bride of Abydon inspired by travels in Turkey. Vahabzadeh's own poems have been translated into many languages in the Soviet Union as well as into many Turkic languages and into German, French and Persian.

For nearly 40 years, from 1951 till retirement in 1990, Vahabzadeh worked at Azerbaijan State University as a professor of "Contemporary Azerbaijani Literature", albeit with two years gap. In 1980 he became both a member of the Azerbaijani Academy of Sciences and deputy of the Milli Majlis (parliament) of the Azerbaijan SSR. His rise in the political ranks of Soviet Azerbaijan was aided by penning titles such as his 1976 Leninlə Sohbet, but politically he had long been a noted nationalist, suffering a two year expulsion from his university for publishing the 1959 poem Gulustan. Vahabzadeh is cited as one of the figures of the Azerbaijani intelligentsia whose pronouncements in 1988 contributed to the rising tensions between the Azerbaijani and Armenian populations of Shamakhi District that led eventually to the Kərkənc village swap. Having been deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Republic of Azerbaijan since 1980, Vahabzadeh continued his parliamentary duties following independence gaining election to Azerbaijan's national parliament in 1995 and again in 2000. On April 15, 1995, Vahabzadeh was awarded with the prestigious Istiglal Order for his contributions to the national independence movement of Azerbaijan by the then President of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev. Bəxtiyar Vahabzadə küç, a major street in Baku's Yasamal district, is named after Vahabzadeh, as is a high school in the Turkish city of Adana. and parks in both Konya and Ankara. Street in Belgrade, Serbia connecting neighborhoods of Banjica and Miljakovac is named "Ulica Bahtijara Vagabzade". It has its own eBird hotspot page. Vahabzadeh accused Iranian Azerbaijani professor Yahya Zoka of being a "traitor to his ancestors and sons" due to him being supportive of Iranian nationalism.