page_title: Mikayil Mushfig
section_title: Life and poetry
hierarchical_section_title: Mikayil Mushfig / Life and poetry
caption_attribution_description: English: Mikayil Mushfig museum on the road to Xizi
context_page_description: Mikayil Mushfig was an Azerbaijani poet of the 1930s.
  Most of his poetry is about romance, nature, feelings. Despite this, he soon became one of the slandered and criticized poets in the Union of Soviet Azerbaijani Writers, and soon afterwards, Mushfig was arrested and executed by Soviet authorities at the age of 30 during the Stalinist purges in the USSR. In 1956, he was exonerated posthumously. Nikita Khrushchev era of de-stalinization has resulted in Mushfig's poetry being famous in Azerbaijani society.
context_section_description: Mikayil Mushfig was born in the city of Baku of Baku Governorate in 1908. His father Mirza Abdulgadir Ismayilzade was a teacher and a poet. He lost his parents in early childhood, so was brought up by the relatives. He received his elementary education at Russian-language School in Baku. After the establishment of the Soviet regime in Azerbaijan in 1920, he studied at Baku Teacher's School and in 1931, he graduated from the Department of Language and Literature of the Baku State University. Mushfig married Dilber Akhundzade in 1933.
  Mikayil started his professional career as a school teacher. While being involved in teaching he started writing poems. His first poem Bir Gün ("The Day") was published in the Ganj fahla newspaper in Baku in 1926. At about this time, he adopted the pen name Mushfig (Perso-Arabic for "tender-hearted"). Along with Samad Vurgun and Rasul Rza, Mikayil Mushfig became one of the founders of new Azerbaijani Soviet poetic style in 1930s. He translated a number of poems from Russian as well. Mikayil Mushfig was active propagandist of traditional Azerbaijani musical instruments, which had been forbidden at that time.
  In his poetry, Mushfig glorified the work of industrial workers and peasants and lauded the construction of industrial enterprises in Baku and other cities. According to Mushfig's wife, Dilbar Akhundzadeh, Mikayil welcomed the transition from the Perso-Arabic script to the Latin script that took place in Azerbaijan in 1927. His excitement was expressed in the following verse:
  And at parting,
  My soul wants to tell you:
  "Goodbye! Your last day has come,
  Wretched old alphabet!"
  When Stalin and  Mir Jafar Baghirov decreed that traditional Azerbaijani musical instruments, including the tar, were to be banned, Mushfig wrote a poem in response titled "Sing Tar, Sing".  The popularity of his poem with the public convinced the authorities to rescind the tar ban.
caption: Mushfig museum close to Xızı.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Make": "OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP.", "Image Model": "E-510", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "240", "Image YResolution": "240", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS4 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2016:04:10 18:34:23", "Image ExifOffset": "252", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "814", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4529", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/320", "EXIF FNumber": "11", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Creative", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2016:03:28 07:37:36", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2016:03:28 07:37:36", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "1040241/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "6918863/1000000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "-7/10", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "925/256", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "20", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3648", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2736", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}