BIOGRAPHY

Jalil Mammadgulizade was one of the great founders of the Azerbaijanian realistic literature and the creator of the famous satirical school “Molla Nasreddin”, which was also his pen-name. He left a rich legacy of novellas, stories, feuilletons and plays, which enjoy great popularity in Azerbaijan and abroad. He stood out among his contemporaries for his style, manner of writing, rare talent of a satirist and for his ruthless satire exposing the ugliness of the existing political system and remnants of the feudal-patriarchal way of life. The satire in his works was free from artificial invention and was of high educational significance. This was an original literary thought of his time.

            Jalil Mammadgulizade was born on February 22, 1866 in Nakhichevan. Having graduated from the Transcaucasian teachers seminary in Gori, Georgia, he worked as a teacher in Erivan (present-day Yerevan) and Nakhichevan. Mammadgulizade began his literary activity when he was 23 years old. Working as a teacher he wrote his allegoric poems, “The Tea-Service”, “The Play of the Raisins”, a story “The School in the Village of Danabash”. However, the young writer could not publish these works, which announced the beginning of a new stage in the contemporary Azerbaijanian realistic literature, both from the point of view of contents and literary form. The writer wrote in his memoirs: “To write was what I wanted. I was eager to write. But I didn’t know why to write, for whom to write. Because, I was not sure that the government would allow to publish and spread my writings”. For eight years the writer’s literary activity was known only to his closest friends. Later in 1903 he moved to Baku and began to work in the Azerbaijanian newspaper “Sharqi-Rus”. Thus, Jalil Mammadgulizade was able to publish his works.

            The Russian Revolution of 1905 has had a significant effect upon the peoples of the Russian Empire and the members of the national intelligentsia, who became more active in pursuing the goal of enlightenment and national liberation. In 1906 Jalil Mammadgulizade, with great difficulty, began publishing the journal “Molla Nasreddin”. This journal became the rallying point for a large circle of writers and poets, who were concerned with the ideas of enlightenment, innovation and progress. The journal was sharply critical of backwardness and fanaticism, it called the people to fight for their freedom and played an important part in developing of realistic literature in Azerbaijan. Molla Nasreddin gained tremendous popularity not only in Caucasus, but in Turkey, Iran and Central Asia too. Among the most prominent contributors of this journal were outstanding poets and writers, such as, Sabir, Haqverdiyev, Ali Nazmi, M.S. Ordubady, A. Gamgusar and many others.

            The journal Molla Nasreddin had been published with some intervals for twenty-five years, appeared in Tbilisi in 1906-1917, in 1921 in Tabriz, from 1922 to 1931 in Baku during the Soviet power.

            The great writer died from heart failure in Baku in 1932.

            Despite long time has passed from the times when J. Mammadgulizade write his satirical works and despite many things have changed since then, his works have still preserved their topicality. Readers can still hardly contain their laughter at the adventures of Novruzali, the protagonist of Jalil Mammadgulizade’s story “The Letterbox”. They laugh at this poor, down-trodden peasant, who lives under such conditions that he has not the slightest notion of the most elementary developments of human civilization: as they sympathize with him. The subtle, profound humor of this great writer has the power to evoke laughter mixed with sorrow and tears.