Mikayil Mushfig, an Azerbaijani poet: a victim of jealousy

Despite all these misleading information, M. Mushfig was loved by the people and called a Soviet poet. He applauded the victory of socialism and emphasized “freedom” as “a deep spirit of the world”, “spirit of an art and poetry”. He believed that Socialism would bring happiness to his people and homeland. Even he dedicated a poem to Stalin in 1936. However, the traitors, who “undertook to criticize Mushfig” and insured themselves against the forthcoming repressions, “did not accept this poem unequivocally”. At one of the following plenums in 1937, Mikail Rzaguluzadeh, a member of the Writers' Union, attacked to M. Mushfig personally claiming that there were counter-revolutionary challenges in his poem “Stalin”. He “passed through the part of the poem which had been dedicated to Stalin”. Like this slingshot, he even accused Mushfig of “not knowing Russian, reading old books and using” them. He dressed out every positive thought of the poet in different attire. Mammad Rahim, another member of the Writers' Union, published an article in the “Literature” newspaper entitled “Counter-revolutionary, smuggler, thief” criticizing Mikayil Mushfig sharply on July 1, 1937. He tries to prove that his works “are apparently soviet, but the whole internal structure is full of brutal counter-revolutionary spirit”. His booklet “Winds” is full of “all sorts of flamboyant, anarchist, nasty and black anti-Soviet counter-revolutionary ideas” (Kanan, 2011a: 98).

Mikail Mushfig's Unjust Arrest and Hasty Execution

Dozens of such articles had been published about M. Mushfig and “legal basis” had already been laid for his arrest. To speed up the process, captain Thin- man, a Security of the PCIA in Azerbaijan, wrote in a statement on May 27, 1937 that “Mikayil Mushfig is currently in contact with the Musavat youth organization, does not hesitate to slander the party and the government”. He arouses discontent among the people with such provocative words as “Azerbaijan has no freedom; it lives in a Russian colony”. Moreover, the “voluntary” explanations of the arrested defendants were also taken into account. Consequently, “warrant No. 508 was issued in the name of Mikayil Mushfig according to the certificate prepared by the investigator” on June 3 and he was arrested at his home on June 4, 1937. During seven months in prison, he was being subjected to unprecedented torture asking him about his membership and position as a nationalist in Musavat organization. Then, Sumbatov, a chief of the PCIA in Azerbaijan and Rozovsky, General Assistant of USSR Prosecutor, signed the indictment. They deliberately wrote that Ismayilzadeh Mikayil Mushfig “admits that he has adhered to almost all the decisions of the counter-revolutionary organization” (Kanan, 2011b: 135).

It is said that until the last day, Mushfig did not believe he would be killed, but he believed to be released. He was absolutely sure that “his arrest was the effort of people who were jealous of him. None of the arrested intellectuals was seriously guilty in that time. One spoke a little harshly, another wrote carelessly, and so on. However, humanist socialism could forgive them” (Gurbansoy, 2008d: 71). Could a society in which the betrayers play a main role be humanist? Not only that “humanist society”, but those traitors also issued a fatwa on Mushfig's death in 1938.

Finally, “Ismayilzade Mikayil Mushfig was found guilty under the Articles 64, 70, 73 of the Criminal Code of the Azerbaijan SSR” on the basis of false testimony. After that, “the trial of the Mobile Military Board of the Supreme Court of the USSR, which began at 11:20 on January 5, 1938, ended at 11:40 with the verdict in the execution of Ismayilzade Mikayil Mushfig. The sentence was carried out on the night of January 6, on the island of Nargin near Baku” (Kanan, 2017). Since then the rumors about the poet's execution have not ended. It was rumored that the first bullet even was fired by Mirjafar Bagirov himself, First Secretary of the Central Committee of Azerbaijan Communist Party. According to researcher R. Sirajoglu, “this idea does not seem convincing”. He explained that “the political leader of the republic could not have had the opportunity to find out who were arrested by the PCIA”. Moreover, M. Bagirov didn't seem to be hostile to Mushfig. “In 1936, the state commission chaired by M. Bagirov awarded his poem “Morning” as one of the “Seven best literary works” at the poetry contest dedicated to the 15th anniversary of the establishment of Soviet power in Azerbaijan”. Furthermore, “Mikail Mushfig was a laureate of the Republican Komsomol award”. If M. Bagirov did not have special sympathy for him, it is unlikely that anyone “would have dared to consider Mushfig worthy of this award”. In addition, “Mikayil Mushfig was the director of a very serious publishing house such as Azerneshir, where all serious political and social works were published. If M. Bagirov did not trust Mushfig, who would nominate him for that position?”. It should be noted that “the texts of M. Bagirov's speeches were prepared by the Secretariat for Ideological Affairs of the Central Committee”. It is clear that “the written information was required from the heads of various fields during the preparation of those texts”. Then the leaders of the “local relevant agencies provided the Central Committee with required information”. It is clear that the information about “the activities of the writers and poets were prepared by the chairman of the Azerbaijan Soviet Writers' Union” exactly in that period (Sirajoglu, 2018c). The author of the article tries to prove with a lot of evidences that Mirjafar Bagirov was not directly related with this murder. However, it can be a question, how Mirjafar Bagirov, General Secretary of Azerbaijan Soviet Republic, who did not forgive the slightest criticism or the most ordinary mistakes of his employees, kept every point of the republic under full power and control, became unaware of Mushfig's death?!

Attitude to Mikayil Mushfig's Shooting Death in Modern Society

83 years have passed since the poet's execution. We decided to conduct a survey to know the people's opinion about the poet's death. Although his name was not mentioned in any activities of the political parties or organizations, he was dragged to death deliberately. We asked 500 people including 200 students, 200 young people over the age of 35, and 100 people between the ages of 65 and 75 to participate in the survey. We have grouped the results by summarizing the individual and collective inquiries.

It can be seen from the table, the survey was held among different age groups. 86.5% of the students (173), 90.5% of the young people (181), 90% of the adults (90) think that not all the victims of the repressions in 1937 were counter-revolutionaries. Almost 88.8% of the participants support it totally. Due to the confusion and inaccuracy of information about Mushfig, 8.2% of the survey members do not know the answer exactly. The older generation, on the other hand, unequivocally think that most of them are also innocent like M. Mushfig. 78.2% of respondents' answers stand for M. Mushfig not to do any act against socialism. It is firmly believed that those who were jealous of his success in poetry caused him to be executed. The majority almost think that he became a victim of the jealousy by his comrades, 6.6% think the poet was killed because of his political views. According to 13.2% of respondents reply, all the sides are guilty logically in the poet's death. This is absolutely true. Even though the answers to the question of who killed Mushfig are relatively close: 79.6% of the answers note that he was dragged to death by their colleagues. It is an undeniable fact that Stalin repressions were exactly carried out by the help of the local supporters' cooperation in Azerbaijan. It is also clear from the poll that the men who are the direct culpit for Mushfig's murder was the then members of the Azerbaijan Soviet Writers' Union in 1930s. Based on the results obtained from the table, we tried to look at the general picture of 1937 and the events surrounding the poet would soon have sacrificed him to repression.

Table 1

People's views on the execution of Mikail Mushfig