Today is the commemoration day of the Azerbaijani People's Poet Rasul Reza. Ednews presents interesting facts about the late poet.
Rasul Reza was born on May 19, 1910, in the city of Goychay. His father Ibrahim, a descendant of the Mammadkhanovs, was engaged in blacksmithing and petty trading in the village. He worked as a translator and interpreter in a stationery store in Goychay. Because he sent his daughters to school for the first time and allowed them to walk around without veils, Ibrahim Bey's family apostatized and were nicknamed Baha'is.
His mother Maryam, who is related to Khan's daughter Natavan, loved poetry and literature, so she herself wrote poems and memorized them. Every night, he gathered his children on his head and read them poems and fairy tales.
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Rasul Reza writes about his childhood years in his memoirs: There were two mosques in the city: one was a Shiite mosque and one was a Sunni mosque. A tragic and terrible mourning ceremony was held for the holy imams in the Shia mosque. On the tenth day of mourning - Ashura day, people used to torture themselves. On the day of the murder, there were also those who died among the wounded. Fanatical religious people took out daggers and struck themselves on the head, shedding their own blood in honor of holy people. I and my peers did not miss any of these performances. Our descendants are from Chiyni village. A lot of educated people came out of Chiyni village, and these people studied in Goychay, Ganja, Baku and Tbilisi. The village had very cruel traditions. Suffice it to say that one of the sons of my aunt, who was educated in Baku, was killed by his father's bloodmen on the morning of the day he came to his native village for vacation. The enmity between the two generations continued until 1921-22.
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Rasul Reza lost his father very early. Left alone with four girls and one boy, Maryam Khanum was able to study, but did not work anywhere. After the death of her husband, the family's livelihood became more difficult. Rasul's mother was forced to take her children and move to Baku. Although his uncle Mammadhuseyn helped their family, after moving to Baku, Rasul Reza was forced to work and help the family from a very young age.
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In 1925, Rasul submitted his documents to Ganja Industrial and Agricultural Technical College. At that time, the director of this technical school was Nemanzade Omer Faig. Having heard a lot about this man, who is one of the prominent figures of "Molla Nasreddin" magazine, Rasul Reza writes an application in the name of the director. He gave the application written in high "literary language" to the secretary and waited in the yard. Not long after, Omar Faig Nemanzade called him. The first question is: Did you write this application yourself? After receiving a yes answer, Nemanzade accepts him in the technical school. However, Rasul starts to miss his family and friends in Baku during the first days of living there. He writes in his memoirs: "I entered Ganja Technical College. I wrote the first letter to my mother. After a week of waiting, I received an answer. My mother was happy that I was accepted to school. It wasn't even two weeks before I started to miss it. I missed our house, our street, my friends. At night, I would pull the blanket over my head and cry. "My mother's separation hurt me more than anything."
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Three or four months later, a fellow student playing the role of Mr. Rasula, who played the role of a servant in a play staged in the Students' Drama Society, slapped him hard. Rasul's ears become deaf after the slap. This reason is enough for him to leave the technical school. Seeing Rasul returning to their home, his mother hugged him and said: "Wow, you're on my head, why did you come back again?"
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It was not the first time that Rasul Rza left school. Before that, he once ran away from the Baku teachers' seminary after studying for ten or twelve days. The reason for this was that he missed his mother. Due to these boredoms, he never gets systematic education.
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It didn't take long for him to get to know Süleyman Rustam, Mehdi Huseyn, Samad Vurgun, Mikayil Rafili, Ali Nazim, Mirza Ibrahimov and others, who are well known in the literary world, through his schoolmate poet A. Faruq, and got a job as a translator. In those years, "Young Worker" was the main place where poets and writers who had just come to literature gathered and met. Here, R. Rza meets many of his peers, including the poet M. Mushfiq.
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The poet, who started working in Baku, met Nigar Rafibeyli, a groom's daughter originally from Ganja, whose family was repressed. They got married in 1937. The house they lived in was a place like a small hut. Their wedding is also held in the same hut. Many of the people who were subsequently repressed, as well as Huseyn Javid and Mikayil Mushfig, participated in their wedding.
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Innovation in Rasul Reza's poems is not accepted. This innovative thinking was rejected and the poets who could not break out of the mold stifled it.
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There are various rumors about the strained relationship with Samad Vurgun. The cause of this tension is said to be an aesthetic dispute. Samad Vurgun was a master of syllabic poetry, and Rasul Rza was one of the serious authors of free poetry. The relationship between them was sometimes cold and sometimes friendly. His son Anar writes:
"I also remember one of my father's conversations: "Once Samad told me: you are a man - when someone next to you said something bad about me, you slapped him." My father said that such an issue really happened and it was conveyed to Samad by a third person who participated in the conversation. But Samad Vurgun wanted to swear at that so-and-so, my father did not let him, and Samad said: "You are still acting like a man."
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One day Rasul Reza was asked: - You are not going with Samad Vurgun. What is the reason? Rasul Reza's answer: - It's true, there were arguments between Samad and me, even when we got angry and reconciled. However, this is not due to purely personal reasons, it is due to a competition of style. True poetry cannot be created where there is no competition of styles. Unfortunately, those who want to fish in murky water dress it up in a personal dress, interrupt, pit us against each other, and cause gossip.
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Rasul Reza once objected to the singing of ashiqs on the grave of Molla Vali Vidadi in Gazakh.
- Stop it, it's a shame, don't play in the cemetery.
Someone froze in place:
- Who brought this blue-eyed "people" here?
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Samad and Vurgun asked each other about the condition of their children after leaving the meeting. However, those who participated there thought that after this fight, they would not say hello to each other.
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Rasul Reza had an interesting confession about Samad Vurgun. He said that to see the difference between Samad Vurgu and his contemporaries, look carefully at the photos. Everyone gathered around him when he was taking pictures.
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Rasul Reza had a personality. He got angry when someone got the word wrong and corrected him immediately. Once, at one of the meetings of the Union of Writers, when the speaker said "Rasul teacher's wife Nigar khanim", Rasul Reza quickly interrupted him:
- Man, what about Rasul teacher's wife?
Rasul Rza's wife! A man has so many spouses... A travel companion, a work companion, a business partner... Whoever you keep company with becomes your spouse. The word wife has only one meaning.
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At one of the literary gatherings of the Union of Writers, Rasul criticizes the poems of Reza Mammad Rahim.
Mammad Rahim went to the stand and faced Rasul Raza:
- Rasul, I don't know why you always fight with me?
Rasul Reza does not lose his composure:
- Teacher Mammad, mine is not a skull.
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Rasul Reza also brought new words to our language. "Beach", "Işıkfor", "Strawberry", etc. At the same time, he created the word Anar and named it to his son. As you know, this word is taken from the verb "to remember" in our language. Anar is on the list of the most common names in Azerbaijan today.
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When the Second World War started, the poet was not taken to the war because he had a limp in one leg. However, at the end of 1941, he went to the Crimea as a military correspondent with a group of political workers, worked as a military correspondent in the Azerbaijani division in the city of Kerch, and started working in the front-line newspaper "Döyushen Krym".
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During the war, he suffered shocks. It is said that on a terrible night of war, he wrote a farewell letter, threw it into a bottle and threw it into the sea, hoping that someone would come across it.
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Nigar Rafibeyli loved his wife with great love. He missed her very much during the days at the front, and even tried to visit her in the Crimea several times. When he asked Samad Vurgun about this, Samad Vurgun told him, "now where can I find a battalion soldier to accompany you to the front".
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Rasul Reza and Nazim Hikmet were very good friends. Every time he came to Baku, he would definitely be a guest at the poet's house. His every visit turned into a holiday at Rasul Reza's house. While remembering those years, her daughter Fidan says: We all loved Nazim Hikmat and his poems. He was such a beautiful person that it was impossible not to be struck by him. He was a very handsome, tall, blond, blue-eyed man. Nazim Hikmet had a beautiful velvety voice. He could recite good poetry without pathos. He would always read his poems when he came to us. He liked to listen to my mother's and father's poems. When we went to Moscow, we once visited his house with Vera. Once, he hosted us in a place called Writers' Garden. He prepared the table himself."
Rasul Reza spent the last years of his life in the hospital. When he was treated at the hospital, his wife Nigar was also diagnosed with cancer. They are preparing to take him to Moscow. The writer Anar has to convey the news about his trip to Moscow to his father. However, as soon as he received the news, Rasul Reza's condition suddenly worsened and his blood pressure rose. No matter how hard the doctors are, they can't help. Within fifteen, twenty minutes, on April 1, 1981, Rasul Reza died at the age of 70.
The poet's children hide this news from Mrs. Nigar, who is already in a serious condition and is in the hospital. Fidan Rzayeva says in an interview: My mother was in the hospital without knowing anything. At that time, we thought a lot about whether to tell him or not. Then I told my mother not to tell anything. Anar said that how can it be hidden? I said yes! Anar also asked when should we say? I answered that never! Anar agreed. I knew my mother would go too. He is also dying. If we told him about my father's death, that moment would pass. Anar said that I cannot go to the hospital and deceive my mother. I said, I will. The next morning, I went to my mother's house and acted as if nothing had happened. When I asked my father, I said that his blood pressure had risen, so the doctors did not allow him to move. For exactly three months, we cheated on him and hid from him what happened. He didn't know anything until the end."
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After the poet's death, Emin Sabitoglu composed a song for the poem "Neylayim" written by Nigar Khanum for Rasul Rza. The song is performed by Akif Islamzade. Anar brought the recording of that music to the hospital and listened to his mother. Mrs. Nigar likes that music very much. Whoever comes to him, tells his children to play the song written by Rasul and let them listen.
Oghuz Ayvaz
