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Javad Ahmad 1892 - 1937 (45)

I am a voice which belongs to the tormented country


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Ahmad Javad (1892-1937) was an Azeri poet and translator, the creator of the national anthem of Azerbaijan. He was born on May 5, 1892, in the village of Seyfali and received his primary education at home, learning in addition to Azeri, Turkish, Persian and Arabic. In 1912, after graduating from a religious seminary in Ganja, he began working as a teacher. During the Balkan War he fought on the side of Turkey in the volunteer section of the Caucasus.

In 1916, his first collection of poems was published and he became known as the poet of independence. In 1918 Azerbaijan became independent, and his poem "Azerbaijan! Azerbaijan!" was used as the national anthem. Two years later, the country became part of the Soviet Union, with Javad continuing to work as a school principal and teacher of Russian and Azeri languages; he was one of the pioneers in founding the University of Azerbaijan. From 1922 to 1927 he studied at the Department of History and Philology of the Pedagogical Institute of Azerbaijan and at the same time taught at a technical school. In 1924-1926 he worked as the secretary of the Union of Soviet Writers of Azerbaijan. In 1925 he was arrested by the Soviets for his poem "Goygol".

In 1934, Ahmad Javad returned to Baku, where he worked as the editor of the translation department of the publishing house "Azernashr", from which he took care of translating works by Gorky, Pushkin, Shakespeare.

In 1937 he fell victim to the Soviet regime, as did many other Azerbaijani artists and writers who were imprisoned and killed for being considered dangerous. The Soviets arrested him and executed him on October 13, 1937; he was accused of spreading nationalist ideas to his compatriots through his poetry. His wife, just because she was his wife, was separated from their children and was sent for 8 years to a forced labor camp in Siberia.