Mirza Fatali Akhundov, also known as Mirza Fatali Akhundzade, or Mirza Fath-Ali Akhundzadeh (12 July 1812 – 9 March 1878), was a celebrated Iranian Azerbaijani author, playwright, atheist, philosopher, and literary critic who lived most of his life in the Russian Empire. He became famous mainly for his European-inspired plays written in Azerbaijani.
Akhundzade singlehandedly opened a new stage of development of Azerbaijani literature. Through Persian translation, his plays also played an important role in the birth of modern Iranian theater. He was also the founder of the materialist and atheist movement in the Republic of Azerbaijan and one of the forerunners of modern Iranian nationalism. He also advocated switching the Azerbaijani writing system from the Perso-Arabic script to the Latin alphabet.
According to the historian and political scientist Zaur Gasimov, the entirety of Akhundzadeh's intellectual landscape was "densely entangled with Persian thought". Akhundzadeh defined his kinsmen as Turki, but at the same time considered Iran his fatherland. Politically, he has been described as "a tsarist official of impeccable loyalty", and he viewed Russian rule as a force for modernisation in the Caucasus.
Belonging to a relatively wealthy family, Akhundov was born in 1812 in the town of Nukha (present-day Shaki), which served as the capital of the Shaki Khanate. A khanate was a type of administrative unit governed by a hereditary or appointed ruler subject to Iranian rule. During the Russo-Iranian war of 1804–1813, the Shaki Khanate was occupied by the Russian Empire, who had installed Jafar Qoli Khan Donboli as their deputy.
Akhundov's grandfather, Haji Ahmad, originally lived in Rasht in northern Iran before relocating to Tabriz in northwestern Iran. His father Mirza Mohammad-Taqi had previously served as the deputy of the nearby town Khamaneh, but was dismissed by the Qajar crown prince of Iran, Abbas Mirza. Mirza Mohammad-Taqi subsequently became a merchant and relocated to Nukha, where he married Akhundov's mother Na'na Khanum in the same year. Her uncle was Akhund Haji Ali Asghar, a Shia clergyman belonging to the Moqaddam family of Maragheh. Akhundov felt a connection to the contemporary Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, due to his mother's lineage, which included an African ancestor who had served under the Iranian shah (king) Nader Shah (r. 1736–1747).
In 1813, Iran and Russia agreed to the Treaty of Gulistan, which resulted in Shaki, along with other territories, coming under Russian rule. The following year, Jafar-Qoli Khan's death led many of the province's inhabitants—who had relied on his support—to migrate elsewhere. In 1814, Akhundov was taken by his parents to Khamaneh. However, Na'na Khanum eventually became dissatisfied with living among the family of Mirza Mohammad-Taqi's first wife, and in 1818, she decided to leave Khamaneh, taking Akhundov with her. She went to Meshgin, where her uncle Haji Ali Asghar resided. This marked the last time Akhundov would see his father. Many years later, Akhundov attacked the idea of men having more than one wife as an evil and corrupting practice that not only oppressed women but also caused permanent animosity and friction between the wives and their children.
Akhundov was adopted by Haji Ali Asghar, thus becoming known as "Haji Ali Asgharoglu" or simply "Akhundzade". Haji Ali Asghar was in charge of Akhundov's early education, which included the memorization of the Quran, teaching of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and Arabic and Persian literature. Akhundov first stayed in the village of Hurand with his mother and Haji Ali Asghar. When Akhundov became seven years old the following year, he was registered in a school. In 1825, Akhundov, his mother and Haji Ali Asghar briefly stayed at Nukha before moving to Ganja. Some months later, the Russo-Iranian War of 1826–1828 erupted.
Haji Ali Asghar and his family endured difficulties throughout the war, losing their possessions. Following the conclusion of the war and another Iranian defeat, Haji Ali Asghar and his family relocated to Nukha. There he continued teaching Akhundov Arabic and Persian literature. In 1832, Akhundov was sent to the Shah Abbas Mosque in Ganja to study logic and Islamic jurisprudence with the Shia theologian Akhund Molla Hossein. This was arranged by Haji Ali Asghar, who wanted Akhundov to become an Islamic clergyman.
Mirza Shafi Vazeh, a mystic, poet, and calligrapher who had been associated with mystical and atheistic ideas, was someone Akhundov encountered while studying in Ganja. Initially, Akhundov planned to learn calligraphy from Mirza Shafi, but their conversations quickly strayed into topics such as Islam, philosophy, mysticism, and the activities of the Shia clergy. Akhundov was adamant on learning Islamic law and jurisprudence in order to become a member of the Shia religious hierarchy, but this changed when he met Mirza Shafi. Akhundov wrote about the impact Mirza Shafi had on him:
One day, this honourable man [Mirza Shafi], asked me: "Mirza Fath Ali what is your intention in studying [Islamic] sciences?" I answered that I wished to become a clergyman. He said, "Do you wish to become a hypocrite and a charlatan?" I was surprised and shocked ... Mirza Shafi looked at me and said: "Mirza Fath Ali, do not waste your life among this abominable group of people and choose another profession". When I asked him about the reasons for his hatred of the clergy, he began to reveal matters which until then had remained hidden to me ... Until the return of my second father from pilgrimage, Mirza Shafi inculcated in me all the elements of mysticism, and lifted the curtain of ignorance from my eyes. After this incident, I began to hate the clergy and I changed my intentions.
Haji Ali Asghar disapproved of his Akhundov's new aspirations and had him moved back to Nukha in 1833. Despite this, he still agreed for Akhundov to attend the newly established Russian school there. There Akhundov started learning Russian, but the following year he was forced to stop at the school due to being too old for it.
In 1834, Akhundzade moved to Tiflis (present-day Tbilisi, Georgia), and spent the rest of his life working as a translator of Oriental languages in the service of the Russian Empire's Viceroyalty. Concurrently, from 1837 onwards he worked as a teacher in the Tbilisi uezd Armenian school, then in the Nersisian School. In Tiflis his acquaintance and friendship with the exiled Russian Decembrists Alexander Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, Vladimir Odoyevsky, poet Yakov Polonsky, Armenian writers Khachatur Abovian, Gabriel Sundukian and others played some part in the formation of Akhundzade's Europeanised outlook.
Akhundzade's first published work was "The Oriental Poem" (1837), a Persian lament on the death of Alexander Pushkin. But the rise of Akhundzade's literary activity comes in the late 1850s. In early 1850s, Akhundzade wrote six comedies (Hekayati Molla Ibrahim-Khalil Kimyagar, The story of Monsieur Jourdan, a botanist and the dervish Mastalishah, a famous sorcerer, Adventures of the Lankaran Khanate Vizier, etc.) – the first comedies in Azerbaijani literature as well as the first samples of the national dramaturgy. The comedies by Akhundzade are unique in their critical pathos and analysis of the realities in Azerbaijan of the first half of the 19th century. These comedies found numerous responses in the Russian other foreign periodical press. Through Persian translation, his plays also played an important role in the birth of modern Iranian theater. The German Magazine of Foreign Literature called Akhundzade a "dramatic genius" and "the Azerbaijani Molière." Akhundzade's sharp pen was directed against everything that he believed hindered the advance of the Russian Empire, which for Akhundzade was a force for modernisation, in spite of the atrocities it committed in its southern advance against Akhundzade's own kin. According to Walter Kolarz, Akhundzade "was so completely devoted to the Russian cause that he urged his compatriots to fight Turkey during the Crimean War."