Mirza Taghi Khan Raf'at ( fa, میرزا تقی خان رفعت; ) was the son of Agha Mohammad Tabrizi. He was educated in

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

and during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

returned to

Tabriz Tabriz ( fa, تبریز ; ) is a city in northwestern Iran, serving as the capital of East Azerbaijan Province. It is the List of largest cities of Iran, sixth-most-populous city in Iran. In the Quri Chay, Quru River valley in Iran's historic Aze ...

to teach French in high school. He was a

modernist Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...

poet who wrote in Turkish and French as well as Persian. Politically, he was a follower of

Mohammad Khiabani Shaikh Mohammad Khiābāni ( fa, شیخ محمد خیابانی, 1880–1920), sometimes spelled Khiyabani, also known as Shaikh Mohammad Khiābāni Tabrizi was an Iranian Shia cleric, political leader, and representative to the parliament. He wa ...

, and edited the latter's newspaper, ''Tajaddod'' ("Modernity"), an organ of the

Democratic Party of Azerbaijan The Azerbaijan Democratic Party ( az, , Azərbaycan Demokrat Firqəsi; fa, فرقه دموکرات آذربایجان, Ferqa-ye demokrāt-e Āzarbāyjān) was a pro-Soviet, separatist, and pan-Turkist party founded by Jafar Pishevari in Tabriz, ...

, as well as the magazine ''

Azadistan Azadistan ( fa, آزادستان, Āzādestān, lit=The Land of Freedom), was a short-lived state in Iranian Azerbaijan that lasted from the early 1920 until September 1920. It was established by Mohammad Khiabani, an Iranian patriot, who was a ...

''. When Khiabani's movement was violently crushed, Rafat committed suicide in a small village near Tabriz. His arguments with Malek-osh-Sho'arā Bahār (Persian: ), a traditionalist poet and the chief of all poets of Iran (a high conceptual title given to the oldest and wisest poet in the country by the royal court of Persia which entitled the Malekoshoara to receive pensions from the court and to moderate and govern the cultural activities of all other poets in Persia), are famous. he was a reformist with a hot tongue who criticized the old ways of literature in Iran and was pushing for reforms in both form and content in order to revolutionize the core of Persian Literature, especially in poetry.Resources - Iranian Poets
Toos Foundation. Retrieved 4 September 2016

See also

References

Further reading