Salman Mumtaz (pseudonymous of Salman Mammedamin oghlu Asgarov; May 20, 1884 – September 6, 1941) was a renowned Azerbaijani

literary scholar Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. T ...

and

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

. He was born in Shaki in 1884. In his efforts to collect, publish and promote the classical literary legacy, he discovered unknown manuscripts of a number of

Azerbaijani poets Azerbaijani may refer to: * Something of, or related to Azerbaijan * Azerbaijanis * Azerbaijani language See also * Azerbaijan (disambiguation) * Azeri (disambiguation) * Azerbaijani cuisine * Culture of Azerbaijan The culture of Azerbaijan ...

and ashugs. Falling a victim to repressions, he was arrested in 1937 and killed by shooting in 1941 while imprisoned in

Oryol Oryol ( rus, Орёл, p=ɐˈrʲɵl, lit. ''eagle''), also transliterated as Orel or Oriol, is a city and the administrative center of Oryol Oblast situated on the Oka River, approximately south-southwest of Moscow. It is part of the Central Fed ...

. Salman Mumtaz was labeled as a

pan-Turkist Pan-Turkism is a political movement that emerged during the 1880s among Turkic intellectuals who lived in the Russian region of Kazan (Tatarstan), Caucasus (modern-day Azerbaijan) and the Ottoman Empire (modern-day Turkey), with its aim bei ...

because he wrote about Azerbaijani literature as being a part of Turkic literature. His collection of rare ancient manuscripts that had been gathered from all over

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...

was confiscated. Most of these manuscripts was born after his arrest. Today some of these books are archived in the Institute of Manuscripts in Baku and are called the "Salman Mumtaz Collection".

Sources

Prominent persons of Shaki
* Tahirzadə Ə. Salman Mümtaz (Tərcümeyi-hal oçerki). — Б.: Kür, 2002. * Гулизаде М. Мумтаз // Краткая литературная энциклопедия / Главный редактор А. А. Сурков. — М.: Советская энциклопедия, 1967. — Т. 4. — С. 1016. Azerbaijani literary theorists Azerbaijani scholars Azerbaijani poets Azerbaijani publicists 1884 births 1941 deaths 20th-century poets Soviet literary historians Soviet male writers 20th-century male writers {{Azerbaijan-academic-bio-stub