Abbas Sikhkhat

(pseudonym of Abbasguli Aliabbas ogly Mekhtizade). Born 1874, in Shemakha; died July 11, 1918, in Gandzha. Azerbaijani poet and translator; representative of romanticism in Azerbaijani literature.

From 1903, Abbas Sikhkhat wrote in the newspaper Shärgi-Rus (Russian East) in Tiflis. In 1905 his article “What Should the New Poetry Be Like?” was published, followed by the poems “Poetic Discourse,” “Ode to Liberty,” and “Voice of Awakening.” His verse collection The Broken Saz appeared in 1912, as did a collection of translations of Russian and Western European poets entitled Western Sun. In his narrative poem The Courage of Akhmed (1912) Abbas Sikhkhat portrayed the workingman as the champion of liberty, and in the romantic narrative Poet, Muse, and Townsman (1916) he came out against the adherents of “pure art.”