(pen name of Mirza Alekper Tairzade). Born May 19 (31), 1862, in the city of Shemakha; died there July 12 (25), 1911. Azerbaijani poet.

Sabir was a student in a madrasa and then studied in the new-method school of the poet Seid Azim Shirvani. In his early years he wrote lyric ghazals. The revolution of 1905–07 awakened civic motifs in Sabir’s poetry. His works were published in the satirical journal Molla Nasreddin under the pen name Khop-khop (Hoopoe), which he later changed frequently in order to hide his authorship from the reactionaries who were persecuting him. Satirizing such characters as a religious fanatic, a family patriarch, an intellectual alienated from the common people, and a hypocritical mullah, Sabir lashed out at everything that impeded progress and advocated enlightenment and freedom.

Through his social satires, Sabir was the first in Azerbaijani literature to raise the question of class oppression. Working people perceived in his satires a call to struggle for their rights. His political satires reflected the dissolution of the State Duma in Russia, the intrigues of the autocracy against the liberation movements in countries of the Middle East, the despotism of the Turkish sultan, and the schemes of the international forces of reaction.

Sabir and Dzh. Mamedkulizade, together with other progressive writers, created a new satirical school in Azerbaijani realist literature. Sabir’s poetry and the better works of other Molla Nasreddin writers were the first examples of proletarian literature to appear in the Azerbaijani language. They prepared the way for further development of Azerbaijani Soviet literature.

an urban-type settlement in Shemakha Raion, Azerbaijan SSR. Located on the Pirsagat River, on the Baku-Tbilisi highway, 79 km northeast of the Kiurdamir railroad station, on the Tbilisi-Aliat line. Sabir has a winery.