Western Azerbaijan Community

Jafar Zeynal oglu Hajiyev (Jafar Khandan) was born on May 8, 1910 in Iravan. There are different opinions about his birthplace. Some sources state that he was born in Aghamzali village of Ulukhanli district, while others state that he was born in Jabachali village, which is near to Aghamzali. In addition to 1910, the date of birth of Jafar Khandan is indicated as 1911 in some sources.

In 1918, as a result of atrocities committed by Armenians against Azerbaijanis in Iravan, Jafar Khandan’s family had to leave their homeland and move to Ganja. Jafar lost his parents there and stayed in an orphanage with his sister for a while. First, he graduated from the Ganja Pedagogical Technical College, then from the Faculty of Language and Literature of the Pedagogical Institute (current ADPU). During his studies at the institute, Jafar also taught at the staff faculty.

A strong passion for science led J.Khandan’s road to postgraduate studies. Then he worked as an assistant of the Department of Literature at the institute, and then as an associate professor. After that, the activity of the young literary critic expanded even more. He worked as the dean of the Faculty of Language and Literature of the M.F. Akhundov Teachers’ Institute, the department head of the Azerbaijan State Pedagogical Institute, the department head at the Language and Literature Institute of the Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences, and the organizational secretary of the Azerbaijan Writers’ Union.

During these years, Jafar Khandan continued his journalistic activities along with his pedagogical scientific activities. At that time, he worked as the responsible secretary of the editorial office of the “Literature” newspaper, and as the head of the Literary Department at the editorial office of the “Young worker” newspaper.

In 1939, Jafar Khandan received the degree of candidate of philological sciences by presenting his work on “Proletarian revolutionary poet Sabir” as a dissertation.

When the war started in 1941, the young scientist was mobilized and worked as a political leader and journalist in the army. He worked as an instructor of the political department on various fronts, as a deputy editor in charge of frontline newspapers (“For the Motherland”, “For the Victory”). After the end of the war, he worked as an associate professor of the Department of Azerbaijani Literature of the Azerbaijan State University (now BSU), the head of the Culture and Household Department of the “Communist” newspaper, and in 1947–1949, he was the dean of the Philology Faculty. In 1948, Jafar Khandan completed his doctoral dissertation on “The National Freedom Struggle of the South Azerbaijani People in 1906–1946 and Its Reflection in Fiction” and was awarded the title of professor a year later.

In 1950, Professor Jafar Khandan was elected rector of Azerbaijan State University and headed this first higher education institution of the republic for four years. For an important part of his life, he worked here as an associate professor, dean, rector, and for many years (1952–1961) he was the head of the department of Azerbaijani literature at the university.

Since 1930, the creativity of Jafar Khandan, who began to appear in periodicals, was rich and diverse. Poetry was one of the main branches of his creativity. In this sense, it is no coincidence that Jafar Khandan’s first book “White Nights” was published in 1936, edited by our immortal poet Mikayil Mushfig. Later, the poet’s books of poems “Front” (1942), “Caucasus” (1942), “The First Separation” (1944), “On the Ways of Struggle” (1946) were published.

Jafar Khandan also translated many works of genius Nizami, Khagani, Omar Khayyam, Heyran Khanum into Azerbaijani for the first time. Jafar Khandan is the author of the first “Modern Azerbaijani Literature” and the first “Literary Theory” textbooks in his native language. The book “Sabir”, which he published in 1940, has a special significance as the first large-scale monographic research work dedicated to Sabir. One can add to this list the scholar’s first thousand-page (two-volume) work on the literature of South Azerbaijan, the book “History of Azerbaijan Literature”. It is clear that Mushfiq’s poems were banned for many years after the repression. The first monograph about the poet belongs to Jafar Khandan. He published this work in 1956. J. Khandan wrote the book “Soviet literature” (1957) for high school students with his colleague academician M.Arif, and this book was improved and published many times.

Jafar Khandan was more inclined towards 20th century and modern Azerbaijani literature and published a number of monographs related to those fields: “Sabir” (1940), “Historical Essays on 20th Century Azerbaijani Literature” (1965), “20th Century Azerbaijani Literature” (1951), “Molla Nasreddin” (1956), “The Poet’s Life” (1961), “Soviet Literature” (Part I, 1952), “Soviet Literature” (Part II, 1952), “C. Jabbarli’s life and creativity” (1954), “Mikayil Mushfiq” (1956), “Mir Jalal” (1968).

Not content with the monograph he published on Sabir in 1940, the scientist returned to the great creative world of the poet and wrote a monumental work called “Artistic features of Sabir’s creativity”.

Despite the fact that Jafar Khandan wrote a book on literary theory, he regularly returned to that field and published articles on this topic: “Typicality in fiction”, “On literary style, method and trend”, “On the ways of development of literary theory”, “The development of literary theory”. Pedagogical activity of the prominent literary scholar is worthy of attention. He devoted more than 30 years of his life to the art of teaching.

J.Khandan was also an active public figure. He was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Azerbaijan SSR (3rd convocation) and a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan. He was awarded the “Red Star” (1942), “Red Banner of Labor” (1946), “Badge of Honor” orders, as well as the “For the Defense of the Caucasus” and “Victory over Germany” medals.

J.Khandan died on August 10, 1961 at the age of 50.