The article examines the literary heritage of the People's Poet of Azerbaijan, Bakhtiyar Vahabzade, through the perspective of the German orientalist, Turkologist, translator, and literary scholar Hans Ahmad Schmiede. The aim of the study is to reveal H. A. Schmiede’s views on Vahabzade’s personality and creative work, as well as his contribution to the promotion of Azerbaijani poetry abroad. The article analyzes the scholar’s prefaces, articles, and other materials devoted to the poet and identifies his scholarly assessment of the ideological and artistic features of Vahabzade’s poetry.
The research demonstrates that H. A. Schmiede regarded Bakhtiyar Vahabzade not only as one of the most prominent representatives of Azerbaijani literature but also as an outstanding poet of the entire Turkic world. He highly appreciated the poet’s ideas of patriotism, national self-awareness, love for the mother tongue, aspiration for freedom, and universal human values. Schmiede played an important role in introducing Vahabzade’s works to readers in Germany and Türkiye. He translated a number of the poet’s poems into Turkish and was among the first scholars to present Vahabzade and his literary achievements to Turkish readers. The article is also significant for the study of Azerbaijani–German and Azerbaijani–Turkish literary and cultural relations.
Publication Date: 2026-06-19