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Rereading the Enlightenment: Akhundzada and His Voltaire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Maryam B. Sanjabi
Maryam B. Sanjabi*
Affiliation:
Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Southern Illinois University
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Extract

Among The Forerunners of Modernism in Nineteenth-Century Iran Mirza Fath ‘Ali Akhundzada was probably the most outspoken in his defense of secularism and his attack on religion as the chief obstacle to social progress. His writings on these subjects, his advocacy of an improvised script—a lifetime preoccupation—and his plays with distinct social messages, have already been subjects of study. In their treatment of Akhundzada most writers have satisfied themselves with cursory content analyses of his social ideas and literary achievements. Yet the question remains: to what extent was his socio-religious criticism—what he called qirītīka (Persianized rendering of the Russian kritika)— the outcome of his exposure, directly or indirectly, to modern European thought? To what extent, on the other hand, was his blend of theological skepticism and social disquietude rooted in exposure to the lingering Perso-Islamic “esotericism” (bāṭinīya) of his time.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 1-2 , Spring Winter 1995 , pp. 39 - 60
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1995

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References

1. A considerable literature on various aspects of Akhundzada's works exists in Persian, Russian, Turkish, English, and other European languages. For his socioreligious thought see, among other works, Adamiyat, F., Andīshahā-yi Mīrzā Fath ‘Alī Ākhūndzāda (Tehran, 1349 Sh./1970)Google Scholar; Algar, H., “Malkum Khan, Akhundzada and the Proposed Reform of the Arabic Alphabet,” Middle Eastern Studies 5 (1969): 116— 30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, Mirza Malkum Khan: A Study in the History of Iranian Modernism (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1973), 86–99; s.v. Elr, “Ājḵūundzāda” and the cited sources (H. Algar); Brands, H. W., Azerbaiganisch.es Volksleben und modernistische Tendenz in den Schauspielen Mirza Feth-Ali Ahundzades (Leiden, 1975)Google Scholar; Rafili, M., M. F. Akhundov, zhizn’ i tvorchestvo (Baku, 1957)Google Scholar. See also M. Subhdam's introduction to Akhundzada's Maktūbāt (n.p. [Germany]: Mard Imruz, 1364 Sh./1985).

2. In a passing reference in his letter (December 1872) to A. L. M. Nicholas, the French consul-general in Tehran, Akhundzada admits that he is not familiar with “any European language other than Russian” (Muhammadzada, H. and Arasili, H., eds., Alifbā-yijadīd va maktūbāt [Baku, 1963], 300Google Scholar). See also Akhundzada to Malkum Khan (March 1872) where he acknowledges that he had instructed his son to translate Charles Mesmer's article from French into Russian (ibid., 278).

3. A full discussion of this subject appears in Sanjabi, M. B., “La Polémique de type Voltairien dans les pamphlets iraniens de l'époque preconstitutionnelle de l'lran, 1846–1896” (doctoral diss., Sorbonne IV, 1992)Google Scholar.

4. For Akhundzada's early life see his short autobiography, “Biyaghrafiya,” in B. Mu'mini, ed., Maqālāt (Tehran, 1351 Sh./1972), 8–12. See also Adamiyat, Andīshahā, 10–14, and the cited sources.

5. “Biyaghrafia,” 12

6. Matlaw, R. E., ed., Belinsky, Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, Selected Criticism (New York, 1962)Google Scholar, Introduction, x.

7. Ibid., xii

8. Raisanovsky, N. V., A History of Russia (New York, 1963), 432Google Scholar.

9. Ibid. See also his introduction to the Persian translation of his plays entitled Tamīlāt, trans. Mirza Ja'far Qarachadaghi (Tehran, 1349 Sh./1970), 29.

10. For the French impact on Russian high culture and society, Russian translations of Voltaire and other French writers, and public access to them in the nineteenth century see Aizenshtok, I., “Frantsuzkie pisateli v otsenkakh tsarskoi tsensury,” Literaturnoe nasledstvo, nos. 33–34 (Moscow, 1939): 769–858Google Scholar; and Bazunov, A. F., Sistematicheskii katalog Russkim knigam, prodaiuschimsia v knizhnom magazine, Aleksandra Fedorovicha Bazunova (St. Petersburg, 1869)Google Scholar.

11. Choldin, M. T., A Fence Around the Empire: Russian Censorship of Western Ideas under the Tsars (Durham, N.C., 1985), 43–4Google Scholar.

12. Ibid., 105–6. See the cited source (esp. pp. 56, 65–6, 71, and 106 ff.) for further discussion on the ban on publication of French authors.

13. Mirsky, D. S., A History of Russian Literature, ed. and abr. Whitfield, F. J. (New York, 1949), 84Google Scholar.

14. Ibid., 87. Cf. Terras, V., A History of Russian Literature (New Haven, 1991), 208Google Scholar.

15. Ibid., 117–21.

16. Qasimzada, F., Araseli, H., and Muhammadzada, H., Āthār-i adabī-yi Ākhūnduv (Baku, 1958)Google Scholar, cited in Adamiyat, Andīshahā, 273–6Google Scholar.

17. Ibid., 37, 275. For the circumstances of Lermontov's exile see Mirsky, History, 138Google Scholar. For a discussion on the Russian literary influence on Akhundzada see Adamiyat, Andīshahā, 32–40Google Scholar; s.v. EIr, “Āḵūndzāda.“

18. Mirsky, History, 85–6Google Scholar; Terras, A History 211Google Scholar. For Persian influences on Pushkin see Rafili, M., Akhundof (Moscow, 1956), 45Google Scholar. For Pushkin's positive impression of the Persian writer Fazil Khan Garrusi—whom he met in St. Petersburg on the occasion of Khusraw Mirza's mission to the Russian court to apologize for the killing of Gribaidov in 1829—see Aryanpur, Y., Az Ṣaba tā Nīmā, 2 vols. (Tehran, 1351 Sh./1972), 1:54–5Google Scholar.

19. Mirsky, History, 138–9Google Scholar, 156–8; Terras, A History, 251–3Google Scholar. For Lermontov's oriental themes see also Brown, W. E., A History of the Russian Literature of the Romantic Period, 4 vols. (Ann Arbor, 1986)Google Scholar.

20. Terras, A History, 245–6Google Scholar.

21. Akhundzada's play was first translated by Mirza Ja'far Qarachadaghi (Tehran, 1291/1874; 2d ed. Tehran, 1349 Sh./1970), 409–55. For the historical Yusuf Tarkishduz episode and the killing of the Nuqtavis see Kiya, S., Nuqṭaviyān yā Pisīkhāniyān (Tehran, 1320 Yazdgirdi/1952)Google Scholar; Munshi, Iskandar Beg, Tārīkh-i ‘ālamārā-yi ‘Abbāsī, ed. Afshar, I. (Tehran, 1350 Sh./1971), 473–6Google Scholar.

22. Akhundzada to Mirza Yusuf Khan, 29 March 1871 (citing part of his letter to Mirza Ja'far Qarachadaghi), Alifbā, repr. (Tabriz, 1357 Sh./1978), 212–13.

23. For the Shaykhis’ genesis and the emergence of the Babi movement see Amanat, A., Resurrection and Renewal: The Making of the Babi Movement in Iran, 1844–1850 (Ithaca, 1989)Google Scholar. References to the Shaykhis and Babis abound in the writings of Akhundzada.

24. Dictionnaire philosophique (Paris, 1967), “Fanatisme,” 197–8; Engl. trans., Philosophical Dictionary (New York, 1932), 467–76. See also “Joumée de la Saint-Barthelemey,” Histoire du parlement de Paris, XV in Cohen, A. and Woodward, B. D., eds., Voltaire's Prose (Boston, 1898), 65–73Google Scholar.

25. Traité sur la tolérance (Paris, 1763) trans, into English as Treatise upon Tolera tion (London, 1769).

26. Akhundzada to Shaykh Muhsin Khan, 4 February (Russian calendar, OS) 1879, Alifbā, 138–9. See also Akhundzada's reference to the Inquisition and the decline of Spain in his record of Malkum Khan's comments in Tiflis in 1872 (Alifbā, 286). Buckle (1821–62) was the author of the well-known History of Civilization in England which profoundly influenced the liberal historiography of later generations.

27. Alifbā, 139.

28. Emphasis added. Interestingly enough, the two terms Akhundzada uses in identifying “heretics” are malāḥida (lit., agnostics), the common derogatory term for the Nizari Isma'ilis, and zanādiqa (sing., zindīq), a term originally used to identify all followers of Manichaean-Zoroastrian tendencies in early Islamic times (and by extension all heterodoxies of pre-Islamic and gnostic origin).

29. Kamāl al-Dawla published as Maktūbāt, ed. M. Subhdam (n.p. [Germany]: Mard Imruz, 1364/1985), 2.

30. Kazem Beg's study of Babism first appeared in Russian as Bab i babidy (St. Petersbug, 1865) and a year later in French as “Bab et les Babis, ou le soulévement politique des religieux en Perse, de 1845 à 1853,” Journal Asiatique (1866). For his acquaintance with Akhundzada see Adamiyat, Andīshahā, 232 and Kamāl al-Dawla, 8, n. 1. For Kazem Beg and his work see also Amanat, Resurrection, 432–3.

31. Kamāl al-Dawla, 2–3.

32. Ibid., 3.

33. A short treatise based on Akhundzada's impression of Malkum Khan's comments in 1280/1863 in Istanbul, (Alifbā, 216–19). The part about the Babis, however, must be Akhundzada's own belief.

34. The Works of M. Voltaire, trans. T. Smollett et al (London, 1769), 37–39, 50. For a thorough treatment of Voltaire's religious views see Pomeau, R., Religion de Voltaire (Paris, 1974)Google Scholar.

35. Short treatise based on Malkum Khan's comments (Alifbā, 216–19).

36. Akhundzada to Mirza Yusuf Khan, Tiflis, 17 December (Russian calendar, OS) 1870, Alifbā, 184.

37. Akhundzada to Nicolas, March 1874, Alifbā, 322–3.

38. Akhundzada to Nicolas, 15 June (Russian calendar, OS) 1873, Alifbā, 307–8. According to the editor (n. 2) the author had first entered Buckle and then replaced him with Renan, an indication, perhaps, of his cursory knowledge of these writers.

39. Dictionnaire philosophique, 327–31.

40. Ibid., 277–82.

41. Ibid., 207–211.

42. Kamāl al-Dawla, 22.

43. Ibid., 9.

44. Ibid., 44.

45. Ibid., 56.

46. Ibid., 10.

47. Ibid., 62–4. See also Akhundzada to Mirza Yusuf Khan, June 1871, Alifbā, 243, where he rejects Mustashar al-Dawla's concern that developing Iran's resources and infrastructure would pave the way for imperialism. He believed that if European powers ever entertained colonial ambitions toward Iran they would fulfill them regardless of such endeavors.

48. “De la théocratie,” in La Philosophic de I'histoire (Amsterdam, 1765). See also The Complete Works of Voltaire (Toronto and Buffalo, 1969), 59:119.

49. Voltaire to d'Argental, 1 April 1752, Besterman 4244 cited in Gossman, L., Medievalism and the Ideologies of the Enlightenment (Baltimore, 1968), 93Google Scholar.

50. “Défense de Louis XIV,” (1769), Melanges in Voltaire's Prose, 336–8, 366. For a discussion of the subject see Gay, P., Voltaire's Politics: The Poet as Realist (Princeton, 1959)Google Scholar.