Mir Muhsin Navvob uy-muzeyi

Mir Muhsin Navvob house – a two‑storey house located on Navvob Street (formerly Komsomolskaya) in the historic Mamayi quarter of Shusha city.

About

In this house the Azerbaijani poet and painter Mir Muhsin Navvob lived and created. During the Soviet period a house‑museum of the artist was established in the house. The rooms of the house are richly decorated with wall paintings.

The Mir Muhsin Navvob house‑museum is one of eight museums operating in Shusha and is considered one of the main cultural centers where Azerbaijan’s material and spiritual heritage is preserved. However, as a result of the capture of Shusha by the Armenian armed forces in 1992, the museum’s activity was halted, the museum building was partially destroyed, and the valuable exhibits stored there were looted.

In the occupied territories more than 700 cultural monuments, as well as 22 museums and 4 art galleries, were looted. Among the looted museums were the Qorabog’ State History Museum in Shusha, the house‑museum of Uzeyir Hajibeyli, the Bulbul Memorial Museum, and the Shusha branch of the Azerbaijan Clay and Folk Applied Arts Museum. These cultural centers were venues where valuable heritage items reflecting the history, music and art of the Azerbaijani people were kept.

In the Zo‘hrabboyev family residence, the Shusha State Art Gallery displayed the prominent examples of 19th‑century Azerbaijani miniature art drawn by Mir Muhsin Navvob as illustrations for his own books. These works formed the gold fund of the gallery. Thus, Navvob’s artistic legacy occupied a special place not only in his house‑museum but also in other cultural centers of Shusha. With the capture of Shusha, the activity of these art venues also ended.

Establishment of the Museum

Nine years before the museum named after Mir Muhsin Navvob was established, the newspaper “Shusha” on 15 August 1981 reported that a memorial museum of the great creator was being prepared. The article noted that in the building where M. M. Navvob lived, panels drawn by the poet‑painter himself and decorated on various themes were restored by restoration painters and returned to their original appearance. After restoration the building became the poet’s house‑museum. For unknown reasons the museum did not open for many years, and in November 1990 it began operating as a house‑museum in the room where Mir Muhsin Navvob lived.

The first director of the house museum was Khuramon Ag‘ayeva. In this museum, 130 exhibits related to the life and activity of Mir Muhsin Navvob are displayed.

Museum exhibits

Among the exhibits were the artist's printing press, telescope, and his own drawings. The museum also displayed exhibits proving M. M. Navvob's printing activity.

When the teacher A. Najafov of the Cultural-Educational Institute cited examples of those exhibits in the newspaper “Shusha”, he quoted Doctor of Art History N. Miklashevskaya as follows: — While speaking about M. M. Navvob's printing activity, Doctor of Art History N. Miklashevskaya writes: “If we seriously study and deeply analyze all of Navvob's printing activity, we would probably come to the conclusion that Mir Muhsin Navvob was Azerbaijan's first printer.”

After the occupation

Currently the museum does not operate. Regarding the museum's exhibits, as a result of the capture of Shusha city by the Armenian armed forces, both the museum building and nearly two hundred exhibits were destroyed. Although it was impossible to preserve many exhibits after the capture, some are now kept in the Art Museum. There was a corner dedicated to Navvob in the Shusha mosque. Many of his items were there. Now those items are also kept in the Art Museum. His photographs, manuscripts, objects... His most valuable exhibition was a portrait of Amir Timur. Artists highly praised this work.

Materials related to the Azerbaijani poet, painter, calligrapher and musician Mir Muhsin Navvob (1833–1918) are placed in the permanent exhibition of the Azerbaijan National History Museum. Thus, in the permanent exhibition’s “Science, Education and Culture in Azerbaijan in the 19th Century” hall, materials concerning Mir Mohsen Navvob are placed in a separate showcase. Here are original copies of “Kitob Devoni Forisiy”, whose text and illustrations are authored by M. M. Navvob, and “Kashful-haqiqati-masnaviy”. It should be noted that the work “Kashful-haqiqati-masnaviy”, devoted to music theory, is one of Mir Muhsin Navvob’s famous works; both the text and the illustrations of this work are authored by Navvob. Copies of M. M. Navvob’s portraits are also displayed in the showcase.

Exhibits of Mir Muhsin Navvob

It is known that Navvob collected the medieval Azerbaijan arms collection. Several weapons from his collection are now kept in the Azerbaijan History National Museum. In the permanent exhibition, fashions from the 16th–17th centuries, which are jewels of the collection, are displayed. In the showcase, a portrait of Mir Muhsin Navvob from the 1970s and an image of his tomb in Shusha are placed. In 1957, a statue was installed at Navvob’s tomb (sculptor Toʻqay Mamadov). The monument was destroyed after the city was captured by the Armenian armed forces in 1992.