A wonderful artist, a Baku Kalugan, a Kaluga Bakuvian, Sadyh Bagirov, has passed away. This summer he would have markes his 75th birthday; all his life he had been praising the legends and nature of his native Azerbaijan and Kaluga, which became a native place for him.
He was born in Baku, but in Russia he had been living for almost forty years. He served on the Volga River in the missile corps; he studied at the Saratov Art School in Kharkov, then he returned to Baku. He said that he was ‘a real citizen of the USSR.’ The artist met his future wife Lyudmila Bobrovskaya in a train, as well. He fell in love at first sight. He said that as an artist he was astonished by the beauty and elegance of the girl. His daughters were also beautiful.
In 1978, when their first daughter Leila was born, she was infected, and it caused complications. Doctors told the parents that the baby would have passed away soon. The only little chance to save her was a change of climate. Sadyh and Lyudmila immediately left windy Baku and went to calm and cozy Kaluga, where Bobrovskie lived. Leila improved in health quickly.
Bagirov had luck again there – the artist was welcomed warmly, he was given a studio and invited to participate in exhibitions. He paid great tribute to his new homeland, glorifying it in his landscape pictures – woods, fields, churches, monasteries, ancient Kaluga, which preserved the spirit of old Russia.
However, Azerbaijan had always stayed in the artist’s heart. Visiting his native city, Bagirov had always held a brush in his hand – he pictured Icheri-Sheher, old streets, and the Maiden’s Tower, being inspired by the romantic legend.
The artist used any opportunity to visit Azerbaijan. He travelled across all y regions, visited Karabakh, pictured Shusha, Gek-Gel, Shahdag, Khynalyg, the Zakatal Region, and drew views of Ilisu – a unique native village for a dozen academicians.
They say in Azerbaijan that Ilisu gives birth to scientists, Shemaha – to poets, and Karabakh – to singers. Bagirov had a series of works ‘Karabakh is My Pain.’ This is not about politics. There is pain only. The Karabakh war disharmonized too much with Bagirov’s childhood, when in a Baku multi-storey building Azerbaijani, Russian, Jewish, and Armenian families lived together, and there was no ethnic hatred.
“I have been living in Russia for many years, and I have no ‘ethnic slipping’, if I can say so. For more than 70 years, I have realized that people enjoy, cry, take care of their children in the same way. The war in Karabakh is a political game; for common people, it was a strike. We can see the same situation in Ukraine where citizens of one country are dying,” Bagirov said shortly before his death.
Every Sunday the artist spent in his studio, teaching Azerbaijani children. He told them about Azerbaijani poets, artists, musicians, showed pictures; they read books by one of the greatest poets and philosophers of the 12th century, Hagani Shirvani, the classic of Azerbaijani poetry Nizami, the poet of the 16th century Muhammad Fizuli, and the Soviet poet Samed Vurgun.
Children should know their culture and be proud of it, the artist used to say. Bagirov’s children were grownups. Leila graduated from a law institute and married an Azerbaijani in Kaluga. Sevil who was raised on mughams, music by Fikret Amirov, Uzeir Gadzhibekov, and Kara Karayev, became a musician.
“I am always asked what my favorite pictures are. I have one answer only: my daughters are my favorite works! I have never created anything better,” Bagirov said.
He was sure that an artist cannot be restricted in creative work; and nationality plays no role here. When he is creating a picture, he forgets about his nationality and deepens into the creative work. However, Bagirov managed to unite the whole Azerbaijani Diaspora of Kaluga – people came to him with joys and troubles. Bagirov was a born teacher, the Kalugans said. Exhibitions of his students were very successful. All parents wanted their children to study at Bagirov’s art school.
After the artist’s death, the memory of the fairytale landscapes of Azerbaijan, the winding streets of old Baku, Russian churches and monasteries will be preserved by his pictures, many of them stayed in private collections in Russia and Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Poland, Yugoslavia and France, Italy and Germany, Brazil and the US.
