Today is the birthday of the outstanding Azerbaijani poetess Khurshidbanu Natavan

August 6 is the birthday of the renowned Azerbaijani poetess and public figure Khurshidbanu Natavan.

Khurshidbanu Natavan was born in 1832 in Shusha into the family of the last Karabakh khan, Major General Mehti Gulu Khan. Khurshidbanu was the only child in the family and the last heir of the Karabakh Khanate, which is why she was called "Durru yekta" — the only pearl — in the palace, and Khan gyzy (Khan's daughter) among the people.

Natavan was raised and brought up by her aunt Govhar Khanum, the daughter of Ibrahim Khalil Khan. It was she who awakened in Khurshidbanu a love for music, poetry, and painting; the girl received an excellent home education. In addition to her native Azerbaijani, she spoke three other languages — Persian, Arabic, and Russian.

Natavan's husband was a prince, the Kumyk Khasay-Khan Musayevich Utsmiev (1808–1867), the administrator of the Karabakh Khanate. He studied in France at the Saint-Cyr Military Academy (which, incidentally, Napoleon also graduated from) and rose to the high rank of Major General.

Khasay and Natavan soon had a son, Mehtigulu Khan (1855–1900), named after his grandfather, the last Karabakh Khan, and a daughter, Khan-Bike (1856–1921). Later, Mehti the younger would become famous as a poet under the pseudonym "Vefa," meaning "Faithful." Subsequently, Mehtigulu named his own son Khasay after his grandfather. It is worth noting that Natavan's daughter Khan-Bike followed in her mother's footsteps: her ghazals and rubaiyat were published in the materials of the researcher Vasif Guliyev, author of more than 20 books on the history and ethnography of Karabakh.

In 1869, Natavan married for the second time, to Seyid Huseyn from the city of Shusha — a man of common birth, for which she was subjected to condemnation for the rest of her life. Historians write that Natavan's son, Mehtigulu, left home because of this.

Most of the poems of the poetess, who began writing in the 1850s under the pen name "Khurshid," were lost, and only a small portion of them has survived to the present day. From 1870, the poetess began creating ghazals of profound content under the pseudonym Natavan.

In an album from 1886, personally created by Khurshidbanu Natavan, alongside drawings of various flowers and natural landscapes executed in a graphic style, there are also depictions of the city of Baku, houses, bridges, roads, and so on. This is clear evidence that she possessed refined taste and outstanding artistic abilities.

In 1872, she organized and led a literary circle in Shusha called "Mejlisi-Uns" ("Assembly of Friends"), which maintained creative ties with similar circles in other cities of Azerbaijan.

That same year, Khurshidbanu, with the aim of providing the urban population with water and improving the city of Shusha, laid a water pipeline from the Isa spring in the Sarybaba area, located 10 km from the city. This water pipeline is still known as "Khan gyzy suyu" (Khan's daughter's water).

She passed