The Constitutionalist Movement of Sheikh Mohammad Khiyabani in Azerbaijan had political, social, and cultural dimensions. One of the most important manifestations of this movement was the emergence of the “Women’s Liberation or Azerbaijani Feminism” school. This school was founded by two members of the Azerbaijan Democratic Party, namely Taqi Rafat and Rafi Khan Amin. The main goal of this school was to empower Azerbaijani Turkish women and to gain equal opportunities with men in accessing political and social resources. This school believed that gender inequality in Iran is a historical issue that has been structured into forms of gender inequality in the culture and institutions of society. The change of society in all dimensions, especially the raising of public awareness, will be the factor in women’s access to an equal position. On the other hand, Taqi Rafat, one of the founders of this school, also had progressive ideas in the field of literature. He believed that writers should adhere to the values of past literature and, in a context of historical transformation, guide society towards progressive cultural values. According to Rafat, the transmission of values through a transformed literature is one of the conditions of social change that provides an appropriate historical backdrop through rational considerations for social development and transformation. Thus, as a result of Rafat’s efforts, for the first time in the history of Azerbaijan and Iran, the school of literary criticism and modernist literature emerged, and therefore he can be considered the founder of modern poetry in Iran.
Key words: Sheikh Mohammad Khiyabani movement, Azerbaijan, Taqi Rauf, Rafi Amin Khan, Azerbaijani feminism, modernist literature, tradition and modernity.