Mirza Kuchik Khan

Mirza Kuchik Khan (12 October 1880 – 2 December 1921), born Yunes and known in Persian as Mirza Kuchek Khan Jangali, was an Iranian revolutionary who founded the Jangal (Jungle) movement in the forests of Gilan and headed the short-lived Soviet Republic of Gilan in 1920-21. ^{1 2}

His birth day is split by one day: the English article and Wikidata give 12 October 1880, while the Persian article gives 21 Mehr 1259 Solar Hijri, which converts to 13 October 1880. This record follows 12 October, with the variant stated. ^{1 2}

He was born Yunes, son of Mirza "Bozorg", a merchant of Gilan, in the Ostadsara quarter of Rasht; the Persian article gives his family name as Ostadsarai and describes the family as middle-class and religious. He spent his early years at the Haj Hasan (Salehabad) seminary school and the Jameh school of Rasht learning grammar, syntax and religious studies, then continued hawza studies at the Salehiyeh school in Qazvin and for a time at the Mahmudiyeh in Tehran. The Persian article notes that the seminary training could have brought him into the ranks of the clergy, but the country's events turned him to another path. ^{2 1}

During the Tabriz uprising of 1908 he tried to join Sattar Khan's forces but was unable to participate actively because of illness; he was injured during the constitutionalist war and travelled to Baku and Tbilisi for medical attention. In July 1909 he was one of the lower-ranked commanders of the northern force that marched on Tehran under Sepahdar Aazam Mohammad Vali Khan Tonekaboni. The Russians later exiled him from Gilan for five years. ^{1 2}

Shocked by the Russian forces' oppression of the people of Gilan, in 1914-15 he raised his uprising in the northern forests, with its first headquarters at Kasma, in collaboration with the Society of Islamic Union (the Committee of Islamic Union, Hey'at-e Ettehad-e Islam), which administered the liberated areas and declared its aims as expelling foreign forces, ending injustice and autocracy, and establishing a people's government. The Jangali forces defeated local government and Russian troops; at Manjil on 12 June 1918 they were beaten by the joint British and White Russian force under Dunsterville and Bicherakhov, which used artillery, armoured cars and aeroplanes. After Haj Ahmad Kasma'i surrendered and Dr Heshmat was executed at Rasht, Mirza withdrew eastward and then back to Fumanat, ending the movement's first period. ^{1 2}

After the Bolshevik victory in Russia, the Soviet navy under Raskolnikov entered Anzali in May 1920, and Mirza agreed to cooperate with the Soviet revolutionaries on conditions including the proclamation of the Socialist Republic of Gilan under his leadership and no direct Soviet intervention in its internal affairs; the Persian article adds his insistence on preserving the people's religious rites. Disagreements with the Soviets and the Persian Communist Party followed, a left-wing coup displaced him in July 1920, and after the Soviet-British agreement of 1921 the Soviets withdrew their support; government forces under Colonel Reza Khan overran the dispersed Jangalis. ^{1 2}

Abandoned and in flight, Mirza and his companion Gaouk, a Russian-German revolutionary, were caught in a snowstorm at the Alaleh Poshteh summer pasture in the Masal highlands of Talesh, on their way toward Khalkhal to seek refuge with Azmat Khanum Fuladlu, and both died of frostbite on 2 December 1921. A local landlord beheaded the body; the head was displayed at Rasht and sent to Reza Khan in Tehran, and after Reza Shah's exile his friends brought it back and buried it with the body in his tomb at Soleymandarab, Rasht. ^{1 2}

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