After the death of the real Mirza-Schaffy in 1852, which was duly announced by the press, sundry efforts were made by Eastern travelers to visit his grave in Tiflis and gain those particulars concerning him and his writings which Bodenstedt was supposed to have selfishly withheld from the public.  Of these, one of the most prominent was Professor H. Brugsch, secretary of the Prussian embassy to Persia in 1860, who in his book of travels thus descants on his futile efforts:  “No one could inform us where the last earthly remains of a certain Mirza-Schaffy were laid to rest.  We consoled ourselves with the reflection that neither mounds nor monuments are requisite to preserve a poet’s fame, but that through his songs is his name transmitted to posterity.  Yet even here we were doomed to disappointment.  No one whom we encountered knew aught of the songs of the jovial, genial Mirza-Schaffy which in our German Fatherland have penetrated to the very life of the people.”

Some years later the Russian imperial state counselor Berge, while chief of educational institutions in Caucasus, also made the matter a subject of investigation, and in the year 1870 gave the history thereof to the world in the Journal of the German Oriental Society.  He tells of his vain efforts to learn something of the genius of Mirza-Schaffy in his own land, and the amusement he created by his queries concerning possible posthumous works, and finally settles the question beyond dispute concerning the authorship of the poems.

After this, Bodenstedt yielded to the solicitations of friends to give in the pages of the popular German magazine Daheim a correct version of the whole affair.

Let the reader present to his mind’s eye a picture of the Eastern scribe, clad in the apparel before described, seated on the comfortable divan, with legs crossed after the fashion of the country, the long tschibuq caressingly held in one hand, the other uplifted, and with finger pointed to his brow, haranguing the German man of letters at his side on the advantages to be enjoyed under his tuition, and on the idle pretensions of those who call themselves learned without so much as comprehending the sacred languages.  He cherished, however, the pious hope that in the course of time, thanks to his efforts, the enlightenment of the East might take effect in the West, which hope was strengthened by the encouraging fact that Bodenstedt was the fifth scholar who had felt the need of migrating to Tiflis to profit by his instructions.  In his excess of national modesty the wise man of Gjaendsha only styled himself the first wise man of the East, but since the children of the West dwelt under a dark cloud of unbelief, it resulted as a matter of course that he must be the wisest of all men.

“I, Mirza-Schaffy,” said he to his pupil, “am the first wise man of the East, consequently thou, as my disciple, art the second.  But misunderstand me not.  I have a friend, Omar Effendi, an extremely wise man, who verily is not third among the learned scribes of the land.  Did not I live, and were Omar Effendi thy teacher, he would be first, and thou the second wise man.”