Gusein Dzhavid

(pseudonym of Gusein Rasi-zade). Born Oct. 24, 1884, in Nakhichevan’-na-Arakse; died in 1944. Azerbaijani poet and playwright. Born into the family of a cleric.

Gusein Dzhavid began to publish his works in 1906. He was one of the most significant representatives of Azerbaijani romanticism. He protested social injustice and oppression by the bourgeoisie and landlords in his collections of verses Days Gone By (1913) and Spring Dew (1917) and in the play Sheida (1917). His advocacy of humanism is evident in the plays The Mother (1910), Maral (1912), and Sheikh Sanan (1912–14), and in the tragedy Demon (1918). The Great October Revolution awakened his faith in the future, embodied in his dastan (epic poem) Azer (1926–37). In the play The Prince (1929), Gusein Dzhavid showed the struggle of the Georgian people for freedom. The intrigues of fascism are laid bare in his drama The Demon’s Revenge (1936). He is the author of the historical plays Siiavush (1933) and Tamerlane (1926) and the philosophical dramas The Prophet (1922) and Khayyam (1936). Gusein Dzhavid traveled the tortuous path from romantic to realist and exposé writer.