(full name, Mamed Arif Magerram ogly Dadash-zade). Born June 12, 1904, in Baku. Soviet critic and literary historian. Academician of the Azerbaijan SSR Academy of Sciences (1958); became Honored Scientist of the Azerbaijan SSR in 1960. CPSU member since 1941.

Arif was director of the Nizami Institute of Literature and Language (1939–59) and chairman of the sixth convocation of the Azerbaijan SSR Supreme Soviet. Arif began publishing in 1923. His works include the books Vladimir Mayakovsky (1940), Krylov and Azerbaijani Literature (1944), and Vissarion Belinsky (1948; reissued in 1954) and the monographs Dzhafar Dzhabarly’s Creative Path (1955) and Samed Vurgun’s Dramaturgy (1964). Arif is one of the authors and editors of the History of Azerbaijani Literature and editor of the History of Soviet Azerbaijani Literature, parts 1–2, 1967. He has translated works by N. V. Gogol, A. P. Chekhov, L. N. Tolstoy, M. Gorky, M. Cervantes, H. Barbusse, R. Tagore, and others. He has been awarded two orders.