Spring 2001 (9.1)
Page 14

Newsmakers
Jeyhun Hajibeyli Jubilee

The 110th Jubilee of Jeyhun Hajibeyli (1891-1962), the younger brother of Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyli (now known as Hajibeyov), was celebrated at the Hajibeyov Home Museum in Baku in March 2001.

Jeyhun was born in February 1891 in Shusha, an area that is now occupied by Armenians. A man of many talents, he assisted his older brother Uzeyir in writing the opera "Leyli and Majnun" (1908), though his involvement has not always been acknowledged because of Jeyhun's later political affiliations.

Beginning in September 1918, Jeyhun served as the first editor-in-chief for the "Azerbaijan" newspaper, the official organ of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, Azerbaijan's first brief attempt at self-government. During Jeyhun's tenure as editor, the newspaper's articles and satires covered the Republic's socio-political situation and the danger of occupation that was hanging over the country.

When the Soviets seized power in 1920, Jeyhun was traveling in Paris and could not return for fear that he would be imprisoned for his political involvement. He remained in France and wrote books about Azerbaijan such as "Haji Karim" and "Garabagh's (Karabakh's) Dialect and Folklore." An archive of Jeyhun's work and documents, retrieved by Ramiz Abutalibov during a visit to France, is now available to researchers at Azerbaijan's Central State Archive of Literature and Art.

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From Azerbaijan International (9.1) Spring 2001.
© Azerbaijan International. All rights reserved.

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