Khalil, Zeinal

(pen name of Zeinal Rza ogly Khalilov). Born Mar. 22, 1914, in Gandzha (now Kirovabad); died Aug. 11, 1973, in Baku. Soviet Azerbaijani poet and playwright. Honored Art Worker of the Azerbaijan SSR.

In 1936, Khalil graduated from the Azerbaijan Pedagogical Institute in Baku. He was first published in 1934. His narrative poem The Sword (1940) depicts the struggle of rural Komsomol members for collectivization. The narrative poem Katyr Mamed (1941) deals with the legendary Civil War hero Mamed Mamedov. Zoia Kosmodem’ianskaia is the subject of the narrative poem Tat’iana (1942).

In the postwar years, Khalil wrote about cotton growers and day-to-day existence in an Azerbaijani village. The collection Two Worlds (1952) includes works on the flowering of Soviet Azerbaijan and on life in contemporary Turkey. The collections Poems (1954), The Poppy (1955), and The Violet (1956; Russian translation, 1958) consist primarily of lyric verse. Life in an Azerbaijani village during the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45 is recreated in Stars (1961), a novel inverse.

Khalil also wrote plays, including Revenge (1941), The Young Workmen (1954), and Father’s Road (1966). He translated works by such writers as P. Antokol’skii, R. Gamzatov, D. Guramishvili, and S. Petöfi. Khalil was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor and various medals.