Gamid Mamedtagi Ogly Arasly

Born 1909 in Gandzha, present-day Kirovabad. Azerbaijani Soviet literary scholar; member of the Academy of Sciences of the Azerbaijan SSR, acting member of the Turkish Language Society in Turkey, and professor at the University of Azerbaijan. Member of the CPSU since 1963.

Arasly began to publish in 1928. He has written articles on Azerbaijani-Persian, Azerbaijani-Turkish, and Azerbaijani-Uzbek literary ties, as well as critical and biographical sketches and monographs on Fizuli (1958) and Nizami (1967). In his textbook Azerbaijani Literature of the 17th and 18th Centuries (1956), Arasly was the first to shed light on the paths of development of his national literature from ancient times until the 18th century. He participated in publishing the heritage of Kovsi, M. V. Vidadi, M. P. Vagif, and M. F. Akhundov. He prepared a full edition of the collected works of Fizuli (vols. 1–5, 1958).