Hamid Arasly

Hamid Mammadtaghi oglu Arasly – was an Azerbaijani and Soviet scientist, literary critic, Doctor of philological sciences (1954) and academic at the National Academy of Sciences.

Hamid Arasly was born on 23 February 1902 in Ganja, to a priest father. After graduating from Teachers' Gymnasium, he entered the Azerbaijan State Pedagogic Institute. After graduating from the institute he began to work at the National Academy of Sciences of the Azerbaijan SSR. During 1960-1986, he was chairman of a department at the Institute of Literature and Language of the National Academy of Sciences and chairman of the Nizami Ganjavi Azerbaijan State Museum of Literature. Since 1970, he worked as the director of the Institute of Middle East Nations of the National Academy of Sciences. Hamid Arasly was Honored Science Worker of Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, full member of the Organization of Turkic Language (Turkey, 1957), honored member of the Iraqi Academy of Sciences (1972) and member of the Royal Society of Jordan.

Hamid Arasly was author of research works about Nasimi, Kishvari, Amani, Saib Tabrizi, Qovsi Tabrizi, Mahjur Shirvani, Vagif and Vidadi. He made a great contribution towards the study of Nizami and Fuzûlî's heritage. Arasly prepared a full collection of Fuzuli’s poems (1-5 volumes, 1958). He was engaged in research on Azerbaijani folklore, ashigs' creativity, “Kitabi Dede Korkut” and “Koroghlu” dastans. Hamid Arasly was one of the main authors of a two-volume “Short history of Azerbaijani literature” (1943-1944) and three-volume “History of Azerbaijani literature” (published 1957-1960). He was the author on works focused on the relation between Azerbaijani literature with Persian, Turkish, Uzbek and Turkmen literature.