The directory «Plots»

Jabbarly (Cabbarlı) Jafar Gafar oglu
(1899—1934)

Jafar Gafar oglu Jabbarly was an Azerbaijani playwright, poet, director and screenwriter.

After his father's death in 1902, Jabbarly's mother moved to Baku with her four children. In 1915, Jabbarly graduated from high school and studied electromechanics at Baku Polytechnicum for the next 5 years. In 1920 he was admitted to Azerbaijan State University to study applied medicine but due to his lack of interest soon switched to Oriental studies. In 1923, he started attending lectures at a local theatre to fulfill his interest in drama.

Jafar Jabbarly started writing poems in his early teenage years and was reported to have had his first poems published in the Azeri newspaper «Hagigat-i Afkar» in 1911. In the following years, he wrote more than 20 plays, as well as poems, essays, short stories, and articles. His works were very much influenced by the 1920s propaganda of Communist glory and celebrated appropriate themes such as equality, labour, education, cosmopolitanism, emancipation of women, cultural shifts, etc. Jabbarly's major accomplishment in introducing European plays to average Azerbaijanis was translating William Shakespeare's «Hamlet» into Azeri in 1925 and directing it at the Azerbaijan State Drama Theatre a year later.

Jafar Jabbarly is considered the founder of screenwriting in Azerbaijan. Two of his plays, «Sevil» and «Almaz», were made into films in 1929 and 1936 respectively. Both focused on the theme of the role of women, their oppression, struggle, and ultimately, victory over dated patriarchal traditions.

Jafar Jabbarly died at the age of 35 of heart failure. The national film studio, Azerbaijanfilm, a street and a subway station in Baku are named after him.

USSR, 1969, Jafar Jabbarly