Mirza Jalal Yusifzade

Mirza Jalal Yusifzade was an Azerbaijani poet, writer, editor. He was one of the authors of the opera "Farhad and Shirin", and editor of the Bukhara-yi Sharif, the first Persian newspaper in Central Asia.

He was also a member of the National Council of the Republic of Azerbaijan and of the Difai party.

Life Mirza Jalal Yusifzade was born in 1862 in the city of Shusha. Here he received his primary education and mastered Arabic and Persian. Later he continued his education at madrasah in Tabriz.

Activity After returning to the country, he was engaged in pedagogical activity for some time. He also enjoyed art, wrote gazelles and poetic stories. He was published in the newspapers Hayat, Irshad, Taza Hayat, Ittifag, Hilal, Asari-hagigat, Sedaye-hagg and others, signing as J.J.Y, Jalal Karabakhi”, “Jalal Yusifi”, “Mirza Jalal Yusifzade”.

On 6 March 1911, the opera "Farhad and Shirin" by Mirza Jalal was staged at the Nikitin brothers' circus in Baku. The libretto was written by Mirza Jalal and the music by the tar player Mirza Zeynal. In Baku, he began being published in the newspaper Khakikati-afkar (Truth of Thought) in native language. The opera's libretto was written by Mirza Jalal Yusifzade under the title "A love story of the story inspired by the works of the late Sheikh Nizami" and published as a 31-page booklet.

Then he was invited to work as the editor of the Persian newspaper Bukhara-yi Sharif, to be published in the city of New Bukhara, whose circulation from March 1912 to January 1913 was 153 copies. He also published a four-page three-week supplement called "Turan" to the newspaper in Uzbek and Turkish languages. During the time of the Republic of Azerbaijan, he actively collaborated with the newspaper "Azerbaijan". After the fall of the republic, he worked as a teacher in the Jabrayil district and in Baku. His son Ali Yusif participated in the First Turkological Congress held in Baku in 1926, as a secretary and interpreter.

His son Ali Yusif was among the students of the Republic of Azerbaijan sent to study abroad law in Paris in 1919. He was repressed in 1937.