Zalimkhan Yagub: striving for beautiful death...

/By AzerNews/

By Amina Nazarli

Azerbaijani literature has experienced bereavement, with the loss of outstanding representative of modern Azerbaijani literature, outstanding poet Zalimkhan Yagub, who died at the age of 66 on January 9, leaving behind an abundant legacy of contemporary poetry tradition.

Zalimkhan Yagub, an Azerbaijani by origin, was born in a small village in Georgia in 1950. Later he moved to Baku, the capital of the Land of Fire, where his talent shined enabling him to convey his poetry to the whole Turkic world, and becoming one of the great poets of the Azerbaijani people.

He was one of the poets, who successfully continued the rich tradition of national poetry.

The keynote of Zalimkhan’s creativity was endless love for his motherland. Skillfully using folk art, he created works depicting the national values and fateful milestones in Azerbaijani history.

His poetry is imbued with heroic spirit and patriotism and demonstrate true citizenship, taking a big role in upbringing the younger generation.

On his 65th anniversary, Zalimkhan said that 65 years is quite a long period for a poet to create beautiful works. Zalmkhan could conquer the soul of millions of people to occupy the worthy place in the literature history.

Love was on the top of his poetry, and love of the nation was the major source of his brilliant poetry enabling to create beautiful compositions.

Poems were the best of friend of Zalimkhan throughout his worthy life, and helped to survive in tough days when he was desperately fighting with fatal disease. He passed all his feelings namely through his poems.

"I have never struggled for a beautiful life, but strove for a beautiful death," the poet used to say while speaking about his successes and losses, as well as the difficulties that he had to overcome on the thorny way to the pick of poetry. The last that did not lose him even in the most difficult moments were the faith and principles.

Deep knowledge of the musical epic-telling art form known as "Ashug", and its perception in all the nuances further strengthened the lyricism of Zalimkhan’s poetry. Many ashugs and composers used his poems in their works.

The poet has more than 50 books and some of them have been translated into many languages to catch souls of art lovers.

His rich poetry brought many awards to Zalimkhan, including “Shohrat” and “Sharaf” orders -- the highest state awards in Azerbaijan. But the greatest reward for him was the people's love for his poetry.

He also gained glory outside the country and was awarded the highest award of Georgia -- the Order of "Honor".

Zelimkhan Yagub had very productive social activities, twice being elected to the Azerbaijan Parliament in 1995 and 2000.