Suleyman Rustam
Suleyman Rustam (Azerbaijani: Süleyman Rüstəm) lived from 1906 to 1989. He was a Soviet and Azerbaijani poet, playwright and translator.
He was born on March 12, 1906, in the village of Novxanı near Baku, into a blacksmith’s family. A teacher at his school, Suleyman Sani Akhundov, sparked his love of literature, and later teachers helped him grow. He studied at a technical school in Baku and then at the eastern faculty of Baku State University, where his classmates included Jafar Jabbarly and Afrasiyab Badalbeyli. He was taught by the writer Abdurrahim bey Hagverdiyev. In 1929 he continued his studies at Moscow State University in the literature and arts faculty.
Starting in 1937, Rustam served as the chairman of the Azerbaijan State Academic Drama Theatre. He was a deputy in all sessions of the Soviet Parliament of Azerbaijan, and from 1971 to 1989 he was the chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. He also worked as the chief editor of the Literature newspaper, Edebiyyat qazeti.
Rustam translated many famous writers into Azerbaijani, including Ivan Krylov, Alexander Griboyedov, Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov and Nikolay Nekrasov. His own works were translated into many languages, and some into Russian.
His first poetry collection, From sadness to happiness (1927), celebrated the Komsomol, the civil war and the courage of soldiers. In the 1920s he wrote poems like Partisan Ali and Armless hero. In the 1930s his poetry spoke of creating a romantic sense of collective work and enriching people’s spirits, and he wrote A good comrade about the hard work of cotton growers in the Mugham steppes.
In 1939–1940s he wrote the novel Qachaq Nebi, drawing on the old proverbs about Qachaq Nebi and expanding them to social and historical meaning. The main characters are Qachaq Nebi, a leader of a 19th-century national movement, and his brave wife Hejer. Nebi’s revolt shows the struggles of the poor and the big efforts to help them.
During the Great Patriotic War (World War II) he wrote patriotic poems such as A day will come, To the sons of Azerbaijan, and Old man’s answer. His wartime poem Mother and a postman (1942) tells of a mother waiting for news of her son and the emotional moment when a long-awaited letter finally arrives.
After the war he published a collection called Two shores, about the difficult life of Azerbaijani poor people in Iran and the postwar growth of Soviet Azerbaijan. He also wrote Qafur’s heart, a poem about hero Qafur Mammadov who protected his commander.
Suleyman Rustam died on June 10, 1989, in Baku and was buried in the Alley of Honor. He is remembered as a major Azerbaijani poet, playwright and translator who helped shape 20th-century Azerbaijani literature.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 18:01 (CET).