Abbas Mirza Sharifzade

Sharifzade, Abbas Mirza 

(also Sharifov). Born 1892; died 1937. Soviet Azerbaijani actor and stage director. Honored Artist of the Azerbaijan SSR (1935).

Sharifzade performed in amateur productions, and in 1908 he began his professional career as the leading actor in the Gadzhibekov brothers’ opera company. In 1920 he joined the Azizbekov Theater. Sharifzade was greatly influenced by the work of G. Arablinskii. He created a number of roles in the Azerbaijani repertoire, including the title role in Gusein Dzhavid’s Iblis; Aidyn, Oktai, El’khan, and Eivaz in Dzhabarla’s Aidyn, Oktai El’ogly, Bride of Fire, and In the Year 1905; and the title role in Narimanov’s Nadir-shakh. He played lead roles in such foreign classics as Shakespeare’s Othello, Hamlet, and Macbeth, Schiller’s The Robbers, and Gutzkow’s Uriel Acosta. Sharifzade also acted in motion pictures and was one of the first Azerbaijani film directors. His films included In the Name of God (1925) and Hadji Kara (1929).