Hidayat Orujov

Hidayat Orujov was born in the village of Maralzami in the Mehri region (Mighri region of Zangezur) in Western Azerbaijan.

He studied at the Faculty of Philology of the Azerbaijan State University (1963-1968).

He began his career as the principal of the Maralzami village primary school in the Mehri region (1964-1968). He worked as a literary worker in the editorial office of "Soviet Armenia" (1966-1968), director of the Yerevan Azerbaijan State Drama Theater (1968-1984), deputy editor-in-chief of the "Ganjlik" publishing house (1984-1986), editor-in-chief (1986-1992). He was a member of the board of the Writers' Union of Armenia and chairman of the Azerbaijani Literature Association (1980-1984), and a member of the board of the Armenian Theater Society (1974-1984). He served as Advisor to the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan on Interethnic Relations (1992-1993), State Advisor on National Policy Issues (1993-2005), State Advisor on Work with National Minorities and Religious Organizations (2005-2006), Chairman of the State Committee on Work with Religious Organizations (2006-2012), Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Kyrgyz Republic (2012-2021).

His first poem, “What Do You Have?”, was published in the “Literary Armenia” almanac (1963). Since then, he has appeared regularly in periodicals. He has translated the works of many classical and modern writers into our language. His plays have been staged in theaters. In 1989, he renounced the honorary title of Honored Worker of Culture of Armenia as a sign of protest against the Armenian aggression.

Hidayat Orujov, laureate of the Order of Glory (2004), the Order of Merit of Georgia (2002), laureate of the highest literary award of the Republic of Chuvashia - the Chuvash International Literary Award named after Paydulla Iskeyev, and Honored Artist (1991), died in Istanbul in 2026.