The Devil (play)

The Devil Azerbaijani: İblis / ابلیس
Poster. 26 May 1922. State Turkic Theatre
Written by	Huseyn Javid
Characters	Devil Arif Vasif Rena Ibn Yemin Khaver Elkhan
Date premiered	December 21, 1920
Place premiered	Azerbaijan State Academic Drama Theatre
Original language	Azerbaijani
Genre	Tragedy
Setting	1918

Iblis (Azerbaijani: İblis / ابلیس) is a verse play (verse dram), tragedy in four acts of an Azerbaijani poet and playwright Huseyn Javid, written in 1918. Ideological credo of Javid is revealed in the play, a mysthic flaw is strongly expressed and the poet’s thoughts about a problem of human’s happiness followed by the imperialistic war are reflected in the poem.

Initially the tragedy was staged in 1920, by Abbas Mirza Sharifzadeh. It is noted that, at the beginning of the 1920s the play had a great success. “Iblis” is considered as the first verse play of Azerbaijan, which was put on the stage. It is also noted that the play is significant not only for its complex philosophic character, and also for a romantic style.

The play was published in 1924, for the first time. Later, it was published in 1927, 1959, 1969, 1982, 2001 and 2005. In the Small Soviet Encyclopedia of 1931, the work was called a poem. It is considered one of the best plays of Huseyn Javid.

Events take place in the Near East during World War I. Arif - the main hero of the play – is very humane and romantic young man. With the help of Iblis image, Huseyn Javid created a character of people, who sell their souls to the devil for money. According to the author, souls of these people aren’t free, they are in captivity of the devil and the devil rules the souls of people, for whom the material welfare is considered the main stimulus.

Arif was puzzled with occupational wars, violence of people, crime and betrayal, but by the grace of the God he sees the salvation of humanity, believes in his confluence with the free world. But, eventually Arif obeys to the Satan, becomes a murderer of his wife and brother and also becomes a greedy for gold and wealth. He could not only reunite with the dreamed world, but also became shabby. Arif, who lived with great ideas, couldn’t become higher than a simple man and finally drag out a miserable existence.