On May 28, the head of the Department of Azerbaijani literature of the Azerbaijan University of Languages, a full member of ANAS Mukhtar Kazym oglu Imanov turns 70 years old. On this occasion, on behalf of AUL Rector, Academician Kamal Abdulla, and the entire staff of the university, the jubilee was warmly congratulated on the wishes of long life, good health and new creative successes.

Mukhtar Kazym oglu Imanov was born on May 28, 1955 in the village of Akhura, Sharur district, Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. In 1977, he graduated from the Faculty of Philology of Azerbaijan State University (now Baku State University), and in 1980-1983 he studied at the full-time graduate school of the Nizami Institute of Literature of ANAS in the specialty "theory of literature". In 1984, he defended his candidate's thesis on the topic "Psychology in modern Azerbaijani prose", and in 2007 - his doctoral thesis on the topic "Genesis and poetics of laughter in Azerbaijani folklore". In 2009, he was awarded the academic title of associate professor, and in 2016 - professor.

Academician Mukhtar Imanov is the author of many valuable works in the field of literary studies and folklore, including such monographs as "Psychology in Modern Azerbaijani Prose" (1991), "Archaic Roots of Laughter" (2005), "Poetics of Folk Laughter" (2006), "Duality of Image in Folklore" (2011), "Epic. Prose. Problems" (2011), "Portraits" (2013), "Folklore is both the past and the present" (2014), "Cares of art" (2015), "Genesis and poetics of laughter in Azerbaijani folklore" (2017), "Word about the word" (2020), as well as more than 200 scientific articles and many journalistic materials.

The scientist is also actively engaged in the collection, compilation and publication of folklore materials. He is the author and compiler of such works as "This land will not remain an owl" (1995), "Folklore of Zangezur" (Anthology of Azerbaijani folklore, vol. VII, 2005), "Examples of Sharur folklore" (t. I, 2016), "Examples of Gedabek folklore" (t. I, 2016), 10-volume series "Karabakh: folklore is also history" (2012-2017) and 10-volume series "Folklore of South Azerbaijan" (2013-2020).

For his merits in the development of science, Mukhtar Imanov was awarded the Honorary Diploma of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan (2015), the Certificate of Merit of the Presidium of ANAS (2015), the Mahmud Kashgari Medal of the International Foundation of Mahmud Kashgari (2018), the Jubilee Medal of the Al-Farabi Kazakh National University (2018), the Jubilee Medal "100th Anniversary of Baku State University" (2019), the Medal "Ashug Alesker - 200" (2021), as well as the Jubilee Medal "100th Anniversary of Heydar Aliyev (1923–2023)" by the Decree of the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev dated February 2, 2024.