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Azerbaijani enlightener and satiric writer Jalil Huseyngulu oglu Mammadguluzadeh’s (Mirza Jalil) wife Hamida Khanum writes in her memoires about the period of the writer’s illness and the last years of his life about how the Armenian mulberry vodka with pepper could beat the doctors’ powerlessness to heal the ill writer. Manera.az recounts the story.

According to the narrative, Mirza Jalil fell seriously ill in 1910. He had ache in the back and the left leg. The medicines and recommendations prescribed by the doctors did not help any longer, and he was suffering severely, getting thinner and older. Then, Varpet Grigor came to his village bringing mulberry vodka with red pepper, taking up his healing.

“He smeared the diseased leg with that mixture twice a day and wrapped it with a piece of cloth to keep it warm. He totally recovered in a month’s time,” Hamida Khanum writes in her memoires about Mirza Jalil Mammadguluzadeh.

Jalil Huseyngulu oglu Mammadguluzadeh is an Azerbaijani journalist, enlightener and satirist, who founded the critical realism in the Azerbaijani literature. In his writings, the Armenians make up one of the central figures, personifying all the positive, fundamental and exemplary treats, which characterise the community, ethnos and people. Mirza Jalil juxtaposes the Armenians and the ‘Muslims’ (nowadays Azerbaijanis), demonstrating the civilizational difference between the two peoples. In particular, the pattern is observed in the short stories “The sermon of the priest and Akhund,” “Two pillows side by side,” “Usta Zeynal.”