Maqsud Shayxzoda (Azerbaijani: Maqsud Şeyxzadə, Uzbek: Maqsud Shayxzoda; 7 November 1908 — 19 February 19, 1967, in Tashkent, Uzbek SSR) was a Soviet-Uzbek writer, poet, playwright; literary and linguistic scholar, author of translations of classical works of world literature into Uzbek (Shakespeare, Pushkin, Lermontov, Akhundov, Rustaveli, Charents, Mayakovsky, Byron and others) and educator.

[4][5] In 1928, when the persecution of national intellectuals by the Bolsheviks began in the Azerbaijan SSR, Maqsud Shayxzoda was exiled to Tashkent.

In the years 1935 to 1938, he was a research fellow at the Institute of Language and Literature named after A.S. Pushkin of the Academy of Sciences of the Uzbek SSR.

[7] On 5 October 1946 he was dismissed as head of the translation section of the Uzbek Soviet Writer's Union because his play Jaloliddin, which was popular during World War II, was declared as apologetics of feudalism after it was re-evaluated.

[4][10] During the Second World War, Maqsud Shayxzoda published several collections of poems such as "За что борьба?"

), "Битва и песня" (Battle and song), "Сердце говорит" (The heart speaks), "Сааз" (Melody) and "Грозою рождённые" (Born by the storm) (the last three in Russian).

Besides this play, which he also adapted for the film "The Stars of Ulugbek" (director Latif Fayziev, 1964),[4] the poet wrote the dramas "Джалаледдин Мангуберди" (Jalal ad-Din Manguberdi) (1941) about the struggle against the Mongol invasion in the 13th century and "Абу Рейхан Бируни" (Abu Rayhan al-Biruni) (not preserved) about a famous Uzbek scholar.