In 1916, Maxim Gorki wrote an admiring letter to the author of Badvi Hamar (For the Sake of Honor) in which, with a touch of deference for a man ten years his senior, he says "I heard your name for the first time in 1892 in Tiflis, and then in 1897 when I was in the Medakh prison. You see! We are old acquaintances." Badvi Hamar, the play translated here, is indisputably Shirvanzade's masterpiece.