Iakov Ukhsai

Born Nov. 13 (26), 1911, in the village of Slakbash, in what is now Belebei Raion, Bashkir ASSR. Soviet Chuvash poet. People’s Poet of Chuvashia (1950). Member of the Communist Party since 1943.

Ukhsai attended Moscow State University from 1930 to 1933 and served in the Great Patriotic War (1941–45). He first published his works in 1928. He is the author of the poetry anthologies Verses (1934), Book of Joy (1936), and A Rural Chronicle (1937) and the narrative poems The Golden Book of Peoples (1937), A Tale of Happiness (1940), The Tale of a Regiment (1943–47), and On the Bank of the Vltava (1945–47). Ukhsai has also written the lyrical epic poems Grandfather Kel’buk (published 1951; Russian translation, 1954), The Mountain Pass (1952), and Earth (1957–60). His trilogy of poems The Star of My Childhood was awarded the M. Gorky State Prize of the RSFSR in 1972.

Ukhsai makes masterful use of folk verse to depict the life, social struggle, and labor of his people. He is also well-known as a children’s writer, literary critic, and publicist. His works have been translated into the languages of the peoples of the USSR.

Ukhsai has been awarded the Order of the October Revolution, three other orders, and various medals.