Ilia Vinokurov-Chagylgan

Born July 18 (31), 1914, in the village of Konta-Krest, Namtsy Raion; died Sept. 9, 1952, in Yakutsk. Soviet Yakut poet.

Vinokurov-Chagylgan graduated from the Yakutsk Pedagogical Technicum in 1932. His first works were published in 1931. Many poems of the war years, which had appeared in the collection Lucky Land (1944), became popular songs (“Our Hearts,” “Song of a Hero,” “The Ski Song,” and “The Hunter’s Song”). The collections On a Long Journey (1948) and Songs of Our Times (1952) were published in the postwar years. Their main themes are the transformation of the northern region (the poems “Yakutsk” and “Small Work Town,” the cycle Evenki Motifs, and the narrative poem The Great Vow), the friendship of peoples (the cycle Moscow Verses), and the Soviet people’s struggle for peace (“Song of Peace” and “To Mother”).