Keshokov, Alim Pshemakhovich

Born July 9 (22), 1914, in the village of Shalushka, in present-day Chegem Raion, Kabarda-Balkar ASSR. Soviet Kabardinian writer, People’s Poet of the Kabarda-Balkar ASSR (1964). Member of the CPSU since 1941.

Keshokov graduated from the Northern Caucasus Pedagogical Institute in 1935 and from the Academy of Social Sciences of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1953. He took part in the Great Patriotic War of 1941—45. He became secretary of the Union of Writers of the RSFSR in 1959. In 1971 he became secretary of the board of the Union of Writers of the USSR and chairman of the board of the Literary Fund of the USSR.

Keshokov’s first work was published in 1934. In his first collection of verse and narrative poetry, In the Foothills of the Mountains (1941), Keshokov celebrated the socialist transformations in his native republic. His books of verse and narrative poems The Horseman’s Route (1946), Land of Youth (1948), and Verses (in Russian translation, 1951) reflect the heroism of the Soviet people during the Great Patriotic War and during the postwar socialist construction. The books Under the Leadership of the Party (1953), In a New House (1955), Verses and Poems (1956; Russian translation, 1957), and Heated Stones (1964) reflect the life of the Kabardins and contain vivid images of Keshokov’s contemporaries. Keshokov’s poetry is a poetry of thought, both lyrical and philosophical.

Keshokov’s two-part The Summits Do Not Sleep, which was awarded the A. M. Gorky State Prize of the RSFSR in 1968, consists of the novels The Wonderful Moment (books 1–2, 1960; Russian translation, 1961) and The Green Crescent (1966; Russian translation, 1967) and relates the struggle of the mountaineers to establish and consolidate Soviet power in the Kabarda-Balkar region. Keshokov has also written the plays Al’kho (1950) and The Last Verst (1967), the film script Mountain Avalanche (1957), and books for children. Keshokov was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR at its seventh and eighth convocations. He has been awarded five orders and various medals.