Khakim, Sibgat Tazievich

(pen name of Sibgat Tazievich Khakimov). Born Dec. 4 (17), 1911, in the village of Kulle-Kimi, in what is now Arsk Raion, Tatar ASSR. Soviet Tatar poet and public figure. Member of the CPSU since 1943.

Khakim graduated from the Kazan Pedagogical Institute in 1937 and served in the Great Patriotic War (1941–45). He first published his works in 1931. His first poetry collection, First Songs (1938), is concerned with life in the new village. Khakim won fame with his narrative poems about G. Tukai: A Pair of Bay Horses (1939) and A Poet’s Childhood (1940).

During the Great Patriotic War and in the years that followed, Khakim wrote about the heroism of Soviet soldiers and the valor of the Soviet people in battle and labor, for example, in the narrative poems Gardeners (1952), Across the Steep Slopes (1964–66), and The Salient (1968). The theme of Lenin is of special importance in the collections At Lenin’s Call (1958; G. Tukai Prize of the Republic, 1960) and My Heart Speaks With Lenin (1970). Khakim has also written articles on Tatar literature.

Khakim was a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Tatar ASSR from 1963 to 1967. He served as deputy chairman of the administrative board of the Writers’ Union of the Tatar ASSR from 1956 to 1960 and secretary of the administrative board of the Writers’ Union of the RSFSR from 1965 to 1975. Khakim was awarded the A. M. Gorky State Prize of the RSFSR in 1970. He has been awarded the Order of Lenin, two other orders, and various medals.