Khasyr Sian-Belgin

Born Sept. 12 (25), 1909, in the locality of Bulmukta, now in Iustin Raion, Kalmyk ASSR. Soviet Kalmyk writer. People’s Poet of the Kalmyk ASSR (1966).

Sian-Belgin began publishing in 1927. He wrote the collections of short stories and sketches The Devils (1933) and Simple Steppe People (1961), the verse collections The Road (1934), Winged Youth (1962), and With the Sunrise (1963), and the heroic dramatic narrative poem The Fighting Orphan (1934; play of the same name, 1936). His historical heroic drama The Insurgent Steppe (1968) dealt with the struggle for Soviet power in Kalmykia. Sian-Belgin has translated folktales by Pushkin and works by Lermontov, Gorky, T. G. Shevchenko, V. V. Mayakovsky, and R. Gamzatov. He has been awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor.