Mandzhiev, Nimgir

Born 1905 in the village of Tsekerta, present-day Chernozemel’skii Raion; died 1936 in Yalta. Soviet Kalmyk writer. Member of the CPSU (1925).

Mandzhiev was one of the pioneers of Soviet Kalmyk literature. He worked for many years on the editorial staff of a Kalmyk newspaper. He was the teacher of many Kalmyk writers. Mandzhiev’s literary legacy includes several collections of realistic stories, such as Bitter Truth (1929) and Stories About the Collective Farm (1936); the two plays The Horns That Appeared Later Are Longer Than the Ears That Grew Earlier and The End of the Bad Is the Beginning of the Good (both written in 1927 and coauthored with E. Otkhonov); and the poetry collection Red Star (1933). Mandzhiev was an ardent propagandist of a new collective farm life for the former nomads.