Mukhtar Omarkhanovich Auezov

Born Sept. 16 (28), 1897, in the settlement of Chingistau, located in the former Chingistau Volost, Semipalatinsk District; died June 27, 1961, in Moscow. Kazakh Soviet author and scholar. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR (1946).

In 1928, Auezov graduated from Leningrad University; later he was a graduate student at the Middle Asian University in Tashkent. Auezov’s tragedy, Enlik-Kebek (written in 1917), is about the folk legend of tragic love under conditions of feudalism; it is still being performed on the stage. In the 1920’s Auezov wrote many stories, including “The Fate of the Defenseless” (1921), “Who Is to Blame?” (1923), “Marriage” (1923), “Educated Citizen” (1923), and “Beauty in Mourning” (1925), as well as the novella “The Shot at the Pass” (1927). He is the author of more than 20 plays, including Aiman-sholpan (1934), Abai (performed in 1940, written with L. S. Sobolev), Karakoz (1926), Kara Kipchak Kob-landy (1943–44), Summer Lightning (1934), On the Border (1937), and In the Hour of Trial (1942). Building the kolkhoz organization is the theme of such novellas and short stories as “Steepness’ (1935), “Shoulder to Shoulder” (1933), “Tracks” (1935), and “Hunter With the Golden Eagle” (1937).

Auezov’s epic novel The Path of Abai is one of the outstanding works of Soviet literature; it is about the life of the great educator and poet Abai Kunanbaev. The novel shows a complex picture of life in Kazakh society in the second half of the 19th century, the feudal-tribal and class struggle, the hard life of the toiling masses, the awakening of protest against oppression, and the growing influence of progressive Russian culture. The first book of the epic, the novel Abai (vols. 1–2, 1942–47), was mentioned for the State Prize of the USSR in 1949. The second book, The Path of Abai (vols. 1–2, 1952–56), shows the hard path of the poet and public figure as defender of the working people. The language of the epic is unusually vivid and written in a folk style that transmits the local color of the era. The book The Path of Abai (part one, Abai, and part two, The Path of Abai) was honored with the Lenin Prize in 1959. Auezov’s novels have been translated into many languages. The cycle of essays How Turkestan Was Born (1956) is one of the best works of Kazakh literature about the virgin soil. Auezov also wrote Essays on India (1958). The first book of the unfinished epic The Young Tribe, written on a contemporary theme, was published posthumously in 1962. Auezov was an outstanding scholar, founder of the study of Abai, and the author of works on the history of Kazakh and Kirghiz literatures and folklore. He was awarded three orders.