Namsaraev, Khotsa Namsaraevich

Born Apr. 27 (May 5), 1889, in the village of Kizhincha, in present-day Khorinsk Raion, Buriat ASSR; died July 28, 1959, in Ulan-Ude. Soviet Buriat writer. Member of the CPSU from 1925.

The son of a poor stock raiser, Namsaraev was one of the founders of Soviet Buriat literature. His works began to appear in print in 1919. Namsaraev wrote the plays Darkness (1919), Dambi, The Oracle (1920), A Dark Life (1921), and The Whip of the Taisha (1945; Russian translation, 1959). He was also the author of many verses and narrative poems; the novel In the Morning Dawn (1950; Russian translation, 1959); the novellas Tsyrempil (1935), Once, at Night (1938), and The Ray of Victory (1942); and collections of stories and satirical verse.

In his works, Namsaraev makes use of motifs and images from folk poetry to describe the difficult past of his native people and their struggle for Soviet power and heroic work at the front and at home during World War II.

Namsaraev served as a deputy to the second through fifth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He was awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, and a number of medals.