Kubanychbek Imanalievich Malikov

Born Sept. 3 (16), 1911, in the village of Uch-Emchek, present-day Kant Raion. Soviet Kirghiz writer. Honored Art Worker of the Kirghiz SSR (1947). People’s Poet of Kirghizia (1969). Member of the CPSU (1940).

Malikov was the son of a poor peasant. In 1931 he graduated from the First Kirghiz Pedagogical Technicum. From 1946 to 1949 he was the editor of the magazine Sovettik Kïrgïzstan (Soviet Kirghizstan). Malikov’s first works appeared in 1928. In 1933 he published his first collection, The Verses of Kubanychbek, in which he commented on the most important events of contemporary life. His poem Friendship and Love (1949) is devoted to the brotherhood of the Kirghiz and Russian peoples. In his poem Kadyrake (1952), Malikov describes the labor of Kirghiz miners. He published the collections Selected Works (1954), Fires in the Mountains (1957), Youth (1958), Orto-Tokoi (1961), Thoughts About the Future (1964), and The Voice From the Rock (1966).

Malikov’s dramatic works played an important role in the development of the Kirghiz national theater. His first plays (Kuluipa and others) were written in the 1930’s. In the postwar years, Malikov wrote the plays On High Ground (published and staged 1956), The Heart Is Beating (published and staged 1957), The Girls From the Same Street (published 1960), and Osmonkul (published 1970). Malikov is the coauthor of the librettos of the operas Aichurek (staged 1939), Manas (staged 1946), and Toktogul (staged 1958). He was one of the compilers of a composite variant of the Kirghiz national epos Manas. He translated works by A. S. Pushkin, M. Iu. Lermontov, N. A. Nekrasov, and T. G. Shevchenko into Kirghiz. Malikov has been awarded the Order of Lenin, four other orders, and a number of medals.