Mirtemir

(full name, Mirtemir Umarbekovich Tursunov). Born May 28 (June 6), 1910, in the village of Ikan, in presentday Turkestan Raion, Chimkent Oblast, Kazakh SSR. Soviet Uzbek poet. People’s Poet of Uzbekistan (1971). Member of the CPSU (1968).

In 1932, Mirtemir graduated from the department of literature and social sciences of the Pedagogical Academy in Samarkand. He first appeared in print in 1926. His poetry collections are devoted to the construction of socialist Uzbekistan: In the Arms of the Sun’s Rays (1928), The Emotional (1931), The Commune (1932), and The Capital (1936).

Mirtemir’s later collections include Revenge (1944), New Verses (1947), and Collected Works (1958). He also writes for children. Mirtemir has translated into Uzbek works of Russian classical authors. He has been awarded two orders and a number of medals.