Nikolai Ivanovich Kazakov

Born Jan. 15, 1918, in the village of Kutiuk-Kiner, now in Morki Raion, Mari ASSR. Soviet Mari poet. People’s Poet of the Mari ASSR (1960). Member of the CPSU since 1943.

Kazakov graduated from the M. Gorky Institute of Literature in 1955. He began publishing in 1934, and his first book, Verses, came out in 1938. In 1950 his collection of verses Poetry—My Beloved Friend was published in Russian, for which he received the State Prize of the USSR (1951). Kazakov has been awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor and various medals.