Rakhmet Seidov

Born 1910 in Khailan, in what is now Chardzhou Oblast; died Jan. 18, 1955. Soviet Turkmen poet. Member of the CPSU from 1949.

Seidov graduated from the Ashkhabad Pedagogical Institute in 1935. He began publishing in 1932. His works of the 1930’s and early 1940’s, such as the narrative poems Daughter of Lebab (1939) and Patriots (1942), have strong folkloric elements. During the Great Patriotic War (194–45), Seidov created mature realistic works, patriotic in character, including To the Turkmens and To Lieutenant Colonel Beliavskii. He collaborated with A. N. Afinogenov on the libretto for the first Turkmen opera on a contemporary subject, Joyful Youth (music by A. K. Korchmarev, staged 1942). He also translated narrative poems by M. Iu. Lermontov.