Beki Seitakov

Born Mar. 18 (31), 1914, in the village of Bedirkent, now the A. Ataev village soviet, Takhta Raion. Soviet Turkmen writer. People’s Writer of the Turkmen SSR (1967). Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Turkmen SSR (1969). Member of the CPSU since 1942.

Seitakov graduated from a teachers’ institute in 1944. He began publishing in 1935 and has been involved in journalistic and pedagogical work since 1937. From 1966 to 1973 he was editor in chief of the journal Sovet Edebiiaty (Soviet Literature). His works include the verse collection Youth (1938) and the narrative poems In the Fire (1940), Girlfriends (1941), and The Hero (1946). In 1939 he published the collection of short stories The Fortunate Generation, and in 1948, the collection Stories of the Countryside. Later works included the novellas Contemporaries (1955) and A Maiden’s Tribute (1958) and the novel The Poet (1958; Russian translations, 1961). The tetralogy Brothers (parts 1–4, 1958–72; part 4 entitled Bedirkent; Russian translation, 1959–75) is a historical panorama of the life of the Turkmen people in prerevolutionary and Soviet times. Seitakov has also translated the poetry of Nizami Giandzhevi, Navoi, and T. G. Shevchenko.

Seitakov was secretary of the administrative board of the Writers’ Union of the Turkmen SSR from 1954 to 1957 and the board’s chairman from 1963 to 1966. He was a deputy to the sixth and seventh convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the Turkmen SSR and a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Turkmen SSR from 1963 to 1966. Seitakov has been awarded the Makhtumkuli State Prize of the Turkmen SSR (1966), three orders, and several medals.