Saidov, Garun

Born May 8, 1891, in the aul (village) of Vachi, in what is now Kulin Raion, Dagestan ASSR; died August 1919. Lak writer, publicist, and revolutionary.

Saidov studied at the Moscow Commercial Institute. In May 1917, together with U. D. Buinakskii, he founded the Dagestan Educational and Agitational Bureau in Temir-Khan-Shura. He edited the Lak-language newspaper Ilchi (Bulletin) and wrote pamphlets denouncing the policy of the Provisional Government. He also wrote the first Dagestani drama, The Tinsmiths (1914–15, staged 1916), which depicted the exploitation of apprentices. Several of Saidov’s poems, for example, “If the Wind Starts to Blow” and “Partisan Song,” have become folk songs. Saidov was shot by a Denikin punitive detachment.