Azerbaizhan Madievich Mambetov

Born Sept. 2, 1932, in the village of Savinka, in what is now Pallasovka Raion, Volgograd Oblast. Soviet stage director. People’s Artist of the USSR (1977). Member of the CPSU since 1961.

Mambetov graduated from the department of stage direction of the State Institute of Theatrical Arts in 1957. In 1957 he became a stage director with the Auezov Kazakh Drama Theater, where he became principal stage director in 1964 and administrative director in 1970.

Mambetov has staged Mukhamedzhanov’s The Wolf Cub in a Cap Trap (1958) and The Matchmaker Has Come (1961), Rannet’s The Prodigal Son (1959), Shashkin’s Thus the Epoch Began (1960), Auezov’s Aiman Sholpan (1960), Auezov and Sobolev’s Abai (1962), and a dramatization of Aitmatov’s The Maternal Field (1964). His productions also include Musrepov’s Kozy-Korpesh and Baian-Slu (1971), a dramatization of Nurpei-sov’s Blood and Sweat (1973), and Aitmatov and Mukhamedzhanov’s The Ascent of Mount Fuji (1975).

Since 1978, Mambetov has been a production supervisor with the Kazakhfil’m motion-picture studio. He was a deputy to the ninth convocation of the Supreme Soviet of the Kazakh SSR. A recipient of the State Prize of the USSR in 1974, he has been awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor and various medals.