Shamov, Afzal

Born Feb. 19 (Mar. 4), 1901, in the village of Tatarskoe-Tanaevo, in what is now Zelenodol’sk Raion. Soviet Tatar writer. Member of the CPSU since 1943.

A veteran of the Civil War of 1918–20, Shamov studied in the literature department of Moscow State University from 1926 to 1930. He took part in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45. In 1949 and 1950, Shamov was editor of the journal Sovet ëdebiyätï (Soviet Literature).

Shamov was first published in 1919. His main theme—the spiritual growth and political development of Soviet man—appears in such works as the novellas Raufa (1926) and The Story of a Love (1933) and the short-story collections In Petroleum City (1955) and On One of the Days (1959). Shamov’s lyric works were published in the collection On a Rainy Evening (1965). He has translated into Tatar works by such writers as L. N. Tolstoy, N. V. Gogol, F. V. Gladkov, and N. A. Ostrovskii.

Shamov was a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Tatar ASSR from 1959 to 1963. From 1958 to 1961 he was chairman of the administrative board of the Writers’ Union of the Tatar ASSR. Shamov has been awarded the Order of the October Revolution, two other orders, and various medals.