Salchak Toka

Born Dec. 2 (15), 1901, in the settlement of Mergen, in what is now Kaa-Khem Raion, Tuva ASSR; died May 11, 1973, in Kyzyl. Soviet Tuvinian writer and party and state figure. Hero of Socialist Labor (1971). Member of the Tuvinian People’s Revolutionary Party from 1929; member of the CPSU from 1944.

Toka, one of the founders of Soviet Tuvinian literature, graduated from the Communist University for Workers of the East in Moscow in 1929. He first published his works in 1935. His writings, which critically depict the feudal past, deal mainly with the people’s revolutionary awakening and the assertion of new socialist ideals. Toka wrote the autobiographical novella Word of an Arat (book 1, 1950; State Prize of the USSR, 1951; book 2, 1956; book 3 entitled The New Tuva, 1964); originally written in Russian, the work has been translated into many languages. Toka also wrote the documentary novella What the Father Did Not See—the Son Will (1963).

Toka became general secretary of the Central Committee of the Tuvinian People’s Revolutionary Party in 1932. He served as first secretary of the Tuva oblast committee of the CPSU from 1944 to 1973. He was a candidate member of the Central Committee of the CPSU from 1952 to 1971 and a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU from 1971 to 1973. He was a deputy to the first through eighth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of theUSRR.

Toka was awarded seven Orders of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, various medals of the USSR, three Orders of the Tuva People’s Republic, and an order and various medals of the Mongolian People’s Republic.