Shomakhov, Amirkhan Kamizovich

Born Sept. 27 (Oct. 10), 1910, in the village of Nizhnii Kurp, in what is now Terek Raion. Soviet Kabardin writer. People’s Poet of the Kabarda-Balkar ASSR (1977). Member of the CPSU from 1938.

Shomakhov graduated from the Northern Caucasus Pedagogical Institute in 1933 and from the Higher Party School of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1955. His works first appeared in print in 1930. Shomakhov is the author of the novella Kolkhoz Under Fire (1958), about the events of the war years. His novel Dawn Over the Terek (1968; Russian translation, 1972) is about the Civil War and the first years of Soviet power in the republic. The novel Horsemen on the Peaks (1970) is about the formation of the working class in Kabarda-Balkaria.

Shomakhov, whose works have been translated into many of the languages of the peoples of the USSR, has been awarded two orders and several medals.