Aksen Suseev

Born Dec. 12 (25), 1905, in the khutor (farmstead) of Atamanskii, now in Zimovniki Raion, Rostov Oblast. Soviet Kalmyk poet. People’s Poet of the Kalmyk ASSR (1967). Member of the CPSU since 1929.

Suseev began publishing in 1927. He graduated from the Astrakhan Pedagogical Institute in 1938. He wrote the collections of poems and narrative poems A Steel Heart (1929), Don’t Forget! (1932), and The Native Steppe (1941; second expanded edition, 1958). Suseev’s major work is the three-part narrative poem The Steppe, My Native Mother (books 1–3, 1960–62; in Russian translation, books 1–3, 1962–66). The poem deals with the Civil War, the establishment of Soviet power in Kalmykia, and the heroism of the people during the Great Patriotic War (1941–45).

Suseev also wrote the play In Search of Happiness (1940; Russian translation, 1940) and the autobiographic novellas The Beginning of Erdni’s Path (1973) and In the Crucible of the People’s Life (1974). In 1974, Suseev was awarded the O. I. Gorodovikov State Prize of the Kalmyk ASSR for his narrative poem Summoned by the Revolution (1972). He has also received two orders and several medals.