Botsiev, Baron

(also Boris Timofeevich Botsiev). Born Sept. 10, 1901, in the village of Tib; died July 20, 1944. Soviet Ossetian poet. Member of the CPSU since 1926. One of the founders of Soviet Ossetian poetry.

A farm laborer, Botsiev graduated from the Communist University of Workers of the East in Moscow (1930). In the novel Broken Chain (1935), Botsiev depicted the hard life of the Ossetian peasantry before the October Revolution and their struggle for liberty. Botsiev’s verses include character sketches of Soviet workers (“Kolkhoz Girl,” “Safirat,” and “Evening of Dancing,” for example), patriotic heroes (“ThreeGirls,” “Death of a Brave One”), and heroes of the Civil War and the Great Patriotic War (“Song of Ordzhonikidze,” the poems “Partisan Bibo” and “Brave Khadzy Myrza,” 1942). Several of Botsiev’s poems became popular songs.