Gafur Guliam

(the pen name of Gafur Guliamovich Guliamov). Born Apr. 27 (May 10), 1903, in Tashkent; died there July 10, 1966. Soviet Uzbek writer. Member of the Academy of Sciences of the Uzbek SSR (1943); People’s Poet of the Uzbek SSR (1963). Member of the CPSU from 1946. Born into the family of a poor peasant.

Gafur Guliam began to publish his work in 1923. He and Khamza laid the foundations of modern Uzbek poetry. A constant theme running through Gafur Guliam’s work is socialist labor and the molding of the new man. Gafur Guliam criticized the vestiges of the past and upheld the truth of socialism in such works as the narrative poem Kukan-batrak (1930) and the collections Dynamo (1931) and Humorous Stories (1931). His early humorous tales— The Mischief Maker, Iadgar, The Corpse That Came Alive, and Who Is to Blame? —are widely known.

During the years of the Great Patriotic War, Gafur Guliam’s antifascist poems became popular: “I Am a Jew,” “You Are Not an Orphan,” “Time,” “A Celebration on Our Street,” and “I Await You, My Son” are included in the collection / Come From the East (1943; State Prize of the USSR, 1946). The poet sings of life on Soviet soil in such verses as “Everything Is Yours” (1947), “Hail to Communism!” (1949), “To Paul Robeson” (1949), “The Happiness of One’s Homeland” (1951), “Festivities in Iangi-Era” (1957), “Iadgar” (1961), and “Lenin and the East” (1961). He translated world classics into Uzbek, including Count Nulin by Pushkin, At the Top of My Voice by V. V. Mayakovsky, The Marriage of Figaro by P. Beaumarchais, Othello and King Lear by Shakespeare, and Gulistan by Saadi. Gafur Guliam’s work embraces a variety of forms and genres. He received the Lenin Prize (posthumously in 1970). He was awarded three Orders of Lenin, four other orders, and medals.