Gairbekova, Mashidat Gadzhievna

Born Dec. 29, 1927, in the aul (village) of Karata, Akhvakh Raion. Soviet Avarian poetess.

Gairbekova graduated from the M. Gorky Institute of Literature. She was first published in 1948. Her verse collections, The Word of the Mountain Woman (1952; Russian translation, 1955) and On the Way to the Peak (1958; Russian translation, 1960), accurately and vividly portray the socialist transformation in the life of Dagestan. Gairbekova dedicated her ardent lines to the theme of the defense of peace. She is the author of the narrative poems A Distant Sister (1954), The Unfinished Letter (1955), The Bride’s White Kerchief (1965), Punishment for a Crime (1967), and The Red Partisan’s Daughter (1968) and of the play One Must Struggle for Happiness (1958). She has been awarded two orders.