Rasul Gamzatovich
Gamzatov
1923-2003
Rasul Gamzatovich Gamzatov was a Soviet poet, novelist, publicist, public and political figure, translator, Hero of Socialist Labor. He was born on September 8, 1923 in the village of Tsada in the Khunzakh district of Dagestan. He came from the family of Gamzat Tsadasa, the national poet of Dagestan. He received his education at the Araninsky secondary school and graduated from the Avar Pedagogical College in 1939. Rasul Gamzatov began writing his first poems in 1932.. The first publication took place in 1937 in the republican Avar newspaper Bolshevik Gor. The first book in the Avar language was published in 1943. Gamzatov actively participated in the literary life of Dagestan and was a delegate to writers’ congresses. He studied at the Literary Institute named after A.M. Gorky in Moscow in the period from 1945 to 1950. At this time, he meets and befriends young poets who begin to translate his poems into Russian. Gamzatov’s poems, including “Cranes” and “Sunny Days have Disappeared”, became songs and were widely recognized in the USSR. Rasul Gamzatov worked closely with famous composers such as Dmitry Kabalevsky, Jan Frenkel, Raymond Pauls, Yuri Antonov, Alexandra Pakhmutova. He was a member of the editorial board of prestigious literary publications and headed the Dagestan writers’ organization from 1951 until the end of his life. His works have been translated into many languages and are popular in Russia. A monument has been erected in memory of the poet in Moscow.
Address: Moscow, Podkolokolny lane, 16/2, p. 2
