Sharif Kamaletdinovich Kamal

Sharif Kamaletdinovich Kamal was a Soviet Tatar writer, playwright and translator. Sharif Kamal was born into the family of a mullah in the village of Tatarskaya Pishlya (now Ruzaevsky District of Mordovia). After receiving his primary education at a madrasa, he worked on the construction of a railway, as a miner in the Urals and as a fisherman on the Caspian Sea. In 1905 he moved to Saint Petersburg, where he became a teacher at a Tatar school.

 

His literary activity began with the publication of poems in the newspaper "Nur" in 1905. In 1906 his first collection of poems "Sada" ("The Voice") was published. Between 1909 and 1912 Kamal wrote the novella "Voronye gnezdo" ("The Crow's Nest") and several short stories reflecting the harsh life of workers: "In Search of Happiness", "In a Strange Land" and "The Vagabond". The novella "Chaiki" ("Seagulls") is devoted to the exploitation of fishermen. Kamal also wrote satirical works aimed at merchants and bourgeois nationalists, as well as works addressing women's equality: "Withered Flower" and "Boredom".

 

After the October Revolution Kamal wrote the novel "Tañ atkanda" ("At Dawn") about the revolution and the novel "Matur tuganda" ("When the Beautiful Is Born") about village life in the 1920s. He also produced a number of dramatic works: "Ut" ("Fire"), "Kozgynnar oyasinda" ("The Crow's Nest"), "Taular" ("Mountains") and "Toman arty" ("Behind the Fog"). Kamal was the first to translate Mikhail Sholokhov's novel "Virgin Soil Upturned" into Tatar. In 1940 the writer was awarded the Order of Lenin. Sharif Kamal died in Kazan on December 22, 1942 and was buried in the Tatar cemetery.