Карим Мустай

The national Bashkir Poet Mustai Karim (Mustafa Safich Karimov) was born on the 20th of October 1919 in the village of Klyash, Chismy region, Bashkortostan. He was educated at the Bashkir State Pedagogical Institute. He is a participant of the Great Patriotic War.

He started his literary activities in the 1930s. He worked in the genre of poverty, prose, playwriting and publicism. M.Karim’s lyrics are characterized by originality of poetic images and the depth of philosophical thought. His poems “Flowers on the Stone”, “A Birch Leaf”, the cycles of poems “Europe-Asia” about Vietnam and Bulgaria and others have become the highest landmarks of our poetry. In his collection of poems “My Steed” (1943), “December Song” (1942), “Ulmasbai” (1942-1944), “Black Waters” (1961) the poet showed the tragedy of war.

Among his plays there are dramas “The Land of Aigul”, “Pedestrian Makhmut”; tragedies “On the Night of Lunar Eclipse”; “Salavat”; “Don’t Throw Fire, Prometheus!”, a comedy “kidnapping of a Girl”. His books “Our Home’s Joy”; “Long-long Childhood”; “ATrivet” glorify kindness, honesty and love.

Articles, memories, talks and meditations about his own and other writer’s creative work are collected in his book “The Parable about Three Brothers”

M.Karim is a laureate of Lenin State Prize, the prize of Stanislavsky, S.Yulaev republican prize and others.