Кудаш Сайфи

Sayfi Kudash (Saifetdin Fattakhetdinov Kudashev) was born on the 20thof September 1894, in the village of Klyash of Chishmy region, Bashkortostan. He was educated at the Muslim School “Galiya”.

At the end of the 1920s S.Kudash had published books devoted to peasants: “The Plough’s Song” (1926), “At the Wedding” (1927), “The Hero of the Struggle” (1928) where his poetic individuality revealed itself to a full degree. Individuality of his style is linked with oral poetic, song traditions of the nation.

S.Kudash’s epic novel in verses “Kushkayen” (1936), which was created on the basis of Oriental poetry dastans portrays the salient features of collective farm movement in the 30s. During the war S.Kudash’s creative work was permeated with rhetorical appeal (“The Call”; “Djigit”, “Kill the Fascist!”). S.Kudash favoured the development of the historical, biographical and memoir literature. His stories “Meeting the Spring” (1954) , “Unforgettable Minutes” (1958), “In the Tracks of the Youth” (1964), which were reprinted many times in different languages of the USSR nations, truthfully reveal the historical processes which took place in the pre-Revolutionary culture of Turkic peoples.

In 1964 S.Kudash was granted the title of the national poet of Bashkortostan.