Mirtemir

Mirtemir (born Mirtemir Umarbekovich Tursunov) was born on 30 May 1910 in the village of Ikan near the town of Turkestan (now in the Turkestan Region of Kazakhstan). He studied at an old-method school (1919–1920), then in Tashkent at the Almaiy model labour school (1920–1923) and at the Uzbek men’s college (1925–1929). His first poems were printed from 1926, and in 1928 his collection “Shu‘lalar qo‘ynida” (“In the Embrace of the Rays”) came out.

In 1929 he went to Samarkand, where he worked as secretary to Yo‘ldosh Oxunboboyev, chairman of the Central Executive Committee of Uzbekistan, while studying at the language and literature faculty of the Pedagogical Academy; some sources say he graduated in 1932. He belonged to the literary organisation “Qizil qalam”. On 8 August 1932 he was arrested by the GPU for his ties with Botu and Oltoy, whom the authorities called “nationalists”.

After his release he worked as a literary staff member of the newspaper “Yangi hayot” (1936), chief editor at the republic’s radio committee (1941), editor at the state publishing house Uzdavnashr (1942) and literary staff member of the opera and ballet theatre (1943–1944). In the 1930s he wrote the narrative poems “Barot” (1930), “Xidir” (1932), “Dilkusho”, “Suv qizi” (“The Water Girl”, 1937) and “Oysanamning to‘yida” (“At Oysanam’s Wedding”, 1938); the collections “Poytaxt” (“The Capital”, 1936), “Qasd” (1944) and “Yangi she‘rlar” (“New Poems”, 1947) were published.

After the Second World War his chances to publish his own poetry were restricted, and he worked mainly as a translator and editor. He rendered poems by Pushkin, Lermontov, Nekrasov, Abai, Magtymguly and Berdaq into Uzbek, and, together with others, Rustaveli’s “The Knight in the Panther’s Skin” and the Kyrgyz epic “Manas”. His translations of Karakalpak poetry and the cycle “Qoraqalpoq daftari” (“The Karakalpak Notebook”, late 1950s) brought him back to his own writing; the lyric tale “Surat” (“Portrait”) from that cycle influenced the development of the lyric narrative poem in Uzbek poetry of the 1960s and 1970s.

In 1957–1964 he was head of a department and adviser at the Writers’ Union, and in 1965–1966 an editor at the fiction publishing house; he mentored many young poets who entered literature in the 1960s. His songs, such as “Yali-yali”, became folk favourites. He received the Order of the Badge of Honour (1959) and the Order of the Red Banner of Labour; in 1971 he was named People’s Poet of the Uzbek SSR, and in 1977 he won the Berdaq State Prize of Karakalpakstan.

Mirtemir died in Tashkent in January 1978 and was buried in the Chigatai cemetery. He was posthumously awarded the Hamza State Prize of the Uzbek SSR (1979) and the Order “For Outstanding Merit” (“Buyuk xizmatlari uchun”, 2001). His four-volume collected works appeared in 1980–1983; a house-museum has been opened in his native village, and a street in Tashkent and a school in the Bo‘z district of Andijan Region bear his name.