Alimdzhan Khamid

Alimdzhan Khamid 

Born Dec. 12, 1909, in Dzhizak; died July 3, 1944. Soviet Uzbek poet, journalist, and critic. Member of the CPSU since 1942. Corresponding member of the Uzbek SSR Academy of Sciences since 1943. Studied at the Uzbek Academy of Pedagogy in Samarkand (1928—31).

Alimdzhan’s poetry had been influenced by M. Gorky and V. V. Mayakovsky. Alimdzhan was one of the first Uzbek poets who began exploring poetic forms that could most fully express modern times. His first collection of poems, Spring, was published in 1926, but he showed his full talent in the poems Simurg (1939), Aigul’ and Bakhtiiar (1938), My Native Land (1939), and Happiness (1940), which were written in the style of socialist realism. His best work, the poem Zainab and Aman, synthesizes the character of Soviet Uzbek poetry in the 1930’s. At the time of the patriotic enthusiasm during the Great Patriotic War, Alimdzhan Khamid wrote the poem Roksana’s Tears (1944), the collection of poems Take Your Gun (1942), and the historical drama Mukanna (1942–43), which showed mature craftsmanship. In his work as a literary scholar, Alimdzhan Khamid dealt with problems of classical Uzbek and Soviet literature and the relationship between literature and folklore and between Russian and Uzbek literature. These themes are found, for example, in Toward Mastering Socialist Realism (1933), The First Period of Soviet Uzbek Literature (1935), Mukhammad Amin Mukimi (1938), Navoi’s Poem “Farkhad and Shirin” (1939), Navoi and Our Time (1940), Hello, Pushkin! (1937), and Tolstoy and the Uzbek People (1938). He translated into Uzbek A. S. Pushkin’s The Captive of the Caucasus and Mermaid, M. Iu. Lermontov’s Bela, Gorky’s Chelkash, and other works.

WORKS

Tanlangan asarlar, vols. 1–3. Tashkent, 1957–1960.
In Russian translation:
Stikhi. Moscow, 1957.

REFERENCES

Azimov, S. Khamid Olimzhon. Tashkent, 1955.
Azimov, S. Khamid Olimzhon abadiiati. Tashkent, 1967.
Azimov, S. Khamid Olimzhon. Bibliografik kursatkich. Tashkent, 1960.

V. A. ABDULLAEV and B. VALIKHODZHAEV