The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Macdiarmid, Hugh

(pen name of Christopher Murray Grieve). Born Aug. 11, 1892, in Langholm, Dumfriesshire. Scottish poet, critic, and translator. Member of the Communist Party of Great Britain.

Macdiarmid’s first collection of poems was A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle (1926). It was followed by First Hymn to Lenin (1931), Second Hymn to Lenin (1935), and The Battle Continues (1957). Macdiarmid is one of the leaders of the “Renaissance” in Scottish poetry; in his poetry he celebrates the natural beauties of his native country, its people, and its history. He is a fighter for peace and has written poems about the participants in the National Revolutionary War in Spain (1936-39). Macdiarmid is a collector and researcher of Scottish folk poetry.

WORKS

The Company I’ve Kept: Essays in Autobiography. London, 1966.
The Uncanny Scot: A Selection of Prose. [London, 1968.]
Selected Essays. London [1969].
Selected Poems. Harmondsworth, 1970.
Lucky Poet. London, 1972.
In Russian translation:
“O Lenine.” Internatsional–naia literatura, 1939, no. 1.

REFERENCES

Kettl, A. “Angliiskaia literatura v 1955 g.” Inostrannaia literatura, 1956, no. 4.
Zhukov, D. “Postoianstvo.” Inostrannaia literatura, 1963, no. 5.
Buthlay, K. Hugh MacDiarmid. London, 1964.
Glenn, D. Hugh MacDiarmid and the Scottish Renaissance. London, 1964.

References in periodicals archive

Grieve/Hugh MacDiarmid, Editor and Essayist', in The Edinburgh Companion to Hugh MacDiarmid, ed.

'The flowers of the forest are a' wede away': the Dispersal of a Familiar Refrain

Donald Sinclair is another example of a writer whose work was appreciated in Gaelic and Scots circles alike--for example Ruaridh Erskine of Marr and Hugh MacDiarmid were admirers of his dramatic works.

Editorial

(18) Lewis Grassic Gibbon, 'The Antique Scene', in Lewis Grassic Gibbon and Hugh MacDiarmid, Scottish Scene, or The Intelligent Man's Guide to Albyn (1934); reprinted in Valentina Bold (ed.), Smeddum: A Lewis Grassic Gibbon Anthology (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2001), p.

'Hauntings of Celticism': Fionn Mac Colla and the Myth of History

We need to open our eyes and minds, and see the glorious multiform colours of our country, just as Hugh MacDiarmid did as he describes the details of a Scottish hillside in September to the fool who sees "nothing but heather." "How marvellously descriptive!" he retorts, "And incomplete!" @LitWales post@literaturewales.org

WORD OUT; READ II

A particularly important example for Riach is Hugh MacDiarmid who "did not accept the status quo and ...

McCracken-Flesher, Caroline, ed.: Scotland as Science Fiction

Although Hart derives his main concept of the synthetic vernacular from the poetics of Hugh MacDiarmid, he persuasively explains why the concept also applies to Basil Bunting, Edward Kamau Brathwaite, and Melvin Tolson.

Matthew Hart. Nations of Nothing but Poetry: Modernism, Transnationalism, and Synthetic Vernacular Writing

Among the topics are the branch societies of the Highland Society of London, Scottish Gaelic in Argentina, Scottish Highlanders and First Nations, Hugh MacDiarmid and Sorley MacLean as correspondents and collaborators, media ecology for the Gaidhealtachd, the role of new media in Scotland's Gaelic digital service, and an introduction to Manx Gaelic.

Gaelic research; proceedings

Hugh MacDiarmid, who had been President and CEO of AECL for just six months when that hard decision was taken, was unapologetic in offering a rationale to the Standing Committee.

The aftertaste of MAPLE: for some, the medical radioisotope shortage is reason to breathe new life into the derelict MAPLE reactors. For others, they represent a blunder best forgotten

A leading figure in what has been called the Scottish Renaissance alongside Hugh MacDiarmid, (8) Young wrote poetry in what he called "Lallans," Robert Burns's term for the Scots language.

Aristophanes and Douglas Young

The other members of this celebrated set were Iain Crichton Smith, Sorley MacLean, Robert Garioch, Hugh MacDiarmid, Norman MacCaig and George Mackay Brown.

obituary

The title of the book is derived form a line in Ronald Stevenson's song cycle Border boyhood to texts by Hugh MacDiarmid. In many ways, Stevenson, both as a prolific composer and pianist, has been a throwback to an earlier music era--an era of pianistic virtuosity and transcription as propounded by Liszt and carried on by Godowsky, Busoni and Percy Grainger.

Ronald Stevenson