Alykul Osmonov was a Kyrgyz poet, significant for his efforts to modernizing poetry in Kyrgyzstan. His main accomplishments were transforming poetry from an oral to a literary tradition, focusing upon secular themes with an emphasis on inner emotion, daily life, and nationalism, and translating numerous European authors into the Kyrgyz language, including William Shakespeare, Sándor Petőfi, and Alexander Pushkin.
Biography
Osmonov was born in Kaptal-Aryk in Panfilov District, Kyrgyzstan, about 75 km west of Bishkek. He was orphaned at a young age and was brought up in state care, first in a Bishkek orphanage, then in a Tokmok orphanage. From 1929, Osmonov studied at pedagogical school in Bishkek, but owing to tuberculosis which he had acquired from one of the orphanages, he was forced to leave. Nevertheless, he was able to begin a journalistic career, working for several early Soviet-era Kyrgyz-language newspapers, including "Chabul", "Leninchil Jash", and "Kyzyl Kyrgyzstan". From 1939 to 1940, he served as secretary-in-chief for the Kyrgyzstan National Writers Union. A year before, he was granted membership into the Union of Soviet Writers. His first poem, "Kyzyl Juk", was published in 1930, and his first volume of poems, Tandagy Yrlai, in 1935. Eventually he would publish up to 500 poems, including the well-known volume, Mahabat, as well as several major translations, including Shota Rustaveli's The Knight in the Panther's Skin, Shakespeare's Othello and Twelfth Night, and Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. Several of his poems were inspired by his various romantic escapades, in particular his first love, a woman named Aida, whom he pursued in 1934, and his failed marriage to Zeinep Sooranbaeva, as well as the personal tragedies which seemed to pursue him, such as his parents' deaths or his own daughter's death in 1943. He, himself, would die tragically: in Bishkek of pulmonary diseasepneumonia in 1950, at the age of 35.
Awards and museums
Osmonov was awarded the "Stalin Prize" in 1950, and posthumously the "Lenin Prize" in 1967. His face and a piece of his poetry are on the 200 Kyrgyzstani som piece, and there is a statue of him outside the National Library in Bishkek. Osmonov traveled throughout Kyrgyzstan, and today there are several museums in his honor, including Bishkek, Tokmok, Cholpon-Ata, and especially his hometown Kaptal-Aryk, in the area of Kara-Balta.
Works
Examples
"Issik-Kul" Issyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan, wave-lapped lake Young girls on our shore much merriment make Coral bracelets, lost long centuries since Seem to shine in your depths, and brilliance wake.
Other languages
Дети и журавли: Стихи. – Таллин: Ээсти раамат, 1984. – 11 с. – эст. Толубай сынчы: Поэма. – Алма-Ата, 1963. – казак.
