Musa Cälil

Musa Cälil (Муса Җәлил, ; Муса Джалиль; 15 February 1905 – 25 August 1944) was a Soviet–Tatar poet and resistance fighter.

He is the only poet of the Soviet Union awarded simultaneously the Hero of the Soviet Union award for his resistance fighting and the Lenin Prize for having written The Moabit Notebooks; both awards were bestowed upon him posthumously.

Musa Cälil was born in Mustafino, a village in Orenburg Governorate, to a family of junk dealers.

He graduated from in Orenburg.

His first published works were revolutionary verses.

In 1919, he joined the underground Komsomol cell in Orenburg (the region was under the control of White Russians at that time).

Then, Musa participated in the Russian Civil War against pro-White forces; due to his young age, he did not fight at the front, instead serving in a Red Army unit.

The Turkic aruz wezni poetic rhythm is seen in Cälil's early works, which is attributed to Gisyanism (ğıysyanizm; гыйсъянизм), a romantic poetic style celebrating revolution that was often found in young Tatar poetry of the 1920s.

In 1920, Cälil returned to his native village, establishing the pro-Communist youth organization The Red Flower there.

He also became a Komsomol activist in Mustafino.

He represented his village at the governorate Komsomol conference.

In 1920, the Tatar ASSR was established and Kazan became its capital.

By the end of the 1920s, lyricism appeared in Cälil's poetry.

In 1922, Musa, along with other Tatar poets, moved to Kazan.

During this time, verses that he wrote include "The Red Host", "The Red Holyday", "The Red Hero", "The Red Way", "The Red Force", and "The Red Banner".

In Kazan, Cälil worked as copyist for the Qьzьl Tatarstan newspaper and studied at rabfak of the Oriental Pedagogical Institute.

He became acquainted with Tatar poets such as Qawi Näcmi, Hadi Taqtaş, and Ğädel Qutuy.

In 1924, he became a member of the literary society October, backing Proletkult.

Since that year, his poetry departed from Ghisyanism and aruz and turned to the Tatar folk verse.

His first collection of verses, Barabız (We are going) was published in 1925.

One concept that the verses dealt with was pre-revolutionary life.

During 1925 and 1926, Cälil became an instructor of Orsk uyezd Komsomol cell, where he visited Tatar and Kazakh auls, agitating for Komsomol there.

In 1926, he became the member of Orenburg governorate Komsomol committee.

In 1927, Musa moved to Moscow, where he combined his study in the Moscow State University and job in Tatar–Bashkir section of the Central Committee of Komsomol.

Cälil joined the All-Union Communist Party (b) in 1929, which was the same year that his second collection, İptäşkä (To the Comrade; Yañalif: Iptəşkə) was published.

Living in Moscow, Cälil met Russian poets Zharov, Bezymensky, and Svetlov; Cälil also attended Vladimir Mayakovsky's performances.

He entered the Moscow Association of Proletarian Writers; he became its third secretary and a leader of its Tatar section.

During the 1930s, Cälil also translated to the Tatar language writings of poets of the USSR peoples, such as Shota Rustaveli, Taras Shevchenko, Pushkin, Nekrasov, Mayakovsky and Lebedev-Kumach.

In the late 1930s, he tended to write epic poems, such as The Director and the Sun (1935), Cihan (1935–1938), and The Postman (1938).

As a playwright of the Tatar State Opera, he wrote four librettos for Tatar operas, one of which is Altınçäç (Golden Hair Maiden) of Näcip Cihanov.

In 1931, Cälil graduated from the literature faculty of Moscow University.

Until 1932, he was a chief editor of the Tatar children's magazine Keckenə iptəşlər, which was later renamed to Oktəbr Balasь (Little Octobrist).

Then, he managed the section of literature and art in the central Tatar newspaper Kommunist.

In 1934, Musa Cälil published two collections.

The first of them, The Millions, Decorated with Orders was devoted mostly to youth and Komsomol, whereas in the second, Verses and Poems, was a general compilation of his writing.

However, many of his lyrical poems weren't published due to being at conflict with Stalinism.

In 1935, the first Russian translations of his poems were published.

In 1939 and 1940, he served as the chairman of the Tatar ASSR Union of Writers.

After the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Cälil volunteered for the Red Army.

Graduating political commissar courses, he arrived at the Volkhov Front and became a war correspondent in the Otvaga newspaper.