Chinghiz Aitmatov

A seminal Kyrgyz author whose works explored the transformation of Central Asia.

Chronology: 1928-12-12 – 2008-06-10

Origins & Early Life

Chinghiz Torekulovich Aitmatov (12 December 1928 – 10 June 2008) was a Kyrgyz author who wrote mainly in Russian, but also in Kyrgyz. He is one of the best-known figures in Kyrgyz literature. == Life == He was born to a Kyrgyz father and Tatar mother. Aitmatov's parents were civil servants in Sheker.

Pivotal Works & Achievements

In 1937, his father was charged with "bourgeois nationalism" in Moscow, arrested, and executed in 1938. Aitmatov lived at a time when Kyrgyzstan was being transformed from one of the most remote lands of the Russian Empire to a republic of the USSR. The future author studied at a Soviet school in Sheker. He also worked from an early age. At fourteen, he was an assistant to the Secretary at the Village Soviet.

Enduring Legacy & Impact

He later held jobs as a tax collector, a loader, and an engineer's assistant and continued with many other types of work. In 1946, he began studying at the Animal Husbandry Division of the Kirghiz Agricultural Institute in Frunze, but later switched to literary studies at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow, where he lived from 1956 to 1958. For the next eight years he worked for Pravda. He joined the Soviet Communist Party in 1959, at the time of de-Stalinization, and later...

Source: Wikipedia