Şärif Kamal

Şärif Kamal (Tatar: Шәриф Камалетдин улы Камал (Байгилдиев), Tatar pronunciation: [ʃæˈrif kɑˈmɑl]; 27 February [O.S. 15 February] 1884 – 22 December 1942) was a promintent Tatar writer, novellist, playwright and public figure. He is one of the largest representatives of Tatar literature of the early 20th century and the founders of socialist realism in Tatar national art.

Şärif Kamal
Born	Şärif Kamaletdin ulı Baygildiyev 27 February [O.S. 15 February] 1884 Tatar Peşläse, Penza Governorate, Russian Empire
Died	23 December 1942(1942-12-23) (aged 58) Kazan, USSR
Occupation	Writer
Nationality	tatar
Citizenship	Russian Empire / Soviet Union
Period	1905–1942
Genre	Realist literature • novellas• plays
Literary movement	Socialist realism
Notable works	The Seagulls (1915) • Haji Effendi is getting married (1916)
Notable awards	Order of Lenin
Spouse	Häyät Baygildiyeva

Kamal is known as author of short stories, and feuilletons, the story “The Seagulls” (Tatar: Aqçarlaqlar), the novels “When the Beauty is Born” (Tatar: Matur tuğanda) and “With a Firm Tread” (Tatar: Nıqlı Adımnar), plays and cycles of poems. He translated works by Nikolai Gogol and Mikhail Sholokhov from Russian into Tatar.

Literary works

Şärif Kamal's portrait by Kharis Yakupov. 1949.

Kamal's first poems were published in 1905 in the Tatar newspaper Nur, published in St. Petersburg. A year later, the printing house of the same newspaper published a collection of his poems,Sada (Voice). In 1909–1912, he wrote the story The Crow’s Nest and the short stories In Search of Happiness, In a Foreign Land and The Tramp, which described the hard life of workers. The story The Seagulls is dedicated to the exploitation of fishermen. During the same period, Kamal wrote a number of satirical works directed against merchants and bourgeois nationalists. The works Wilted Flower and Boredom are devoted to the issue of equal rights for women.

After the October Revolution, Kamal created the novel Tañ atqanda (At the dawn) about the revolution, Matur tuğanda (When the Beauty is born) about the tatar village of the 1920s. He also created dramatic works Ut (Fire), Kozğınnar oyasında (The Crow’s Nest), Tawlar (Mountains), Toman artı (Behind the Fog). Kamal was the first to translate Virgin Soil Upturned by Sholokhov into Tatar.