Poet-writer A. Zhutakeev was born in 1888—1933 in the village of Jan-Bulak in the current Tian-Shan district of the Naryn region, in a poor family. Having lost his parents early, he worked as a laborer for wealthy landowners and manaps. He began composing his poems around the age of 13. At 15, while serving a village mullah named Budaychi, he learned to read and write and started recording his compositions from that point on. By the age of 20, he was known among his fellow villagers as a singer performing his own songs about the orphaned fate and the hard life of ordinary people.
After completing a short six-month teacher training course in Almaty in 1920, he worked as a teacher in his native village until 1923. He actively participated in the fight against illiteracy. In 1923, he was appointed chairman of the "Union of Koshchu," and later became the first chairman of the collective farm "Ak-Djar."
From the first days of Soviet power, the poet welcomed the freedom brought by October to the Kyrgyz people. In the 1920s, he wrote a number of poems dedicated to the new life of the Kyrgyz people and their difficult past. In the year of V. I. Lenin's death, he dedicated the lamentation poem "Lenin koshogu" ("Lament for Lenin") to him, which immediately gained wide recognition, and in the poem "Uch door" ("Three Epochs"), the poet depicts the harsh pre-revolutionary life of his people.
The poet's works began to be published after his death. In 1926, he submitted a number of works to the folklore collection commission of the People's Commissariat for Education of the Kyrgyz ASSR. Only in 1956, in the book "Jaz-gych akyndar" ("Poets-Writers"), published by the Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz SSR, were A. Zhutakeev's works "Three Epochs," "Days of October," "Soviet Power," and others published. The poet's works were released in separate editions in 1957, 1974, and 1988.
SEPARATE EDITIONS
in Kyrgyz language
Lenin koshogu. Yrlary jana poemalar. - Kyrgyzmambas, 49 p. Lament for Lenin. 1957
Lenin koshogu: Yrlary jana poemalar.— F.: Kyrgyzstan. 128 p. Lament for Lenin. 1974.
