Poet-Writer Shamey Toktobaev

The akyn-writer Sh. Toktobaev was born in 1880 and died on August 3, 1981, in the village of Kün-Chygysh (now the village of Bokonbaev in the Ton district of the Issyk-Kul region) into a poor family. He learned to read and write on his own. In 1915, he studied for six months at a new method school. From 1916 to 1920, he worked as a laborer for local landlords and kulaks. From 1920 to 1931, he worked as a teacher in a primary school. In 1929, after joining the CPSU, he led a primary party cell, served as the chairman of a collective farm from 1935 to 1938, worked as a blacksmith at the Ak-Terek MTS from 1938, and from 1947, he worked as a carpenter in his native collective farm.

Many of the pre-revolutionary poems of the akyn "The Orphan's Prayer" (1900), "Complaint" (1910), "My Poor Head" (1913), "Aktasma" (1915), and others have a denunciatory character. He mocks representatives of the ruling class. His most famous pre-revolutionary works include "The Nightingale" (1914) and "Tekeschi" (1915). During these years, Sh. Toktobaev created many lyrical works.

After the Great October Socialist Revolution, the akyn praised Lenin, Soviet power, and the Communist Party in his poems. During these years, he created the poems "A Bright Era Has Come to Us" (1919) and "To the Poor Peasants" (1921), in which he glorified the advantages of the new power.

In the 1930s and during the Great Patriotic War, the akyn wrote a number of poems dedicated to collective farm life, the workers of the village, and the heroic feats of his fellow countrymen in battles against fascist invaders. In 1954, he visited Moscow with advanced collective farmers. Impressed by this trip, he created a number of remarkable poems "Metro," "Kremlin," "Lenin's Mausoleum," "When I Saw Moscow."

Until 1957, the akyn was not published, so many of his works were lost. In 1957, Sh. Toktobaev submitted over 4,000 lines of his poems to the Writers' Union of Kyrgyzstan.

The first poetry collection "Yrlary" was published in 1961. Subsequently, several more collections of the akyn's poems were published.

In 1980, the literary community of the republic celebrated the 100th anniversary of Sh. Toktobaev's birth.

A member of the CPSU since 1929, a member of the USSR Writers' Union since 1957.

SEPARATE PUBLICATIONS

in Kyrgyz language:
Yrlary. — Fr.: Kyrgyzmambas, 1961. — 61 p. Poems.
Kerbezim: Yrlary. — Fr.: Kyrgyzstan, 1966. — 114 p.
Too yry: Yrlary. — Fr.: Kyrgyzstan, 1972. — 78 p. Mountain poems.