Nosirdzhon Asadovich Masumi

Born Apr. 19 (May 2), 1915, in the village of Karatag, now in Gissar Raion; died Aug. 16, 1974, in Dushanbe. Soviet literary critic. Honored Scientist of the Tadzhik SSR (1960). Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Tadzhik SSR (1969). Member of the CPSU from 1945.

In 1940, Masumi graduated from the department of literature of the T. G. Shevchenko Pedagogical Institute in Dushanbe; from 1940 he taught in the institute. From 1959 to 1972 he served as director of the Rudaki Institute of Language and Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the Tadzhik SSR. In 1971 he became academician-secretary of the division of social sciences of the Academy of Sciences of the Tadzhik SSR.

Masumi began his literary activity as a poet in 1935. From 1940 he was chiefly a literary critic. In 1944 his narrative poem Land of Happiness appeared in a separate edition. Masumi published two textbooks for higher educational institutions—Tadzhik Folklore (1952) and Methods of Teaching Literature in the Fifth to Eighth Grades (1960). In 1961 he published a monograph on the poet M. Rakhimi, and in 1962 he produced Tadzhik Literature in the Eighteenth Century and First Half of the Nineteenth Century.

Masumi served as a deputy to the sixth and seventh convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the Tadzhik SSR. From 1967 to 1971 he was a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Tadzhik SSR. He was awarded two orders and several medals.