Rabadan Nurov

Born 1889; died 1942. Soviet Dagestan poet and dramatist. One of the founders of Soviet Darghin literature.

The son of a peasant, Nurov was born in the aul (village) of Sanamakhi. In some of his prerevolutionary works, which resemble folk songs, the poet calls for the overthrow of the autocracy. A participant in revolutionary events in Dagestan, Nurov depicts the heroic nature of the people’s struggle for freedom in such poems as “Awake, Dagestan” (1919) and “Aia-Kaka” (1921). The poems “Dream” (1927) and “The Old Woman and the Girl” (1935) portray the free mountain woman. In the plays Aishat in the Claws of Adat (1928) and The Sheik Unmasked (1934) Nurov decries the old order.