Salavatov, Alim Pasha

Born 1901 in Aksai, in what is now Khasaviurt Raion, Dagestan ASSR; died 1942 in Sevastopol’. Soviet Kumyk writer. Honored Art Worker of the Dagestan ASSR (1940).

Salavatov graduated from a pedagogical institute in Baku in 1927. In 1941 he went to the front as a volunteer and was killed in battle. He started writing poetry while still an adolescent. In 1917 he wrote the poems “To a Blacksmith” and “From a Blacksmith,” in which he created an image of a toiling man. A collection of his early works is entitled The First Part (1925); this was the first book of Soviet Kumyk literature. In 1930 A Collection of Verses was published, which reflected the new reality. Salavatov’s heroic drama The Red Partisans (1933) laid the foundation for Soviet Kumyk drama. The Kumyk National Theater was named in honor of Salavatov.