Britaev, Elbyzdyko Tsopanovich

Born Mar. 10 (22), 1881, in the village of Dalagkau, Vladikavkaz Okrug; died Sept. 25, 1923, in Vladikavkaz (now Ordzhonikidze). Ossetian dramatist and public figure.

Britaev was born into a mountain peasant family. He graduated from the University of Petrograd in 1917. He was exiled from Ossetia for his participation in the Revolution of 1905-07. Britaev’s plays became very popular, particularly The Man Who Visited Russia (1902) and Better Death than Shame (1903, published 1905), in which he condemned servile obedience to the tsarist administration; his play Two Sisters (1908, published 1922) depicted the tragic fate of a mountain woman who had no legal rights, and the tragedy Amran (1913-23) was permeated by motifs of social liberation. His plays Khazbi (1905-07, published 1947) reflected the influence of bourgeois nationalist ideology. After the February Revolution of 1917, Britaev entered the counterrevolutionary Union of United Mountain People and edited the newspaper Gorskaia zhizn’ (Mountain Life). Early in 1918 he ceased his political activity.