Today, February 9, marks the 95th anniversary of the birth of Mukagali Makatayev, an outstanding representative of Kazakh poetry and a poet of soaring spirit, reports Adyrna.
Mukagali Makatayev was born in 1931 in the village of Karasaz, Narynkol district, Almaty region. His father was killed in the war, and he was raised by his mother and grandmother.
In 1962, Mukagali moved to Almaty and became closely involved in the literary community. He studied at the Almaty Institute of Foreign Languages, the Faculty of Philology at Kazakh State University, and the Maxim Gorky Institute of World Literature in Moscow.
He worked at the newspaper Sotsialistyk Kazakhstan (now Egemen Kazakhstan) from 1962 to 1963, the magazine Madeniet zhane Turmys (now Parasat) from 1963 to 1965, the literary journal Zhuldyz from 1965 to 1972, and at the Union of Writers of Kazakhstan from 1972 to 1973.
During the relatively short years he spent in Almaty among the elite of Kazakh literature and art, Mukagali managed to reveal his unique poetic voice, distinctive artistic talent, and remarkable productivity.
The source of Mukagali’s poetry and his creative inspiration were his native land, homeland, the fate of the nation, the spirit of the time, and the dreams and hopes of his contemporaries. He portrayed all of this with sincere emotion, lyrical honesty, and vivid imagery unique to true poetry, creating immortal works that speak to every heart.
His first poems, Kyrman basynda and Koyshy bala – Akitay, were published in the district newspaper Sovettik shekara in 1949. The poems Inimnin oiy and Sheber were included in the collection Zhastyk zhyry in 1951. One of the first to recognize Mukagali’s talent, Abdiilda Tazhibayev, wrote: “When a young poet more spirited and fiery than yourself appears, how can one not be proud?”
Many of his poems were set to music. Mukagali also distinguished himself as a translator, rendering Dante’s Divine Comedy (Inferno, 1971), Shakespeare’s Sonnets (1970), and the poems of Walt Whitman (1969) into Kazakh.
In addition, he translated works by Walt Whitman, William Shakespeare, Nikolai Tikhonov, Robert Burns, Farid ad-Din Attar Ansari, Avetik Isahakyan, Yeghishe Charents, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, and Fyodor Morgun. Translations of his own poems into Russian by Yu. A. Alexandrov and M. M. Kurgantsev were published under the title Zov dushi.
