My Daghestan -RASUL GAMZATOV

TRANSLATOR'S FOREWORD

This book is the first piece of prose-writing by the well-known Soviet poet Rasul Gamzatov, who writes in Avar (a language spoken by 170,000 people) but has nevertheless won a nation-wide reputation. Indeed, he is a Lenin Prize winner and has been awarded the title of People's Poet of Daghestan. His verses have been translated into many languages and have found their way to the hearts of thousands of readers. He was born in 1923 in the tiny mountain village (aul) of Tsada in Daghestan. Daghestan, which means "land of mountains", is an autonomous republic (formed in 1920) situated largely on the N.E. slopes of the Main Caucasian Range, adjacent to the Caspian Sea. Its area is 14,700 sq miles and the population about 1,000,000, mostly Avars, Darghins, Lezghins and Kumyks, besides some smaller nationalities, all speaking their own languages. The capital is Makhach-Kala, on the shores of the Caspian. Rasul's father, Gamzat Tsadasa, was a well-known Avar poet. With this kind of background, it was, perhaps, natural for the son to follow in the father's footsteps. He has, in fact, extended the boundaries of his father's reputation. The longest journey Gamzat Tsadasa ever made was to Moscow; Rasul Gamzatov's travels have taken him to practically all parts of the world. Trained as a school-teacher, he worked for some time in the theatre and then on a local newspaper. He brought out his first volume of verse in 1937. His enrolment at the Moscow Institute of Literature was the turning point of his career. There he studied under the country's leading poets, and his poems were translated for the first time into Russian, their quality making them part of present-day Russian poetry. About forty collections of poems by Rasul Gamzatov have been published in Makhach-Kala and Moscow. I have already said that this book is his first essay into prose-writing. Its genre is unusual and somehow defies pigeonholing. The author himself calls it an introduction to a future book, but that is merely in a manner of speaking: it is, in fact, a complete book about himself, the poet's craft, love of country, and many other things the reader is sure to find of interest. It is a kind of autobiography and, in some measure, a confession. It is rich in Avar proverbs, sayings and folk wisdom, anecdotes both merry and sad, and thoughts about the meaning of life. Besides, it is, to use a well-worn phrase, full of the milk of human kindness. An excellent Russian translation by the writer and poet Vladimir Soloukhin came out in Moscow in 1967. I hope the reader will enjoy the reading as much as I have the translating. Julius Katzer

Wayfarer, if you dare walk past,

Be smote by hail and by thunder's blast!

Wayfarer, if you dislike my fare,

Thunder and hail smite me then and there!

(Inscription on a door)

If you fire at the past from a pistol, the future will shoot back from a cannon. Said by Abutalib

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