In his mission to translate literary works from foreign languages into English and Nepali, poet Santosh Kumar Pokharel introduces the renowned Dagestani poet Rasul Musaevich Bagomedov from the Republic of Dagestan, Russian Federation. Following Bagomedov’s poem, Pokharel provides a biography of the late poet in his English translation.
We serve you the English version of poet Bagomedov’s poem ‘My Village’.
Rasul Musaevich Bagomedov
How fresh the meadow grasses grow!
The gray Sutta stands high.
My dear Meusisha down below
Is sheltered from the sky.
My soul with joy begins to sing,
To soothe the heat’s fierce ire,
The seven springs of Meusisha bring
Their cool, refreshing fire.
Here bread and meat fill every plate
For every guest who’s near –
There’s no place better, small or great,
Than Meusisha, my dear!
Though I have traveled, slow and far,
To lands I’ve known and met,
But Meusisha, like a star,
Is one I won’t forget.
Though city life is good and bright,
One taste, my heart will know –
The churak’s flavor, fresh and light,
Of Meusisha long ago.
It smells of charcoal, thyme, and bread,
Of hearth’s familiar grace…
It’s sweet, like dreams in childhood’s bed,
A true, unique embrace.
There’s no place quite like this, no way
You’d ever fail to see –
The villagers, both quick and gay,
Will help you, sure and free.
No titles or grand ranks they need,
No medals bright or new they seek –
And that is why, in heart and deed,
My people are truly meek!
The poem has been translated from Russian into English by Poet Santosh Kumar Pokharel.
November 12, 2024. Bhaktapur Nepal.
(From original Dargin into Russian by Marina Akhmedova-Kolyubakina)
About Rasul Musaevich Bagomedov
Rasul Musaevich Bagomedov (1932–2024) was an educator, folklorist, prose writer, publicist, playwright, and translator. He was born in the village of Meusisha, Dakhadayevsky District, Dagestan ASSR. He graduated from Sergokalin Pedagogical College and the Faculty of History and Philology at Dagestan State University.
Rasul Musaevich dedicated 60 years to teaching and nurturing the younger generation. Until his retirement, he taught the Dargwa language and literature at the school in his native village.
His manual, Grammatical Analysis in Dargwa Language Lessons (2010; 2012; 2015), gained wide recognition among educators.
In the village of Meusisha, he founded the “Young Writer” school (2000). A collection of works by students from this school, Morning Dawn, was published in 2009.
He published four collections of Dargwa folklore: Eternal Flame (1977), Dargwa Folk Tales (2006), Rainbow of Dargwa Folk Art (2008), and Heartbeat: Dargwa Folk Songs (2009).
Various Dagestan publishers released his books of stories, plays, and poetry in Dargwa (Measure of Humanity (1981), Javgar (1982), Contemporaries (1991), Interrupted Path (1995), Fate (2001), Selected Works (2002), Son (2005), Counting the Beads of My Years (2007), Breath of Time (2015), On the Path of Life (2017), Stories (2017), My Village – Meusisha (2019), The Day of My Birth (2019), Witnesses of History (2020), Collapse (2020), Though the Sun Has Set… (2021)) and in Russian (Measure of Humanity (2017), Selected Works (2023)).
His works are included in several anthologies, such as the Anthology of Dargwa Prose (1995), Anthology of Dargwa Children’s Literature (2017), Anthology of Dargwa Poetry (2017), Anthology of Dagestan Post-Soviet Poetry (2018), and the Anthology of Literature of the Peoples of the North Caucasus: Poetry (2021), Prose (2022), and Drama (2024) in Pyatigorsk. In Moscow, his works appear in the Anthology of Contemporary Literature of the Peoples of Russia: Children’s Literature (2017), Prose (2018), Drama (2020), and Artistic Publicism (2021). His works are studied in both school and university courses on Dargwa literature.
The Dargwa State Musical and Drama Theater named after O. Batyray staged plays based on Bagomedov’s works, including Antika (2002) and Bitter Fate (2013). He also wrote plays such as Javgar, Love and Conscience, and The Mirzakhanovs (co-authored with Musa Bagomedov).
Several of his poems have been set to music.
His works have been translated into Russian, Avar, Kumyk, Lak, Lezgin, Nogai, Tabasaran, Tsakhur, Bashkir, and Ossetian.
In his final years, he was highly active in translation. Two collections of poems by Russian and Dagestani authors that he translated into Dargwa, Visiting Darga (2022) and Constellation (2023), were published.
R.M. Bagomedov was awarded the titles of Honored Teacher of the Russian Federation (2009), Honored Worker of General Education of the Russian Federation (2003), and People’s Writer of the Republic of Dagestan (2018). He became a member of the Writers’ Union of Russia in 1998 and was a board member of the Writers’ Union of Dagestan (2018). He also held the titles of Honored Worker of Culture of the Republic of Dagestan (1995), Teacher-Methodologist (1987), and Veteran of Labor (1996) and War (2004). He was awarded a Certificate of Honor from the Government of the Republic of Dagestan (2015).
RasulBagomedov was decorated with the medals “Veteran of Labor” (1987), “60 (65; 70; 75) Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War” (2005, 2010, 2015, 2020), “For Love and Loyalty” (2009), “A.P. Chekhov 1860-1904” (2013), the Pushkin Medal “For Loyalty to Word and Deed” (2017), the Badge of Friendship of the Peoples “White Cranes of Russia” (2018), and the Order “For Merit to the Republic of Dagestan” (2022).
Poet Santosh Kumar Pokharel
