Sabit Mukanov

Sabit Mukanov (Сәбит Мұқанұлы Мұқанов, Sábıt Muqanuly Muqanov, Сабит Муканович Муканов, transliterated Sabit Mukanovich Mukanov; 26 April 1900 – 18 April 1973) was a Kazakh and Soviet poet, writer, and academic. He was the head of the Writers' Union of Kazakhstan in 1936-37 and again from 1943 to 1952.

Sabit Mukanov was born to a Muslim family in Tauzar Volost of Akmolinsk Oblast (now North Kazakhstan Region). His family worked mostly as cattle ranchers and took part in the civil war from 1918-1920. He studied in the Institute of Red Professorship from 1930 to 1935. Mukanov's earliest novels were Son of Bai (1928), Pure Love (1931), and Temirtas (Iron Stone) (1935).

Mukanov was the author of several novels, such as Botagoz, Syrdaria, and the autobiographical trilogy School of life. Mukanov studied the history and theory of literature, especially Kazakh literature of the 19th and 20th centuries, such as the works of Kazakh prose writers and poets Saken Seifullin, Mukhtar Auezov, Tair Zharokov, and Abdilda Tazhibayev. He also researched the scientific and literary heritage of Shokan Ualikhanov and Abai Qunanbaiuly and was the first to expound the life and works of the great Kazakh poet Zhambyl Zhabayuly. In 1974 his ethnographic work "National Heritage" was published posthumously, which included research about ancient folk traditions, shezhire, the economy and life of pre-revolutionary Kazakhs, and their material and spiritual life.

He died in 1973 in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The Museum Complex of S. Mukanov and G. Musrepov is in Almaty.

Awards

 * Premium of Academy of Science of Kazakh SSR named after Shokan Ualikhanov (1966)
 * State premium of Kazakh SSR named after Abai Qunanbaiuly
 * Two Orders of Lenin
 * Two Orders of the Red Banner of Labour
 * Order of the Badge of Honour