Biography of Suyunbay Eraliev

People’s poet Suyunbay Eraliev was born on October 15, 1921 in the village «Uch-Emchek» of Talas region. In the very first days of the war, S. Eraliev went to the front and stayed there until the end of 1944. Participated in the defense of Moscow Panfilov division. Veteran of the Great Patriotic War, holder of the Order of the Patriotic War.

After the war, he worked in the regional newspaper, then after the formation of the Talas region, in the regional newspaper «Leninskoe Znamya» as an executive secretary. He wrote essays, notes, sketches. The poet’s poetic activity began at the front. Then he wrote letters in poetry home to his parents. These letters were so unusual that friends published them in the local newspaper. So, the poet’s creative path gradually began.

In 1949. his first poetry collection was published under the title “Birinchi zhagyryk” (“First echoes”), then the book “Tuugan zher” was published in 1950. In 1951 he left for Moscow to study at the Higher Party School at the Faculty of Journalism. It was then that the decision was made in favor of poetry. In 1954 he graduated from the Higher Party School under the Central Committee of the CPSU, then the Higher Literary Courses under the USSR Writers’ Union in Moscow.

He became famous for the poem «Ak-Mur» («Poem of Love»), which was translated into Russian by V. Semenov and thanks to which the poet was nicknamed «Kyrgyz» Eugene Onegin in Moscow.

In 1964 S. Eraliev published a new poem «To the Stars». The poem has become a truly innovative phenomenon in Kyrgyz poetry. Thanks to S. Eraliev, free verse has firmly entered the arsenal of national poetic forms.

Over the years, his poetry collections were published: «Uyan zhyldyzdar» («Shy stars», 1962), «murlөrgө sayakat» («Journey to life», 1967), «Ak zhyttar» («White smells», 1969) , «San Toolor» («Endless Mountains», 1971), «Earth Time» (1973), «Aiyl Yrlary» (1976) and other works.

Much credit to S. Eraliev belongs to the translation activity. The poet’s works have been published in Russian, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Kazakh, Tajik, Moldavian, Karakalpak languages. Peru S. Eraliev owns excellent translations into the Kyrgyz language of the works of A. Pushkin, M. Lermontov, A.U. Whitman, R. Tagore, S. Yesenin, A. Tvardovsky, M. Tursun-zade, R. Rozhdestvensky, S. Baruzdin, E. Mezhelaitis, F. Schiller.

S. Eraliev was awarded the Order of Friendship, the Order of the Great Patriotic War of the first degree, the Order of Manas of the III and I degrees, certificates of honor and numerous medals. In 2006, Suyunbai Eraliev was awarded the honorary title of Hero of the Kyrgyz Republic.

Suyunbai Eraliev is a poet of great inner culture, intellectual depth. In his poetry, the world is reflected in all its multicolor, picturesque, figurative visibility, dialecticism.