Ilman Yusupov

Ilman Yusupov Poems

Ilman Yusupov Biography

Ilman Yusupov, well-known Chechen poet was born in Kazakhstan in a family of the deported Chechen people. In 1970 he was graduated from the Mahketinsky High School in Chechnya. Between 1972 to 1977, he studied in the Faculty of History at the Leningrad State University in Russian city Leningrad (nowadays Saint-Petersburg University) and graduated it in 1977. Afterwards he worked as a teacher of history and social sciences in Chechnya between 1978 and 1993. In the same term, he worked also as the Principal of High School. He served as a deputy editor of «Marshonan Az» (Voice of Freedom) newspaper from May 1993 to August 1993. And in August 1993, he became the editor of a literary and art magazine «Orga» (Argun) . During the first Russian-Chechen war, he was a member of editorial board of government newspaper «Ichkeria» that was released in secret ways in Vedeno until 1995. In September 1996 he was appointed as the First Deputy Minister of Education and Science in the government of the President of the Chechen Republic Ichkeria of Aslan Maskhadov. He began to writing very early when he was 13 years old; and his first poem was appeard in public in 1969 by a popular literature newspaper «Leninan Nek» (Lenin’s Way) . Since 1980s he has been publishing regularly in various literary magazines. In 1991 his first volume of poems appeared «Zamanan Mazlaga» (Apiary of Time) . In 1997, his second poetic collection «Dönallin Mäzhdig» (Mosque of Resistance) followed his first publication. In 1999 his third volume of poems appeared: «Iesan Ghu» (Well of Memory) . The poems here are dedicated to the victims of the deportation under Stalin. Since 2005, Ilman Yusupov has been living in Sweden, and in 2006 he participated in poetic festival in Härnösand town. He has translations of his verses into the Swedish language. The name of his book in the Swedish language is «The Chechen Hearth». His poems translated into English, Spanish and Russian too. He is co-author of some anthologies: • «Daymehkan Mukamash (Tunes of Homeland) (1985) • «Sheriyn gunan kogashkara» (At the foot of Years) (1988) • «Nana-Nohkchiycho» (Mother Chechnya) (1996) • «Degan ortca» (The anxiety of Heart) (1998) His published books in Chechen language: • «Zamanan Mazlaga» (Apiary of Time) (1991) • «Donallin Mazhdig» (Mosque of Resistance) (1997) • «Iesan Gu» (Well of Memory) (1999) His published book in Swedish language: • «The Chechen Hearth». (2011))

The Best Poem Of Ilman Yusupov

Lonely Evening...

***
Lonely evening, old mom, tearful eyes, graveyard, tombstone -
There they are the gloomiest words of Chechen mother tongue.
Twilight darkness falls dragging worry and anguish along
From which lonely evening will creep out for someone alone.
Filling with memory moments the handful of salutary prayer
An old mother pays due in excess to the time somewhere there.
It seems that the tearful eyes are, if you do some hard thinking,
Writing characters gripped by bitter sobbing and weeping.
There are village graves with their lances of churts* in hand
That gripe in their bellies those who have trodden the sunny land.
Every lonely evening an old mother is crying in cemetery, and
Her tears spill over on the back of a grave, hunched and bent…

*Churts - tombstones

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