May 27, 1890
He was born in a village near Ufa. Konstantin Ivanov — poet and translator. Author of the "Chuvash Marseillaise" and the poem "Narspi" — a Chuvash variation of "Romeo and Juliet."
There is no stronger man
There is no one in the universe:
He is on land and on water
Became the master of everything
He came from a wealthy Chuvash family that valued literacy and education. At age 13, he entered the Simbirsk Chuvash School, which educated intellectuals of various nationalities from across the Volga region. His mentor was the school's founder, a Chuvash educator and Orthodox missionary. Ivan Yakovlev.
He was interested in carving and made his own typewriter out of wood.
During the 1905 revolution, the entire class (37 students) was dismissed for participating in protests against tsarism – the children accused teachers of chauvinism, sang revolutionary songs, and hung a red flag on the school building.
Then, at 16, he wrote the “Chuvash Marseillaise”.
The peasants were released into freedom
In February, in the year sixty-one,
But the land did not go to the people -
Here it is, the mercy of the lords and gentlemen!
Rise up, rise up, Chuvash people!
Stand in the ranks of the fighters, hungry people,
Let the people's anger boil in their chests,
Forward, forward, forward, forward!
(1906, translated from Chuvash)
After being expelled from school, he returned home, but Yakovlev soon invited him back to help translate Russian classics into Chuvash. The list included poems. Lermontov, works Ogareva и Nekrasov.
Ivanov became one of the authors of the “ABC book for the Chuvash using the Russian alphabet”, as well as several ballads and poems.
At 18, he published a book of Chuvash fairy tales and legends. Among them was his longest poem, "Narspi," about the tragic love of a poor man, Setner, for a girl named Narspi from a wealthy family, who was given in marriage to the decrepit old man, Tokhtaman.
In it, the author discussed social injustice, lawlessness, and slave morality. Some verses from the poem became folk songs.
It's almost evening. Night will come.
I will catch the enemy at night.
And even before the light of the heart
He won't have a beat.
The sun will rise. The morning will break,
People will shake off their sleep and rise,
Tokhtaman just won't wake up,
Tokhtaman cannot stand alone!
(Setner's song)
In three thousand lines of poetry there is a whole encyclopedia of Chuvash life
(Chuvash poet Pyotr Khuzangai)
He did not call himself a writer, but only a “collector” of folk art.
He tried not to attract the attention of the censors of the Holy Synod: at that time, representatives of small nationalities were called “foreigners.”
A cow ate a Chuvash book
(Chuvash proverb)
The tongue and the saber cuts
(Chuvash proverb)
He defended the right of truncated verb forms to exist in Chuvash poetry, but editors replaced them, resulting in a violation of the poetic meter.
In 1909, having received the title of people's teacher, he taught drawing at the two-year girls' school attached to the Simbirsk school. He became renowned as an artist and master of portraiture.
He died in 1915, at 24, in his homeland, from tuberculosis.
When alone and without joy,
I am sick, I have no peace.
Where are you, young years,
We rushed past, where is your trace?
Like a dream you disappeared into the void,
You, years of golden dreams.
Suffering, and longing, and grief
They hang like clouds above me
