Sergei Chavain
Encyclopedia
Sergei Chavain, also spelled Čavajn (Mari
Mari language
The Mari language , spoken by more than 600,000 people, belongs to the Uralic language family. It is spoken primarily in the Mari Republic of the Russian Federation as well as in the area along the Vyatka river basin and eastwards to the Urals...
: Сергей Чавайн, pronounced tʃɑˈβɑɪn; 6 October 1888 - November 1937) was a Mari poet and playwright, born Sergei Grigorievich Grigoriev .
In 1905 he wrote the first literary poem in the Mari language
Mari language
The Mari language , spoken by more than 600,000 people, belongs to the Uralic language family. It is spoken primarily in the Mari Republic of the Russian Federation as well as in the area along the Vyatka river basin and eastwards to the Urals...
, Oto (Ото - The Grove
Grove (nature)
A grove is a small group of trees with minimal or no undergrowth, such as a sequoia grove, or a small orchard planted for the cultivation of fruits or nuts...
). In 1908 he graduated from Kazan
Kazan
Kazan is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia. With a population of 1,143,546 , it is the eighth most populous city in Russia. Kazan lies at the confluence of the Volga and Kazanka Rivers in European Russia. In April 2009, the Russian Patent Office granted Kazan the...
Teachers' Seminary. His first play was The Wild Duck in 1912, a satire of Tsarist
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
bureaucrats. After the October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
, Chavain wrote several plays for the first Mari mobile theatre, such as The Autonomy (1920) and The Sun Rises, the Storm-clouds Disappear (1921), inspired by the Revolution and Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
.
Later he wrote plays for a Mari theatre studio, including Jamblat's Bridge (1927), the comedy The Hundred Roubles Bride-money (1927), the musical drama The Bee-Garden (1928), Kugujar (1929) (a play devoted to the 1905 Revolution), The Live Water (about the formation of kolkhoz
Kolkhoz
A kolkhoz , plural kolkhozy, was a form of collective farming in the Soviet Union that existed along with state farms . The word is a contraction of коллекти́вное хозя́йство, or "collective farm", while sovkhoz is a contraction of советское хозяйство...
es), The Timber Mill (1930) (about collectivization), Marii Company (1934) (on the battle for Kazan
Kazan
Kazan is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia. With a population of 1,143,546 , it is the eighth most populous city in Russia. Kazan lies at the confluence of the Volga and Kazanka Rivers in European Russia. In April 2009, the Russian Patent Office granted Kazan the...
in 1918)), and Akpatyr (1935) (about Mari participation in Pugachev's Rebellion
Pugachev's Rebellion
Pugachev's Rebellion of 1774-75 was the principal revolt in a series of popular rebellions that took place in Russia after Catherine II seized power in 1762...
). The Light of the Coin (1936) was a comedy based on Mari popular beliefs. He also translated into Mari several Russian classical plays.
As a writer he is known for his novels One Can Hear the Noise of the Forest, about the 1905 Revolution, and Elnet, about the life of a pre-revolutionary Mari village.
A victim of the Great Purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
during the "struggle with bourgeois nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
", he was posthumously rehabilitated. The State prize
State Prizes of the Soviet Republics
The State Prizes of the Soviet Republics were each republic counterpart to the USSR State Prize. Each republic granted several different prizes, generally named after writers or artists from the republic, as well as a blanket Komsomol prize for young artists....
of Mari El
Mari El
The Mari El Republic is a federal subject of Russia . Its capital is the city of Yoshkar-Ola. Population: -Geography:The republic is located in the eastern part of the East European Plain of Russia, along the Volga River. The swampy Mari Depression is located in the west of the republic...
is named after Chavain.
Source
Short bio Chavain's first poemExternal links
- Some poems
- Russian translations
- Political repression in Mari AO, in Russian Elnet\ Ville Ropponen, review (English translation) of Finnish translation of Elnet