Rasul Gamzatov (1923-2003) was an outstanding poet, prose writer, essay writer, public and political figure, and translator; a Hero of Socialist Labor (1974) and a national poet of Dagestan ASSR (1959).
In 1939, he graduated from the Avar Pedagogical School and worked as a schoolteacher until 1941, then as an assistant director in a theater, a journalist in newspapers and at radio stations. In 1945-1950, he studied at the A.M. Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow. From 1951 until the end of his life, he headed the writer's organization of Dagestan.
Writings by Gamzatov have been translated into dozens of languages of Russia and elsewhere. Many of Gamzatov's poems have become songs, such as Zhuravli (The Cranes), and Ischezli Solnechnie Dni (Gone are the Sunny Days). Many composers used to work in close coordination with Gamzatov, including Dmitry Kabalevsky, Yan Frenkel, Raymond Pauls, Yury Antonov, Alexandra Pakhmutova; among the performers of songs to his poems there were Anna German, Galina Vishnevskaya, Muslim Magomaev, Joseph Kobzon, Valery Leontiev, Mark Bernes, Dmitry Hvorostovsky, Lev Leshchenko and others.
The postage stamp provides a portrait of Rasul Gamzatov against mountains and flying cranes.
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