Подвиг и духовное наследие Мусы Джалиля

Good morning friends, good morning everybody! Let me introduce myself. My name is Vybornova Yana. I’m from school number one. I study in the 7 th form.

I like to read Mussa Jalil’s poems and my presentation is devoted to Mussa Jalil.

Mussa Jalil is a Soviet Tatar poet and resistance fighter.

Musa Cälil was born in Mustafino, a village in the Orenburg guberniya in the family of Junkman. He graduated  madrassah in Orenburg. In 1922, Musa, along with other Tatar poets, moved to Kazan. In Kazan, Cälil worked as copyist for the Qızıl Tatarstan newspaper. In 1924, he became a member of the October literary society. His first collection of verses, Barabız (We are going) was published in 1925.

In 1927, Musa moved to Moscow. In 1931, Cälil graduated from the literature faculty of Moscow University. Until 1932, he was a chief editor of the Tatar children's magazine Keckenə iptəşlər.  In 1935, the first Russian translations of his poems were published. During the 1930s, Cälil also translated to the Tatar language writings of poets, such as, Taras Shevchenko, Pushkin, Nekrasov, Mayakovsky and Lebedev-Kumach. 

In June 1941, Cälil volunteered for the Red Army. Graduating political commissar courses, he arrived at the Volkhov Front and became a war correspondent in the Otvaga newspaper.

In June 1942, Cälil's unit was encircled; when his unit tried to run a blockade he became seriously wounded, shell-shocked, and captured. After months in concentration camps for Soviet prisoners of war, Cälil was transferred to Dęblin, where he formed a resistance group.

Capture and death

On August 10, 1943, he was arrested with his comrades and sent to Moabit Prison in Berlin. There followed nightmare days and nights of interrogation and torture.

His body was covered with welts from the beatings he got with an electric cord and rubber hose. But the poet did not give up. He continued his fight against fascism. He had only his poetry for a weapon.

 He and his group of 12 were sentenced to death on February 12, 1944 and guillotined on August 25. His body was never recovered afterwards.

Prison notebooks

In this prison, Jalil compiled verses composed in the prison into self-made notebooks. Cälil's first notebook was preserved by the Tatars Ğabbas Şäripov and then Niğmät Teregulov.  Şäripov was also imprisoned in Moabit and received Cälil's writings when the prison guards hid from bombing. The second notebook was preserved by the Belgian cellmate André Timmermans. They were published as two books under the title Moabit Däftäre (The Moabit Notebook). Cälil's widow Äminä Zalyalova gave the originals to the National Museum of Tatarstan for safekeeping.

Rehabilitation and recognition

Musa Cälil was awarded the star of the Hero of the Soviet Union in 1956 and Literature Lenin Prize in 1957 for The Moabit Notebooks.

 Jalil is among us to this day. Streets, theatres, ships proudly bear his name. A pedagogical college and street in our town are named in his honor. 

There are monuments to Musa Jalil in our town and in Kazan near the Kremlin.

Soviet Tatar composer Nazib Zhiganov wrote an "opera-poem" Dzhalil based on the life of Cälil.

I’d like to finish with one of the poems of this great poet, which hasn’t left me indifferent.

Свое выступление я хотела бы закончить одним из стихотворений великого поэта, которое не оставило меня равнодушной.

Thank you for your attention!