Fasil Abdulowitsch Iskander

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Fasil Abdulowitsch Iskander ( Russian Фазиль Абдулович Искандер ; born March 6, 1929 in Sukhum , Abkhazian SSR ; † July 31, 2016 in Moscow , Russia ) was a Russian - Abkhazian writer and poet. Iskander, who had lived in Moscow since 1962, wrote exclusively in Russian, but preferred to address topics related to his Abkhaz homeland in his works .

Family, education and start of professional activity

His father, who ran a brick factory, was an ethnic Persian, and his mother was Abkhazin. The father was deported from the USSR together with other people of Iranian origin in 1938. Fasil Iskander grew up with his mother's relatives in Abkhazia.

From 1947 he first studied in Moscow at the Institute for Librarianship, but then moved to the Gorky Institute for Literature in 1951 , where he graduated in 1954.

Between 1954 and 1956 he worked first for the newspaper "Brjanski komsomolez" in Bryansk , then at "Kurskaya pravda" in Kursk and from 1956 in Sukhumi as an editor of the Abkhaz branch of the Soviet state publishing house. He worked there until the early 1990s.

Activity as a writer

In 1952 his first poems were printed. The first volume of poetry appeared in Sukhumi in 1957, the next followed in 1959. He began writing prose in 1962. His works were published in various literary magazines.

He became widely known with the satirical novella “Das Sternbild des Ziegentur”, published in 1966 in the literary magazine “ Nowy Mir ” and later also translated into German, in which an Abkhazian village is given the state task of crossing a goat and a door to get one purported to breed particularly useful and fertile breed. This state requirement is thwarted by the villagers in a variety of ways.

Iskander achieved international renown through his satirical stories and novels. His largest and most important work - the epic "Sandro von Tschegem", greatly shortened by the censors, the first part of which was published in 1973, could not be published in full until 1989, after the beginning of perestroika . This satirical, tragicomic work, in which Iskander reflects on the history of the Abkhaz people from the end of the 19th century to the 1970s, has been translated into German several times.

His humorous children's stories, which focus on the Abkhazian boy Tschik, are also known.

In 1979 he was part of the editorial board of the literary almanac Metropol, alongside Vasily Aksjonow , Andrei Bitow , Viktor Erofejew and Evgeni Popow . He contributed the later filmed satire "The Little Giant of Big Sex" ("Маленький гигант большого секса") to the almanac.

Numerous books and stories by Fasil Iskander have been filmed.

Social and political engagement

Fasil Iskander (right) with President Medvedev , 2010

In 1957 Iskander became a member of the Soviet Writers' Union, in which he subsequently held various functions.

In 1989 Iskander became vice president of the Russian PEN center.

From 1989 to 1992 belonged to Iskander as People's Deputy of Parliament (MP) for the Abkhaz ASSR the People's Deputies Congress of.

Fasil Iskander worked in numerous commissions and associations and was a member of the editorial boards of a large number of literary magazines and almanacs and was involved in various social and state bodies, including the committees for human rights (until 1996) and for pardons for the President of the Russian Federation (until 2001). He was also a member of the Council for Culture and Art of the President of the Russian Federation from 1996 to 2001.

Awards

In 1999 he was awarded the 3rd Class Order of Merit, having received the State Prize of the Russian Federation in 1993 and the State Prize of the USSR in 1989 . He has also received numerous Russian and international cultural prizes, including the 1992 Pushkin Prize from the Alfred Toepfer Foundation .

Works (in German, selection)

  • The Ziegentur constellation . Novella (= spectrum , volume 4). Volk und Welt, Berlin 1968 (translated by Hans-Joachim Grimm), DNB 457078499 ; NA: Piper, Munich / Zurich 1973, ISBN 3-492-00366-4 ; Fasil Iskander: The Ziegentur constellation. Lump poor . Two stories (from the Russian by Hans-Joachim Grimm). Verlag der Nation, Berlin 1984 DNB 840706936 .
  • Uncle Sandro from Tschegem . Novel. Fischer Taschenbuch 2123, Frankfurt am Main 1978, ISBN 3-596-22123-4 .
  • Remsik in: Lutz Engel (Ed.) Exquisite , Part 3: Caucasian Novellas. People and World, Berlin 1978, DNB 201675730 .
  • My uncle good and honest. Narratives . People and World, Berlin 1978.
  • The sea scorpion . Novel. People and World, Berlin 1984.
  • The keeper of the mountains or the people know their heroes. News from the life of Sandro von Tschegem . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1988, ISBN 3-10-034703-X .
  • Sandro from Tschegem. The early episodes. Novel . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1989, ISBN 3-10-034704-8 .
  • Tschegemer Carmen. Novel. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1993 (translated by Marlene Milack-Verheyden and Ingeborg Kolinko), ISBN 3-10-034705-6 .
  • Tschik. Stories from the Caucasus . Fischer paperback 9190, Frankfurt am Main. 1993 (translated by Alexander Kaempfe), ISBN 3-596-29190-9 .
  • Belshazzar festivals . From the life of Sandro von Tschegem. Novel . Fischer Taschenbuch 9504, Frankfurt am Main 1994 (translated by Rosemarie Reichert), ISBN 3-596-29504-1 .

literature

Web links

Commons : Fasil Iskander  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Умер писатель Фазиль Искандер . Lenta.ru , July 31, 2016 (Russian).
personal data
SURNAME Iskander, Fasil Abdulowitsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Искандер, Фазиль Абдулович (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Abkhazian writer
DATE OF BIRTH March 6, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Sukhumi , Abkhazian Soviet Socialist Republic
DATE OF DEATH July 31, 2016
Place of death Moscow , Russia