Mukagali Makatayev was born on February 9, 1931 in the village Karasaz Narynkolskogo (nowadays Raimbek) the region of Almaty area. Karasaz's reserved beauty became a source of poetic gift of Mukagali.
Karasaz - Makatayev's small homeland that helped him in the most difficult minutes of his life. It gave him wings and foreordained a destiny of a poet.
The poet’s full name - Mukhametkali, but since the childhood he was tenderly called Mukagali, considering that a load of responsibility (it is hard to bear a name of Prophet) can complicate the child’s life. He was the first of three children of his young parents Suleymen and Nagiman. His father was a modest and hard-working person, one year before the war became the chairman of collective farm. Makatayev's childhood was rosy. Makatayev loved the world of his childhood and was sincerely sick for it. And many images of his poetry were inspired by memories of the childhood.
War changed everything in Mukagali's life. He was 10 when his father went off to war, and all difficulties came upon the teenager. As all boys of war generation, Makatayev early grew to maturity, having realized that in the house where there were only women and children, he had to become a man, to protect his family and bear responsibility.
Makatayev's father died in the war. And since that time Mukagali never forgot that he had no right simply to go out and disappear. Perhaps, right in that moment he understood immortality embodied later in his poems.
When Makatayev was 14 he was very keen on poetry. He got inspiration from world around and from books. Mukagali liked very much to read works of
Abay,
Auezov,
Seyfullin,
Musrepov. Perfectly knew Russian, excitedly read Russian literature, especially
Pushkin,
Yesenin's poetry, Block. From foreign literature he was interested in
Goethe,
Dumas,
Hugo,
Byron,
Dreiser,
Stendhal, but preferred more
Balzac,
London nd
Shakespeare. Makatayev in one of his letters admits: «Yes, I love literature. There is nothing above it for me».
In 1948 Makatayev graduated from boarding school in Narynkol. He entered institutes successfully several times: on philological faculty of KAZGU, then in institute of foreign languages and again in KAZGU, but this time on law faculty.
Makatayev married in 1949. Then six children come into the world. Mukagali Makatayev worked in aul as a teacher of Russian at school, a correspondent of the regional newspaper. After family moving in 1962 to Almaty his professional activity was closely connected with literature: worked as an announcer on the Kazakh radio, a journalist in the Sotsialistik Kazakstan newspaper, an employee of the Zhuldyz magazine, the head of council on affairs of youth in the Union of writers.
Despite change of external circumstances, Makatayev was constant in the main thing - selfless love to poetry. He wrote verses all the time and was often published on pages of magazines and newspapers. Since 1962 till 1976 eight poetic collections of the poet went out.
During twenty five years of work in literature Makatayev wrote more than 1 000 poems. He became the author of such poems, as
Ilyich («Ильич»),
Raimbek! Raimbek! («Раимбек! Раимбек!»),
A mountain eagle («Горный орел»),
Escapee («Беглец»),
Moor («Мавр»), and also stories, play
Farewell, love («Прощай, любовь»), articles on modern Kazakh poetry. Translated the first part of «
The divine comedy» by
Dante. Was engaged in translation of works by W.Shakespeare, U.Uitmen, East poets, Russian poets.
