Rasul Gamzatovich Gamzatov (8 September 1923 – 3 November 2003) was probably the most famous poet writing in the Avar language. Among his poems was Zhuravli, which became a well-known Soviet song.
He was born on September 8, 1923, in the Avar village of Tsada in the north-east Caucasus. His father, Gamzat Tsadasa, was a well-known bard, heir to the ancient tradition of minstrelsy still thriving in the mountains. He was eleven when he wrote his first verse about a group of local boys who ran down to the clearing where an airplane had landed for the first time. His father was the teacher who taught him the art of writing poetry.
Gamzatov was awarded the prestigious State Stalin Prize in 1952, The Lenin Prize in 1963, and Laureate Of The International Botev Prize in 1981.
