Poetic public meeting marking Musa Jalil’s 110th anniversary held in Kazan

A traditional poetic public meeting marking Tatar hero poet, a USSR Hero, Musa Jalil, took place earlier in the day on Kazan’s 1 May Square.

Attendees included Tatarstan deputy prime minister Vasil Shaikhraziev, hero poet’s daughter Chulpan Zalilova, Tatarstan culture minister Airat Sibagatullin, government officials, culture workers, school students and local residents.

Vasil Shaikhraziev on behalf of Tatarstan President and State Council greeted those gathered on what would have been the Tatar poet’s 110th birthday.

“The name of Musa Jalil is sacred for each one of us, it is a symbol of civic bravery and personal heroism, infinite devotion and love for one’s homeland,” he said. Although there were quite a few talented writers and poets in the world literature, not many had given their lives in the name of their homeland, he stressed, adding that Musa Jalil and his comrades had given new meaning to the idea of bravery.

Tatar writer, poet and Musa Jalil Prize winner Razil Valeev said people commemorated Musa Jalil not only in Kazan but throughout Russia, as well as abroad. “Wherever we go, to the question what the Tatar people are like we answer they are like Tukai and Musa Jalil. Indeed, if someone wants to know the Tatar people’s soul, they need to read Tukai and Jalil,” Razil Valeev is convinced.

In 1985 in Afghanistan, 15 February being the day of Soviet troops withdrawal from Afghanistan as well, he had recited Jalil’s poems to soldiers, he recalled. “I was surprised, when after one poem they asked me to read again and again. I practically read the entire Moabit Notebooks to them,” Razil Valeev recalled, reciting a poem he had written upon his return.

The meeting concluded with laying flowers to the monument to Musa Jalil.