“We didn’t get caught in the storm”

Abstract

Shagirzyan Lena (Shakirzyanova Galimzyanovna, 1945 – 2017) was one of the prominent representatives of 20^th–century poetry. In 1962, she graduated from the Kulle-Kim (Atninsky district of the Republic of Tatarstan) Secondary School and entered the Department of Tatar Language and Literature at the Kazan Pedagogical Institute. In 1967, she graduated from the Institute and worked for a year as a teacher at Tatar Secondary School No. 80 in Kazan. In 1968– 1973, she was a singer-actress of the RT Song and Dance Ensemble. Later, in 1974-1987, she worked as a translator-journalist at the Tatarstan State Radio Committee. From 1987, Lena Shagirzyan was engaged exclusively in literary work as a professional poet. She was the author of collections of poetry “The Overflowing Soul” (1982), “I Trust My Heart” (1986), “The ABC of Faith” (1993), “The Winged Horse” (1999), “The Cycle” (2002), and others. L. Shagirzyan is also known as the author of vivid journalistic, theoretical and critical articles on literature, memoirs of outstanding artists of the older generation, poetic dedications to her contemporaries. For her merit in the development of Tatar literature and art, L. Shagirzyan was awarded the honorary title of “The Honoured Artist of the Republic of Tatarstan” in 2000, and the Literary Prize of the Writers’ Union of Tatarstan named after H. Taktash for her book “Nostalgia” and her works dedicated to Hadi Taktash, the Tatarstan State Prize named after G. Tukay in 2011, and the honourary title “People’s Poet of Tatarstan” in 2016.