Sergei Chavain

This article includes a improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (January 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this message )

Sergei Chavain, also spelled Čavajn (Mari: Серге́й Чава́йн, pronounced [tʃɑˈβɑɪn]; 6 October 1888, Maly Karamas – 11 November 1937) was a Mari poet and playwright, born Sergei Grigorievich Grigoriev (Russian: Серге́й Григо́рьевич Григо́рьев).

In 1905 he wrote the first literary poem in the Mari language, Oto (Ото – The Grove). In 1908 he graduated from Kazan Teachers' Seminary. His first play was The Wild Duck in 1912, a satire of Tsarist bureaucrats. After the October Revolution, Chavain wrote several plays for the first Mari mobile theatre, such as The Autonomy (1920) and The Sun Rises, the Storm-clouds Disappear (1921), inspired by the Revolution and Russian Civil War.

Later he wrote plays for a Mari theatre studio, including Jamblat's Bridge (1927), the comedy The Hundred Roubles Bride-money (1927), the musical drama The Bee-Garden (1928), Kugujar (1929) (a play devoted to the

• (in Russian) Short bio
• (in Russian) Chavain's first poem

External links

• Some poems Archived 2004-10-21 at the Wayback Machine
• Russian translations Archived 2005-03-07 at the Wayback Machine
• Political repression in Mari AO, in Russian
• (in Mari) Elnet
• (in Finnish) Ville Ropponen, review (English translation^{[permanent dead link]}) of Finnish translation of Elnet