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Mussa Jalil (Musa Calil) was born in Mustafino, a village in the Orenburg guberniya in the family of junkman. His first publishing were revolutionary verses. The long-going Turkic poetic tradition of aruz traced in Calil's early works, which attributed to Ghisyanism, a style of revolt, found in the Tatar poetry of early 1920s. In 1919 he entered underground Komsomol cell of Orenburg, which was under the Whites that time. Then Musa participated in the Russian Civil War, but due to his nonage he didn't fight at the front, but in special Red Army unit, cleaning out pro-White gangs. In 1920 Calil returned to the native village, establishing pro-communist youth organization The Red Flower there. He also became an Komsomol activist in Mustafino. He represented his village at the governorate Komsomol conference.
In 1920 the Tatar ASSR was proclaimed and Kazan was established as its capital. In 1922 Musa as many other Tatar poets moved to Kazan. This early period of Calil's life is co-called Red period, mostly due to his favorite epithet: his most prominent verses of that period are The Red Host, The Red Holyday, The Red Hero, The Red Way, The Red Force and The Red Banner. In Kazan Calil worked as copyist in Qizil Tatarstan newspaper and studied at rabfak of the Oriental Pedagogical Institute. He became acquainted with prominent Tatar poets Qawi Nacmi, Hadi Taqtas, Gadel Qutuy and others. Since 1924 he is a member of October literary society, backing Proletkult. He is published in numerous magazines and newspapers of Kazan. Since 1924 his poetry departed from Ghisyanism and aruz, and, probably influenced by Taqtas, turns to the Tatar folk verse, closer to the European than to the Oriental tradition. His first collection of verses, Barabiz (We are going) was published in 1925. The most of those poems are about pre-revolutionary life.
In 1925-26 Calil became an instructor of Orsk uyezd Komsomol cell, where he visited Tatar and Kazakh auls, agitating for Komsomol there. In 1926 he became the member of Orenburg governorate Komsomol committee. In 1927 Musa moved to Moscow, where he combine his study in the Moscow State University and job in Tatar-Bashkir section of the Central Committee of Komsomol. In 1929 Calil joined Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The same year his second collection, Iptaska (i.e. To the Comrade) was published. There were verses, full of optimism and admiration with the future trends. Living in Moscow, Calil met Russian poets Zharov, Bezymensky, Svetlov, attend Vladimir Mayakovsky's performances. He entered Moscow Association of Proletarian Writers (MAPP), and became its third secretary and a leader of its Tatar section. Now his hero is a village fellow, striving to the new life, admiring with the "voice of machines". Calil tried to find "new poetic language", full or "proletarian colours". However, in the end of 1920s lyricism appeared in Cälil's poetry.
In 1931 Calil graduated Literature Faculty of Moscow University. Until 1932 he was a chief editor of Little Octobrist, the Tatar magazine for children. Then he headed the section of literature and art in the central Tatar newspaper Kommunist. In 1934 Musa Cälil published two collections. The first of them, The Millions, Decorated with Orders was devoted mostly to youth and Komsomol, whereas in the second, Verses and Poems, the best of his writing were collected. The mainstream lyric was full of optimism and spirits. However, many of his lyrical poems weren't published, as being in dissonance with Stalinism. Musa Calil lived in the various places of the USSR, combining several jobs.
In 1935, the first Russian translations of his poems were published. His verses, set to music, became popular Tatar songs. In 1930s Calil also translated to the Tatar language writngs of poets of the USSR peoples, such as Shota Rustaveli, Taras Shevchenko, Pushkin, Nekrasov, Mayakovsky and Lebedev-Kumach. In the late 1930s he tended to write epic poems, such as The Director and the Sun (1935), Cihan (1935-1938), The Postman (1938). A a playwright of Tatar State Opera he wrote four librettos for Tatar operas, and the most prominent of them is Golden Hair Maiden of Nacip Cihanov. In 1939-1940, he became the chairman of the Tatar ASSR Union of Writers. To this day Musa Calil is regarded as one of the most significant authors in the Tatar language.
After Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Calil volunteered to the Red Army. Briefly graduating political officer courses, he arrived to the Volkhov Front and became war correspondent in Otvaga newspaper. Calil also wrote verse, patriotic but later turns to the front lyricism, i.e. about feelings of war people.
In June 1942, Calil's unit was encircled, when they tried to run a blockade he was seriously wounded, shell-shocked and captured. After months in concentration camps for Soviet prisoners-of-war, including Stalag-340 in Latvia and Spandau, Cälil was transferred to Deblin, a fortified stronghold in Poland. There Musa met his fellow countrymen, for the Nazis were assembling prisoners of Idel-Ural and Eastern nationalities in the camp. He sought out people he could trust in and together they subsequently formed a resistance group.
In late 1942, the Nazis started forming what they called national legions. Among others, the Idel-Ural legion was formed in Jedlina, Poland, of prisoners-of-war belonging to the nations of the Volga basin. Since the majority were Volga Tatars, the Germans usually called it the Volga-Tatar legion. The Nazis brainwashed the prisoners in a rabidly chauvinistic and anti-Soviet spirit, to prepare the legionnaires for action against the Soviet Army. He joined the Wehrmacht propaganda unit for the legion under the false name Gumeroff. Calil's group set out to wreck the Nazi plans, to convince the men to use the weapons they would be supplied with against the Nazis themselves. The members of the resistance group infiltrated the editorial board of the Idel-Ural newspaper the German command produced, and printed and circulated anti-fascist leaflets among the legionnaires into esoteric action groups consisting of 5 men each. The very first battalion of the Volga-Tatar legion that was sent to the Eastern front mutinied, shot all the German officers, and defected to the Soviet partisans in Belarus.
In August 1943, Nazi spies managed to track down the resistance group. Musa Calil and most of his militant comrades were seized. There followed nightmare days and nights of interrogations, torture, and more torture. The Gestapo broke his left arm and injured his kidneys. His body was covered with welts from the beatings he got with an electric cord and rubber hose. His crushed fingers were swollen and would not bend. But the poet did not give up. Behind bars he continued his fight against Nazism. He had only his poetry for a weapon.
On August 10, 1943, he was arrested with his comrades and sent to Moabit Prison in Berlin. He sat in a cell with Belgian patriot and resistance fighter Andre Timmermans, and also with one Polish prisoner. Calil studied German in prison to communicate with the cellmates. As the regime was not so harsh, he managed to compile at least hundred of all his verses, composed in the prison, to the small self-made notebooks. He and his group of 12 were sentenced to death on February 12, 1944 and guillotined at Plotzensee Prison, Berlin, on August 25. His body was never recovered, possibly buried in mass grave.
-- Wikipedia
