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Mary Mikhailovna Sofianidi left behind a rich creative legacy - poems, prose, essays, essays and songs. These texts and melodies reveal a rare wholeness: the subtlety of observation and strength of spirit, the ability to talk about the personal so, that it becomes common - recognizable for the city, time and people.
Her poetry is memorable not for its «theme» but for the way of seeing: unusual means of artistic expression, precise intonations, and inner resistance to emptiness - a quality that is especially valued in Mirny, where the northern everyday life requires concentration, and the human word becomes a form of support.
Olga Grechanik, Head of the Culture Department of the Mirny District Municipality, tells about the fate and creativity of Mary Sofianidi. Songs on Mary Sofianidi's poems and music are performed by the vocal ensemble «Ieyi» of the Almaz Culture Center (Mirny).
Brief background
Mirny is a workspace
Mary (Meropi) Mikhailovna was born in Krymsk, Krasnodar Krai. She spent her childhood in Georgia and her youth in Kazakhstan. She received a philological education at the Kyzyl-Orda Pedagogical Institute and graduated from the Irkutsk Institute of Foreign Languages (French department). She started her labor activity at school as a teacher of Russian language and literature, then worked in the editorial office of the newspaper «Kentauskaya Pravda». "Kentau Pravda" newspaper in Kazakhstan.
She came to Mirny in 1963, and here her abilities were fully realized. She worked in the editorial office of the Mirny Worker newspaper, she was the head of the editorial and publishing group of the Yakutniproalmaz Institute, initiated and led publishing projects as an author, compiler and editor-in-chief. and editor-in-chief. Later she organized the literary creative association «Kimberlit» and worked a lot with young authors. not sporadically, but systematically, for years, creating a cultural «school» for the city.
In the 1990s Mary Mikhailovna headed the Mirny branch of the Union of Writers of the RS(Ya). Her activity was not limited to literature as a genre. It was the work of retaining cultural memory and creating an environment where the word has weight and people's history is not lost in the noise.
Translations and literary work
An important part of her legacy was her translations of Yakut authors and her work with the cultural connection between the regions. She translated into Russian the poems of the first Yakut poet Varvara Potapova. Based on her works, together with Z. P. Bagynanova, Honored Artist of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). The script of the production was written and performed on the stage of the Drama Sakha Theater.
Mary Sofianidi was the scriptwriter of the documentary «Suntar - the Land of Olonkho» (1981, produced by Irkutsk TV). She also worked extensively with aspiring authors, helping them to prepare and publish their first books. Among those she helped, L. Baturin, A. Taishina, A. Tolstov, I. Galkin, A. Kareva, V. Ignatyev, N. Romanov, V. Trofimov and others.
Her contribution to the development of the translation environment is separately noted: at the Mirny branch of the Writers' Union she created the translators' section and the Yakut section, She contributed to the publication of books in the Yakut language (Osip Filippov, Avgustina Lonkunova). She is also credited with a unique project: The translation of Omar Khayyam into Yakut language in the narration of Yakut nugget Mikhail Egorov.
Vilyuiskie Zori Almanac«
Since 1998, Mary Sofianidi has been the founder and permanent editor-in-chief of the socio-political, literary and artistic almanac «Vilyuiskie Zori», a periodical created on her initiative with the support of the Mirny District Administration and ALROSA. «Vilyuiskie Zori, a periodical created on her initiative with the support of the Mirny District Administration and ALROSA.
The pages of the almanac regularly reflected the social and creative life of Western Yakutia: published works of authors, reproductions by artists, memories of veterans of the diamond mining industry and historical materials. In fact, the almanac became an «assembly point» - a place where culture ceases to be a set of disparate events and turns into a long-term memory.
Books and awards
Books
- «Monument to the Living» (Yakutsk, 1974)
- «More expensive than diamonds» (Yakutsk, 1978)
- «The Courage of the Pioneer.»
- «Suntar meetings» (Yakutsk, 1982)
- «Kimberlite» (Yakutsk, 1990)
- «Yakut Suite» (Novosibirsk, 1997)
- «Watercolors» (Novosibirsk, 1997)
- «Monogram of the Soul» (Novosibirsk, 1997)
- «Mineral Number One» (Novosibirsk, 1997)
- «On the Peninsula of Love» (Novosibirsk, 1997)
- «Community of Souls» (Novosibirsk, 2000)
- «Silver Dawn» (Novosibirsk, 2004)
- «Ship of Fate» (Novosibirsk, 2007)
Awards and recognition
- Labor veteran
- Veteran of the diamond mining industry
- Badge of Honor «Excellent Cultural Worker of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia)»
- Badge of Honor of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) «Civic Valor»
- Honorary Citizen of Mirny District of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia)
- Honorary citizen of Suntar ulus of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia)
- Commemorative signs and diplomas related to the contribution to the development of the district and the republic
Memory
In 2015, the Almazny Krai TV and radio company released the movie «Mary Sofianidi. Very Personal» (Mirny). Also mentioned is the development of an extracurricular reading lesson in 10th grade «Mary Sofianidi's Planet of Love» (Mirny).