PALH 

BGAZHBA HUHUT SOLOMONOVICH

15.10.1914-23.12.2000


Abkhaz linguist, literary scholar, folklorist.
He was born on 15.10.1914 in the village of Gup, Kodori section, Sukhumi district into a peasant family. He spent his childhood years in the family of his mother's brothers in the village of Arasadzykh. For two years he studied at the Ochamchira nine-year school.
In 1933 he graduated from the Sukhumi Abkhazian secondary school named after N. A. Lakoba. N. A. Lakoba.
In 1937 he graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of the Lenin State Pedagogical Institute in Moscow.
In 1938, on the recommendation of S. N. Janashia, he entered the postgraduate programme of the Institute of Linguistics of the Academy of Sciences of the Georgian SSR.
In 1941 he defended his PhD thesis «Oblast-union particles in the Abkhazian verb».
Since 1933 he has been a member of the Union of Writers of the USSR, since 1941 - Candidate of Philological Sciences, since 1997 - Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Abkhazia.
He is an honoured worker of science of the Abkhaz ASSR and the Georgian SSR. He is a laureate of the D. I. Gulia State Prize of Abkhazia. D. I. Gulia for his book «Pages from the Chronicle of Friendship», 1986. He made a significant contribution to the formation of Abkhaz studies, to the study of the Abkhaz language, literature and folklore.
Since 1937 he has been an employee of the D.I. Gulia Institute of Language, Literature and History of Abkhazia and executive secretary of the Union of Writers of Abkhazia. Since 1937, he has been an employee of the D. I. Gulia Institute of Language, Literature and History of Abkhazia and executive secretary of the Union of Writers of Abkhazia. He was editor of the literary and artistic journal «Apsny Kapsh» («Red Abkhazia»).
Since 1941, after completing his graduate studies, he worked at the Abkhaz Institute of Language, Literature, and History named after D. I. Gulia (now the Abkhaz Institute of Humanities named after D. I. Gulia) - as a senior research fellow, deputy director (1949-1953), director of the institute (1953-1966), head of the language and literature department, head of the literature and folklore department, leading researcher (since 1988), chief researcher (since 1996).
In 1945-1948 he was the chairman of the Union of Writers of Abkhazia.
In 1969, he defended his doctoral dissertation on "Phonetic-morphological and lexical features of the Bzybsk dialect of the Abkhaz language" at the Tbilisi State University. He taught courses on Abkhaz literature, introduction to linguistics, and general linguistics at the Sukhumi State Pedagogical Institute named after A.M. Gorky (1940s-1970s). He was elected as a deputy of the Supreme Council of the Abkhaz ASSR (1938, 1947, 1951, and 1954); he was also a deputy and deputy chairman of the Supreme Council of the Georgian SSR (1959-1966).
He started his literary and scientific career in 1933 with the book "A Critical Look at Contemporary Abkhaz Literature..." (the first book in the field of Abkhaz literary criticism and literary studies). He is the author of over 200 scientific articles, a number of textbooks on the native language and literature for schools, and 12 monographs dedicated to the Abkhaz language, literature, folklore, the history of written monuments in Abkhazia, issues of toponymy and ethnonymy in Abkhazia. He was one of the compilers and the chief editor of the "Russian-Abkhaz Dictionary" (Sukhumi, 1964). Bgazhba Khukhut Solomonovich conducted extensive textual work in preparing the works of many Abkhaz writers and scholars for publication (D. Guliya, S. Chanba, A. Chochua, I. Kogonia, V. Agrba, A. Khachba, N. Dzhanashia, A. Chukbar, D. Maan, S. Bzhania, V. Maan, O. Demerdzhypa, and others). He translated into Russian and published the collection "Abkhaz Tales" (Sukhumi, 1959), which was reprinted many times.
He was the head of the author's team, co-author and editor-in-chief of the proceedings of the:
  • «Russian-Abkhazian dictionary» (1964),
  • «The Sketch of the history of Abkhazian literature» (1967),
  • «Grammar of the Abkhaz language. Phonetics and morphology» (1958),
  • «History of Abkhazian literature» (1986).
He translated into Abkhazian fables by L. N. Tolstoy and I. A. Krylov, Lermontov's poem «Mermaid», A. P. Chekhov's stories «Death of an Official» and «Man in a Case», A. Isaakyan's «Akhmet's Camel» and «The Boy and the Sun», and others.
Publications: 
  • Dmitry Gulia. Critical and Biographical Essay - (co-authored with K. Zelensky). М., 1956;
  • Abkhazian tales. Sukhumi, 1969;
  • Bzyb dialect of the Abkhazian language. Tbilisi, 1964;
  • From the history of writing in Abkhazia. Tbilisi, 1967;
  • Etudes and studies. Sukhumi, 1974;
  • Immortal name. Searches and finds. Sukhumi, 1976;
  • Abkhazian proverbs. Sukhumi, 1983;
  • Proceedings. Book 1. Sukhumi, 1987;
  • Proceedings. Book 2. Sukhumi, 1988.
He died on 23.12.2000, Sukhum, Republic of Abkhazia.