ALIGER, MARGARITA IOSIFOVNA

born Sept. 24 [Oct. 7, New Style], 1915, Odessa, Ukraine, Russian Empire Russian poet, journalist, and Soviet propagandist. Born into a poor family, Aliger was a committed communist from an early age. She studied writing in Moscow from 1934 to 1937 at what later became the Gorky Literary Institute. In the late 1930s she wrote prose sketches and verse diaries of her tour of Soviet Central Asia. Zoya (1942), a narrative poem about a martyred Soviet female partisan, won the State Prize of the U.S.S.R. in 1943. After World War II Aliger traveled in South America, from which she reported in verse and prose; she was in Chile during the Allende regime of 197073. Much of her poetry repeated Soviet political jargon and catch-phrases. Collections include God rozhdeniya (1938; Year of Birth), Kamni i travy (1940; Stones and Grasses), Leninskiye gory (1953; The Lenin Hills), and Neskolko shagov (1962; A Few Paces). Her later publications include Tropinka vo rzhi (1980; A Path in the Rye), a collection of essays; and Chetvert veka (1981; A Quarter of a Century), a book of poetry. Aliger also translated poetry by Ukrainian, Azerbaijani, and Uzbek authors.