Poet in the context of time: about the first experience of Bair Dugarov’s literary biography

The article describes the experience of creating literary biography of Buryat national poet Bair Dugarov (born in 1947). A biographer tries to define the unity between a poet and his epoch. The first half of B. Dugarov’s life and work is reflected in his book "The Sutra of Moments" (2011), based on his 1982 diary. The second half can be presented by poetic and scientific activity of B. Dugarov, for description of this period a biographer should use poetic collections and scientific works, interviews and essays of the 1990-2010-ies. Complexity of a biographer's task is in searching for continuity between the later stages and the previous years, which have played an important role in poet's personality development. The complexity of the task is to see the continuity of life and creativity of these last decades with the previous stage, which played an important role in formation of the poet’s personality. The essential moment in the experience of writing a biography is forming of general concept, which considers not only the literature context of 1970-2010, but also the context of the epoch itself, including the late Soviet times of 1970s - the first half of the 1980s and the post-Soviet period of the late 20th - early 21st century. Dramatic nature of the transitional period has been reflected in the process of the poet's search for self-identification, realizing his own place and significance in the national fate. All this allows us to comprehend the life and work of the Buryat poet through the context of uneasy times.