Amaldan Kukullu
Soviet and Russian poet, storyteller and folklorist (1935-2000)
Amal Danilovich Kukuliev, also known under his pen name as Amaldan Kukullu (Russian: Амал Данилович Кукулиев; Hebrew: אַמַלְדָּן קוּקוּלוּ; January 03, 1935 – May 25, 2000) was a Soviet and Russian poet, storyteller, folklorist, and researcher of the oral epic of the Mountain Jews (Juhuri). One of the first systematizers and popularizers of Mountain Jewish folklore in the Soviet period. The author of more than 10 published books, both in his native language – Judeo-Tat, and in Russian.
Biography
Amaldan Kukullu was born in 1935 into a Mountain Jewish family in the city of Khasavyurt, located in Dagestan, Russia.
His father, Danil Kukullu, was an activist involved in the collectivization movement: he voluntarily donated large plots of land with vineyards and gardens for collective use. He died in 1970 and was buried in Makhachkala (Dagestan, Russia).
His mother, Shura (Alexandra Nikolaevna Shubaeva), was a leading actress and a key figure in the creation of the first Judeo-Tat theater in Khasavyurt. She died in 2003 and was buried in Netivot, Israel.
From a young age, Amaldan Kukullu devoted his life to collecting, studying, and preserving the epic traditions of the Mountain Jews. While studying in the journalism department at Rostov State University, he officially turned his attention to Mountain Jewish folklore for the first time, dedicating his 1969 diploma thesis to the subject.
“Amaldan Kukullu” enters the record as soviet and Russian poet, storyteller and folklorist (1935-2000). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Amaldan, Kukullu and Soviet can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q134089206. VIAF identifies the subject as 245253382. The Library of Congress control number is n93118320. None of the 3 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1935, 2000, 1970 and 2003.
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This entry incorporates text from “Amaldan Kukullu” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.