Iasyr Shivaza (5 or 18 May 1906 – 18 June 1988), also known as Xianma, was a Soviet poet, writer, linguist, translator, and social activist, known for his contributions to Dungan art and culture.

Shivaza wrote more than thirty works of literature, including collections of poems and short stories in Russian, Kyrgyz and Dungan.

[clarification needed] Well respected among Central Asians and Chinese people, Shivaza's Dungan poems became popular in the Sinosphere and the Soviet Union.

[1] According to Rimsky-Korsakoff (1991), his family name, "Shivazi" (Шывазы), literally means "the tenth child"; the corresponding expression is written in Chinese as 十娃子.

[4] This kind of three-syllable family name is common among the Dungan people of the former Soviet Union.

He was fully known as Ясыр Джумазович Шиваза (Yasyr Dzhumazovich Shivaza, [jɪˈsɨr d͡ʑʊmɐˈzovʲɪt͡ɕ ɕːɪvɐˈza]) in Russian, with the patrynomic "Джумазович" being derived from his father's Dungan name "Jiujiuzi" (Җюҗюзы, rendered in Russian as "Jumaza" or Джумаза).

His Kyrgyz name Ясыр Жумаза уулу Шиваза (Yasyr Jumaza uulu Shivaza, [jɑˈsɯr d͡ʒumɑˈzɑ uːˈɫu ʃivɑˈzɑ], previously spelled "Jasьr Ƶumaza uulu Şivaza" in the Uniform Turkic Alphabet and written as ياسىر شىۋازا in the Perso-Arabic script) was taken from his Russian name.

Yasir Shiwazi was born on 18 May (or 5 May according to Russian sources) 1906 in the village of Sokuluk (Dungan: Сохўлў) some 30 km west of Bishkek, in what is known today as the Chuy Region of Kyrgyzstan.

Later 17-year-old Yasir Shiwazi was chosen, by drawing lots (there were no volunteers), to study at the Tatar Institute for Education of the Minority Group in Tashkent.

When Nazi Germany invaded the USSR, he started to do war work, in Moscow and sometimes on the front lines, primarily writing and translating materials for the Kyrgyz-language news-sheets published for the 100,000 or so Kyrgyz soldiers in the Red Army.

Since the 1930s, the newspaper had been renamed several times; first published in 1930 in the Kirghiz ASSR as Sabattuu bol (Kyrgyz: Сабаттуу бол, lit.

'Be Literate'), then Dun Xuәşir (Dungan: Дун Хуәщир, Chinese: 东火星, lit.

As the Soviet Dungan newspaper resumed publication in 1957, it was renamed Sulian huizu bao (Сўлян хуэйзў бо, 苏联回族报, lit.

However, in 2014, this newspaper was renamed by the Chinese as Zhun-ya Huimin bao (中亚回民报, Dungan: Җун-я Хуэймин бо, lit.

Following is a short poem by Shiwazi, "White Butterfly", originally published in 1974 in Dungan, along with its KNAB 1994 romanization based on Pinyin, a morpheme-by-morpheme "transcription" into the Chinese characters, and the English translation by Rimsky-Korsakoff (1991), p. 188–189.

He appears to make a botanical error, however, mentioning a variety of chrysanthemum (Chinese: 毛菊花, Dungan: Mо җүхуа) among spring flowers, even though in reality they bloom in the fall.

He rendered a number of classical and modern works of Russian poetry into the Dungan language.

He translated song lyrics by Lebedev-Kumach and prose works by Leo Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Maxim Gorky.

He also translated into Dungan some poems of the Ukrainian classic Shevchenko, of the Kyrgyz poets Sashylganov and Tokombaev, and even of the Belarusian Yanka Kupala.

Йигә Балда до мянчян, Бу җы та вон нани җуан, Та ги лодо фәди хо: "Виса ни җир чеди зо, Ни зэ җытар ба са зо?"

Yige Balda dao mianqian, Bu zhi ta won nani zhuan, Ta gi laodao fedi hao: "Wisa ni jir qiedi zao, Ni zai zhitar ba sa zao?