युगकवि सिद्धिचरण श्रेष्ठ (सन् १९१२–१९९२) राणा शासनविरुद्ध कविता लेखेर जेल परेका स्वच्छन्दतावादी कवि हुन्। यस पृष्ठमा सिद्धिचरणको परिचय, जीवनी, प्रमुख कृतिहरू र साहित्यिक योगदान छ।
Siddhicharan Shrestha is one of the few Nepali poets whose verse was treated by the state as a crime. That fact belongs at the centre of any account of him, not in a footnote.
Who was Siddhicharan Shrestha? (परिचय)
He was a poet of the Romantic generation, honoured with the title Yugakavi (युगकवि), "poet of the era". The critic Suryavikram Gyawali paired him with Devkota at the start of Nepali Romanticism (स्वच्छन्दतावाद).
Life (जीवनी)
He was born on 21 May 1912 (9 Jestha 1969 BS) in Okhaldhunga bazaar and died in Kathmandu on 4 June 1992.
From 1995 BS he wrote revolutionary poems against the Rana regime. He was jailed with an 18-year sentence and released in 2002 BS.
His honours include the Tribhuvan Puraskar (2027 BS) and the Prithvi Pragya Puraskar (2045 BS). After his death Nepal issued a postage stamp in his name (1993), and both the Siddhicharan Highway and Siddhicharan Municipality are named after him.
Major works (प्रमुख कृतिहरू)
- उर्वशी, Urvashi: khandakavya, 2017 BS
- मेरो प्रतिबिम्ब, Mero Pratibimba: poems, 2021 BS
- कोपिला, Kopila: poems, 2021 BS
- ज्यानमारा शैल, Jyanmara Shail: khandakavya, 2023 BS
- मेरो प्यारो ओखलढुङ्गा, Mero Pyaro Okhaldhunga: poem
Literary contribution (साहित्यिक योगदान)
He helped carry Nepali poetry from the classical line of Lekhnath into Romanticism: personal feeling, nature and freedom as serious subjects. He also showed, at real personal cost, that a Nepali poem could be a political act.
A poem about one's home district, Mero Pyaro Okhaldhunga, is a small thing on the surface. Placing an ordinary place at the centre of a poem was part of the same Romantic argument Devkota was making.
His work is in copyright, so this page describes it rather than quoting it.
Where to go next
Devkota is his closest companion in the Romantic turn, and Gopal Prasad Rimal was another poet who opposed the Ranas. All the poets are on the Nepali poets page.