Madhavrao Sapre
Madhavrao Sapre
Madhavrao Sapre (June 1871 - 26 April 1926) was born in Pattaria village of Damoh. Passed Matriculate Government School, Raipur after studying in Bilaspur in the middle. After getting a BA from the University of Calcutta in 1899, he got a government job as Tehsildar but Sapre ji did not care for the government jobs of the British displaying patriotism. In 1900 when the entire printing press was not available in Chhattisgarh, he got a monthly magazine called "Chhattisgarh Mitra" from a small village of Pendra in Bilaspur district. Although this magazine could only last for three years. Sapre ji started printing of Marathi Kesari of Lokmanya Tilak here in Hindi Kesari and along with it also published Hindi Gondalam from Nagpur to get the Hindi literary and writers in a form. He also played a major role in the publication of KarmaVir.
The story of Sapre ji, "a basket mud" (which is often called "Tonyi-filled soil") is credited as being the first story in Hindi. In addition to writing, Sapre ji, along with the famous Marathi translation of Saint Samarth Ramdas, and the translation of Marathi texts such as Mimansa, Dutt Bhargava, Sri Ram Charitra, Eknath Charitra and Swastik of Mahabharata, also translated books into Hindi. Sapreji, who was the Chairman of the Dehra Dun session of the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan in 1924, established the National School in Raipur in 1921, as well as the establishment of the first Kanya Vidyalaya, Janaki Devi Female School, in Raipur itself. Both of these schools are still going on.
Remembering the life struggle of Madhavrao Sapre, his literature, his contribution in the development of Hindi journalism, his nationalist consciousness, social service and political activism, Makhanlal Chaturvedi had written in Karmaveer on September 11, 1926 - "For the past twenty five years Pandit Madhavrao Sapre ji is a subsidiary producer of Aadhaar pillar, literature, society and politics of Hindi and filling national fast in them. The people of the state, going around roaming in villages, needing their pen and making the sadness of the poor oppressed by the foreign power, making them cruel in the religion, compelling them for national service and erasing their existence completely. Making them virtually negligible, to increase the importance of the people and institutions around them and to make the chirurgi. "
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