Bengali music comprises a long tradition of religious and secular song-writing over a period of almost a millennium. Composed with lyrics in the Bengali language, Bengali music spans a wide variety of styles.
Rabindra Sangeet, also known as Tagore Songs, are songs from the Indian subcontinent written and composed by the Bengali polymath Rabindranath Tagore, winner of the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first Indian and also the first non-European to receive such recognition. Tagore was a prolific composer with approximately 2,232 songs to his credit. The songs have distinctive characteristics in the music of Bengal, popular in India and Bangladesh.
The music of West Bengal includes multiple indigenous musical genres such as Baul, Ramprasadi, Bishnupuri Classical, Kirtan, Shyama Sangeet, Rabindra Sangeet, Nazrul Geeti, Dwijendrageeti, Prabhat Samgiita, Agamani-Vijaya, Patua Sangeet, Gambhira, Bhatiali, Bhawaiya, Bengali Rock.
Rabindra Sadan is a cultural centre and theatre complex in Kolkata, India. It is located on Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Road in South Kolkata. It is noted for its large stage which is a prime venue for Bengali theatre and Kolkata Film Festival.
Paschimbanga Bangla Akademi is the official regulatory body of the Bengali language in West Bengal, India. It was founded on 20 May 1986 in Kolkata to act as the official authority of the language and is entrusted with the responsibility of reforming Bengali spelling and grammar, compiling dictionaries, encyclopedias and terminologies and promoting Bengali language and culture in West Bengal. Though the Akademi has no enforcement power over their rules and regulations, yet they are widely accepted by the Governments of West Bengal and Tripura as well as a considerable number of private publishing houses and institutions like the Oxford University Press and the Ramakrishna Mission.
Bengali literature denotes the body of writings in the Bengali language and which covers Old Bengali, Middle- Bengali and Modern Bengali with the changes through the passage of time and dynastic patronization or non-patronization. Bengali has developed over the course of roughly 1,300 years. If the emergence of the Bengali literature supposes to date back to roughly 650 AD, the development of Bengali literature claims to have 1,600 years of old. The earliest extant work in Bengali literature is the Charyapada, a collection of Buddhist mystic songs in Old Bengali dating back to the 10th and 11th centuries. The timeline of Bengali literature is divided into three periods: ancient (650–1200), medieval (1200–1800) and modern. Medieval Bengali literature consists of various poetic genres, including Hindu religious scriptures, Islamic epics, Vaishnava texts, translations of Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit texts, and secular texts by Muslim poets. Novels were introduced in the mid-19th century. Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore is the best known figure of Bengali literature to the world. Kazi Nazrul Islam, notable for his activism and anti-British literature, was described as the Rebel Poet and is now recognised as the National poet of Bangladesh.
The Rabindra Puraskar is the highest honorary literary award given in the Indian state of West Bengal. This award is named after the famous Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore and is administered by the Government of West Bengal under the aegis of the Paschimbanga Bangla Academy, Kolkata.The award is given for creative literature, non-fiction and books about Bengal in Bengali as well as other languages.
Buddhadeva Bose, also spelt Buddhadeb Bosu, was an Indian Bengali writer of the 20th century. Frequently referred to as a poet, he was a versatile writer who wrote novels, short stories, plays and essays in addition to poetry. He was an influential critic and editor of his time. He is recognised as one of the five poets who moved to introduce modernity into Bengali poetry. It is said that since Rabindranath Tagore, there has not been a more versatile talent in Bengali literature.
Sombhu Mitra was an Indian film and stage actor, director, playwright, reciter and an Indian theatre personality, known especially for his involvement in Bengali theatre, where he is considered a pioneer. He remained associated with the Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA) for a few years before founding the Bohurupee theatre group in Kolkata in 1948. He is most noted for films like Dharti Ke Lal (1946), Jagte Raho (1956), and his production of Rakta Karabi based on Rabindranath Tagore's play in 1954 and Chand Baniker Pala, his most noted play as a playwright.
The Ananda Puraskar is an award for Bengali literature awarded annually by the ABP Group to writers using Bengali, usually from West Bengal, India.
Arun Mitra was an Indian poet of Bengali, who also translated French literature.
Santidev Ghose was an Indian author, singer, actor, dancer and maestro of Rabindra Sangeet.
Ghulam Murshid is a Bangladeshi author, scholar and journalist, based in London. He won a number of awards, including Bangla Academy Literary Award in 1982 for his contribution to research.; Prothom Alo Book Award in 2007; IFIC literary prize 2018; the Ekusey Padak for language and literature in 2021 and the Vidyasagar Endowments Lectures 1973 at Calcutta University. Besides being a prolific author, Dr. Murshid is a distinguished lexicographer. He edited a three-volume Bengali dictionary, called 'Bibartonmulak Bangla Abhidhan', published in 2013–2014, by the Bangla Academy. In the two hundred years' of history of Bengali dictionaries, it is the first to be based on historical principles. It provides the evolution of the form and meaning of every word and traces the first use thereof in written Bengali.
Vālmīki-Praṭibhā is an opera by Rabindranath Tagore. The Bengali libretto was written by Tagore himself based on the legend of Ratnakara the Thug who later became Sage Valmiki and composed Ramayana, a Hindu epic.
Sisir Kumar Das (1936–2003) was a linguist, poet, playwright, translator, comparatist and a prolific scholar of Indian literature. He is considered by many as the "doyen of Indian literary historiographers". Almost singlehandedly Das built an integrated history of Indian literature composed of many languages, a task that had seemed to many important scholars of Indian literature to be “a historian’s despair”. His three volumes A History of Indian Literature is credited for having devised hitherto absent methods necessary for situating diverse Indian literary cultures in history. Apart from this, another monumental work in Das’ scholarly oeuvre is the multi-volume English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore, edited by him.
William Winstanley Pearson was a pastor and educator, born in Manchester (U.K.) on 7 May 1881, and who died in Italy on 25 September 1923.
Ramapada Chowdhury was an Indian novelist and short story writer in Bengali. For his novel Bari Badle Jay, he received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1988. He was also a recipient of the Rabindra Puraskar and several other awards. He won the Rabindranath Tagore Memorial International Prize in its inaugural year. Many of his works have been adapted into films, including the multiple-award-winning Kharij, directed by Mrinal Sen, and Ek Doctor Ki Maut, directed by Tapan Sinha. Chowdhury started writing during the Second World War. He was associated with Anandabazar Patrika for many years, and edited its Sunday supplement. His novels are marked by an economy of expression. He is one of the most well known short story writers in contemporary Bengali literature.
Abu Sayeed Ayyub was an Indian philosopher, teacher, literary critic and writer in both Bengali and English. Though born into a traditional, Urdu-speaking, Muslim family in Calcutta (Kolkata), he was so deeply captivated in his early teenage by the poems of the Indian Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore that he taught himself Bengali so as to appreciate Tagore better. Later, when he started to write, it was mostly in his adopted language, Bengali. During the initial part of his writing career, Ayyub wrote on aesthetics, religion and socialism. However, it was his philosophical and scientific analysis of creative literature - in particular the poetry and the drama of Tagore - that finally brought him wide recognition as "one of the most serious and original Tagore scholars". Ayyub is also credited with "co-editing the first anthology of modern Bengali poetry". He taught philosophy at the University of Calcutta, the Visva-Bharati University and the University of Melbourne, and edited the literary and philosophical journal Quest.
Asitkumar Bandyopadhyay(3rd June,1920 – 21 March, 2003) was historian of Bengali literature, professor, researcher and former president of Paschimbanga Bangla Akademi. He got famous due to his book Bangla Sahityer Itibritta which is published in nine volumes.
