The article is devoted to the 110th anniversary of the famous writer and poet of East Africa Shaaban Robert. He was an outstanding figure in modern East African history, culture and literature, a great writer and the founder of modern literature in Swahili. Shaaban Robert is considered a pioneer in the development of the Swahili language, who created a new type of Swahili prose and poetry. He was the first writer of colonial Tanganyika to write in modern Swahili, for which he is called the “father of the Swahili language”. He was above all a serious philosophical moralist and humanist. Shaaban Robert opened windows on new ideas. Some of his political, ethical and didactic concepts, like unity of religions and equality of men and women, were ahead of his time and society.

He devoted his original brilliant talent to the struggle for the dignity of the African people, for a free personality in a free society. In his works, he realized his own educational concepts, making his positive characters a striking example for a new person. The philosophical and allegorical thrust of the novels of Shaaban Robert had a clear impact on contemporary Tanzanian writers.

The heritage of Shaaban Robert is known in the whole wide world, his works are studied in various countries and are translated into several languages. One of the very first translations of Shaaban’s works into a foreign language was a Russian translation. Russian scholars of Swahili language, culture and literature made their valuable contribution into the studies of the legacy of the great East African writer.