Activities and affiliations

Nationalism 1878–1957 → Died in exile

Tatar lawyer and Duma deputy who headed the national administration of Idel-Ural

Born in 1878 in the village of Tashsu near Kazan, he studied law at the University of Paris in 1901–1906 on Ismail Gasprinsky’s advice. In 1906 he joined the Central Committee of Ittifaq al-Muslimin, and he sat for Kazan province in the Second and Third State Dumas. In 1917 he was on the executive committee of the All-Russian Muslim Council, and on 5 January 1918 he was elected chairman of the Milli Idare, the body of national-cultural autonomy of the Muslims of Inner Russia and Siberia, becoming head of the Idel-Ural State. When the Bolsheviks took Kazan and Ufa provinces he fled to Finland; at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 he pleaded for the peoples of Idel-Ural, without result. He moved to Turkey in 1925, became a professor of legal history and a member of parliament, and died in Istanbul in 1957.

Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks Nationalism 1890–1970 → Died in exile

Leader of the Bashkir national movement who proclaimed Bashkir autonomy, commanded the Bashkir Army and took it over to the Soviet side

Born in 1890 in Kuzyanovo, Ufa province, he taught Turkic history at the Qasimiya madrasa in Kazan. In 1917 he joined the Socialist Revolutionaries and was elected to the Constituent Assembly; with Sharif Manatov he organised the Bashkir Central Shuro, proclaimed Bashkir autonomy and became commander of the Bashkir Army. Arrested by the Bolsheviks in February 1918 and freed in April, he fought alongside Dutov and Kolchak, but in February 1919 took his troops over to the Soviet side. He became chairman of the Bashrevkom in 1920, resigned in June in protest at the curtailing of autonomy and led the Basmachi movement in Turkestan. He emigrated in 1923, became a Turkish citizen in 1925, a professor at Istanbul University and a doctor of the University of Vienna, and died in Istanbul in 1970.