Galimjan Girfanovich Ibragimov

Galimjan Girfanovich Ibragimov was a Tatar writer and linguist and a public figure. He was one of the founders of modern Tatar Soviet literature. Ibragimov was born in the village of Sultanmuratovo (now Aurgazinsky District of the Republic of Bashkortostan). He received his primary education at a rural madrasa and a Russian school, and then continued his studies at the Ufa madrasa 'Galiya'. In 1907 he published his first story 'The Expulsion of Zaki-shakir from the madrasa' in the newspaper 'El-Islah'. In 1909 he moved to Kazan and devoted himself entirely to literature. In 1912 he published his first major work 'Яшь йорәкләр' ('Young Hearts'), which brought him wide recognition.

In the following years Ibragimov taught at the 'Galiya' madrasa and actively participated in political life. He was one of the leaders and founders of the Party of Tatar-Bashkir Muslim Left SRs, and in 1918 took part in the organization of the Commissariat for Muslim Affairs of Inner Russia. In the 1920s he worked in the Publishing Department of the Central Bureau of the Communist Peoples of the East, taught at the Tatar Communist University, and also at the People's Commissariat of Education of the TASSR; he took part in creating and editing the journals 'Bezneñ Yul' and 'Magarif'. From 1925 to 1927 he headed the Academic Center under the People's Commissariat of Education, coordinating the translation and publication of V.I. Lenin's works into the Tatar language. Due to illness he spent the last years of his life in Crimea, where he was arrested. He died on January 21, 1938, in a prison hospital. He was posthumously rehabilitated.