Mukhametsalim Umetbayev

Mukhametsalim Umetbayev – a Bashkir poet-educator, scholar, and the first Bashkir local historian-researcher. He was born on August 21, 1841, in the village of Ibragimovo in the Orenburg Governorate. Umetbayev received his primary education at a madrasa, and then entered the Orenburg Nepluev Cadet Corps. During his studies he mastered Russian, French, Persian and Turkic languages, and studied geography, mathematics, history, architecture, art, calligraphy and military affairs. After graduating from the corps he worked in the Bashkir Military Administration, then as a clerk and volost elder. From 1879 to 1880 he taught Russian at the Sterlitamak madrasa and worked on a Persian–Tatar–Russian dictionary.

 

In 1880 Umetbayev moved to Ufa, where he worked as a translator at the Orenburg Muslim Spiritual Assembly and held high positions as collegiate registrar, secretary and titular counselor. Umetbayev is known as the first translator of A. S. Pushkin's works into the Bashkir language – for the poet's centenary he translated and published the poem “The Fountain of Bakhchisarai”. Mukhametsalim Umetbayev passed away in 1907 in his native village.