Tembot Magometovich Kerashev

Tembot Magometovich Kerashev was an Adyghe Soviet writer. He was a laureate of the Stalin Prize, 3rd class (1948). He was born on August 16, 1902 in the aul Koshekhabl (now Adygea) into a peasant family. He graduated from a private Tatar school, then studied at a teachers' seminary in Ufa, a real school and a second-level school in the Abinskaya stanitsa, and the Krasnodar Polytechnic Institute.  

He worked as an archivist for the Organizational Department of the Adyghe Regional Executive Committee. In 1929 he graduated from the Moscow Industrial-Economic Institute, after which he returned to the Adyghe Autonomous Oblast. There he was editor of the regional newspaper and manager of the Adyghe National Publishing House. In 1931 he was appointed by the Presidium of the Adyghe Regional Executive Committee as director of the Adyghe Research Institute of Local Lore, a position he held until 1934. He then worked as an associate professor at the Krasnodar Institute (1934–1936), after which he returned as a research fellow to the Institute of Local Lore.  

Kerashev collected samples of the Adyghe people's oral poetic creativity, compiled collections of folklore works and prepared literature textbooks. In particular, in collaboration with A. D. Khatkov he created the first three textbooks on Adyghe literature for secondary school. Tembot Magometovich Kerashev passed away on February 8, 1988 and was buried in the New Cemetery in Maykop.