VALIDOV, Akhmetzaki Akhmetshakhovich
VALIDOV, Akhmetzaki Akhmetshakhovich, Akhmet-Zaki Validi, Akhmet-Zaki Validi Togan, Zaki Validi, Zaki Validi Togan [10.12.1890, Derevnya Kuzyanovo of Sterlitamak Uyezd of Ufa Gub. (Ishimbaysky Raion of the RB) – 26.7.1970, Istanbul, Turkey], Statesman, Politician, Orientalist. Leader of the Bashkir National Movement, founder of the Autonomous Bashkortostan. D.Phil (1935). Member of the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries (1917) and RCP(b) (1920). Participant of the Civil War. Graduated from the Kasimiya Madrassa (Kazan, 1912) and Vienna University (1935). In 1917, Deputy Chairman of the Bashkir Central Shuro, Deputy Chairman of the Bashkir Government and Commander of the Bashkir Army. In February 1918, he was arrested by order of the Orenburg Gub. Military Revolutionary Committee. In April, he was released. Between June 1918 – February 1919, Chairman of the Bashkir Military Council. Participated in the preparation of the resolutions of the Bashkir Central Shuro, where the position of the Bashkirs in the political battles and the autonomous status of Bashkortostan as a part of the Federal Russia were defined. In November 1918, he opposed the establishment of A.V.Kolchak’s military dictatorship and his course on the reconstruction of unitary Russia without regional governments and national armed forces. Initiated negotiations with V.I.Lenin and I.V.Stalin on the accession of Bashkortostan to the RSFSR. In February 1919, he led the shift of Bashkir army troops to the Red Army. Was elected as Deputy Chairman of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee (ref. Bashkir Military Revolutionary Committee) and People’s Commissar (Minister) of Military Affairs of the Bashkir Republic. Participated in drafting the text of the Agreement of the Central Soviet Power with the Bashkir Government on the Soviet Autonomous Bashkiriya. Since April, Military Commissioner of the ASBR. Since February 1920, Chairman of the Bashkir Military Revolutionary Committee. Developed maps of Bolshaya Bashkiriya, Malaya Bashkiriya and Federation of Muslims of Autonomous States of the Eastern Russia. Disagreed with the Russian Central Executive Committee and Council of People’s Commissars of the RSFSR’ Resolution On the State System of the Autonomous Soviet Bashkir Republic of May 19, 1920, which violated the agreedupon conditions of accession of Bashkortostan to the RSFSR. In June, he left for Baku, then – for the Middle Asia. In July, 1921, he was elected a member of the Central Committee of the National Federation of Turkestan. Since 1923, he lived abroad (in Persia, Afghanistan, India, Turkey, France and Germany). Between 1927–70 (intermittently), he taught in Istanbul University; between 1935–37 – in Bonn, between 1938–39 – in Göttingen universities (Germany). Since 1953, Chairman of Istanbul University Islam Studies Institute. Scientific research is dedicated to the history and culture of the Iranian, Mongolian and Turkic peoples, problems of national liberation movements in the East, Archaeography, Source Studies, Ethnology, and Methodology of Historical Research. In 1923, among the manuscripts of the library in Mashhad (Persia) V. found The Travel Notes by Ibn Fadlan, which he published with comments in German language in 1939 (Leipzig, Germany). Chair man of the Organization Committee of the 22nd World Orientalists Congress (Istanbul, 1951). In 1944, he was arrested in Turkey on charges of panTurkist activity. In 1945, he was released. Rehabilitated in 1947.
