Professor H. Z. Gabidullin – The First Head of the Moscow State University’s Historical Oriental Studies

Abstract

This article considers the biography of Hadzhi Zagidullovich Gabidullin, the first head of the Department of History of the Colonial and Dependent Countries of the Historical Faculty of the Moscow State University of M. V. Lomonosov. In the history of oriental studies H. Z. Gabidullin has got popularity as a researcher of Islam and Turcology. His work in co-authorship with A. Arsharuni “Sketches of Panturkism and Panislamism in Russia” even now represents considerable value because a large number of the most interesting archival documents on “Muslim affairs” from funds of the Department of Police of the imperial Ministry of Internal Affairs were published in it for the first time. H. Z. Gabidullin prepared a work on the history of the Young Turks’ revolution and supervised Russian-Turkish scientific communications at the level of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in the mid-thirties. H. Z. Gabidullin was one of the Soviet “responsible authorities” supervising the development and introduction in Russia of alphabets based on Latin script. In May 1937 he was accused of participation in a counterrevolutionary nationalist organization and helping “Trotskyists” and was soon subjected to repression. In 1957 H. Z. Gabidullin was rehabilitated. However, his name and activity were long consigned to oblivion.