Usmanov, Shamil Khayrullovich

Abdullah ^[3] Usmanov was born in the family of a teacher. He received his primary education in Astrakhan, then he studied at the Husainiya madrasah in Orenburg, and from 1911-1914, at the Orenburg Vocational School. Until 1917 he worked as a mechanic at the cloth factories of the Akchurins of defense significance in Starotimoshkino and Guryevka, Simbirsk province.

In March 1917 he joined the Bolshevik party. In June, sent for the Bolshevik agitation located in Syzran 119th reserve infantry regiment. Elected Secretary of the Syzran Garrison Committee. In November 1917, participating as a delegate in the work of the II Kazan Regional Congress of Delegates of Soldiers' Soviets, he received the authority of the commissioner for the formation of units of the Red Army in Syzran. In May 1918, a 500-bayonet Muslim battalion (commander K. Khairullin, commissioner Sh. Usmanov) was sent to the Eastern Front . Having united in Orenburg with volunteers from among the prisoners of war of the Hungarians, Germans and Poles, the unit that received the name of the III International Legion (commander Pole Belevich, commissar Sh. Usmanov) distinguished himself in battles near Perevolotsky and Orsk . Having traveled from Aktyubinsk to Orenburg, on January 22, 1919, the legion liberated the city from Dutov’s troops.

In January 1919, the Central Muslim Military College decided to establish Muslim military units in Kazan, Samara and other Volga cities. The initiative of Shamil Usmanov on the formation of a Muslim regiment based on the international legion was not supported by the Revolutionary Military Council of the First Army . On March 10, 1919, the Republican Military Revolutionary Committee decided to form the First Separate Volga Tatar Rifle Brigade and approved Shamil Usmanov as the political commissioner of the brigade.

Upon completion of the formation of the unit, Sh. H. Usmanov in October 1919 was appointed head of the political department of the Central Muslim Military College; oversaw the activities of the press organ of the Military Collegium - the newspaper " Kyzyl Army ", published articles on the problems of creating the Tatar Republic. After the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the formation of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was issued on May 27, 1920, he was appointed secretary of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee of the Republic, the main purpose of which was to convene the Constituent Congress of Tatar Republic Soviets. At the 1st Regional Conference of Communists of the Tatar Republic on July 26-29, he made a report in which he emphasized the need to ensure the presence of at least 50% of Tatar delegates ^[4] .

The chauvinist-minded Kazan Provincial Committee, frightened by the independent steps of the leadership of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee, succeeded in removing S. Usmanov, I. Kazakov and I. Firdevs from work. Usmanov was mobilized and placed at the disposal of the Military Revolutionary Council of the Turkestan Front . After the end of hostilities, he was appointed head of the political unit of the military courses of the Institute of Oriental Studies in Tashkent .

In March 1922 he returned to Kazan , served as head of the political department of the infantry command courses, then as commissar of the United Tatar-Bashkir military school. In 1925, he was appointed inspector of the national military educational institutions of the Red Army in Moscow. Demobilized in 1927.

Working as the head of the Tatar Office of Spectacular Enterprises, he realized the idea of ​​the radioification of Tatarstan. He headed the construction of a broadcasting radio station in Kazan. On November 7, 1927, the Tatar radio in the voice of Shamil Usmanov uttered its first words: “Kazan Sayli!” - “Kazan is speaking!” And congratulated the listeners on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution.

He participated in the III Plenum of the All-Union Central Committee of the New Turkic Alphabet (VTsK NTA) in 1925 (Kazan), was a member of IAREV (International Association of Revolutionary Esperanto Writers), participated in the publication of a brochure with a collection of opinions on Esperanto delegates to the All-Union Congress of Writers in 1933 , in the issue of international language study guides.

Since 1934, a member of the joint venture of the USSR .

Arrested on April 8, 1937. Sentenced: Obv.: Art. 58-8, 58-11. (" Member of the nationalist Sultangaleev organization "). He died on December 3, 1937 in Kazan, in the office of the Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the TASSR, during interrogation from "heart failure". Rehabilitated December 30, 1955 ^[5] .

Began to print in the 1920s. The dramatic events of the revolution and the civil war are depicted in Usmanov’s play “On Bloody Days”, written under the influence of events related to the battles for Orenburg.

Usmanov’s Dilogy “Under the Red Banner” (“Kyzyl Bayrak Astynda”, 1923) and “The Way of the Legion” (“The Yule Legion”, 1928-1935), as well as the fantastic novel Radio from the Pamirs (Pamirdan Radio, 1925) and other works became a notable event in the literary life of Tatarstan in the 1920s and 1930s. The first part of the “Under the Red Banner” dilogy was launched in 1921. One of his short stories, “The Death of Second Lieutenant Danilov,” Shamil sent to M. Gorky , whom he later met in Kazan in 1928.

Shamil Usmanov named the street in Kazan, where the building of the state television and radio company of Tatarstan (now a branch of the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company ) and the street in Naberezhnye Chelny are located.

• Azat Akhunov, Tatarstan Magazine, No. 11, 2003