Smyk-Kitaev, Alexander Efimovich

Born in 1898 in the village of Belaya Dubrova, Tolochinsky volost, Vitebsk district ^[1] .

At 15, he fled to the front of the First World War . As part of the dragoon regiment, commanded by Prince Radziwill, he participated in battles in East Prussia . Over time, he moved to his older sister in Petrograd and got a job in one of the units of the Putilov plant ^[2] .

In March 1917, together with friends, he joined the Bolshevik party and became a Red Guard. He actively participated in the October Revolution of 1917 ^[3] .

From 1918 to 1920 - on the fronts of the Civil War in the Red Army as commissar of the regiment and instructor of the Political Department of the South-Western Front. From 1920 to 1924 he was in leading operational work in the bodies of the Cheka and OGPU ^[4] . From 1925 to 1930 he worked in the system of the People's Commissariat of the USSR as consul of the USSR in the Ili District of Xinjiang ^{[5] [6]} . Was there under the pseudonym Kitaev ^[7] .

From 1932 to 1941, he was in the leading scientific-organizational and educational-administrative work as deputy director of the State Historical Museum , scientific secretary for branches and bases of the USSR Academy of Sciences , deputy director for educational and scientific part of the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography ^[8] .

During the Great Patriotic War he was at propaganda work in the Soviet army ^[9] .

For services, the Commission of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR awarded him a personal pension ^[10] .

Since 1947 he worked as the head of the personnel department of the Physics and Technology Faculty of Moscow State University ^[11] .

Son - Leonid Aleksandrovich Kitaev-Smyk (born May 18, 1931, Moscow), senior researcher at the Russian Institute of Cultural Studies, Honored Tester of Space Technology of the Russian Cosmonautics Federation.