Location: Chistopolsky district, the Kutlushkyno village, Historical and Ethnographic Museum of Gayaz Iskhaki
Gayaz Iskhacky was born on February 22, 1878, in the village Yaushyrma near Chistopol of the Kazan province in the family of the mullah Gylyazetdyn.
His life experience was difficult, his literary works are numerous including journalistic genres, novels, stories, and plays. He was considered as an initiator of modern Tatar literature by his contemporaries. Gayaz Iskhacky made a valuable contribution to the development of the Tatar press taking part if the editing of the Tatar newspapers in Kazan, Moscow, and St. Petersburg. Before the October Revolution, he started to fight for the interest of the Tatar nation and was arrested. For the first time, he served time in the Chistopol prison in November-December 1906 where he wrote his autobiographic story “Zyndan” (“Prison”).
In May 1917 Gayaz Iskhacky raised the question about the national-cultural autonomy “Idel-Ural” (“Volga-Ural”) in the First All-Russia Congress of Muslims in Moscow and in the Second Congress in Kazan. In 1919 he left the country being elected the deputy of the Versailles Conference and then couldn’t go back. First, he lived in Harbin, then Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, shortly before World War II he moved to Turkey – Istanbul, Ankara. Abroad he went on his tireless public and literary activities. In 1933 he published his essay “Idel-Ural” in Berlin. G. Iskhacky died on June 22, 1954, and was buried in Istanbul.
Now the literary heritage of Gayaz Iskhacky is coming again to the readers. The fifteenth volume is coming of his works is being prepared. In the village Kutlushkyno the country-estate of Gayaz Iskhacky is open.
Source: based on the museum brochure
