NYGMET NURMAKOV

MET NURMAKOV (1895-1937) - famous state and public figure. Born in Karaganda oblast N. Nurmakov graduated from two-class Russian-Kazakh college, then Omsk Teacher's Seminary. During the study at the Omsk Seminary he participated in establishment of "Birlik" illegal organization of the Kazakh youth together with S. Seifullin, M. Zhumabayev, A. Dosov and M. Samatov.

In 1915-1918 he worked as a teacher in Karkaraly. He initiated establishment of Dala Odagy organization which held an agitation work against the tsarist decree on attraction of the Kazakhs to rear work.

In 1919-1920 he was a Secretary of the Karakralinsk District Military Revolutionary Committee. In 1921-1924 he was a Chairman of the Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal of the KASSR, people's commissar of justice, prosecutor and editor of "Kazak Tili" newspaper and "Kyzyl Kazakhstan" journal. During 1924-1929 he headed agitation and propaganda department of the Kazkraikom party, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the KASSR. He participated in adoption of the decision on removing the country's capital from Orenburg to Kyzylorda and then to Almaty. He was a Chairman of the Commission for elaboration of first draft Constitution of Kazakhstan and the Commission for creation of the Kazakh alphabet. Under his direction documentation in court-investigation bodies was translated into the Kazakh language.

N. Nurmakov stood against Goloshekin's idea on "small October Revolution" in Kazakhstan. In 1929 he was sent for study at the Communist University under the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of the Bolsheviks. Upon completion of the study he was appointed Vice Secretary of the All-Russian Executive Committee and worked there until 1937.

N. Nurmakov was among the first to undergo repressions of 1937. According to Moscow Archives he was arrested on June 3, 1937 and was shot dead at the age of 42.

He is the author of a collection of articles "Building Kazakhstan" devoted to socio-political issues and a treatise "State of affairs and tasks of work among national minorities of the RSFSR".

N. Nurmakov was fully rehabilitated after Stalin's death in the second half of the 1950s. His wife Zufnin was kept in concentration camps for 19 years and died in Almaty at the age of 90. Their elder daughter went missing those years. Their son Noyan returned from the Great Patriotic War and in 1986 died in Moscow. He was a colonel of military service.

Source: Kazakhstan, National Encyclopedia, Volume 4.

Book "Historical Figures"