Baykeev, Mirzadzhan Kuramshievich
Article
August 11, 2022
Mirzadzhan Kuramshievich Baikeev (Tatar. Mirzaҗan Khөrrәmsә uly Baikiev; 1868, Baikeevo, Krasnoslobodsky district, Penza province, Russian Empire - January 31, 1942, Leningrad, USSR) - Russian and Soviet sculptor, restorer. Known as the first Tatar professional sculptor. Born in 1868 in a Tatar village on the territory of the Penza province. At the age of 17 he came to St. Petersburg to work, where he got a job in the workshop of the sculptor M. A. Chizhov. Having shown an interest in sculpture, in 1893 he graduated from the Central School of Technical Drawing of Baron Stieglitz. After receiving his education, he got a job at the State Hermitage Museum, where he worked as a sculptor-restorer for more than 30 years. He restored a large number of sculptural works from the museum's collection, took part in the evacuation of exhibits during the First World War and civil wars. In parallel, he was engaged in his own modeling, the most famous of his works are the busts of Sh. Marjani, G. Tukay, I. Gasprinsky, F. Amirkhan, M. Vakhitov. In 1928 he was awarded the title of "Hero of Labor". After the outbreak of World War II, he took part in the third evacuation of the Hermitage valuables, during which he died in 1942 under enemy bombing in besieged Leningrad.