MAGDI MAKULOV: A HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAIT OF A MUSLIM FIGURE AND THEOLOGIAN

Abstract

Magdi Makulov (1862 –1937) was a prominent yet lesser -known figure among the Muslim leaders of the Soviet Union, unfamiliar even to many specialists. A native of North Kazakhstan, he was a renowned theologian, qadi (spiritua l judge), public figure, delegate of the Second All -Kazakh Congress (Orenburg, 1917) and the 1926 First World Muslim Congress in Mecca, member of both the Central Spiritual Administration (TsDU) of Muslims of Inner Russia and Siberia and its Council of Ulema (Scholarly Council). This article is based on archival documents declassified at the initiative of the Project Office of the State Commission for the Full Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Persecution (headed by S.A. Kasymov). The source material includes Makulov's memoranda addressed to M.I. Kalinin, Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, documents from the Eastern Department of the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU), records from the Archive of the President of the Republi c of Kazakhstan and the North Kazakhstan State Archive, memoirs of Makulov's descendant, and recent literature published in Kazakhstan, Russia, and Germany. Introducing the name of Magdi Makulov into broad scholarly discourse is a direct result of the work of contemporary researchers who are restoring the history of the national religious elite purged during the years of the Great Terror.