Khudiakov Mikhail

Khudiakov Mikhail (1894–1936) – archeologist and ethnographer, specialist in the history and culture of the peoples of the Volga Region.

Having finished a gymnasium in Kazan’ with a golden medal, in 1913, he enrolled at the Historical and Philological Faculty of the Kazan’ University. He graduated the University in 1918, worked as a school teacher, librarian of the Society of History, Archeology and Ethnography at the Kazan’ University. Since 1919, he was Curator of the Archeological Sector, later – Head of the Historical and Archeological Department of the Govern Museum of Kazan’; and then he taught at the North-Eastern Archeological and Ethnographical Institute. Since 1920, he worked at the Museum Department of the Narkomat of Education of the Tartar A.S.S.R.; he was also one of the organizers and secretaries of the Research Society of the Tartar Studies. Because of political reasons, in 1923, he had to leave Kazan’.

In 1925, he got a position of Researcher at the State Public Library in Leningrad. In 1926-1929, he studied at the post-graduate courses of the State Academy of the History of Material Culture. In 1927, he took part in the Middle Volga Expedition to Chuvash. In 1920-s, he fixed Udmurt epic folklore.

Since 1929, he taught at the Leningrad State University, at the Ethnographical Department of the Geographical Faculty; since 1931, he was Docent of the Leningrad Institute of Literature and History, and at the Leningrad Institute of History, Philosophy and Literature. In 1929-1933, he was Research Secretary of the Commission on Studying of the Tribal Structure of the Population of the U.S.S.R. at the Ac. of Sc.; he worked at the Institute of Studying the Peoples of the U.S.S.R. (1930). Since 1931, he was Researcher of the 1st rank at the State Academy of the History of Material Culture.

He actively participated in the activity of the group on studying the history of cults and popular Orthodoxy at the Ac. of Sc. (Section on studying the religious beliefs of the peoples of the U.S.S.R. under the supervision of N. М. Matorin). In 1936, Kh. got the Doctor degree in History without the defense.

On September 9, 1936, he was arrested as an ‘active participant of the counter-revolutionary Trotzkist-Zinoviev terrorist organization’. He was shot on December 19, 1936. He is rehabilitated.

Compositions

Chinese Porcelain from the Excavations of 1914 in Bulgars // Izvestiya of the Society of Archeology, History and Ethnography at the Kazan’ University. 1919, vol. 30, iss. 1, pp. 117—120. (in Rus.)
Bulgar: Exhibition of Culture of the Peoples of the East. Kazan’, 1920, pp. 10-22 (together with Z. Z. Vinogradov) (in Rus.)
The Moslem Culture in the Middle Volga region. Kazan’, 1922. (in Rus.)
Essays on the History of the Khanate of Kazan’. Kazan’, 1923. (in Rus.)
Short Report on the Excavations in the Vyatka Gov. // Soobshcheniya of the State Academy of the History of Material Culture. 1929, vol. 2, pp. 198—201. (in Rus.)
On the Issue of dating of Bulgarian Buidings // Materials on Protection, Repairing and Restoration of the Monuments of the Tartar A.S.S.R. 1930, iss. 4, pp. 36-48. (in Rus.)
On the Issue of Cromlechs // Soobshcheniya of the State Academy of the History of Material Culture. 1931, No 7, pp. 11-14. (in Rus.)
On the Issue of the Perm’ Animal Style // Soobshcheniya of the State Academy of the History of Material Culture. 1931, No 8, pp. 15-17. (in Rus.)
Kazan’ in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries: Materials on the History of the Tartar A.S.S.R. Leningrad, 1932, pp. VII—XXV. (in Rus.)
Ethnography at the Service of the Class Enemy. Leningrad, 1932 (together with S. N. Bykovsky and А. C. Supinsky) (in Rus.)
Pre-Revolutionary Russian Archeology at the Service of the Exploitative Classes. Leningrad, 1933. (in Rus.)
The Horse Cult in the Kama Region // Izvestiya of the State Academy of the History of Material Culture. 1933, iss. 100, pp. 251—279. (in Rus.)
Pre-Revolutionary Siberian ‘Oblastnichestvo’ (Regionalists) and Archeology // Problemy istorii dokaputalisticheskikh obshchestv. 1934, No 9/10, pp. 135—143. (in Rus.)
Cosmological Cult Ideas in the Kama Region in the Epoch of Deconstruction of the Clan Society: ‘Sun’ and Its Variants // Problemy istorii dokaputalisticheskikh obshchestv. 1934, No 11/12, pp. 76-97. (in Rus.)
Archeologista in Fiction // Problemy istorii dokaputalisticheskikh obshchestv Problemy istorii dokaputalisticheskikh obshchestv. 1935, No 5/6, pp. 100—118. (in Rus.)
Graphical Schemes of Historical Process in the Works by N. Ya. Marr // Sovetskaya etnografiya. 1935, No 1, pp. 18-42. (in Rus.)
An Essay on the History of the Primordial Society on the territory of the Mari Region: Introduction to the History of the People of Mari. Leningrad, 1935. (in Rus.)
Remnants of the Group Marriage and Matriarchate in the Volga Region: Mari and Udmurts // Trudy of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the Ac. of Sc. of the U.S.S.R. 1936, vol. 4, pp. 391—414. (in Rus.)
Song on the Udmurt Batyrs: From the Folk Epics of Udmurts // Problems of Epic Tradition of Udmurt Folklore and Literature. Ustinov, 1986, pp. 97-132. (in Rus.)
Essays on the History of the Khanate of Kazan’. Moscow, 1991. (in Rus.)

About him

Yashin D. А. An Attempt of Creation of the Udmurt Epics: On the Manuscript of М. G. Khudiakov ‘From the Folk Epics of Votyaks’. Problems of Epic Tradition of Udmurt Folklore and Literature. Ustinov, 1986, pp. 82-96. (in Rus.)
Yashin D. А. Interrelation between Folk and Author’s Elements in the Epics by М. G. Khudiakov ‘Song on Udmurt Batyrs’ // XVII All-Soviet Finno-Ugric Conference. Ustinov, 1987, iss. 2, pp. 290—292. (in Rus.)
Bairamova F. A Forgotten Son of the Peoples of the Volga Region. Vechernyaya Kazan’. 1990, November 20. (in Rus.)
Osmanov М. А. On Мikhail Khudiakov and His Book // Khudiakov М. G. Essays on the History of the Khanate of Kazan’. Moscow, 1991, pp. 5-9. (in Rus.)
Mukhamediarov Sh. F. The Khanate of Kazan’ in the Works by М. G. Khudiakov // Ibid., pp. 309—313. (in Rus.)
Kuz’minykh S. V., Starostin V. I. The Leningrad Years in the Life and Work Way of М. G. Khudiakov // St. Petersburg and National Archeology. pp. 157—172. (in Rus.)
Kornilov I. Мikhail Georgievich Khudiakov: Points of Biography // Ekho vekov. 1995, No 5, pp. 211—214. (in Rus.)
Vasil’kov Yu. V., Sorokina М. Yu. People and Destinies: Bio-Bibliographical Lexicon of Orientalists – Victims of Political Terror in the Soviet Period (1917 – 1991). St. Petersburg, 2003. (in Rus.)
Shakhnovich М. М., Chumakova Т. V. Ideology and Research: Studying Religion in the Epoch of Cultural Revolution in the U.S.S.R. St. Petersburg, Nauka Publishing House, 2016. (in Rus.)

M. Sh.