Mirfatyh Zakiev


Zakiev Mirfatyh is a Türkology scholar, philologist, professor, and a Tatarstan public figure. He holds a Doctor of Philology, is a full member of the Academy of Sciences of the Tatarstan Republic, and served as a chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Tatar ASSR.
Zakiev conducted major scientific research in the field of the Tatar Linguistics, Türkology. For Zakiev's fundamental research in syntactic architecture of the Tatar language, academician B.A. Serebrennikov commented: "This is the first most full and logically faultless monograph about the syntax of the Türkic languages".
Zakiev published several hundred scientific works, including thirty-five monographs, brochures, textbooks and instruction manuals for the Tatar language; a history of the Tatar school of Türkologists; and an ethnic history of the Turkic peoples, covering inter-ethnic and interlingual contacts, bilinguality and multilinguality.
Zakiev claims that "proto-Turkish is the starting point of the Indo-European languages", that Sumerian, Ancient Greek, Icelandic, Etruscan and Minoan are languages of Turkic origin, and that the Sumerians, Scythians and Sarmatians were of Turkic origin. These views are generally rejected by the vast majority of scholars and he has been frequently described as an "alternative historian" and a "militant amateur".
Zakiev served in a number of higher schools and institutes as a rector, director and department head, created Departments of Ethnography, Manuscripts and Textology, Lexicology and Lexicography, was instrumental in compiling a Collection of Monuments of History and Culture, and created a Tatar Encyclopedia. He headed the Scientific Commission of the Education Ministry of the Russian Federation for the philological sciences, and is a member of Presidium of AN RT.
Zakiev created scientific schools in the fields of language, interethnic and interlingual contacts, bilinguality and multilinguality. Zakiev prepared thirty Ph.D.s and Doctors of Science. Twelve of his pupils became Doctors of Science and professors. Under his guidance the Department of Linguistics in the IJALI created the three-volume Academic Grammar of the Tatar Language, a multivolume Tatar Lexicology.

Main publications

  1. "Hezerge Tatar edebi tele, Syntax", Kazan, 1958, in Tatar
  2. "Syntactic structure of the Tatar language", Kazan, 1963, in Russian
  3. School textbooks on Tatar language for upper grades of Tatar schools, republished from 1964 on.
  4. "Tatar halky telenen barlykka kilüe", Kazan, 1977. Examination of the Bulgarian Middle Age epitaphs found that contrary to the sanctioned doctrine, the first epitaph style belonged to the Bulgars of various local Turkic-speaking tribes which later developed into Tatar people, and the second epitaph style belonged to the Moslem Chuvashes who were assimilating Bulgarian language
  5. "Volga Bulgars and their descendants", co-author Ya.F.Kuzmin-Yumanadi, Kazan, 1993, in Russian. Study established that Tatars are descendants of Bulgars, instead of Chuvashes, postulated by the sanctioned doctrine.
  6. "Problems of language and origin of Volga Tatars", Kazan, 1986, in Russian
  7. "Tatars: Problems of a history and language", Kazan, 1995, in Russian
  8. "Tatar grammar, Vol 3, Syntax", Kazan, 1992 and 1995 in Russian, Moscow – Kazan, 1999 in Tatar
  9. "Törki-Tatar ethnogenesis", Moscow-Kazan, 1998, in Tatar. Study discredits the sanctioned doctrine of Mongolo-Tatar origin of the modern Tatars.
  10. "Origin of Türks and Tatars", Moscow, 2003, in Russian. Study of local ethnic roots of Türks and Tatars discredits the sanctioned doctrine of Türkic late migration in 4th-6th centuries AD from Altai to Central and Middle Asia, Near East, Asia Minor, Western Siberia, Ural-Itil region, Caucasus and Balkans; and migration of Tatar-Bulgar ancestors to Ural-Itil region in 7th century AD from N.Pontic.