Baymirza Hayit
| Baymirza Hayit | |
|---|---|
| Born |
December 17, 1917 Namangan, Russian Turkestan |
| Died | October 31, 2006 (aged 88) Cologne, Germany |
| Occupation | Historian, Orientalist, Soldier during World War II |
Baymirza Hayit Mahmutmirzaoğlov (December 17, 1917 – October 31, 2006), also spelled Boymirza Hayit Mahmutmirzaoğlov, was a historian and orientalist who specialized in the history of Turkestan and Central Asia.
Baymirza Hayit was born in Yargorgan, a village in the province of Namangan, located on Uzbek territory. Hayit was one of nine children raised by his mother Rabiya Hayit and his father Mirza Mahmutmirzaoğlov in a family of Uzbek origin. As an adolescent Hayit already showed interest in literature and arts. Despite the deprivations of the 1930s, he graduated from Tashkent University in 1939. The same year he was called into the Red Army, where he served as a lieutenant. Hayit left Namangan in December 1939 and was stationed in Poland as a squadron tank commander. During World War II Hayit got into German captivity in 1941. Then he served as an officer in the Turkestan Legion of the German Wehrmacht. While serving in the legion he met the legendary Turkistani nationalist Mustafa Chokaev.
After the war Hayit settled down in West Germany, where he enrolled in the subjects science of history, orientalism and Islamic sciences at the University of Münster. Since then he was committed to the studies about his home region Turkestan. He received his PhD Doctor of Philosophy in 1950 and published his thesis “Die Nationalen Regierungen von Kokand und der Alasch Orda.” He married a young doctor from Cologne named Ruth in the same year. The couple had two sons, Ertay and Mirza, and a daughter, Dilber. From the 1950s until his death Hayit wrote dozens of articles and 15 acclaimed books in German, English, and Turkish on the history of Turkestan (the now independent republics of Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and the Chinese province of Xinjiang).
...
Wikipedia