Mikhail Iosifovich Gurevich () ( – 12 November 1976) was a
Soviet
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
aircraft designer who co-founded the
Mikoyan-Gurevich
Russian Aircraft Corporation "MiG" (), commonly known as Mikoyan and MiG, is a Russian aerospace and defence company headquartered in Begovoy District, Moscow.
Mikoyan was the successor to the Soviet Mikoyan and Gurevich Design Bureau (Мик ...
military aviation
Military aviation is the design, development and use of military aircraft and other flying machines for the purposes of conducting or enabling aerial warfare, including national airlift (air cargo) capacity to provide military logistics, logist ...
bureau along with
Artem Mikoyan
Artem (Artyom) Ivanovich Mikoyan (; ; – 9 December 1970) was a Soviet Armenian aircraft designer, who cofounded the Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau along with Mikhail Gurevich.
Early life and career
Mikoyan was born in the village of Sana ...
. The bureau is famous for its fighter aircraft, rapid interceptors and multi-role combat aircraft which were staples of the Soviet Air Forces throughout the
Cold War
The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
. The bureau designed 170 projects of which 94 were made in series. In total, 45,000 MiG aircraft have been manufactured domestically, of which 11,000 aircraft were exported. The last plane which Gurevich personally worked on before his retirement was the
MiG-25
The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 (; NATO reporting name: Foxbat) is a supersonic interceptor and reconnaissance aircraft that is among the fastest military aircraft to enter service. Designed by the Soviet Union's Mikoyan-Gurevich bureau, it is a ...
.
Life and career
Born to a
Jewish
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
family
his father was a winery mechanic in the small township of
Rubanshchina (
Kursk region in
Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
). In 1910 he graduated from gymnasium in
Okhtyrka
Okhtyrka (, ; ) is a city in Sumy Oblast, Ukraine. It serves as the administrative center of Okhtyrka Raion within the oblast.
Okhtyrka was once home to Hussars and Cossacks. It was also in the past a regional seat of the Sloboda Ukraine Imperia ...
(
Kharkiv region
Kharkiv Oblast (, ), also referred to as Kharkivshchyna (), is an oblast (province) in eastern Ukraine.
Kharkiv borders Luhansk Oblast to the east, Donetsk Oblast to the southeast, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast to the southwest, Poltava Oblast to the wes ...
) with the silver medal and entered the Mathematics department at
Kharkiv University
The V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University (), also known as Kharkiv National University or Karazin University, is a public university in Kharkiv, Ukraine. It was founded in 1804 through the efforts of Vasily Karazin, becoming the second old ...
. After a year, for participation in revolutionary activities, he was expelled from the university and from the region and continued his education in
Montpellier University
The University of Montpellier () is a public research university located in Montpellier, in south-east of France. Established in 1220, the University of Montpellier is one of the oldest universities in the world.
The university was split into ...
. He was at
SUPAERO in Toulouse in the 1913 class with Marcel Bloch, who later took the name
Marcel Dassault
Marcel Dassault (; born Marcel Ferdinand Bloch; 23 January 1892 – 17 April 1986) was a French engineer and industrialist who spent his career in aircraft manufacturing. He was also involved in politics, serving intermittently over more than thr ...
.
In the summer 1914 Gurevich was visiting his home when
World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
broke out. This and later the
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...
interrupted his education. In 1925 he graduated from the Aviation faculty of
Kharkiv Technological Institute and worked as an engineer of the state company "Heat and Power".
In 1929 Gurevich moved to
Moscow
Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...
to pursue the career of aviation designer. Soviet design was a state-run affair, organised in so-called
OKB
OKB () is a transliteration of the Russian initials for "" (), which translates to "Experimental Design Bureau." It could also mean or "Special Design Bureau" in english. During the Soviet era, OKBs were closed institutions working on design and ...
s or design bureaus. In 1937 Gurevich headed a designer team in the
Polikarpov Design Bureau, where he met his future team partner,
Artem Mikoyan
Artem (Artyom) Ivanovich Mikoyan (; ; – 9 December 1970) was a Soviet Armenian aircraft designer, who cofounded the Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau along with Mikhail Gurevich.
Early life and career
Mikoyan was born in the village of Sana ...
. In late 1939 they created the
Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau, with Gurevich in the position of Vice Chief Designer, and after 1957 as its Chief Designer, a post he kept until his retirement in 1964. This is remarkable, considering that he never joined the
Communist Party.
In 1940 Mikoyan and Gurevich designed and built the high-altitude
MiG-1
The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-1 () was a Soviet fighter aircraft of World War II that was designed to meet a requirement for a high-altitude fighter issued in 1939. To minimize demand on strategic materials such as aluminum, the aircraft was mostly ...
fighter plane
Fighter aircraft (early on also ''pursuit aircraft'') are military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air superiority of the battlespace. Domination of the a ...
, starting from a project partially developed by
Polikarpov
Polikarpov Design Bureau was a Soviet Union, Soviet OKB (design bureau) for aircraft, led by Nikolai Polikarpov, Nikolai Nikolaevich Polikarpov. Dux Factory was acquired by the USSR and became part of Polikarpov.
After the death of Polikarpo ...
's team. The improved
MiG-3
The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3 () is a Soviet fighter- interceptor used during World War II. It was a development of the MiG-1 by the OKO (opytno-konstruktorskij otdel — Experimental Design Department) of Zavod (Factory) No. 1 in Moscow to rem ...
fighter aircraft was widely used during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. In the years after the war, the two designed the first Soviet jet fighters, including the first supersonic models. The last model Gurevich worked on was the
MiG-25
The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 (; NATO reporting name: Foxbat) is a supersonic interceptor and reconnaissance aircraft that is among the fastest military aircraft to enter service. Designed by the Soviet Union's Mikoyan-Gurevich bureau, it is a ...
interceptor
Interceptor may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Film and television
* ''The Interceptor'', a British drama series on BBC One
* Interceptor (game show), ''Interceptor'' (game show), a British television game show that ran during 1989
* Interc ...
, which is among the
fastest military aircraft ever to enter service.
Honours and awards
*
Hero of Socialist Labor
The Hero of Socialist Labour () was an honorific title in the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries from 1938 to 1991. It represented the highest degree of distinction in the USSR and was awarded for exceptional achievements in Soviet ...
(1957)
* Six
State Stalin Prizes (1941, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1952, 1953)
*
Order of Lenin
The Order of Lenin (, ) was an award named after Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the October Revolution. It was established by the Central Executive Committee on 6 April 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration bestowed by the Soviet ...
(1962)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gurevich, Mikhail Iosifovich
1892 births
1976 deaths
People from Sudzhansky District
People from Sudzhansky Uyezd
Russian aerospace engineers
Supaéro alumni
Russian inventors
Soviet aerospace engineers
Jewish Russian scientists
20th-century Russian engineers
Russian Aircraft Corporation MiG
Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute alumni
National University of Kharkiv alumni
University of Montpellier alumni
Heroes of Socialist Labour
Recipients of the Stalin Prize
Recipients of the Lenin Prize
Recipients of the Order of Lenin
Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour
Recipients of the Order of the Red Star
Burials at Serafimovskoe Cemetery
Russian scientists