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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