Habib Yunich (also

russified Russification (), Russianisation or Russianization, is a form of cultural assimilation in which non-Russians adopt Russian culture and Russian language either voluntarily or as a result of a deliberate state policy. Russification was at times ...

as Yunichev; 1906–1945) was a

Chinese Tatar The Chinese Tatars (), or simply Tatars ( zh, s=塔塔尔族), are a Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group in Xinjiang, China. They are one of the 56 List of ethnic groups in China, ethnic groups officially recognized by the Chinese government. ...

educator, journalist, and politician. He served as the

Second East Turkestan Republic The East Turkestan Republic (ETR) was a satellite state of the Soviet Union in northern Xinjiang (East Turkestan) that existed from 1944 to 1946. It is often described as the Second East Turkestan Republic to differentiate it from the First E ...

's education minister from the government's establishment in 1944 until his sudden death from

typhus Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposu ...

in 1945. He was succeeded by his deputy Seypidin Azizi. A highly educated

polyglot Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolin ...

, Yunich was concerned primarily with improving the cultural and educational institutions of his hometown Ghulja (Yining). He founded the city's first

public library A public library is a library, most often a lending library, that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also Civil servic ...

and Uyghur-language newspaper.

Early life and education

Habib Yunich was born in 1906, in the

Uyghur Uyghur may refer to: * Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia (West China) ** Uyghur language, a Turkic language spoken primarily by the Uyghurs *** Old Uyghur language, a different Turkic language spoken in the Uyghur K ...

-majority city of

Ghulja YiningThe official spelling according to ( zh, s=伊宁), also known as Ghulja () or Kulja ( Kazakh: ), is a county-level city in northwestern Xinjiang, China. It is the administrative seat and largest city of Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture ...

. His father was Faziljan, an ethnic Tatar from Russia who became a respected ''

aqsaqal Aqsaqal or aksakal (literally meaning "white beard" in Kipchak languages) metaphorically refers to the male elders, the old and wise of the community in parts of Central Asia, the Caucasus and Bashkortostan. Traditionally, an aqsaqal was the ...

'' (local elder) of Ghulja. A

tsarist Tsarist autocracy (), also called Tsarism, was an autocracy, a form of absolute monarchy in the Grand Duchy of Moscow and its successor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire. In it, the Tsar possessed in principle authority and ...

, Faziljan chose not to return to Russia following the

February Revolution The February Revolution (), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and sometimes as the March Revolution or February Coup was the first of Russian Revolution, two revolutions which took place in Russia ...

of 1917 and successfully applied for Chinese citizenship. Yunich studied in

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

and the

Soviet Union 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 ...

as a young adult, learning a plethora of

Turkic languages The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and West Asia. The Turkic langua ...

in addition to his native

Tatar Tatar may refer to: Peoples * Tatars, an umbrella term for different Turkic ethnic groups bearing the name "Tatar" * Volga Tatars, a people from the Volga-Ural region of western Russia * Crimean Tatars, a people from the Crimea peninsula by the B ...

. By the time he returned to Ghulja from Turkey in 1934, he had become fluent in

Turkish Turkish may refer to: * Something related to Turkey ** Turkish language *** Turkish alphabet ** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation *** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey *** Turkish communities in the former Ottoman Empire * The w ...

, Kazakh, and Uzbek. He was also fluent in

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

, and

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

. Shortly after returning to Ghulja, Yunich organized the first Uyghur-language newspaper in the city, and more broadly in Ili District. He was the newspaper's editor from 1934 to 1944. He also established Ghulja's first

and taught at a Tatar school in the city during the 1940s.

Political career

The

(officially just the East Turkestan Republic or ETR) was proclaimed in Ghulja on 12 November 1944 by Soviet-backed Turkic revolutionaries, with Yunich being among them. On 18 November 1944, the ETR government appointed Yunich as Minister of Education, citing his rich cultural and linguistic education. Seypidin Azizi, a Soviet-educated Uyghur, was appointed his deputy. Yunich was the editor of the ETR government's official newspaper, ''Free East Turkestan'' (later ''Revolutionary East Turkestan''). It was published in four languagesUyghur, Russian, Kazakh, and Chineseand began circulation on 17 November 1944.

Death

Yunich contracted

from one of his students amid an outbreak of the disease in Ghulja in the winter of 1944–45. He died in January 1945; Azizi succeeded him as the ETR's education minister on 13 March 1945.

References

Citations

Sources

* * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Yunich, Habib 1906 births 1945 deaths 20th century in Xinjiang 20th-century Chinese educators 20th-century Chinese journalists 20th-century Chinese politicians Chinese Muslims Chinese Tatars Deaths from typhus East Turkestan independence activists Multilingual writers People from Yining County Tatar revolutionaries Writers from Xinjiang