The name of Gabdulla Tukai is well-known not only in Tatarstan, but also out of the republic. Everyone, who is keen on art and likes poetry, knows his name. The Tukai’s talent is many-sided: he was a poet and a pamphleteer, literary critic and public figure. His contribution to the Tatar poetry and culture is comparable with Pushkin in Russian literature.

Gabdulla Tukai was born in April 1886 in the Village Kushlavych of the Kazanskaya Gubernia (Kazan Province). Having become an orphan very early, Gabgulla firstly lived with his grandfather, who sent the boy to Kazan in1889. In 1895 a nine-year-old Gabdulla left for the Uralsk city, where his sister lived.

Uralsk is the city of the poet’s childhood and youth. There he entered the medrese (religious school) and began to write verses. In this small town in the Ural region he came to know about the Great Russian poets Pushkin and Lermontov. Their poetry won the heart of the young poet.

Working in the printing-house as a proof-reader and head clerk, Gabdulla Tukai couldn’t put up with exploitation. He was given so much work, which was almost impossible to do, and was paid only ten rubles a month. Other workers and type-setters were in the same situation. Once Tukai said to the workers, that they must fight for their rights and not be afraid of their master.

The master of the printing house saw, that the young proof-reader instigated the workers, but didn’t take explicit measures, being afraid of Tukai’s biting irony, whose verses had been published in the newspapers. He made up his mind to give more work to the free-thinker.

But Tukai was always true to himself. He decided to repulse the master and began to prepare the publishing house workers for the strike and demand rise in wages. Seeing, that the young man had a strong character, the master made up his mind to get rid of Tukai and dismissed him.

The young poet faced the problem where to go. By the time he had been very famous. Many people admired his talent, including owners of Kazan and other publishing houses, who suggested work for Tukai. Among them was the Orenburg-city newspaper “Vakyt” (The Time”), which belonged to a millionaire and gold-mine owner Rameyev. Although Tukai knew, that Rameyev was a poet and wrote good verses, he accepted his invitation. But Kazan remained his life-dream. Life was much more impetuous there than in Orenburg or Ufa. And he was turned to Kazan.

Tukai liked people; and there is hardly any Tatar writer of the past, who expressed the spirit of national character so deeply and creatively as he did.

Tukai loved Kazan passionately and selflessly. The best moments of his life are connected with this city, although he had a lot of painful moments there.

There was hardly a book of collected poems by Tukai, which was not prohibited during his Kazan period. His friendship with F. Amirkhan, G. Kamal, G. Kulakhmetov and communist Khusain Yamashev influenced the poet’s ideology. He wrote much affectedly about the first Tatar communist Kh. Yamashev.

The poet liked Kazan, where the poet spent the last years of his life. He dedicated a lot of his marvelous poems to the city. The poet called it “bright and radiant”, the city of science and arts.

Struggle with the tsarist autocracy and bourgeois nationalists took him a lot of energy. His health became much worse. They advised him to go to the South for treatment, but Tukai didn’t have money for the trip. His friends found some money for him and sent to the village, but his illness had been already neglected. He felt worse in the village. They decided to put him in the hospital. Having examined the patient, doctors asked why he hadn’t come to the hospital earlier. He replied jokingly: “I was told that hospital is the first station on the way to death. And I wanted to live for a while”.

On the 11 of April 1913 the Gabdulla Tukai died, in the prime of his creativity and talent, as Gorky said “died from starvation and consumption”.

Tatar people honored the memory of the outstanding national poet. The State Philharmonic society of the republic and annual state award, given for the best works of art and literature are named after Tukai. There is Tukayevskaya Street in Kazan at present, in the place, where two streets Tikhvinskaya and Yekaterininskaya stretched from modern Tatarstan Street to Lake Kaban.

Tukai lived in the rooms of “Bulgar” hotel, on the corner of Kirov and Tatarstan streets. There is a memorial inscription on the building. There is another one on the building, situated on the corner of Ostrovsky and Kavi Najmi streets. At the time of Tukai there was a hospital (now the GIDUV clinic).

Gabdulla Tukai was buried in the Tatar cemetery in the Privolzhsky district of the Kazan city.