Mamutov Bekir

Editor-in-chief and political columnist at the independent Republican newspaper, Qirim (since 1989 in Simferopol), public activist, publicist, literary editor, translator.

Born in 1956 in Samarkand (Uzbekistan), where his parents were forcefully exiled from Crimea. In 1979 he graduated from the Tashkent University (Department of Journalism). His writings were published in Uzbekistan’s press for youth, Correspondent Magazine (Tashkent). In 1979–1992 he taught at the Department of Journalism, the last three years worked as a docent, and dean. Bekir is a candidate of philological sciences (Moscow State University, 1989).

Since 1980 he has been part of the national movement of the Crimean Tatar people; he was engaged in editing documents. One of the authors of a samvydav poetry collection "Gondzhe" ("Sprout"), active participant of issuing an illegal historical ethnographic magazine "Qasevet" ("Anxiety") – from the first issue (1984) and onwards. Since 1996 he has been a delegate of the Kurultaj, and in that year elected to the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people.

He returned to Crimean in 1992, where he resumed the journalistic work and started teaching in Simferopol universities. In the end of 2017 at the suggestion of the rectorate he resigned from the position of the Head of Crimean Tatar Literature and Journalism Faculty at the Crimean Engineering and Pedagogical University. An offstage motivation: member of the banned in Russian Mejlis and activities of the editor-in-chief at the independent newspaper, Qirim.

In 1997 he was appointed as deputy editor-in-chief, and in the late 1999 selected as the editor-in-chief of the Qirim Newspaper (80% of the content in Crimean language). In 1990s he was the primary trainer at the national school of journalism. In 2001 he did an internship in the USA (Chicago). He is the editor and author of forewords to nearly 20 books. One of the creators and author of the foreword of "Эдебиятымызнынъ итираз девири", one of the contributors to a poetry collection "Кирим - Міллет, Ватан - Девлет" (Simferopol, 2018) featuring social versed texts published in 2014–2017 in Qirim Newspaper.