[1] Ğabdulla Tuqay (Tuqayev) was born in the family of the hereditary village mullah of Quşlawıç, Kazan Governorate, Russian Empire (current Tatarstan, Russia) near the modern town of Arsk.

Soon Ğabdulla's grandfather also died and Məmdüdə was forced to return to her father and then to marry the mullah of the village of Sasna.

During his stay with this family, Ğabdulla was sent to the local madrassah (religious school), for the first time in his life, where, in his own words, his enlightenment began.

In the fall of 1895, the Ğosmanovs, Tatar merchants living in Uralsk, decided to adopt their distant relatives, because their own children had died.

Ğosmanov tried to interest Ğabdulla in his work, but Tuqay stayed indifferent to the merchant's lot, preferring to develop his education.

On 30 July 1900 Ğaliəsğar Ğosmanov died of "stomach diseases", so Tuqay moved into the madrassah itself, living first in common room, and two years later in a khujra, an individual cell.

In the madrassah Tuqay proved himself a diligent student, completing in ten years a program intended for fifteen.

[2] Beginning in his madrassah years, Tuqay was interested in folklore and popular poetry, and he asked shakirds, coming for different jobs all over Idel-Ural during summer vacations, to collect local songs, examples of bəyet, i.e. epic poem and fairy-tales.

Young teacher, the son of headmaster, Kamil "Motıyği" Töxfətullin, organized wallpaper Məğarif (The Education) and hand-written journals.

At day Tuqay worked in typography (he was already a proofreader), but by nights he wrote verses, so every issue of Fiker, Nur and Əlğəsrəlcadid contains his writing.

The most prominent writings of that period are Millətə (To the Nation) poem and Bezneñ millət, ülgənme, əllə yoqlağan ğınamı?

That period his most prominent verses devoted to the social themes and patriotism were composed: Gosudarstvennaya Dumağa (To the State Duma), Sorıqortlarğa (To the Parasites) and Kitmibez!

On 6 January 1907, Tuqay left madrassah, as his fee permitted him to live independently, and settled in a hotel room.

However, that year he was surprisingly discharged, as the result of the conflict with Kamil Motıyği and instigation of the typography workers for a strike to raise a salary.

[2] Just after the arrival to Kazan, Tuqay stayed at Bolğar hotel and met Tatar literature intelligentsia, such as playwright and Yoldız newspaper secretary Ğəliəsğar Kamal and prominent Tatar poet and Tañ yoldızı newspaper chief editor Səğit Rəmiev.

Several days after he left Kazan to be examined by a draft board, assembly point being in Ətnə village.

He was adopted to the editorial staff of democratically oriented Əl-İslax gazette, led by Fatix Əmirxan and Wafa Bəxtiyərev.

However, later Tuqay did not develop their relations, and the possible reason was inferiority complex, attributed to his health and financial position.

In May 1908 an article, comparing Tuqay's, Rəmiev's and Majit Ghafuri's poetries was published in Russian-language Volzhsko-Kamsky Vestnik.

There Tuqay temporarily joined the first Tatar theatre troupe, Səyər, singing national songs and declaiming his verses from scene.

In those years Tuqay became staunch leftist, despite his staying with a bourgeois family for some time: Əl-İslax became a leftist political newspaper only, Tuqay criticized all his former friends, turned to the right or liberal newspapers: Zarif Bəşiri from Oremburgean Çükeç and Səğit Rəmiev from Bəyənelxaq.

Being at the top of his crisis, he thinks about suicide, but since March 1910 a new satirical magazine, Yal-Yolt (The Lightning) was published in Kazan under Əxmət Urmançiev.

Being interested in Leo Tolstoy ideas and legacy, Tuqay felt keenly the death of the Russian genius.

However, as it known from Tuqay's letters to his friend Səğit Sönçələy, he decided to write the Tatar Eugene Onegin, but he had to recover his health.

As Ğayfi was interested in photography, they shot a series of cards, devoted to Tuqay's poems and the Tatar theatre.

[2] His last year he began full of optimism: the revolutionary tendencies rose, and social theme appeared in his poetry again.

In spite of this, he found energy to write for the new literature magazine Añ and the democratic newspaper Qoyaş (The Sun), edited by Fatix Əmirxan.

26 April, his birthday, is celebrated as The Day of Tatar Language, and his poem İ, Tuğan tel (Oh My Mother Tongue!)

Mintimer Shaymiev, the former President of Tatarstan, remembers Tuqay as follows: "Holding A. Pushkin and M. Lermontov, classics of the high Russian literature, as his teachers and using his poetic language, Tuqay managed to bring to the Tatars timeless cultural values that join and unite our nations.

Over one hundred years since first Tuqay's works were published his poetry has become the treasure of not only Tatar and Russian but also world culture".