Nikolai Fyodorovich Katanov was born on May 6 (18), 1862, in Turakovsky ulus, a steppe area located 16km from the village of Askiz on the left bank of the Abakan River.

At birth, he was given the Khakass name Porā, son of Khyzyl (Khakas: Пора Хызыл оғлы, romanized: Pora Xızıl oğlı).

As with all Khakas people, the family led a semi-nomadic lifestyle, spending the warm half of the year at a summer camp in the Sagai steppe and the cold season on the bank of the Abakan River near Lake Sarkagel.

[10] The State Archives of Krasnoyarsk Krai contain metric books in fond 824, 'Minusinsk spiritual board', which include a record of Nikolai Katanov's baptism under No.

Zavadsky-Krasnopolsky, a full member of the East Siberian branch of the Geographical Society, I have been engaged in writing down Sagai texts and describing the customs of my tribe.

K. Zavadsky-Krasnopolsky, a full member of the East Siberian Branch of the Geographical Society, I was engaged in writing Saga texts and describing the customs of my tribe.

As a result, Katanov was forced to sign a receipt on 21 August 1887, promising not to join any secret societies or participate in any financial subscriptions or legal social organizations without permission from his superiors during his time at the university.

[34] In early 1889, Katanov left St. Petersburg and returned via Omsk, Tomsk, and Krasnoyarsk, to his native Askiz, where he established the primary base for his field research.

[40] The wedding was attended by a large number of guests, including Innokenty and Ivan, the two sons of goldsmith Pyotr Ivanovich Kuznetsov, who were friends and supporters of the young Katanov.

After a year of uncertainty, on 9 November 1893, Nikolai Fyodorovich received a position as a lecturer at Kazan University with the rank of professor extraordinaire, with the assistance of V.V.

Katanov taught a variety of courses at the Faculty of History and Philology, showcasing his broad and diverse range of interests: During the 1895/1896 academic year, N.F.

[47] Nikolai Fedorovich Katanov was elected Secretary of the Society of Archaeology, History and Ethnography - OAIE - at the university less than two months after his arrival in Kazan on 8 April 1894.

This included the well-known Tatar poet Gabdulla Tuqay (Abdulla Tuqayev), who sympathised with the socialist-revolutionaries,[57][58] and Sardar Vaisov, the founder of the 'Vaisov movement' (which N. F. Katanov classified as a 'Muslim sect').

He served as the head of the editorial board of the Inorodcheskoye Obozreniye (a supplement to the journal Pravoslavniy Sobesednik), which was the printed organ of the missionary department of the Kazan Theological Academy.

Katanov had become a member of the Societe des sciences et lettres in Louven, the Ungarische ethnographische Gesellschaft in Budapest, and the Finno-Ugrian Society in Helsingfors, thanks to publications in French and German.

A recognised scholar, Katanov was forced to confine himself to reading optional courses, and his position as a "teacher with the rank of extraordinary professor" did not correspond to his scientific weight and authority.

[91] The elections held on 19 March 1914 ended in scandal when Nikolai Fyodorovich was accused of embezzling the Society's financial resources and was subsequently voted out of office.

[96] In October of that year, the North-Eastern Archaeological and Ethnographic Institute was established in Kazan, with a democratic structure that included an elected rector and student participation in management.

A. S. Nilogov suggests that to determine if the current tombstone is a cenotaph, exhumation, forensic medical examination, and genetic analysis of the direct male line of the Katanov family are necessary.

This is in addition to the daily documents received from the governor's office, the gendarme department, and court presences, which amounted to at least 60 pages of texts in Arabic, Persian, Chagatai, Sartan, and other Oriental languages.

Katanov did not like the pretentiousness of the language, which was characteristic of the leading teachers of the time, but according to the students' memories: '...his speech flowed freely, beautifully, with such a wide and exciting wave, like a silky waddle in the steppes where his childhood was spent.

K. I. Sultanbaeva identified several important didactic principles in his teaching activity: According to N.V. Chekhov (referring to Katanov himself), Nikolai Fedorovich "would turn to the students and ask: 'Are you Russian?'

[121] Katanov, a linguist, combined the study of Oriental languages with the collection of folklore from the Khakass, Tuvinians, Karagas, Sarts, Uyghurs, and other peoples of Southern Siberia and Eastern Turkestan.

However, he only continued his teacher's Turkological work in collecting materials on the language, folk literature, and ethnography of Turkic peoples who lived during his time.

Katanov's death, the authorities began to view his name and scientific and public achievements negatively, due to their counter-revolutionary connotation from the perspective of Bolshevik ideology.

Katanov was called in the "Final Act" "a characteristic example of the missionary tendencies which play a predominant role in the activities of the Council of the Society".

Katanov decreased many times over, and in the periodical press there were insults such as "a scholarly villein of the old regime" (the newspaper "Krasnaya Tataria", 1933) or "a reactionary in science" ("Scientific Notes of the Khakass Research Institute of Language, Literature and History", 1951).

Since 2000, there has been a renewed interest in Katanov's heritage following the publication of a trilingual collection of his selected articles on Sayan Turks in Ankara, written in Khakass, Russian, and Turkish.

[128] In 2005, an international seminar titled 'The Legacy of N. F. Katanov: History and Culture of Turkic Peoples of Eurasia' was held in Kazan by R. M. Valeev and V. N. Tuguzhekova from the Khakass Research Institute of Language and Literature.

[134] In 1996, the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Khakassia issued surrogate money in the denomination of 5000 rubles, commonly referred to as 'katanovki' due to the portrait of the scientist on the reverse of the banknote.