Makhmud Mirzaev

Makhmud Mirzaevich Mirzaev was born in Tashkent on 15 June 1921. He finished the Central Asian Industrial Workers’ Faculty in 1939 and the Tashkent Agricultural Institute in 1943.

His working life began at the Qibray state farm, which specialised in orchards and vineyards, where he was chief agronomist from 1943 to 1949. In 1949 Mirzaev became director of the Schroeder Research Institute of Horticulture, Viticulture and Winemaking and stayed in the post until his death in 2000; from 1997 he also headed the research and production association of the field.

Alongside his scientific work he held state posts: deputy minister of agriculture of the Uzbek SSR in 1952–1953 and acting minister from December 1962 to January 1964. He defended his candidate’s dissertation in 1951 as an external postgraduate of the All-Union Institute of Plant Industry, and his doctoral dissertation in 1975, on bringing mountain and foothill land under orchards and vineyards.

Mirzaev’s research dealt with mountain horticulture and viticulture, the biology of fruit crops and the breeding of table-grape, apricot and apple varieties. He wrote about 300 published works, including three monographs, and led the preparation of the fundamental volumes “Pomology of Uzbekistan” and “Ampelography of Uzbekistan”.

He became a corresponding member of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences (VASKhNIL) in 1978 and a full member in 1988, and in 1992 an academician of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan. He was named Honoured Agronomist of the Uzbek SSR in 1964 and Honoured Science Worker of the Uzbek SSR in 1968. On 8 April 1971 he was made Hero of Socialist Labour; he also received the Orders of Lenin, of the October Revolution, of the Red Banner of Labour and of the Badge of Honour, and in independent Uzbekistan the Orders “Do’stlik” (1994) and “El-yurt hurmati” (1998).

Makhmud Mirzaev died in Tashkent on 3 August 2000 and was buried at the Minor cemetery. By a decision of the Cabinet of Ministers of 24 August 2013, the institute he had led was named after him.