Mikhail Gurevich - Biography

Mikhail Iosifovich Gurevich (Михаи́л Ио́сифович Гуре́вич) (– November 12, 1976) was a Soviet aircraft designer, a partner (with Artem Mikoyan) of the famous MiG military aviation bureau. He was of Ukrainian Jewish Heritage.

Born to a family of a winery mechanic in a small township of Rubanshchina (Kursk region), in 1910 he graduated from gymnasium in Okhtyrka (Kharkiv region) with the silver medal and entered the Mathematics department at Kharkiv University. After a year, for participation in revolutionary activities, he was expelled from the University and from the region and continued his education in Montpellier University, and then specialized in aeronautical engineering in École Nationale Supérieure de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace, France.

In the summer 1914 Gurevich was visiting his home when World War I broke out. This and later the Russian Civil War interrupted his education. In 1925 he graduated from the Aviation faculty of Kharkov Technological Institute and worked as an engineer of the state company "Heat and Power".

In 1929 Gurevich moved to Moscow to pursue the career of aviation designer. In 1937 he headed a designer team in Polikarpov design bureau, and after 1939 was Vice Chief designer, after 1957 the Chief designer in Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau.

For his winning designs, Mikhail Gurevich won the State Stalin Prize (1941, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1953), the Lenin award (1962), and the title of Hero of Socialist Labor (1957).