Within the White Movement of the Russian Civil War of 1917-1923, Yakov Aleksandrovich Slashchov was a leading commander of Baron Wrangel's Crimean army who eventually reconciled with the Soviets and returned from Constantinople to Moscow in 1921. In 1929 he was killed in his Moscow apartment by a Jew named Lazar Kalenberg, apparently in revenge for the execution of Kalenberg's brother.
Yakov Grigoryevich Zhilinsky was a Russian cavalry general, chief of staff of the Imperial Russian Army from 2 February 1911 to 4 March 1914. He was considered to be one of the main culprits of the failure of the East Prussian Campaign in the early stages of the First World War.
Yakub, Yakiv Holovatsky was a noted Galician historian, literary scholar, ethnographer, linguist, bibliographer, lexicographer, poet and leader of Galician Russophiles. He was a member of the Ruthenian Triad, one of the most influential Ukrainian literary groups in the Austrian Empire.
Yakub Kolas, real name Kanstantsin Mikhailovich Mitskievich was a Belarusian writer, dramatist, poet and translator. People's Poet of the Byelorussian SSR (1926), member (1928) and vice-president of the Belarusian Academy of Sciences.
Yalçın Küçük is a Turkish socialist writer, economist, historian and media pundit, recognized for his historical studies on the late-Ottoman and Republican periods in the history of Turkey and Soviet economic development from a Marxist perspective and also his interest in crypto-Judaism in Turkey (Sabbateanism) and criticism of the Justice and Development Party.
Yamamoto Tsunetomo , Buddhist monastic name Yamamoto Jōchō, was a samurai of the Saga Domain in Hizen Province under his lord Nabeshima Mitsushige. He became a Zen Buddhist priest and relayed his experiences, memories, lessons, ideas, and aphorisms to the samurai Tashiro Tsuramoto, who compiled them under the title Hagakure.
Yambo Ouologuem was a Malian writer. His first novel, Le devoir de violence, won the Prix Renaudot. He later published Lettre à la France nègre (1969), and Les mille et une bibles du sexe (1969) under the pseudonym Utto Rodolph. Le devoir de violence was initially well-received, but critics later charged that Ouologuem had plagiarized passages from Graham Greene and other established authors. Ouologuem turned away from the Western press as a result of the matter, and remained reclusive for the rest of his life.
Yan Fu was a Chinese military officer, newspaper editor, translator, and writer. He was most famous for introducing western ideas, including Darwin's "natural selection", to China in the late 19th century.
