Vladimir Khatizovich Baragunov (Circassian: Бэрэгъун Владимир, Baragun Vladimir) was a Circassian singer and musicologist. He was a People's Artist of the Kabardino-Balkar ASSR (1981), an Honoured Cultural Worker of the Russian Federation (1996), and a Laureate of the State Prize of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic.
He graduated from the Sobinov State Conservatory in Saratov in 1969. From 1969 to 1977 he was a soloist with the Kabardino-Balkar Theatre, where he performed nineteen operatic roles. Throughout his career he recorded hundreds of folk songs, ballads, romances and operatic works for radio, television and commercial release. At the International Folklore Festival in Poland he received its highest award, the Golden Hatchet.
Baragun was one of the authors of the three-volume National Songs and Instrumental Works of the Circassians, a landmark publication that has become a classic reference in the study of Circassian musical folklore. Between 1977 and 1987 he served as soloist and artistic director of the Kabardino-Balkar State Philharmonia, before becoming its director, a position he held from 1987 until his death in 1997.
His operatic voice was particularly suited to the ancient heroic songs and ritual chants, the oldest layers of the Circassian tradition.
Widely regarded as one of the finest Circassian singers of the 1970s and 1980s, Baragun recorded many outstanding traditional and contemporary works. Yet it is his interpretations of the most ancient repertoire, recovered and set down with a scholar's care, that remain especially admired.