THE SOVIET HISTORIOGRAPHY AND THE QUESTION OF KAZAKHSTAN’S HISTORY

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THE SOVIET HISTORIOGRAPHY AND
decades after the ‘glasnost’ campaign, following the Soviet demise in
the republics and regions of the former Soviet territory. The re-evaluation
and writing of history began to be reversed with the detailed
interpretation about many forbidden subjects and figures in the history
on the former Soviet domain. Academics and intellectuals specializing
on the Soviet Union immediately realized these changes and began
to work on the subject. 234
Apart from his academic works, the personal life of historian Ermukhan
Bekmakhanov mirrors the struggle of Kazaks under the Soviet regime.
Bekmakhanov is one of the descendants of the Kazak Khans. He was
born in the second year of WWI and spent his childhood during the
early years of Soviet consolidation. During the era that the socialist
ideology’s so-called class struggle eliminated almost whole “crème de
la crème” of native intellectuals in the Soviet empire, Bekmakhanov
experienced poverty and destitution as an orphan without a father. He
went to Semey to continue his education and lost to hunger his mother
and sister living in today’s Pavlodar during the 1931-1932 famine. He was
not even able find the remains of his mother and sister.
Historians and academics in Kazakstan today are contributing to
the evaluation of many vital issues regarding the native Kazak history
through studying the case of Ermukhan Bekmakhanov.
- First, the reexamination of the historian who worked to analyze
the struggle of Kenesary Khan; researchers are clarifying the distortion
of a fact that the Kazaks did not accept the Russian over-lordship
with their own will.
- Secondly, as a result of the above-mentioned research, it became
clear that there was a national leader in the nineteenth century in
Kazak society and at least a considerable number of people followed
and supported his leadership, and further, Kenesary Khan’s legacy
intensified the national spiritual strength of the present-day society
of Kazaks. Historian Bekmakhanov dealt with a potentially dangerous
theme from the perspective of the Soviet ideology by revealing a reality
to the light of day through his tireless research in tsarist archives,
which were deeply hidden by the Soviet state.
- The works of Bekmakhanov reveal the details of reactions and
objections of the Kazaks to the tsarist Russian colonization policies
and plight of the Kazaks in their ancestral homeland as a result of
the occupation of their territory.
- Studying this case is essential in bringing to daylight cases such
as repentance from political mistakes, unfairness of the regime as
234 Confino, Michael. ”The New Russian Historiography and the Old-Some Considerations,”
History and Memory, Vol.21, Number 2, Fall/Winter 2009, pp.7-33.