THE SOVIET HISTORIOGRAPHY AND THE QUESTION OF KAZAKHSTAN’S HISTORY

THE QUESTION OF KAZAKHSTAN’S HISTORY 143
was the one who resisted with his works without submission”.
Several years before, in 1946, S. Mukanov’s novel “Our Time’s Hero”,
G. Musiperov’s story “Private Kaptagay”, Tilevov’s poem “Syrym Batyr”
and M. Avezov’s novel “Poet Brother” were published in the magazine
“Adebiyat zhane Iskustvo” and evaluated as soft works without significant
political affiliation. In April 1953, M. Avezov was forced to go to
Moscow. He began to work at M. Lomonosov Moscow Public University
as professor and lectured about the “USSR Public Literature History”.
On the event commemorating the 90 th birthday anniversary of M.
Avezov, the prominent Kazakh poet O. Suleymanov said “During the
zenith of the Alashorda-Nationalist accusations, during the chaotic
1930s, Avezov surprisingly survived. Despite these difficult times, he
never gave up championing Abay”. 243
M. Avezov’s persecution affected his students as well. On 9 March
1951, at the Kazakh SSR Academy of Sciences Language and Literature
Institute’s Scientific Committee, the young academic Kayym Muhamedkhanov’s
dissertation “Abay’s Poesy School”, under the supervision
of M. Avezov, was evaluated. This dissertation, defended on 7 April
1951, was later dismissed. Moreover, A. Zhyrenshin’s book, “Abay and
his Russian Friends”, faced the same fate.
The arrest of E. Bekmakhanov initiated the stage of persecution of
historians, men of letters, and statesmen. Subsequently, the accusations
against E. Bekmakhanov were directed to the others as well.
Labelled as nationalists, the music researcher A. Zhubanov, Abay
researcher M. Avezov, and the authors S. Mukanov, K. Zhumaliev, E.
Ismailov, A. Zhirenshin, and A. Margulan faced persecution as well.
That is, the persecutions of that time prove the oppression on the
grounds of nationalism against Kazakh Turks. Pressure on intellectuals
also affected the museums. At the meeting concerning Abay, a decision
was made about revising the activities of the Abay museum in Semey
and the elimination of the “nationalist-motivated, anti-revolutionary”
elements in the museum. 244
On 16 March 1949, an article titled “Bourgeois Cosmopolitans at
Universities” was published in the journal “Kazakhstanskaya Pravda”.
On 20 March of the same year, a similar article was published in this
journal and targeted several Kazakh authors by stereotyping them as
“degenerate cosmopolitans, traitors”.
243 Qapayeva, A., Kultura i Politika (Gosydarstvennaya politika v oblasti kultury v Kazahstane
vo vtoroy polovine 1940-h – 1991gg.), Almatı, Atamura, 2004, p. 328 , p. 53.
244 Düysenova, N., Qazaqstandagı XX Gasırdın 40-50 Jıldarındagı “Ultşıldıq” pen “Kosmopolitşıldıqqa
Qarsı Küres Nayqanı, Almatı, 2006, p. 150, p. 148-149.