THE SOVIET HISTORIOGRAPHY AND THE QUESTION OF KAZAKHSTAN’S HISTORY

THE QUESTION OF KAZAKHSTAN’S HISTORY 171
the republic borders with the national languages, which is why the
Russian language was the essential language. 304
The historians faced the necessity of the Russian language for
another subject. Historians preparing their thesis defense also required
an acknowledgment of their academic title in the universities or
science academies, had to send their thesis to a committee in Moscow
for approval. And, for this approval, the thesis had to be written in
Russian or translated into Russian.
Another subject that brings the historian and the Russian language
face to face is the terminology that changed after the October
Revolution. Within the new historiography that emerged during the
period following the October Revolution, some sentences, phrases
and even words changed to be replaced by new terminology. Words
such as dynasty and progeny were replaced with revolution, rebellion,
Bolshevik, social struggle, proletarian, worker and peasant. “Evolution
of the socialist revolution in villages”, “worker’s and peasant’s fight
for freedom”, “the establishment of the socialist community” became
popular and they were reflected in the history books. 305
7. The publication of History and Censorship
Historians often arrived at the point that after receiving approval
by the university or the science academy to determine where the
work must be published. What kind of problems faced the historian
with the decision to publish the work?
The biggest problem for the historian was censorship. To fully understand
the struggle of the historian, the method and the procedures
of the censorship in Soviet Union must be examined.
Censorship in Soviet Union was overarching in every area; starting
with scientific subjects, literature, paintings and even the labels on
the bottles were subject to censorship. But, the interesting part of
this is that censorship was discreet, even for the writers. There was
304 The biggest struggle of the historians of Azerbeijan and Middle asia was the fact that
they were unable get in touch with the Arabic Alphabet. Arabic was forbidden because it
was the language of Quran, and this situation made the old resources unreachable. And
most of the historions who knew the language was put in jail, egziled or killed during 1937s
for being close to Turks or İslam.” See: Bünyadov, Ziya “Sicence of history in Azerbaijan on
the Line Between Two Centuries: Situation and perspective”, Elm ve Hayat Magazine, Issue
10, Baku 1988, p. 2; “Выступления А. Н. Нусупбековa”, Vsesoyuznoe Soveshanie o
Merakh Uluchsheniya Podgotovki Nauchno-Pedagogicheskikh Kadrov po İstoricheskim
Naukam (18-21 Dekabrya 1962 g.), Moscow 1964, p. 104.
305 To look at the index of the books published during the Soviet Union would be enough for
this. For detailed information look: Ağayev, ibid, pp. 260-275.