THE SOVIET HISTORIOGRAPHY AND THE QUESTION OF KAZAKHSTAN’S HISTORY

THE QUESTION OF KAZAKHSTAN’S HISTORY 29
Sciences Institute of Language and Literature Studies” was published.
Surprisingly, on 14 September 1947 the “Socialist Kazakhstan” newspaper
published an article about the “100th Anniversary of the Death of Khan
Kene” with the name of Kenesarı Kasimov. The author of the article
was Ermukhan Bekmakhanov. For this brave article the author received
strong warnings from the Central Committee of the KP. These warnings
signaled a very difficult time for intellectuals. On 31 January 1948, the
“Leninşil Jas” (Leninist Youth) newspaper published M. Akınjanov and
T. Şoyınbayev’s critical article called “political mistakes, Non Scientific
Book”. J. Şayahmetov, therefore, petitioned M. Suslova and, in line with
this demand, the Kazakh SSR Academy of Sciences History Institute
decided to discuss Bekmakhanov’s work on 28 February. N. Drujinin
pointed that “it was just because the ‘cultural situation in Kazakhstan
was behind the one in Russia, it was pointless to name Kazakh rebellions
as anti-progressive.’” On 16 December 1948, the chairman of the
Union of Writers, B. Gorbatov, was unexpectedly talking about political
events saying that the “Kenesari rebellion aimed to expel the Russians
from the Kazakh steppe, Bekmakhanov is quite complementary toward
Kenesarı”. This irritated Konysbayev, Pokrovskiy, and Bayişev and they
wrote a letter to J. Şayahmetov asking his official opinion about how
the Kenesar rebellion ought to be considered during preparation of the
second edition of “History of the Kazakh SSR”. With the intervention of
İ. Omarov, J. Şayahmetov described “Kenesari’s rebellion as the largest
national liberation struggle of the Kazakh people of the XIX century”.
A. Pankratova wrote a letter to Omarov on 11 October 1949, elucidating
that “Historians are trying to qualify a false history of Kazakh people.
I do not understand why Georgian and Uzbek Khans were named
progressive intellectuals while Kazakhs like Abılay or Kenesarı Kasımov
were scribbled in the same situation.” (Qazaqstan Respublikası Ortalık
memlekettik Arhivi, İ. Omarov qorı.)
In the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan on
21 February 1950, the decision named “About the Status and Responsibilities
of the History of Science in Kazakhstan” was reported and
the issue was dropped. However, ideological articles began to come
from the center (A. Takenov). It noted Ilyas Omarov’s private conversation
with Jumabay Şayahmetov: “For me, today is a friend of mine
who saw himself as an enlightened Kazakh: I cannot sleep during the
day if I do not write anonymous complaint letters”. “The professional
habit of complaining was terrible! How limitless is a human’s greed?
Unfortunately, I do not have the strength to fight them. How sad the
situation.” 43 Assuming that this complaint was likely to have very bad
43 Süleymenov, M. - Süleymenova, H, J. - Golubev. A., İlyas Omarov. Jizn’ i Filosofya, А,