THE SOVIET HISTORIOGRAPHY AND THE QUESTION OF KAZAKHSTAN’S HISTORY

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THE SOVIET HISTORIOGRAPHY AND
Furthermore, Suleimenov also critiqued G. Togjanov. He tries to
prove that Bekmakhanov was inspired by his book, titled the “Kazakh
Colonial Village”. Bekmakhanov answered those accusations by saying,
Are my critics unaware of that there are some examples of this
case, even representatives of reactionary classes that praise most
progressive individuals, in the cases which they are interested? As
Zhirenshin said, ‘Alash Orda also benefitted from Abai and Shokan.’
Why did I mentioned the nationalist A. Bokeikhanov, as you said?
As you also know, in historical literature there is a work called “The
letters of Orta Zhuz Khans and Sultans in the years of 1824-1830”
which was published by Bokeikhanov. Why should we publish this
important historical document as unnamed and in a mysterious way,
just in order not to mention this person’s name? You talked about
the nationalist Togjanov for half an hour. But there is not even one
word about him in my book…” 50
In order to label Bekmakhanov as an “Enemy of the People,” his
critics had to make accusations that would politically crush him. It is
not surprising that in this discussion, some Kazakh intellectuals used
associations with the Alash party. During and after various prosecutions,
all such accused Kazakh intellectuals tried to acquit themselves
as they stood before the Russian Bolsheviks. But in most cases, it
proved impossible. On the contrary, the Bolsheviks suspected such
people and started to investigate them.
Another topic raised was about the use of folklore materials. That
was another aspect to prosecute the intellectuals to label them
“nationalists”. Prohibiting the use of folklore materials, which were
regarded as national sources, was quite widespread during this period.
As for Bekmakhanov, he was one of the first historian-scientists
who started to use folklore materials in his scholarship. He explained
why by saying:
For researching Kazakhstan’s history, the place of the folklore is
quite important as historical source. It is because, up until second
half of 19 th history, there was no written literature for the Kazakh
people. The importance of folklore materials is that it supplies correct
information about historical events and individuals. Because, it is the
people themselves who wrote the history and who had direct contact
with the incidents. Even though we do not talk about Kazakh folklore
as a whole, we can say: because various incidents are told from start
to end, the names of many individuals are given correctly and also
because it includes much knowledge, what you call as folklore is a
50 Bekmakhanov ibid, pp. 298-316.