THE SOVIET HISTORIOGRAPHY AND THE QUESTION OF KAZAKHSTAN’S HISTORY

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THE SOVIET HISTORIOGRAPHY AND
among the people too, rather than simply adhering to their scientific
studies. Party organizations warned that ‘Kazakh historians do not
adequately promote their successes among the workers, the kolkhoz
populations, and civil servants and they do not use important propaganda
rules like press-media courses.’ It was being reported that the
most important failure was ‘their curiosity to old history and their
interest in it’. The criticisms centered on topics such as only one of
the six books published in 1946 and 1947 that examined the Soviet
period was ‘The triumph of October Revolution in Kazakhstan’, and
that the first three articles of ‘Kazakh SSR Science Academy’ magazine
were about the issues before Soviet period, just five of the associate
professors’ theses were about Soviet period and the remaining thirteen
covered the pre-Soviet period.
Political and methodological defects were identified in the scientist’s
works that examined Kazakhstan’s history up to the Soviet period. A
review of some of the so-called political and methodological defected
works is important here. In the second edition (1946) of the ‘Kazakh
SSC Science Academy News’ (İzvestiya Akademii Nauk Kazakhskoi SSR),
with a focus on history, A.Margulan’s article about Edige appeared. In
the article, the writer examined the Golden Horde period of Kazakh
history and Edige, who was the common hero of all the Middle Asian
people. Accusations asserted that A.Margulan’s article ‘Altınordu
mirza dignified Edige who was the enemy of Russian, Kazakh and the
other populations’, that ‘It indicated that Edige was the highly regarded
among all Middle Asian populations’, and it was said the article
was ‘lacked sufficient scientificity and wasfull of Panturkist ideas’.
In 1947, ‘The Bibliography of Kazakhstan History Materials’ (Eastern
sources issued up to 1917) was published. The writer was N.Sabitov
and the editor was A.Murgalan. This publication included the works
of Arabian, Persia and Turk historians about the Kazakh people’s
history and culture. This work also criticized, but in a different way,
topics that included religious tales and epics. 68 However, the positive
ideas in the work of H.Aydarova, ‘Çokan Velihanov’, it was said that
Arab and English literature’s role exaggerated the formation of Çokan
Velihanov’s ideas.
Important improvements in Kazakh history had to be conducted
that associated it with the ‘Supreme Russian History’ and according to
class and party methodology. Some historians revealed their share of
criticisms in this way. If A.Borizov’s article, ‘Syrian essay in the Taraz
basin’, which was printed in the archeology series of the ‘Kazakh SSC
68 Omarov, İ., “O Zadaçah İstoriçeskoy Nauki v Kazakhstane”, Bolşevik Kazahstana, 1950,
No1 , p. 31.