THE SOVIET HISTORIOGRAPHY AND THE QUESTION OF KAZAKHSTAN’S HISTORY

THE QUESTION OF KAZAKHSTAN’S HISTORY 85
without an ideology.” Therefore, it had to be immediately removed
from circulation, “the work was confusing and dangerous in terms
of ideology”. 131 Stenography of the five day-debates, the criticisms
towards this book, and Bekmakhanov’s responses to these criticisms
were deciphered and published as a book. 132 Upon investigation and
prosecution of the professor, all his academic titles were annulled,
and Bekmakhanov started to work in the schools as a teacher. In
September 1952, he was arrested during the class and was sent to the
concentration camps. He returned in February 1954. 133 He was actually
sentenced to 25 years. One reason for his earlier return was Stalin’s
death in 1953. Another reason was the role and efforts of Pankratova,
who was a famous and influential historian, Bekmakhanov’s friend,
supervisor of his doctoral dissertation, a person like his “second
mother”, and who wrote and met top administrators in Moscow so
that Bekmakhanov gets acquitted. 134 Although Bekmakhanov was the
first professor to release a monograph with an in-depth research on
Kenesary Kasymuly, he had to make changes in his discourse and
evaluations after the repression and punishments.
The official view of the Soviet era is clearly seen in the book Kazak
SSR Tarihı (History of Kazak SSR). The History of Kazak SSR was
prepared by many historians, and in accordance with the functioning
of the regime, was approved by the history institutions of the
Communist Party of the USSR and the Kazak SSR. In this book, it is
written that the ideology of Kenesary was feudal, reactionary and
based upon reviving the khanate regime. It is stated that Kenesary
repeated many times that he would save all Kazaks from Russian
rule. It is also written that he estimated all Kazak jüzes as his own
131 Takenov, Abu, “Tarihshy Ermukhan Bekmakhanov” (Historian Ermukhan Bekmakhanov),
Kazakstan XIX Gasyrdyn 20-40 Jyldarynda (Kazakstan: In the 1820s–1840s of the
19 th Century), Almaty, Sanat, 1994, pp. 372-381; Kurmangaliyeva Ercilasun, Güljanat. Stalin’s
Great Purges and the Penal System: The Case of the Kazak Intelligentsia. M.P. Diss., Supervisor:
Pınar Akçalı. Ankara, METU, 2003, pp. 69-70.
132 Stenogramma (Stenography), 7 vol Works of Ermukhan Bekmakhanov (Discussions of
Bekmakhanov’s Book), edp. E.M. Aryn et al. Pavlodar, 2005.
133 Dmitrova, I. “Preface to the Edition of 2011”, İstoriya Kazahstana (İstoriya Kazahskoy
SSR s drevneyshih vremyon do nashih dney, izdanie 1943g.) (History of Kazakstan (History
of Kazak SSR from the Ancient Periods till Now, ed. of 1943), 3 rd ed. Almaty, 2011, p. 9.
134 Kalkan, İbrahim. “Halk Düşmanı mı, Halk Kahramanı mı? Sovyet Tarihçiliğinin İkilemi”
(People’s Enemy or People’s Hero? Dilemma of the Soviet Historiography), Stalin ve Türk
Dünyası (Stalin and Turkic World), edp. Emine Gürsoy-Naskali and Liaisan Şahin. İstanbul,
2007, p. 286; Aryn, E.M. and J.O. Artykbayev. “Ermuqan Bekmakhanovtyn Ömirbayany”
(Life Story of Ermukan Bekmakhanov). http://bekmakhanov.psu.kz/ (Accessed October
2015), pp. 14-23.