THE SOVIET HISTORIOGRAPHY AND THE QUESTION OF KAZAKHSTAN’S HISTORY

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THE SOVIET HISTORIOGRAPHY AND
khanov Case” was followed two years later in the essay “Ideological
Deviation in Soviet Central Asia,” by Serge Zenkovsky. 147 Ten years
later, Lowell Tillett published an article that again examined the “Bekmakhanov
Case” with a bit more detail, which followed with his 1969
monograph The Great Friendship: Soviet Historians and the Non-Russian
Nationalities. 148 The reasons these intial works matter is because
American and European scholars generally neglected Bekmakhanov’s
work, but rather focused instead on the treatment he received for his
so-called ideological deviation. Too few scholars outside of Kazakhstan
or the Soviet Union understood Bekmakhanov’s valuable contribution
to the study of Kazakh history. That is not to suggest that American
and European scholars completely ignored Kazakh history, but the
attention lacked the resources and opportunities to investigate the
“Bekmakhanov Case” or to study seriously Kazakh history and culture
beyond the narrow confines of a library. Scholars such as Martha Brill
Olcott reintroduced a new cadre of young scholars to Bekmakhanov
and the Kenesary Kasymov Rebellion. 149
The collapse of the Soviet Union and Kazakhstan’s independence
created new opportunities for younger scholars to study in Kazakhstan,
to work in its libraries and archives. Bekmakhanov became an
invaluable resource with the republication of his 1947 Kazakhstan v
20-40 gody XIX veka (Almaty: Kazakh Universiteti, 1992 [1947]). 150
The Kazakhs have, however, since the collapse of the Soviet Union
consistently described the rebellions, particularly the Kenesary Kasymov
Rebellion, as wars for “National Liberation.” Other works have
also been published that examined Kenesary’ rebellion, including V. Z.
Galiev and B. T. Zhanaev, eds., Natsional’no-osvoboditel’naia bor’ba
Kazakhskogo naroda pod predvoditel’stvom Kenesary Kasymova (Almaty,
1996). Further scholarly interpretations describe Kenesary as
146 Solomon M. Schwarz, “Revising the History of Russian Colonialism,” Foreign Affairs 30
(April 1952), 488-493.
147 Serge A. Zenkovsky, “Ideological Deviation in Soviet Central Asia,” The Slavonic and
East European Review 32, No. 79 (June 1954), 424-437.
148 See Lowell R. Tillett, “Soviet Second Thoughts on tsarist Colonialism,” Foreign Affairs
42 (January 1964), 309-319.; Lowell Tillett, The Great Friendship: Soviet Historians and the
Non-Russian Nationalities (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969).
149 Olcott, Martha Brill, The Kazakhs, Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1987.
150 Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Kazakhs have republished equally
good biographies of Srym Batyr or Kenesary. Kazakh historians are very interested in both
men and the era. See Viatkin, Mikhail, Batyr Srym (Almaty: Sanat, 1998 [1947]).; and Bekmakhanov,
Ermukhan, Kazakhstan v 20-40 gody XIX veka (Almaty: Kazakh Universiteti,
1992 [1947]).