History writing as agitation and propaganda: the Kazakh history book of 1943

Abstract

The reconstruction of the Soviet recent past is a controversial issue in the post-Soviet republics. In Kazakhstan, the reconstruction of the past has gradually rehabilitated leading Kazakh communists, such as Zhumabai Shaiakhmetov. One of the main rationales of this rehabilitation is his support for Kazakh historical writing, which resulted in a textbook published in 1943. This work has been seen as an endeavor by ‘patriotic’ Kazakh officials and historians to defend Kazakh national heritage against the ‘Soviet colonial empire’. By presenting a broader view of the war period in Kazakhstan from the archives, this article argues that this history textbook was in fact merely an agitation-propaganda product of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan. Shaiakhmetov and others had mostly secured their career by remaining loyal to the Soviet system during the collectivization, the Great Famine and the Great Terror. Therefore, their encouragement of the publication of a national history in 1943 for propaganda purposes does not qualify them as suitable predecessors of the current generation of Kazakh rulers.

Keywords:

• Kazakhstan
• Soviet Union
• Second World War
• Zhumabai Shaiakhmetov
• historiography
• Central Asia

Acknowledgements

I am thankful to Professor Kandiyoti for her comments and critiques. I would like to present this article to Ms. Sharipova for her omnipresent support.

Notes

Numbered notes refer to Kazakstan Respublikasy Prezidentining Muraghaty (Archives of the President of Kazakhstan), Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Previous histories were written by Asfendiiarov ([1935] 1993) and Viatkin (1941).

Kenesary Kasymov (1802–1847) was a Kazakh sultan (inherited aristocratic title) from the Middle Horde (Kazakh: Zhuz) and the leader of an anti-Russian uprising in the Kazakh steppe (1837–1846).

708-5.1-596-157 (Summer-Autumn 1941).

See the report of the propagandist-lecturer after his trip to Akmola, Karaganda and Balkhash on 24 June 1941: 708-5.1-588-from 2 to 5, 17 July 1941.

708-5.1-601-19, 25 September 1941; 708-5.1-601-36 (November 1941);

708-5.1-588-99, 21 July 1941; 708-5.1-79 (August 1941).

Syrym or Srym (Batyr) Datov (1723–1802), the leader of an anti-Russian uprising of the tribes within the Small Horde (Kazakh: Zhuz) in 1783–97. The territory of the uprising was north of the Caspian Sea. Edyge Khan (1340 or 1352/56–1419) was the Amir of Ak-Orda and the Beklerbek of the Ulus of Dzhuzhi. Edyge was the founder of the ruling dynasty of the Nogai Horde. Edyge is also the protagonist of a widespread epic tale and variants of it can be found in the folk narratives of Turkic peoples in Central Asia, the Middle East and Siberia. The importance of the Edyge epos is akin to the Slovo o PolkuIgoreve of the Eastern Slavs or the Manas of the Kyrgyz. 708-5.1-601-20, 24, 25 September 1941.

708-5.1-146-85 (1941).

708-5.1-596-97ob, 98 (Summer-Autumn 1941).

708-5.1-144-67, 8 December 1941.

708-5.1-144-121, 17 December 1941.

Ne obkhodimo znachitel'no usilit' rabotu sredy Kazakhskoi chasti naseleniia nashei respubliki podnimat geroicheskie traditisii kazakhskogo naroda, kotorymi on tak bogat. See 708-6.1-602-134.

During World War I, the Russian imperial administration increased the financial burden on and began the conscription of the Muslim population in the empire. Consequently, in 1916, a widespread anti-Russian uprising and ethnic violence broke out in modern-day Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

708-5.1-603-73.

The libretto of the opera was written by M. Auezov and the music was composed by A. Zil'ber.

Ural'skii Oblast' Kazakh Theatre, Enbekshi-Kazakh Kolkhoz-Sovkhoz Theatre, Semipalatinskii Oblast' Kazakh Theatre, and Turgaiskii Oblast' Kolkhoz-Sovkhoz Theatre. 708-6.1-559-1/12, 16 January 1942.

708-6.1-559-19 (February, 1942).

708-7.1-90-17/18, 16 December 1943.

708-7.1-90-14, 16 December 1943.

708-5.1-601-17 – the date of the meeting was 25 or 26 July 1941.

708-7.1-198-3 (10 June 1943).

708-5.1-151-78 (December 1941).

708-5.1-151-79 (December 1941).

708-5.1-151-79 (December 1941).

The 1242 battle between the Republic of Novgorod and the Teutonic Knights, which resulted in the defeat of the latter. Since the nineteenth century, German nationalists used the medieval eastern expansion of the Teutonic Knights as a historical example of the Drang nach Osten. The Soviet propaganda used the Battle of Ice as an example of Slavic and Russian superiority. Sergei Eisenstein's film Alexander Nevsky (1938) was part of the Soviet propaganda campaign, which was intensified during World War II.

708-6.2-104-99,99ob (January 1942).

708-5.1-151-80 (December 1941).

708-5.1-561-7, 9-11, 10 November 1941.

Some of the historians, including Grekov, went back to Tashkent. 708-5.1-562-41, 13 December 1941.

708-5.1-562-11, 12 December 1941.

708-5.1-562-37; 708-6.1-449-30b, 1 January 1942; 708-6.1-85a-73, 11 December 1942; 708-7.1-652-120ob, 6 March 1943. Following Buzurbaev's accidental death in the winter of 1942, Abdykalykov became the secretary.

708-6.1-449-1, 1 January 1942.

708-7.1-652-120ob, 6 March 1943.

708-6.1-449-30, 31, 14 October 1942.

708-6.1-469-77, 3 December 1941.

708-6.1-469-91, 22 December, 1941; 708-6.1-602-129/134, 5 November 1942.

708-6.2-104-97 (January 1942).