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History writing as agitation andpropaganda: the Kazakh history book of1943Harun Yilmaz aa Faculty of History , University of Oxford , Oxford , UKPublished online: 10 Dec 2012.

To cite this article: Harun Yilmaz (2012) History writing as agitation and propaganda: the Kazakhhistory book of 1943, Central Asian Survey, 31:4, 409-423, DOI: 10.1080/02634937.2012.738852

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History writing as agitation and propaganda: the Kazakh history bookof 1943

Harun Yilmaz∗

Faculty of History, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

The reconstruction of the Soviet recent past is a controversial issue in the post-Sovietrepublics. In Kazakhstan, the reconstruction of the past has gradually rehabilitated leadingKazakh communists, such as Zhumabai Shaiakhmetov. One of the main rationales of thisrehabilitation is his support for Kazakh historical writing, which resulted in a textbookpublished in 1943. This work has been seen as an endeavor by ‘patriotic’ Kazakh officialsand historians to defend Kazakh national heritage against the ‘Soviet colonial empire’. Bypresenting a broader view of the war period in Kazakhstan from the archives, this articleargues that this history textbook was in fact merely an agitation-propaganda product of theCommunist Party of Kazakhstan. Shaiakhmetov and others had mostly secured their careerby remaining loyal to the Soviet system during the collectivization, the Great Famine andthe Great Terror. Therefore, their encouragement of the publication of a national history in1943 for propaganda purposes does not qualify them as suitable predecessors of the currentgeneration of Kazakh rulers.

Keywords: Kazakhstan; Soviet Union; Second World War; Zhumabai Shaiakhmetov;historiography; Central Asia

Reconstruction of the Soviet past

According to contemporary reconstructions of the Soviet past in Kazakhstan, Shaiakhmetov and

other leading Kazakh communist figures desired, for the sake of their nation, to write a national

history, which was published in 1943 and they protected Kazakh historians from the fury of

Moscow until 1951. When his alleged opposition to the ‘Virgin Lands’ campaign is added to

this statement, Shaiakhmetov, who built his career as a high-ranking political police (NKVD)

officer during the repressions, terror and famines of the 1930s, emerges as a defender of

Kazakh cause against the Red Empire and a leader who shepherded his nation through those

hard times. This article, however, rejects that argument by revealing the reasons behind the pub-

lication of the national history in 1943. Although Kazakh communists wanted a national history

to be written, their aim was to present a heroic past to increase the fighting spirit of Kazakh Red

Army soldiers, fulfil recruitment targets, and increase production levels in kolhozes, mines and

factories in Kazakhstan in the midst of war-time difficulties. The Kazakh history textbook cannot

be an argument for the rehabilitation of Shaiakhmetov or his cohort as ‘good’ guys in a ‘bad’

system. Obviously, other arguments for rehabilitation, which are mentioned above, deserve

similar scrutiny.

The controversy over how to interpret and understand the Soviet period (1917–1991) has

presented particular problems for historians and politicians in the newly independent republics

(Lindner 1999, Popson 2001, Rodgers 2007), including Russia (Slater 1998, Smith 2002, Adler

2005, Kirschenbaum 2006, Kaplan 2009, Kolonitskii 2009, Ro’i 2009, Uldricks 2009, Todorova

and Zsuzsa 2010). Since their independence in 1991, the political elites of the former Soviet

ISSN 0263-4937 print/ISSN 1465-3354 online

# 2012 Southseries Inc

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02634937.2012.738852

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∗Email: harun.yilmaz@seh.oxon.org

Central Asian Survey

Vol. 31, No. 4, December 2012, 409–423

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republics have embarked on rewriting their Soviet past, with responses ranging from a complete

rejection of the Soviet past as colonial and repressive to various degrees of affirmation and incor-

poration, depending on political agendas of the particular actors. Though Vladimir Putin called

the collapse of the USSR the ‘greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century’ (BBC

News 2005) not everyone in the territories of the former Soviet Union shares this nostalgic senti-

ment. For instance, in the Baltic States, anti-communism became a kind of foundation myth

(Bruggemann and Kasekamp 2008).

In Central Asia, however, the interpretation of the Soviet past is less clear-cut. One reason for

this obscurity is the complicated nature of the Soviet rule (Kandiyoti 2002) and an ongoing

debate over defining the Soviet period as a colonial period (Michaels 2003, Northrop 2004,

Hirsch 2005), or mobilization by a state for modernization and nation-building (Slezkine

2000, Kotkin 2001, Kamp 2006, Khalid 2006), or even as a region within the neo-traditionalism

of the Soviet rule (Jowitt 1993, pp. 121–158, Martin 2000, Kandiyoti 2006). In addition, the

recent and distant past have been reconstructed very much according to the ideological needs

of the current rulers. For instance, in Uzbekistan, the current authoritarian regime reduced

Uzbek history to a linear progression towards statehood by counting Faizullah Khodjaev,

Sharaf Rashidov and Islam Karimov as consecutive leaders of the nation. The most controversial

figure among the above is Rashidov, who was the first secretary of the Uzbek Communist Party

for almost 30 years and was implicated in the most famous corruption scandal of the Brezhnev

era. Rashidov the corrupt communist thus became Rashidov the Uzbek patriot, who did what he

could in the specific circumstances he found himself in to advance the cause of Uzbek indepen-

dence and strength against the overwhelming tide of Russian hegemony (March 2002). In Taji-

kistan, contemporary history textbooks equate the Soviet period with modernization and

progress. Stalin with his ‘cult of personality’ is presented as the main culprit – not the Soviet

system or local communists as such – in the purges of the 1930s and 1940s (Blakkisrud and

Nozimova 2010). The current leadership in Tajikistan proclaimed Babajan Ghafurov, a Tajik

Soviet historian and the first secretary of the Tajik Communist Party (1946–56) the hero of

the Tajik nation. Rahmanov, the president of Tajikistan, has also paid homage to another

former party secretary, Timur Uljaboev, also considered to have taken care of Tajikistan’s inter-

ests during the Soviet era (Wennberg 2002, pp. 407–408). Turkmenistan stands apart from other

Central Asian republics. Ruhnama, by Saparmurat Niyazov (Turkmenbashy), devotes only one

page to the Soviet era of the republic. There is no place even for the leading Turkmen Bolshe-

viks, who were purged by Stalin and thus could plausibly have been rehabilitated under Niyazov

(Turkmenbashy 2005, p. 286, Denison 2009).

In Kazakhstan, according to the description of Surucu (2002), many cosmopolitan Kazakhs,

who are generally urban Russophones, project and present Soviet rule as a large-scale modern-

ization project, which brought European ideas and culture to the Kazakh steppes, albeit, unfor-

tunately, dictated by a totalitarian state. This is, at least, the argument put forward in one of the

latest books published in Kazakhstan on the Stalinist period. The work underlines the great trans-

formation from a nomadic society to industrial modernity and, moreover, answers the critiques

related to the enormous cost in human lives by providing ‘similar’ examples of grand transform-

ations which involved great loss of human lives, such as Cromwell’s England, Napoleon’s

France, and the American Civil War (Akhmetova and Grigoriev 2010, pp. 4–5). Kazakh nation-

alists, who are predominantly Kazakh-speaking and have a rural power base, mainly see the

Soviet period as an oppressive period of colonial rule and an era in which there was a concerted

effort to assimilate the Kazakh nation (Sarsembaev 1999, pp. 327–328, Surucu 2002, p. 391).

Kazakh nationalists have vast reserves of tragedies that were products of the Soviet regime to

support their claim. These include: the famine of the 1920s; the flight of a large number of

Kazakh people from the USSR into China, Mongolia, Afghanistan and Iran; the liquidation of

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the Kazakh liberal intellectual and cultural elite, as well as a number of first-generation Kazakh

Communists, through the series of Stalinist purges; the campaign of compulsory collectivization

and sedentarization and the Great Famine which resulted from these policies; and the substantial

Slav immigration of the 1950s and 1960s. Moreover, in the absence of a golden era in the ancient

past, this plethora of unifying disasters are vital for Kazakh national identity. Despite this fact,

the Jungar atrocities of the seventeenth century are more often remembered than Russian or

Soviet ones. The reasons for this are related to the multi-ethnic population of the country and

the necessity of maintaining a delicate balance between Kazakhstan’s mighty neighbours,

Russia and China (Cummings 2003, pp. 143–144).

Another explanation could be the subtle interest of both Kazakh cosmopolitans and nation-

alists in partial rehabilitation of the Soviet era. Kazakh cosmopolitans see the Soviet past as a

modernization era, and the former Kazakh Communist Party officials more as the local executors

of this modernization project for their society than as local agents of a repressive regime.

According to this view, these local communists fought against illiteracy, ‘backward’ rural

customs and ‘reactionary’ social structures and traditions. Moreover, they genuinely worked

for the industrialization, urbanization and education of their people. Kazakh nationalists also

have a tendency to rehabilitate some Soviet figures. For them it is unacceptable to blame all

local officials as collaborators of the Soviet colonial regime. There is a need to rehabilitate

some figures of the Soviet era as Kazakh ‘patriots’, because the Soviet period of modern

Kazakh history is too long and inclusive to omit from the national narrative. Moreover, it is

anathema for a nationalist ideology to consider such a long period without presenting any

kind of open or implicit resistance from the Kazakh side. Thus, some Kazakh figures, as in

the cases of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, are transformed from ‘Kazakh communists’ into

‘Kazakh patriots’. The former Communist Party elites, who are still active in the politics of

the country (Lane 2005, Murphy 2006), have a more difficult position as players in both

former and current regimes. How could one and the same system have presided over the destruc-

tion of the Kazakh identity and the colonization of the Kazakh people and, at the same time, the

modernization of the Kazakh nation? The Soviet past of Kazakhstan is reconstructed in school

textbooks to explain this apparent contradiction. The synthesis which is arrived at is that the

Soviet system achieved modernization and urbanization of the nation, while the responsibility

for the crimes of the system is laid upon Stalin (Abuseitova et al. 2001, Kozybaev et al. 2009).

In this reconstruction of the past, Shaiakhmetov emerges as a ‘patriot’, although he has con-

flicting portraits in the popular press (Kanafina 2007, Mamashuly 2011). Zhumabai Shaiakhme-

tov (1902–1966) can be counted as a typical vydvizhenets of Stalin’s time. He became a

candidate member (1927) and then full member (1929) of the All-Union Communist Party –

VKP(b). In 1928–37 he worked in the Kazakh branch of Stalin’s political police, the

KazNKVD. During this decade, the first purge of Kazakh intellectuals and leaders was con-

ducted (1928–31). As a consequence of the collectivization campaign, nearly half of the

Kazakh population died from starvation during the Great Famine (1931–32), and the infamous

Great Terror was launched (1937–38). Following his ‘successful’ career at the NKVD in this

epoch of repressions, he became the third (1938), second (1939), and first secretary (1946) of

the Kommunisticheskaia Partiia (bol’shevikov) Kazakhstana (KP(b)K), the Communist Party

of Kazakhstan (bolsheviks), a position he held until 1954. Indeed, he was so trusted by Stalin

that the latter called Shaiakhmetov ‘the eagle of the East’ (Ashimbaev 2005, pp. 649–650,

Akkozin 2008, Akhmetova and Grigoriev 2010, pp. 148–231). Regardless of his Stalinist

career, Shaiakhmetov recently became a street name in Astana and Shimkent (Aldabergenova

2011, Gaponova 2012). In 2011, at an official organization for young politicians, the vice-

rector of the Eurasian National University in Astana named Shaiakhmetov as ‘an example of

a good manager’ (Petrun’ko 2011). Shaiakhmetov is an important candidate for rehabilitatation

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because he was the first Kazakh boss of the KP(b)K. The next step is to position Shaiakhmetov

between Baitursynov, Bukeikhanov and Dulatov – the last national leaders of Kazakhs before

Soviet rule – and independent Kazakhstan. In other words, in his reconstructed form, Shaiakh-

metov has the potential to fill the gap between 1917 and 1991.

The usual method of rehabilitation consists of isolating some decisions of local party leaders

from the broader Soviet context and interpreting them as ‘patriotic’, as if they had made these

decisions independently from the Soviet system. For instance, although industrialization and

modernization were all-Union policies, Shaiakhmetov is defined as the initiator of many insti-

tutes, factories, the Conservatory and the Academy of Sciences, all of which were opened in

the 1940s. Moreover, Shaiakhmetov is also positioned as the figure who was behind the publi-

cation of a national history in 1943 (which protected Kazakh historians in the following years

from the anger of Moscow) and who resisted the ‘Virgin Lands’ campaign of Khrushchev

(Shaiakhmetov 2002, Kanafina 2007, Akkozin 2008, pp. 108–109, Akkozin 2009, Akhmetova

and Grigoriev 2010, pp. 173–174, 181–182, 187–188, 206, 210–212, 216–220, 225–229).

Each of these arguments in favour of rehabilitation deserves detailed examination before it is

accepted. In this paper, I challenge the argument on the publication of the national history in

1943 by presenting the actual environment in which the decision to write a Kazakh national

history was made and the political motives behind this decision. I argue that the party officials

saw the book, published in 1943, principally as agitation-propaganda material. Depicting this

book as an anti-Soviet or Kazakh nationalist effort and thus turning the Kazakh participants

into figures independent of the Soviet system is a retrospective reconstruction of the recent

past for contemporary political purposes. Reconstructions of the recent past are usually done

by court historians. They are hard to penetrate and only meticulous historical research can

provide an adequate perspective.

This paper is not a review of the history book of 1943 itself or a recounting of historical debates

which ensued after its publication. These issues have already been covered by various authors

(Tillett 1969, Kozybaev 1991, pp. 74–84, Gurevich 1992, pp. 63–95, Kozybaev 1992, pp. 44–

96, Olcott 1995, Siov 2001, Brandenberger 2002, pp. 123–125, Diskussia 2002, Kapaeva 2004,

Bekmakhanov 2005, Mazhitov 2005). Nevertheless, a short outline of the story of the history

book can be useful for the readers unfamiliar with it. The national history of Kazakhs was

written by Kazakh Soviet scholars, their Russian colleagues (who were evacuated from

Moscow), and Kazakh Communist Party officials in Almaty in 1942–43.1 Following its publi-

cation, the book became an object of ideological discussions among Russian historians in

Moscow in 1944. After the war, political priorities in the Soviet Union gradually changed and

some sections of the book were discussed and criticized by historians and party officials – includ-

ing Kazakhs. The book was republished in 1947 and 1956. E. Bekmakhanov, who authored the

chapter on the Kenesary Kasymov2 uprising in the first and second editions, was demoted in

1951 and jailed between 1952 and 1954.

Imperatives of war and the Kazakh Communist Party

From the first weeks of World War II, hundreds of thousands of evacuees and numerous fac-

tories, plants and institutes were relocated to Central Asia (Likhomanov 1974, p. 188, Druzhinin

1990, p. 230, Koblylyanskiy 2003). While struggling with this influx of evacuees, the local auth-

orities had even bigger issues to tackle and recruiting soldiers came first. As all of Ukraine and

Belarus, as well as numerous industrial centres and some black-earth districts of Russia, fell into

the hands of the enemy within a matter of a few months, Soviet food production, industry, and

mining suffered simultaneously. All this meant a sharp increase in Moscow’s demands on

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Kazakhstan in these sectors (Shaiakhmetov 1942, Velikaia 1970, pp. 180, 183, Kozybaev 1991,

pp. 46, 49, 51, 55, 60, 63, Olcott 1995, pp. 188–191).3

World War II was a total war in which mobilization of the home front was very important.

The Soviet regime launched a patriotic propaganda campaign to mobilize people behind the

front lines and increase the fighting spirit of the soldiers. This all-Union campaign especially

targeted the Russian population, which constituted the largest section of civil population and

the Red Army. The Bureau of the Tsentral’nyi Komitet (TsK), Central Committee of the

KP(b)K also made decisions in the sphere of agitation-propaganda and mobilized people in

Kazakhstan. Moreover, the Bureau was well aware of the importance of the Kazakh language

and the Kazakh national heroic past in agitation and propaganda activities among the Kazakh

population. The reports of Kazakh propagandist-lecturers on the different regions of the republic

confirmed this view. The party urged local historians to produce the necessary pamphlets and

construct a heroic past. Historians would incorporate tribal uprisings or nomadic coalitions

into the national history. Buzurbaev and Abdykalykov, the consecutive secretaries of the

KP(b)K for agitation and propaganda, as well as local historians and writers, played a leading

role at this stage. During the war, the agitator was not only responsible for organizing talks;

he also had to convince people to provide practical support to the front (Kozybaev 1991,

p. 87). Buzurbaev, at a meeting of Almaty intelligentsia on 22 September 1941, demanded

that the intelligentsia – including historians – act as ardent agitators and increase vigilance

among the masses (Buzurbaev 1941, Abdykalykov 1997).

The KP(b)K’s intention of using a heroic past in agitation-propaganda to increase vigilance

can be seen in the first days of the war. On the third day of the war, experienced lecturers were

dispatched by Buzurbaev to the main regions of the republic to convey new instructions to the

regional party organs and conduct propaganda meetings for the collective farm workers and

town dwellers. These propaganda trips to the regions were also a good opportunity to assess

the state of public opinion, local rumours, and the issues to which the attention of agitation-pro-

paganda had to be directed. Typically, the propagandists would note down the questions posed

by the audience and report them to the centre, so that appropriate answers and further instruc-

tions could be prepared for lecturers before the next talk.4 In June and July of 1941, when the

first wave of propaganda activities concluded, the reports started to flow to the centre. According

to these reports, both agitator-propagandists and audiences urged the party to conduct more

activities in the Kazakh language. It is not surprising that lectures delivered to Kazakhs in

their native tongue were more effective in mobilizing them for the tasks of the war period.5

After conducting activities in various regions of Kazakhstan during the first weeks of the war,

the propagandists also suggested that the lecturers had to be much better prepared for questions

and examples on ‘the heroic past of our fatherland’.6 According to the report of another propa-

gandist, a lecture in the Kazakh language would have a greater impact if the message was con-

veyed with reference to ‘a heroic past’. The same agitator in his report suggested that Kazakh

heroes such as Amangel’dy Imanov, the leader of the 1916 uprising, Edyge Khan of the fifteenth

century, Bugenbai [Batyr], a hero against the Jungars in the eighteenth century, and Batyr Syrym

and Isatai Taimanov, leaders of anti-Russian uprisings of the nineteenth century, should be used

in the propaganda activities as examples of heroic deeds for the contemporary Kazakh

population.

As [in the case of] the Russian comrades [agitators], Kazakh comrades are also very much in need ofmaterials on the heroic deeds of the forefathers of the Kazakh nation and their military traditions. Iconsider that it is high time for us to organize two to three of these kinds of brochures with high cir-culation and in a small format.7

Thus, within the first two months of the war it became apparent that in order to convey its

message and to mobilize the Kazakh people, the KP(b)K had to use Kazakh packaging. First

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of all, ‘political work among the population must be implemented every day and night’.8 The

party decree on the wartime propaganda emphasized more than once that activities among the

Kazakh population had to be conducted by Kazakh agitators in the Kazakh language. Moreover,

the agitation-propaganda section had to assist the agitpunkty [political agitation-propaganda

centres] in factories and collective farms, and to prepare newspaper boards, slogans, posters

and exhibitions that would reflect the heroic past of both the Russian and the Kazakh nations.

Finally, this struggle was not a Russian–German affair and the party wanted to make sure

that the masses understood that point well.9 The agitation-propaganda section of the KP(b)K

even sent propagandists to the Urals and the central and Siberian regions of the RSFSR,

where approximately two hundred thousand Kazakhs were working in production lines, mines

and construction sites during the war period (Kozybaev 1991, pp. 72, 87, Adambekov 2001,

p. 134).

Another reason for the propaganda campaigns was the national divisions that formed in the

autumn and winter of 1941. These divisions demonstrated the kind of reaction the people could

have when an endeavour was formulated in ‘Kazakh’. At the meeting of the Bureau of the TsK

KP(b)K, Aleksei Babkin, the commissar of the KazNKVD, noted that after the announcement of

the formation of Kazakh national divisions, even ‘people who are excluded from military service

wanted to be conscripted into the national formations [of troops]’.10 At the end of 1941, Kazakh

national military units contained 13,622 soldiers, hardly a significant number. However, their

recruitment was important for political and propaganda purposes. Nikolai Skvortsov, the first

party secretary of the KP(b)K, wanted to utilize this aspect by emphasizing that these were

national divisions.11 Besides, more national divisions – two infantry and two cavalry regiments

– urgently had to be formed when the enemy was at the gates of Moscow. Every collective farm

had to provide clothes for soldiers as well as horses, fodder and saddles for the cavalry. These

national divisions, in turn, engendered more need for agitation-propaganda that used the national

heroic past. Skvortsov concluded at the fifth plenum of the TsK KP(b)K that, ‘It is necessary to

significantly intensify the [propaganda] efforts among the Kazakhs in our republic, to bring out

their rich traditions of heroism’.12

Parallel to these efforts, in September 1941, the party decided to celebrate the anniversary of

the 1916 uprising.13 Shaiakhmetov, the second secretary of the KP(b)K, referred to the heroic

past of the Kazakh nation in his patriotic speech for the occasion. He not only emphasized

the 1916 uprising, but also referred to anti-Russian uprisings of the nineteenth century:

The warlike Kazakh nation since time immemorial has enjoyed courage and bravery, and highlyappreciated feats of arms. The leaders of national-independence uprisings, Batyrs Beket, Kenesary[Kasymov], and Nauryzbai [Batyr], Isatai [Taimanov], and Makhambet [Utemisov] were distin-guished by their extraordinary courage and fearlessness, and they have always served as anexample for future generations. (Shaiakhmetov 1941a)14

In the Kazakh version of the text, Shaiakhmetov provides a similar argument,

In all national-liberation wars, the sons of the Kazakh nation became examples of bravery and sacri-fice. It had to be like this. From ancient times, the Kazakh nation has loved to be a batyr. Beket[Batyr], Kenesary [Kasymov] and Nauryzbai [Batyr], Isatai [Taimoanov] and Makhambet [Utemi-sov], Amangel’dy [Imanov] – batyrs of the Kazakhs – fought for freedom and independence.They defeated their enemies numerous times. (Shaiakhmetov 1941b)

After the publication of the speech in the republic’s daily papers, the propagandists strongly

advised that the speech be printed and distributed as agitation-propaganda material. The

speech covered the heroic past of the Kazakh nation and sought legitimacy in this heroic past.

Leading Kazakh party officials and bureaucrats continued to use the same heroic and legendary

Kazakh past until the end of the war (Kenzhebaev 1943, Abdykalykov 1944, Tolybekov 1944,

Undasynov 1944).

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The nationalist propaganda of the KP(b)K was not limited to lectures or speeches by the offi-

cials. It can also be easily traced in the sphere of arts and popular writings. The annual pro-

grammes of theatres and cinemas were refashioned according to the needs of the war. This

meant that theatres had to show patriotic plays and movies. In a similar vein, the publication

plans for the second half of 1941 of the publishing house of the republic, the KazOGIZ, were

altered. The Bureau of the KP(b)K asked the KazOGIZ to publish collections of Kazakh folk

epics and Kazakh proverbs and sayings on heroism. This list offered broad coverage of the

struggles of different Kazakh tribes or clans against Jungar-Oirots, Russians, and Central

Asian khanates. During the first year of the war, the KazOGIZ published heroic materials as

booklets in the Kazakh language. Prominent Kazakh writer Mukhtar Auezov created a new

Kazakh opera on the heroic past of the Kazakh nation. The topic was the uprising of Beket

Batyr in the eighteenth century (Kazakhstanskaia Pravda 1942).15 In 1941 and 1942, the

theatre play Isatai i Makhambet, which narrated the uprising of Isatai Taimanov against the

Russian imperial forces, was staged in various Kazakh theatres in Kazakhstan (Sotsialistik

Kazakstan 1941c).16 Nevertheless, the agitation-propaganda department of the KP(b)K criti-

cized the repertoire of Kazakh theatres and demanded ‘more plays on the heroic past of the

Kazakh nation’ which would demonstrate ‘epic and romantic heroes who are closer and more

familiar to the Kazakh nation’.17

These efforts did not come to an end in 1942. Kazakh writers continued to write on historical

themes with the encouragement of the party. In February–March 1943, Auezov wrote the play

Kara-Kypchak Koblandy based on an epic tale and depicted the Kypchaks as ancient Kazakhs.

According to a party report, ‘The play deals with the struggle of the Kazakh people and its batyr

Koblandy against foreign enemies [and] oppressors.’ Khazhim Zhumaliev wrote a play on Edyge

Batyr, incorporating him into Kazakh national history. The play was about the struggle of Edyge

Batyr for the independence of his people. These and similar works were under the control of and

encouraged by the secretary of the agitation-propaganda section of the KP(b)K.18 Both plays

were first staged in 1944. However, the Bureau of the TsK KP(b)K was still dissatisfied and

appealed to the directorate of arts at the Sovet Narodnykh Komissarov (SNK), Kazakhskoi

SSR (KazSSR), the Council of People’s Commissars of the Kazakh SSR, to prepare even

more plays and operas in 1945 that would cover ‘the heroic past of the Kazakh nation’.19

All these efforts were part of a general approach that involved a mixture of Kazakh patrio-

tism and allegiance to socialism. This discourse can also be observed in the various articles and

speeches published in Kazakhstanskaia Pravda and Sotsialistik Kazakstan since June 1941

which explained in detail the heroic deeds of Isatai Batyr, Kenesary Kasymov, and Naurizbai

Batyr (Sotsialistik Kazakstan 1941a, 1941b). Figures from national history were used for the

conscription and preparation of Kazakh soldiers. The speech of a Kazakh soldier at an agita-

tion-propaganda meeting held at the army recruiting centre in Kokchetau (a regional centre in

the north of Kazakhstan) in July 1941 clearly demonstrates the line of patriotic propaganda con-

ducted among Kazakh recruits:

The peoples of the Soviet Union constitute a single family. Each of our nations has a heroic past. We[Kazakhs] are the people brought up by Lenin and Stalin [who] will fight for the fatherland like atiger, as our forefathers Amangel’dy [Imanov], [Batyr] Syrym [Datov], [Batyr] Isatai [Taimanov],[and] Edyge [Batyr fought], until the destruction of the enemy of our people – Hitler.20

These historical figures furnished the image of the batyr as a folk hero, a figure of valour and

a defender of his people. Subsequently, military propaganda publications in the Kazakh

language such as Otandy Korghauda constantly called Kazakh soldiers batyrs, associating

them with the heroic-epic figures of the past. Although the historical batyrs belonged to tribes

or tribal confederations (Kazakh: Zhuz or Orda), contemporary history writing elevated them

to a national level. The contemporary batyrs of the Red Army were at the same time batyrs

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of the Kazakh nation and the Soviet Union (Kazakh: Sovetter Soiuzynyngbatyry) (Otandy Kor-

ghauda 1942a, 1942b, 1943a, 1943c). In some cases, the materials printed for Kazakh soldiers

explicitly referred to the heroic leaders Edyge, Er-Targyn, Syrym Batyr, Kenesary Kasymov,

Nauryzbai Batyr, Isatai Taimanov and Akyn Makhambet (Otandy Korghauda 1943b).

In brief, both the Kazakh language and heroic themes were important to the agitation-propa-

ganda section of the KP(b)K. The majority of the Kazakh population lived in rural areas and

could not understand Russian. This was the same for the Kazakh recruits and even for the

Kazakh propagandists, who were supposed to convey the message of the party to the masses.

In 1943, there were 45,000 Kazakh agitators in Kazakhstan and in most cases their level of

Russian was either bad or insufficient.21 Moreover, the level of education among the Kazakh

population was very low. To establish communication with this rural population, the usable

past, which was constructed to increase the fighting spirit, had to be made familiar to them.

The stories transmitted by zhyraus or akyns (bards) as folk tales or narratives about the nine-

teenth century uprisings and their leaders Srym and Kenesary were well known, especially in

the regions where the uprisings had occurred. Agitation-propaganda workers were therefore

accompanied by folk bards such as Dzhambul, Nurpeis, Baiganin and Shashubai, who addressed

the Kazakh people in poetic forms of verbal literature and conveyed a heroic narrative (Kozy-

baev 1991, p. 87).

Reaction of local historians

KazFAN, the history section of the Kazakh branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR,

reacted immediately to the needs of the front and to the KP(b)K’s call for publications addres-

sing the heroic national past. Local historians prepared a series of ‘booklets dedicated to the

heroic past of the Kazakh nation’. Al’kei Margulan prepared three of these volumes with the

goal of increasing the fighting spirit of the soldiers and helping propaganda activities in

Kazakh towns, mines and collective farms. The first booklet was about the uprising of Srym

Batyr. It described the uprising as ‘one of the most important events in the history of the

Kazakh nation’ and highlighted ‘how the heroic Kazakh nation, under the leadership of its

beloved hero Srym [Batyr] Datov, selflessly fought against the oppressors of peoples, khans

and tsarism’.22 Margulan’s second booklet was about the Kypchaks, who were defined as the

ancestors of the contemporary Kazakhs. Moreover, these ancestors of the Kazakhs demonstrated

a heroic resistance against the ‘ancestors’ of fascist Italians (colonist Genoese and Venetians) on

the southern shores of the Crimea and in the Azov Sea.23 Margulan’s final booklet was entitled

The Struggle of Edyge against the Order of Magistrate. In this booklet, the author described the

struggle of Edyge Batyr against the combined forces of European feudal lords and their defeat at

the Battle of Vorskla River in 1399. In the second part of the booklet, the figure of Edyge is

depicted as a wise folk hero, a freedom fighter and a great patriot who dedicates himself to

the happiness of the people. His heroic merits and deeds ‘became in the following centuries

an example for many Kazakh fighters for freedom (Srym Datov, Kenesary [Kasymov], Isatai

Taimanov)’.24 Thus he found a historical struggle of Kazakhs against feudal invaders from

the west. Both booklets were very similar to the propaganda initiated by Moscow which used

the Battle of Ice to mobilize the Russian population of the Union.25 The other texts that Margu-

lan worked on were The Role of Ablai [Khan] in the Struggle of the Kazakh Nation for Indepen-

dence; The Heroic Fighters of the Kazakh Nation, Seiten and Taizhan; and Edyge Batyr in

History and Legends.26 Another historian, Viatkin, covered other heroic episodes with the last

volume in the series, which addressed the nineteenth century uprisings, From the Struggles of

the Kazakh Nation for Independence. Viatkin aimed to cover all the events that could be

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presented as part of a struggle for national independence, from the Kypchaks up to the twentieth

century.27

All these efforts took place before the arrival of Moscow’s historians and before the project

of The History of the Kazakh SSR was launched in 1943. By the time that members of the Insti-

tute of History of the Academy of Sciences arrived in Almaty on 10 November 1941, the agita-

tion and propaganda section of the KP(b)K and Kazakh writers and historians had already been

using this heroic past for the mobilization of the Kazakh population.

Arrival of Moscow’s historians

Initially, Buzurbaev considered the arrival of historians from Moscow to be a great opportunity,

because the KP(b)K could employ them as high-quality lecturers and speakers for agitation-pro-

paganda purposes, or as tutors at local institutes. Even though there was a shortage of accommo-

dations, Buzurbaev insisted that some of them stay in Almaty. Anna Pankratova, the head of the

group of historians, had asked in her letter to Buzurbaev for permission for the historians to stay

in Almaty and deliver lectures and presentations.28 In the following days, the historians deliv-

ered lectures according to the needs of the agitation-propaganda section. Within the first

month of their stay, a group of 15 historians had prepared a booklet entitled Teaching History

under the Conditions of the Great Patriotic War (Prepodavanie 1942).

In the meantime, hundreds of thousands of refugees were already overcrowding Central

Asian cities and the Kazakh authorities were unable to cope with the wave of refugees in

Almaty. The historians were dismayed to learn that they would soon be sent to regional

towns as lecturers. At this point, Anna Pankratova met with the leading members of the Ministry

of Education and learned that the Kazakh administration had made a decision long ago to prepare

a textbook on the history of the Kazakh SSR. She then prepared a working plan and proposed

the project to the KP(b)K and the Narodnyi Komissariat Prosveshcheniia Kazakhskoi SSR

(NarkomprosKazSSR), People’s Commissariat of Enlightenment of the Kazakh SSR. The

Bureau of the TsK KP(b)K and the NarkomprosKazSSR saw this as an opportunity to gain

additional agitation-propaganda material and approved Pankratova’s working plan. Conse-

quently, none of the historians were sent to the towns and 11 of the scholars from Moscow

began to work with their local colleagues in Almaty.29 Kazakh leaders continued to support

the project and did their best to provide comfortable conditions for the historians (Druzhinin

1990, pp. 111, 228–231). Pankratova’s working plan was adapted according to the directives

of the NarkomprosKazSSR.30 The writers comprised three different contingents. First, there

were evacuated historians from Moscow, Leningrad and Kharkov, such as Pankratova,

Grekov, Druzhinin and Viatkin, whose history of Kazakhstan had been published earlier in

1941. There were also the Kazakh writers Mukhtar Auezov and Sabit Mukanov, as well as

Kazakhstani historians of Russian or Kazakh origin, including Fedorov, Timofeev, Al’kei Mar-

gulan and Ermukhan Bekmakhanov, who was a junior historian at the Kazakh branch of the

Academy of Sciences (KazFAN) and a director at the NarkomprosKazSSR (Druzhinin 1990,

p. 231). Finally, there were leading party members and administrative representatives of the

KP(b)K and Kazakh SSR. Some of them, such as Buzurbaev and Abdykalykov, the consecutive

secretaries of agitation and propaganda, were co-editors of the book. When Abdykalykov

became secretary, it was Skvortsov who named him a co-editor (Abdykalykov 1997).31 The pol-

itical supervision and endorsement of the Kazakh Communist Party were crucial for this agita-

tion-propaganda work. As historian Anna Pankratova put it, ‘It would be appropriate to entrust to

the propaganda section of the TsK KP(b)K overall political control’.32 Others, such as Shaiakh-

metov, the second secretary of the KP(b)K, were involved in the project from behind the scenes

(Druzhinin 1990, pp. 243–244). In the autumn of 1942, the draft of the textbook was also

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discussed at a special editorial commission organized at the agitation and propaganda section of

the KP(b)K.33 It was also reviewed twice at a special commission of the NarkomprosKazSSR, in

1942.34 Following this, the draft was discussed by historians. One of the topics of discussion was

the uprising of Kenesary Kasymov. This section was initially written by Viatkin, but the local

historians criticized the draft, and the task of rewriting was assigned to Bekmakhanov, who

was working on the chapter ‘The Establishment of Soviet Rule in Zhetysu [Russian: Semirechie]

of Kazakhstan’. After the discussions among historians, the TsK KP(b)K also reviewed each

chapter of the history book over the course of two months (Kozybaev 1992, p. 28). The

History of the Kazakh SSR was finally published in 1943, with 10,000 copies printed, and cred-

ited to co-editors Anna Pankratova and M. Abdykalykov. The textbook covered consecutive

heroic episodes of the Kazakh nation in history. Articles celebrating the publication appeared

in both Kazakhstankaia Pravda and the all-Union Pravda. The initial reaction was positive

(Kazakhstanskaia Pravda 1943a, Piaskovii 1943, Viatkin and Kuchkin 1943). The KP(b)K

was keen on using the publication for continuing efforts in agitation-propaganda. The best

way of disseminating the heroic past of the Kazakh people as described in the textbook was

to reprint the relevant sections in daily newspapers. Kazakhstanskaia Pravda and Sotsialistik

Kazakstan started to publish a series of articles under the general title ‘Hero-Batyrs of the

Kazakh Nation’ (Kazakhstanskaia Pravda 1943b, 1943c, 1943d, 1943e, 1943f, 1943g). Accord-

ing to Abdykalykov (1997), the copies of the book were sent to the front and distributed to the

agitation-propaganda section of the KP(b)K. We should also note that in addition to the history

of Kazakhstan, Pankratova and other Russian historians in Almaty continued their efforts in pub-

lishing patriotic texts, just as their Kazakh colleagues did.35 All of the historians were supposed

to organize lectures for the public on contemporary issues and heroic episodes from Kazakh

national history.36 One of the works by Russian historian Orlov, which was written ‘to popular-

ize the heroic themes in Kazakh folklore’,37 was published at the end of the war. This work por-

trayed various batyrs and heroic leaders of Desht-i Kypchak as Kazakh heroes, including Er-

Targyn and Edyge (Orlov, 1945). The postwar period is a subject for another article.

However, it should be noted that, after 1945, the political priorities of the party changed. Parallel

to this alteration of the party line, some of the Kazakh historians who had been involved in the

writing of the national history were accused of exaggerating the national aspect.

Conclusion

The Second World War was a devastating experience for the USSR and involved a total

mobilization of society for the war effort. The republican communist parties were aware of

the fact that national sentiments and narratives were important for mobilizing millions. While

the propaganda-agitation of Moscow focused on the Russian population of the multi-national

Union, Kazakh communists initiated a very strong nationalist propaganda campaign by using

their national heroes and events in Kazakhstan. This policy became the leitmotiv of the public

speeches of the Kazakh party officials and lecturers, the publication of daily papers and propa-

ganda leaflets, and the repertoire of performance art. The history book of 1943 was part of this

policy and it was far from being an initiative of Shaiakhmetov or a few Kazakh officials who

might have seen the war period as an opportunity to realize their nationalist inclinations. The

contemporary reconstruction of the Soviet past in Kazakhstan, however, rehabilitates Shaiakh-

metov and shades his responsibility in the atrocities of the Soviet regime by separating the

decision of publishing a national history from this nationalist wartime propaganda campaign.

Nevertheless, Shaiakhmetov was equally the agent of the Stalinist system when he was a

local executor of the political terror, mass killings and famines of the 1930s and 1940s and

when he approved the heroic and nationalist history in 1943. What still needs to be examined

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are the two other pillars of the rehabilitation of Shaiakhmetov: his real role in the protection of

Kazakh historians and intellectuals in 1945–1951 and his opposition to the Virgin Lands cam-

paign of Khrushchev. But these will be the subjects of separate historical research.

While scholars dispute the modernist, colonial or neo-traditional nature of the Soviet system

in Central Asia, this rehabilitation somehow satisfies both Kazakh cosmopolitans and national-

ists. For the Kazakhs who find the Soviet modernization vital – despite the price that was paid –

the rehabilitation of a Kazakh figure turns the Soviet modernization and industrialization into an

indigenous effort. Furthermore, if Stalin is blamed for the repressions, Shaiakhmetov becomes a

figure who executed the modernization plan for his kinsmen. For the nationalist Kazakhs who

reclaim the recent past from the Soviet ‘colonial’ rule, the rehabilitation of Shaiahkemtov incor-

porates his period into the modern history of the nation, avoids long intervals or ‘amnesia’ in the

constructed collective memory, and avoids blaming fellow countrymen for collaboration.

Finally, the rehabilitation of Shaiakhmetov provides continuity between the leaders of the

Alash Orda and the contemporary elites who have ruled the country since the last years of the

Soviet Union. In other words, it establishes a linear progression towards the independent

Kazakhstan and its current president.

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 ofKazakhstan), Almaty, Kazakhstan.

1. Previous histories were written by Asfendiiarov ([1935] 1993) and Viatkin (1941).2. 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).3. 708-5.1-596-157 (Summer-Autumn 1941).4. 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 1941.5. 708-5.1-601-19, 25 September 1941; 708-5.1-601-36 (November 1941);6. 708-5.1-588-99, 21 July 1941; 708-5.1-79 (August 1941).7. 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 CaspianSea. Edyge Khan (1340 or 1352/56–1419) was the Amir of Ak-Orda and the Beklerbek of the Ulusof Dzhuzhi. Edyge was the founder of the ruling dynasty of the Nogai Horde. Edyge is also the pro-tagonist of a widespread epic tale and variants of it can be found in the folk narratives of Turkicpeoples in Central Asia, the Middle East and Siberia. The importance of the Edyge epos is akin tothe Slovo o PolkuIgoreve of the Eastern Slavs or the Manas of the Kyrgyz. 708-5.1-601-20, 24, 25 Sep-tember 1941.

8. 708-5.1-146-85 (1941).9. 708-5.1-596-97ob, 98 (Summer-Autumn 1941).

10. 708-5.1-144-67, 8 December 1941.11. 708-5.1-144-121, 17 December 1941.12. Ne obkhodimo znachitel’no usilit’ rabotu sredy Kazakhskoi chasti naseleniia nashei respubliki podni-

mat geroicheskie traditisii kazakhskogo naroda, kotorymi on tak bogat. See 708-6.1-602-134.13. 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.

14. 708-5.1-603-73.15. The libretto of the opera was written by M. Auezov and the music was composed by A. Zil’ber.

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

17. 708-6.1-559-19 (February, 1942).18. 708-7.1-90-17/18, 16 December 1943.19. 708-7.1-90-14, 16 December 1943.20. 708-5.1-601-17 – the date of the meeting was 25 or 26 July 1941.21. 708-7.1-198-3 (10 June 1943).22. 708-5.1-151-78 (December 1941).23. 708-5.1-151-79 (December 1941).24. 708-5.1-151-79 (December 1941).25. 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 expan-sion of the Teutonic Knights as a historical example of the Drang nach Osten. The Soviet propagandaused the Battle of Ice as an example of Slavic and Russian superiority. Sergei Eisenstein’s film Alex-ander Nevsky (1938) was part of the Soviet propaganda campaign, which was intensified during WorldWar II.

26. 708-6.2-104-99,99ob (January 1942).27. 708-5.1-151-80 (December 1941).28. 708-5.1-561-7, 9-11, 10 November 1941.29. Some of the historians, including Grekov, went back to Tashkent. 708-5.1-562-41, 13 December 1941.30. 708-5.1-562-11, 12 December 1941.31. 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, Abdykalykovbecame the secretary.

32. 708-6.1-449-1, 1 January 1942.33. 708-7.1-652-120ob, 6 March 1943.34. 708-6.1-449-30, 31, 14 October 1942.35. 708-6.1-469-77, 3 December 1941.36. 708-6.1-469-91, 22 December, 1941; 708-6.1-602-129/134, 5 November 1942.37. 708-6.2-104-97 (January 1942).

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