The Founder of Kazakh Autonomy as Seen by a Modern Russian Author

Abstract

This article analyses a monograph on the political biography of Alikhan Bukeikhanov, an outstanding researcher and public figure of Kazakhstan, written by a Russian author. The undeniable achievements of Kazakh historiography consist in the introduction to academic use of a significant volume of sources about the life and activities of the participants of the Alash movement and their fate in the Soviet state. Documents and literature on A. Bukeikhanov occupy a significant place among them. The book by V. I. Kozodoy assesses some misconceptions and unsubstantiated assertions entrenched in historiography concerning terminological inaccuracies and episodes of the character’s life. At the same time, the book contains hypotheses and assumptions which are not substantiated. Meanwhile, in the reviewer’s opinion, they become the basis for making fundamental conclusions and revising the predecessors’ assessments. While Kozodoy selectively addresses studies by Russian historians, conceptually, his book is based on Kazakh historiography. Following it, he portrays Bukeykhanov as a founder of modern democratic independent Kazakhstan, compares him to M. Kemal (Ataturk), and characterizes the revolutionary process and civil war as Kazakhs’ struggle for independence. The analysis makes it possible to estimate Kozodoy’s monograph not so much as a scholarly project but as an important part of the nation-building political mythology of modern Kazakhstan.