“The people who do not respect their own history
do not respect themselves ... Careful attitude towards
the history isthe best guarantee that we will not
make new tragic mistakestoday and tomorrow”
N.A. Nazarbayev
Life prospects of the people of Kazakhstan became more diverse and in many ways real when it got the independence. The preservation of the republic integrity as a social organism at the level of nation and society remains the main task when the country’s stability, well-being and security are promoted. Consolidation of civil and spiritual, ethnic and national identity, increased socio-cultural and socio-psychological activity of the population put together the development priorities of Kazakhstan society. The entire history of the Kazakhsand the nowadays’ history of an independent Kazakhstan represent the history of unity, concord and solidarity, mutual understanding with neighboring countries. The past of one’snation is not forgotten by the one who advocates peace and equality, recognizes powerful wisdom of one’s nation and looks to the future of one’s country with hope.
History, studying a historical process, leads to the appearance of reflection in the form of the history of historical science. A historian cannot fail to express his attitude to the issues discussed in science on the problems he is studying. According to V.L. Muraviev, “historical process, creating an auto-reflection and historical sciences, raises this auto-reflection to a degree, forming the history of the historical sciences” [1]. Historiography shows that there is a definite distinction between the historical process and the ideas of historians about it; in addition, historians perceive the same event in different ways. Historiography is intent to deal with the reasons why various judgments about historical events appear.
The formation of national history (national historiography) is a strategic direction for the development of any modern state, going far beyond the framework of academic science. Measures to counteract the attempts to rewrite history, both in our state and in a number of post-Soviet countries, are deeply symptomatic and in a certain sense even a milestone event. This issue is also very relevant from a theoretical and political point of view. Unfortunately, since the second half of the 80s of the last century, this problem has found a trend. In particular, the younger generation of historians is keen on it, following the example of certain members of the older generation. As it is well known among professional historians and reputable scientific schools, history, that is the collective memory of society about its past, represents in its essence a virtual, in a sense, even an imaginary world. However, in this virtual world we can see a real battle with the participation of actual parties in interest. Something like this was hardly possible in the historical reality of the Soviet period. This can be seen as one of the clearest manifestations of the fact that humanity has actually entered the informational era of its evolution. The State Secretary M. Tazhin noted in the report of the interdepartmental commission: “Today, Kazakhstan is a successful state. We have entered a new phase of state formation. The strategy “Kazakhstan-2050” gives an answer to the major questions at the new stage of development, namely: where are we going and where do we want to be by 2050? Generally speaking, this is a matter on the creation of a new ideological model of the country’s future, identification of essential valuesand guidance. These values must be modern and strengthen national identity in a globalizing world. They must ensure the preservation of the cultural code of the nation: language, spirituality, traditions and culture. Therefore, the Head of the State emphasizes that “an all-Kazakhstan identity must become the core of the nation’s historical consciousness” [2].
Such formulation of the problem objectively focuses attention on the study of national history. Today, completely new demands are made on historical science and there has been a critical reappraisal of cognitive methodsin a world historiography.
Firstly, modern history has become an interdisciplinary science, and historical research has ceased to focus on the study of exclusively written sources and work in the archives. They apply the methods of numerous related scientific disciplines.
Secondly, the role of a scientist has become different. The methods of phenomenology and hermeneutics have changed the type of historical research itself. Nowadaysa historian is not just a “recorder” of events who writes down and describes the facts. The scientist must achieve a “comprehension” of the values, rules and morality of a particular society. In terms of such approach, each national history appears not asan abstract chronological annals of structures and civilizations, but as a living history of a nation with all its complexity and uniqueness.
There is no doubt that domestic historiography should seriously change its methodological and language means. NursultanAbishevichNazarbayev, substantively dealing with national history issues, proposed to develop a special program of historical research called “The nation in the stream of history” (“Halyktarihtolkynynda”). In 2013, there was an adoption of this program on the system search and study of documents from the history of Kazakhstan, stored in the world’s largest archives. As noted by the Head of the State N.A. Nazarbayev: “I am deeply convinced that the national history of Kazakhstan should be based on the principles of our society’s unity, friendship and mutual understanding with neighboring countries. With this in mind, it is necessary to conduct both research and teaching in schools and universities in such a manner” [3, p. 417].
Its major goals are the creation of conditions for a qualitative leap of Kazakhstan history on the basis of advanced methodology and methods; the expansion of horizons of the national history of the Kazakhs, the formation of a new historical world outlook of the nation and the comprehension of two decades of modern history of Kazakhstan.This initiative of the Head of the State was not accidental. The future is impossible without reliance on the historical past.
It is necessary to comprehend the national history and create a holistic national historical picture from the point of view of modern science. The current territory of Kazakhstan for the most part corresponds to the area of settlement of the tribes that formed the Kazakh ethnos. The establishment of the title ethnos is a process that occupied more than one millennium, but, unfortunately, has not been studied enough.
Kazakhstan people had a very difficult and longpath to independence and freedom. Now it is time to reevaluate everything and give a fresh look at the national history of the people. Thus, the history of Kazakh people was endangered and at risk by the system of imperial administration during two and a half centuries. The Soviet ideology banned the publication of scientific and historical works on the issues of national problems as they would point the direction to the national revival. The historical science of Kazakhstan is going through a difficult phase of establishment as an independent scientific discipline. This means to move away not only from the obsolete schemes and structures of the historical past based on the beliefs of a class struggle. It suggests the formation of a new concept of the own history of the Kazakh people which is free from the ideology of the Soviet historical school. Accordingly, the role and place of the history of Kazakhstan in the political and socio-economic spheres of society are changing. The result of all the changes was the desire of the Kazakh people to rethink their history. And it refers to the restoration of an objective and free picture of the historical past of Kazakhstan. In its turn, this represents the basis for the revival of historical memory of the people, one of the most important factors to form national unity, civic education and patriotism. In this regard, it is necessary to pay special attention to the words of the Leader of the Nation: “We need to continue working on the formation of historical consciousness of the nation,” notedNursultanNazarbayev in the historical document “Strategy”Kazakhstan-2050”- a new political course of the established state:”All-Kazakhstan identity should be the core of the historical consciousness of our people”.
Today, a Kazakhstani of any ethnic or religious affiliation is an equal citizen of his country.
The Kazakh people and the state language act as the unifying core of a developing Kazakhstan civil community.
We are creating such a fair society where everyone can say: “I am a Kazakhstani and all the roadsin my countryare open for me!
All the roads and opportunities are open today, and there are no limits for our citizens.
There are many of us, and we all are the one Country, one People.
To be useful to one’s country, to be responsible for the fate of one’s Motherland is a duty and honor for every responsible politician, for every Kazakhstani.
We have made the values of unity and harmony as a foundation of society, the basis of our special Kazakhstan tolerance.
We must carefully transfer these values to each future generation of Kazakhstanis”[4].
Over the years of independence, Kazakh historians have attempted to develop new approaches that allow seeing the historical process as it really was – interconnected, integrated, and in the process of development. There appeared works written on the basis of new archival funds, publications opening unknown pages of the history of Kazakhstan – the deportation of the peoples of the USSR to Kazakhstan and the republics of Central Asia, collectivization, repressions of 1930-1950, and others. However, the process of rethinking the historical past of the Kazakh people had a negative side. Many works emerged, especially on the new and modern history of Kazakhstan. They exposed the past, historical facts were rejected or considered only in a negative way.
The issue on the ethnogenesis of the Kazakhs, the origin and semantics of the term “Kazakh”, the genesis and evolution of the Kazakh statehood, the formation of the ethnic territory of the Kazakh people became a pressing problem. Today, many aspects of this problem have been investigated: the territorial boundaries of the settlement of the Kazakhs, the time of the Kazakh khanate formation and the establishment of its continuity from the Turkic Kaganates and the Kipchak-Mongolian states. The problem of the Kazakh statehood in the Soviet historiography held a subordinate position, and this became a subject of discussion during the Soviet period. Moreover, the problem had several points of view, which are still present in the Russian historiography.
The history of Kazakhstan of modern age – XVIII – early XX century. This period correlates with the colonization of Kazakhstan by the Russian Empire and the analysis of the consequences of this process. The Soviet historiography has accumulated a seemingly tremendous material, but all studies were based on a limited range of archival data, which, in turn, underwent a kind of peer review. An example of this approach is the assessment of all the uprisings and movements of the Kazakh people in the XIX – early XX centuries,for instance, the uprising of 1916. Due to the work of Kazakhstan historians, the emphasis in relation to the assessmentof the national movement in Kazakhstan during this period was changed. The movement of K. Kassimovwas rehabilitated. It is interpreted today as the culmination of the national liberation movement of the Kazakh people during the period of their accession to Russia. There is a need to create a capital research on the issue of the accession of Kazakhstan to Russia. The problem of Russian economy influence on the pasture-nomadic community of the Kazakhs is being widely discussed. The work of N.E. Massanov”The nomadic civilization of the Kazakhs”, published in 2001 is particularly vivid in this respect. This author, unlike the Soviet historians, argues that the capitalist structure, which gradually penetrated into the economy of Kazakhstan, could not seriously affect the Kazakh auland lead to its transformation, delamination and decomposition. The colonial authorities, on the contrary, sought to preserve the clan system and the patriarchal way of life in Kazakh society. Consequently, the concept of historical science should be based on the unity of the system of views on historical events. A new approach should be applied to the presentation of historical events as a continuous process of acquiring national identity, not reducible to the enumeration of names and creative achievements, but logically linked to the historical past, political and socio-economic development of the country. If we rely on scientific historical analysis,it is possible to obtain new historical knowledge, fresh ideas and a positive contribution of historical science to the countrymodernization, its humanitarian support; no social and economic tasks can be solved without it. It is necessary to make wider use of the spatial approach in presenting historical events, which makes it possible to explore the history of Kazakhstan within the framework of specifically local historical timemore reliably and more fully.
One of the most significant components of the Kazakhstan model of government is the role of a leader. It is essential to analyze a number of aspects of Kazakhstan Leader activity from scientific points of view. Firstly, over two decades, we can definitely talk about a strategic vision.We have seen many bright politicians,who flashed like a meteor,in different regions of the planetover the years. However, to determine the country development strategy for decades to come and not just to predict, but also to implement these plans is a property of a strategically minded politician. Moreover, the leader understands – they will not always agree with him, he must have enough strength to go sometimes against public opinion, taking upon himself the burden of responsibility for a successful future. Secondly, it is predictability. Not all leaders have it. Many people confuse it with populist promises during the election campaigns. Our Leader never promised social utopias, but he was meticulously about what he promisedand he implements it every time. Thirdly, it is an innovative management style. The President of the Republic of Kazakhstan is focusing on innovative development and technological progress. The competitiveness of the country is only in accelerated technological development. Fourthly, it isan intellectual scale of an individual. All the major projects of internal and external nature – from the CICMA to the World Religions Forum, from the OSCE Summit to EXPO-2017, from the transfer of the capital to the strategies “2030” and “2050” – were based on intellectual developments of the President himself. But each of these projects could have done honor to any major politician of our time. All these facts, ideasand events should receive a systematic and objective assessment.
During the years of independence, well-known historians of the republic at a wider meeting of the Interdepartmental Working Group clarified the analytical conclusions of the official state ideology on national historiography not only as one of the facets of national history development, but also as one of the strategic directions of internal and externalstate policy. The main problematic historical blocks that Kazakhstan historiography needs to be developed today are as follows:
– the problem of a “common past” formation for an ethnically heterogeneous community of citizens of sovereign Kazakhstan;
– criteriato evaluate the Soviet period of national history in the context of formation of the paradigm “independent Kazakhstan as the Fatherland”;
– the tasks of scientific determination of a forming period of the Kazakh ethnos and its statehood;
– the problems of civilization (“super-ethnic”) orientation of the Kazakh ethnic group in history, as well as the Kazakh civil society in the present and future [5].
The above material clearly indicates that the scope of national historiography goes far beyond the scope of academic science in its significance and is directly related to the areas of strategic interests and national security of any modern state. The latter is particularly relevant for Kazakhstan and other states of the post-Soviet space, which have recently gained political independence, and are currently actively building their national identity. Delaying a solution, or ineffective solution of key historiographic problems in the medium and long term, can give rise to serious challenges to national interests and even state security.
According to the results of extended meeting of the Interdepartmental Working Group on research, writing and study of national history, the tasks set in the works of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan were fully approved. In this aspect, it was emphasized that we need a modern and truly scientific uniform state standard of historical education at schools and universities. A standard that would be based on the most modern research methods and teaching methods. Marat Tazhin highlighted five main positions in the re-creation of national history, including:
1. National history should be central to the social sciences.
2. It is necessary to work out a qualitatively new general concept of the history of Kazakhstan, which should be closely linked to the world history and convincingly show the place of Kazakhstan in global historical processes, the system of their interconnection and scientific periodization.
3. Primary attention should be paid to the collection, systematization and classification of all historical materialsabout Kazakhstanavailable in the country and abroad, it is necessary to investigate all the main foreign repositories of historical artifactsscrupulously, and also to study the possibility of repatriating these historical data to the country, or, if it is not possible to copy them to provide further access for scientists and general public.
4. The study of the Central Asian nomadic civilization, the guardian of which is currently the Kazakh ethnic group, is among the priorities.
5. To deal with the issue of preparing high-quality history textbooks timely.
The significance of the Presidential Program in the context of a new historical consciousness was the creation of conditions for a qualitative leap in the historical science of Kazakhstan on the basis of advanced methods and methodology; the expansion of the horizons of the national history of the Kazakhs, the formation of a new historical outlook of the nation; understanding of two decades of modern history of Kazakhstan. In turn, the materials of the extended meeting of the Interdepartmental Working Group will give a tangible impetus to the modernization and enrichment of national history and give new guidelines for its researchers.
Thus, the study of the history of the Republic of Kazakhstan is dictated by its rich historical heritage arising from its geopolitical location in the Eurasian space. As it is known, the territory of modern Kazakhstan was the scene of many-sided historical events that influenced the course of world history, in which Eurasian nomads took part. At the same time, this heritage makes history have certain problems when it studies the so-called “white spots”, the research of which is difficult due to the lack of written sources or the fragmentary information on the history of Kazakhstan. This relates, first of all, to the ancient and early medieval history of Kazakhstan, studied mainly on the basis of archaeological material. Also, there is a need for an objective source analysis and synthesis of an entire set of available resources. Reconstruction of history should not be built on the idea of the historian, but on the identification of historical facts and an objective interpretation of the historical source. At the same time, the progress of historical science depends on the appearance of new sources and their careful study in science. An objective historical assessment of historical process, phenomenon, event and personality should be given in terms of significance and role of the people and statein history, one should not allow the distortion of history in favor of anyone’s interests. It is necessary to distance from the descriptive history and proceed to the identification of objective causes of historical process, to move away from the principle of idealized history, identifying both positive and negative sides. The urgency of solving the problems of Kazakhstan history is also determined by the role of history of a national identity formation arising from the consolidating and educational functions of history.
We would like to conclude the study with the words of NursultanAbishevichNazarbayev: “One is mistaken who thinks that Kazakhstan was far from the main road of history. Numerous state formations existed on its ancient land, which, like people, experienced periods of childhood, youth and maturity, the epoch of its heyday, ruin and rebirth from the ashes. Restoration of independence is the natural compensation of the sacrifices made by our ancestors in the centuries-old struggle for freedom. The triumph of historical justice, made by the will of fate itself, is a merit of our grandfathers and great-grandfathers,defending this immense land with the point of a spear and the power of a smashing blow”.
Honoring our ancestors, we confidently move forward, drawing strength from the freedom-loving spirit of the Kazakh people, which it proudly carries from the times of the Kazakh khanate to the creation of an independent state. The historical memories helped the people to rally around the Leader of the nation and meet the challenges of the times, and assisted Kazakhstan to become one of the leading states of the modern world.
It should be noted that by now there is an urgent need to fill the content of the Kazakhstan development model in the period of independence with real scientific and historical knowledge. This would consist in identifying the main reasons and factors of successful overcoming the post-Soviet stage and Kazakhstaneconomic and ideological and cultural self-sufficiency. Today, the field of historical education is relevant for the historical science of Kazakhstan.
The achievements of modern Kazakhstan historical science allow us to state the fact that new research is needed in the field of national history along its entire length. The competitive side of such studies and their social significance should be determined by the presence of theoretical generalizations, in-depth analysis of empirical material, and access to the world standards to obtain scientific results.