Rehabilitation and memory: filling the gap in history

Research Laboratory "Center for Research of Historical Events of Kazakhstan" has begun its work at AUPET named after Gumarbek Daukeev ("Қазақстанның тарихи оқиғаларын зерттеу орталығы").  

The laboratory was opened at the initiative of the Department “Social Disciplines”, within the framework of the city commission on the rehabilitation of victims of political repression under the akimat of Almaty.

On November 24, 2020, the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev signed a decree on the creation of a State Commission for the complete rehabilitation of victims of political repression. Representatives of the Presidential Administration and the Government, deputies of the Senate and Mazhilis of the Parliament, heads of interested state bodies, representatives of public organizations and scientists became members of the State Commission.

The head of the research laboratory "Center for Research of Historical Events of Kazakhstan" is Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor of the Department “Social Disciplines” Mukhambedyarova A.T. Participants of the research laboratory: Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor, Head of the Department “Social Disciplines” Bolat Zholamanovich Kabdushev; Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department “Social Disciplines” Almazhan Dzhusupovna Utegalieva.

The main area of activity is the identification of categories of non-rehabilitated victims of political repression and the creation of a database of archival materials.

The main directions of laboratory research:

- study, preparation of an opinion and recommendations on the rehabilitation of victims of peoples and special migrants forcibly deported to Kazakhstan;

- study, preparation of conclusions and recommendations for the rehabilitation of kulaks, beys, semi-feudal lords (middle peasants) and peasants-sharua;

- study, preparation of conclusions and recommendations for the rehabilitation of victims of forced collectivization, procurement and other political campaigns of the Bolshevik-Stalinist government in relation to the peasantry.

The end result of the work will be held in special archives: the Archives of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Central State Archives, the Special Archives of the Almaty Police Department, the State Archives of Almaty, the Archives of the Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Kazakhstan. This is the development of recommendations on the identified and studied data of non-rehabilitated victims of political repression for submission to the State Commission.

During the years of Soviet power, millions of people became victims of the tyranny of the totalitarian state. They were repressed for their political and religious beliefs, on social, ethnic and other grounds. 1920-1950 in the history of our country is a tragic period of collectivization and confiscation, repression, famine, war. Millions of people were arrested, exiled, shot, killed innocently. During the period of political repressions in 1937-1938 during the Soviet era, more than 120 thousand people were persecuted in Kazakhstan. 25 thousand people were shot. The 1928 confiscation led to the 1932-1934 famine. As a result of hunger, according to various estimates, 1.3-1.5 million people died in Kazakhstan. On the territory of Kazakhstan, several labor camps of the system of the Main Directorate of Forced Labor Camps were located, including the largest ones - the Karaganda Forced Labor Camp, the Akmola Camp for the Wives of Traitors to the Motherland, Dolinka, Stepnoye, etc. We must pay tribute to the memory of the repressed without trial and Consequences of twos and threes of the United State Political Administration. Kazakhs and other peoples lost the best representatives of the intelligentsia in those years.

On November 4, 1988, the Supreme Court of the Kazakh SSR rehabilitated 14 representatives of the Kazakh intelligentsia, including Akhmet Baitursynov, Zhusupbek Aimautov, Mirzhakyp Dulatov, Khalel Gabbasov and Magzhan Zhumabaev. They were shot as "enemies of the people." On April 14, 1993, the law "On the rehabilitation of victims of mass political repressions" was adopted in Kazakhstan. Since then, the process of rehabilitation of victims of Stalinist repressions has been going on in the country. Memory for the sake of the future and restoration of historical justice is our civic duty. The work of the State Commission, created by the decree of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan dated November 24, 2020, became its embodiment.

Thus, the true history on the basis of the most important sources of the modern history of Kazakhstan - archival materials, including secret, previously inaccessible to scholarly historians, is being restored.

Doctor of Political Science,

Professor of the Department “Social Sciences”

Altynai Mukhambedyarova;

Candidate of Historical Sciences,

Associate Professor of the Department “Social Disciplines”

Almazhan Utegalieva

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