Russia's People of Empire: Life Stories from Eurasia, 1500 to the Present

29 Olzhas Suleimenov

Olzhas Suleimenov. Photo IA Fergana.ru. •• • 29 Olzhas Suleimenov (1936–) MARLÈNE LARUELLE Olzhas Suleimenov has been a key representative of Kazakh culture since the 1960s. A Russian language writer and poet impassioned by history, he expressed during Soviet times a Kazakh national feeling within the framework then set by “peoples’ friendship ,” which implied the superiority of the Russian “big brother.” Since Kazakhstan’s independence in 1991, his adopted aim has been to rehabilitate the Turkic cultures of the steppes by proving their ancient status and their major role in world history. His life, but his thought even more so, on the history and identity of the Eurasian steppes, reflect the multiple intersections of faiths, geographies, and ways of life that have characterized Russia and its empire for several centuries. Suleimenov’s commitment in literature is revealing of the inspiration that has followed him throughout his life: to give meaning to humanity in its totality. A geologist by training, in April 1961, Suleimenov proposed to the editor in chief of Kazakhstanskaia pravda a poem written for the glory of Yuri Gagarin, who had only just undertaken the first inhabited space flight in the history of humanity. The poem enjoyed such success that it rapidly propelled Suleimenov to the status of representative of Kazakh literature. He was employed by Kazakhstanskaia pravda the following year, and was sent to the famous Moscow Institute for Literature, where he associated with the great Soviet writers of the time, such as Mikhail Sholokhov, Vsevolod Ivanov, Ilia Ehrenburg, and Yevgeny Evtushenko. The atmosphere of the shestidesiatniki, the 1960s liberals who, in the wake of de-Stalinization, challenged the Soviet ideological stranglehold on arts and letters, had a decisive influence on his intellectual and political development. He then accumulated prestigious prizes and honors, including the Komsomol Prize for Kazakhstan, State Prize of the Kazakh Soviet Republic, and National Poet of Kazakhstan. But Suleimenov is not simply a writer; he has always been a major figure of public life in Kazakhstan. As a member of the Communist Party, he joined his republic’s central committee in the 1970s and was named president of the Union of Writers of Kazakhstan in 1983. In 1989, he was elected deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the 320 Marlène Laruelle USSR and started a political career as leader of the Nevada-Semipalatinsk ecological movement, which was instrumental in bringing about the closure of the nuclear polygon in Kazakhstan. After 1991, he took up the leadership of the party that he founded, the People’s Congress of Kazakhstan, and was appointed parliamentary speaker, a position he held until 1994. He thus did not show any reluctance to engage in several political struggles against President Nursultan Nazarbaev over national identity and the political and economic decisions being taken in the new state. As one of Nazarbaev’s potential rivals, he was discreetly removed from the political elite in 1995 by being appointed ambassador to Rome and permanent representative to UNESCO in Paris. Although he quickly became politically marginalized, Suleimenov has continued to seek shelter in a cultural role, enabling him to remain a popular figure without having to stand up against Nazarbaev’s authoritarianism. Indeed, he continues to elaborate new ideological guidelines for contemporary Kazakh national narrative. In 2004, the Atamura publishing house published an eight-volume set of his complete works. Suleimenov is part of an old intellectual tradition that has promoted, since the nineteenth century, the cultural syncretism of Kazakh society, its being at the crossroads of the great world civilizations since antiquity. From this heritage Suleimenov draws much inspiration, a heritage which includes, among others, Chokan Valikhanov (1835–65), a former student of the Omsk Cadet Corps who entered into the service of the empire and participated in several ethnographic expeditions in Central Asia; Abai Kunanbaev (1845–1904), the son of one of the leaders of the Middle Horde, a great translator of Western works into Russian, and the author of The Book of Words, a lyrical reflection that expressed his belief in the possibility of building closer ties with Russian culture in a way that would not undermine Kazakh identity; and Ibrahim Altynsarin (1841–89), one of the major figures of Kazakh pedagogy and founder of the first system of modern Russo-Kazakh schools. Suleimenov also owes much to Mukhtar Auezov (1897–1961), whose renowned Path of Abai, devoted to Abai Kunanbaev, is considered to be a...