Popular book on pro-independence party gets Russian edition 

The popularity of a book on the early 20th century Kazakh independence movement has prompted its publication in the Russian language. 

The Russian translation of Ruslan Akmagambetov’s “The Alash Democracy”, which tells the story of the People’s Democratic Party Alash, was printed by the independent publishing house AmalBooks.  

The original Kazakh-language edition has seen three reprints. The demand for it has been so high that it is now sold even at petrol stations.  

Akmagambetov said the idea behind his book was to convey to the public in an accessible way the history of the Alash movement and the figures behind it. 

“A lot has been written about the Alash Orda figures, but it is mainly academic works, which are hard to digest for the ordinary reader. I really wanted to tell the story in a way that would spark interest in everyone. We must know our history, it is really important,” he said at the launch of the Russian edition. 

AmalBooks director Bakhytzhan Bukharbayev said that there were still gaps in the public knowledge about the Alash leaders, who were all purged by the Bolshevik and Soviet governments – some were executed, some died in labour camps.  

“At the beginning of the 20th century the Kazakhs were still nomads and lived in yurts, but within a very short period there emerged a whole constellation of highly educated, brilliant individuals. It is a phenomenon that has not been fully studied yet,” Bukharbayev said. 

“In today’s Kazakhstan we simply do not have a similar group of progressively minded intellectuals-democrats, like the Alash leaders,” he said. 

Bukharbayev added that Akmagambetov’s book explained “the deepest meaning” of the notion of democracy. “It is about the tradition of Kazakh democracy, which is already 100 years old, and we must be proud of that.” 

The book has been translated into Russian by Nurzhan Kunenov who, he said, shares the Alash party’s democratic values. 

“I see myself as a staunch liberal democrat. I am sure that democracy is not a point of termination, but a permanent process,” he said at the launch.  

Following the 1917 Russian revolution, the Alash party leaders founded a self-proclaimed Kazakh autonomous republic, which was crushed by the Bolsheviks in 1920. 

Publishers have in recent years noted a surge of public interest in historical books in the Kazakh language. 

By Valeria Kholodova 

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