The Intellectual History of Olzhas Suleimenov’s “AZ i IA”

This study examines the intellectual history of Olzhas Suleimenov’s book “ AZ i IA” in 1975-1976. The ideological debate surrounding this book became one of the most resonant in the 20th century, while its historiosophical framework shaped, for decades to come, the formation of historical narratives in Kazakhstan aimed at overcoming the cultural trauma of “ahistoricity” and at acquiring historical subjectivity for the post-nomadic culture of the Kazakhs. It influenced not only public consciousness, but also the axiology of the academic narrative. The study seeks to explore the sociocultural nature and ideological contradictions of the debate provoked by the book “ AZ i IA” , drawing upon archival and narrative sources, as well as the memoirs of the author and his contemporaries. Taking into account the accusations leveled against Olzhas Suleimenov - of pan-Turkism, Zionism, and skepticism - and analyzing them through such documents as the “Memorandum to the State Committee for Publishing” ( Goskomizdat ), letters of the Soviet party leadership, materials from the discussions of the book at the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, critical reviews, and the course of the debate itself, we arrive at the following conclusions. First, “ AZ i IA” exposed the sociocultural nature of ideological consciousness in Soviet society. Second, it vividly demonstrated the ideological contradictions between two overlapping periods in Soviet history: post-Stalinism and the Thaw. On the one hand, the country’s ideological leadership stimulated the growth of ethnological consciousness; on the other hand, it curtailed manifestations of subjectivity that exceeded the permitted boundaries of the prescribed status of the “younger brother” and suppressed attempts to rethink the dramatic pages of such kinship. The materials of these ideological debates thus allow us to investigate how the Soviet cultural hierarchy - in the Kazakhstani case - contributed to the formation of a subjectivity that sought to overcome the traumas of post-nomadism while engaging in dialogue with world culture.