Alikhan Nurmukhameduly Bukeikhanov (5 March 1866 – 27 September 1937) was a Kazakh politician, statesman, journalist and publisher who led the Alash party and the Provisional government of Alash Orda from 1917 to 1920.
Muslim
Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
family on 5 March 1866, in Tokyrauyn Volost,
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...
. He was the son of Nurmuhammed Bukeikhanov and as a great-grandson of Barak Sultan, former khan of the Orta zhuz, he was a direct descendant of
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan (born Temüjin; August 1227), also known as Chinggis Khan, was the founder and first khan (title), khan of the Mongol Empire. After spending most of his life uniting the Mongols, Mongol tribes, he launched Mongol invasions and ...
. Bukeikhanov graduated from the Russian-Kazakh School and Omsk Technical School in 1890. He later studied at the Saint Petersburg Forestry Institute, where he graduated from the Faculty of Economics in 1894. During Bukeikhanov's youth, it is believed that he was influenced by
socialists
Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes the economic, political, and socia ...
.
Upon graduating, Bukeikhanov returned to
Omsk
Omsk (; , ) is the administrative center and largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Omsk Oblast, Russia. It is situated in southwestern Siberia and has a population of over one million. Omsk is the third List of cities and tow ...
and spent the next fourteen years there working. From 1895 to 1897, he worked as a math teacher in the Omsk school for Kazakh children. Bukeikhanov was a participant in the 1896 Shcherbina Expedition, which aimed to research and assess virtually every aspect of Russian Central Asia's environment and resources to the culture and traditions of its inhabitants. This was the first of a few similar missions which he accepted. Among his recorded contributions were "Ovtsevodstvo v stepnom krae" ("Sheep-Breeding in the Steppe Land"), which analyzed animal husbandry in Central Asia. Bukeikhanov was the first biographer of Abay Kunanbayev, publishing an obituary in ''Semipalatinsky listok'' in 1905. In 1909, he published a collection of Kunanbayev's works.
Political life
In 1905, Bukeikhanov's political activism began when he joined the
Constitutional Democratic Party
The Constitutional Democratic Party (, K-D), also called Constitutional Democrats and formally the Party of People's Freedom (), was a political party in the Russian Empire that promoted Western constitutional monarchy—among other policies ...
. In late 1905 at the Uralsk Oblast Party Congress, he tried to create the Kazakh Democratic party but failed. As a result of this action, he was arrested and prohibited from living in the Steppe Oblasts. During his exile, he relocated to
Samara
Samara, formerly known as Kuybyshev (1935–1991), is the largest city and administrative centre of Samara Oblast in Russia. The city is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Samara (Volga), Samara rivers, with a population of over 1.14 ...
. He was elected to the
State Duma of the Russian Empire
The State Duma, also known as the Imperial Duma, was the lower house of the legislature in the Russian Empire, while the upper house was the State Council (Russian Empire), State Council. It held its meetings in the Tauride Palace in Saint Peters ...
as a member of that party in 1906 and signed the Vyborg petition to protest the dissolution of the Duma by the
tsar
Tsar (; also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar''; ; ; sr-Cyrl-Latn, цар, car) is a title historically used by Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word '' caesar'', which was intended to mean ''emperor'' in the Euro ...
. In 1908, he was arrested again and exiled in Samara until 1917. While in Samara, he participated in the Samara Guberniya Committee of the People's Freedom Party set up in 1915.
Author of the idea of the First Kazakh Republic
In April 1917, Bukeikhanov,
Akhmet Baitursynov
Ahmet Baitursynuly (, , romanized: ''Ahmed Baitūrsynūly'', ; Russified: Ахмет Байтурсынов) ( 5 September 1872 — 8 December 1937) was a Kazakh intellectual who worked in the fields of politics, poetry, linguistics and educatio ...
and several other native political figures took the initiative to convene an All-Kazakh Congress in
Orenburg
Orenburg (, ), formerly known as Chkalov (1938–1957), is the administrative center of Orenburg Oblast, Russia. It lies in Eastern Europe, along the banks of the Ural River, being approximately southeast of Moscow.
Orenburg is close to the ...
. In its resolution, Congress urged the return to the native population of all the lands confiscated from it by the previous regime and the expulsion of all the new settlers from the Kazakh-Kirghiz territories. Other resolutions demanded the transfer of the local schools into native hands and the termination of the recruitment introduced in 1916. Within the group, Bukeikhanov, along with Russian liberals, chiefly the Kadets sought to direct attention first to economic problems, whereas others sought to unite the Kazakhs with the other Turkic peoples of Russia.
Three months later, another Kazakh-Kirghiz Congress met in Orenburg. There, for the first time, the idea of territorial autonomy emerged, and a national Kazakh-Kirghiz political party was formed, the
Alash Autonomy
The Alash Autonomy, also known as Alash Orda, was an unrecognized Kazakh proto-state located in Central Asia and was part of the Russian Republic, and then Soviet Russia. The Alash Autonomy was founded in 1917 by Kazakh elites, and disestabli ...
. Before the
February Revolution
The February Revolution (), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and sometimes as the March Revolution or February Coup was the first of Russian Revolution, two revolutions which took place in Russia ...
, Bukeikhanov collaborated with the Kadets in the hope of getting autonomous status for Kazakhs and contacted the head of the
Russian Provisional Government
The Russian Provisional Government was a provisional government of the Russian Empire and Russian Republic, announced two days before and established immediately after the abdication of Nicholas II on 2 March, O.S. New_Style.html" ;"title="5 ...
Alexander Kerensky
Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky ( – 11 June 1970) was a Russian lawyer and revolutionary who led the Russian Provisional Government and the short-lived Russian Republic for three months from late July to early November 1917 ( N.S.).
After th ...
. Kerensky proceeded to make Bukeikhanov a commissar. On 19 March 1917, he was appointed as the Provisional Government Commissioner of Turgay Oblast. After the
October Revolution
The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...
, he was elected in 1917 as president of the Alash Orda government of
Alash Autonomy
The Alash Autonomy, also known as Alash Orda, was an unrecognized Kazakh proto-state located in Central Asia and was part of the Russian Republic, and then Soviet Russia. The Alash Autonomy was founded in 1917 by Kazakh elites, and disestabli ...
.
In 1920, after the establishment of
Soviet
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
hegemony, Bukeikhanov joined the
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...
party and returned to scientific life. His earlier political activities caused the authorities to view him with suspicion, leading to arrests in 1926 and 1928. In 1926, Bukeikhanov was arrested on the charge of counter-revolutionary activity and put into the
Butyrka prison
Butyrskaya prison (), usually known simply as Butyrka ( rus, Бутырка, p=bʊˈtɨrkə), is a prison in the Tverskoy District of central Moscow, Russia. In Imperial Russia it served as the central transit prison.
During the Soviet Uni ...
in Moscow. But due to the lack of evidence in the criminal case against him, he was released from prison. In 1930, the authorities banished him to
Moscow
Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...
, where he was arrested a final time in 1937 and executed.
It was not until 1989 that the Soviet authorities rehabilitated him.
Writings
Bukeikhanov's major political publication was "Kirgizy" ("The Kazakhs") (1910), which was released in the Constitutional Democratic party book on nationalities edited by A. I. Kosteliansky.
Bukeikhanov's other activities of this period included assisting in the creation of '' Qazaq'', a
Kazakh language
Kazakh is a Turkic language of the Kipchak branch spoken in Central Asia by Kazakhs. It is closely related to Nogai, Kyrgyz and Karakalpak. It is the official language of Kazakhstan, and has official status in the Altai Republic of Russia ...
newspaper, and writing articles for newspapers, including "Dala Walayatynyng Gazeti" (Omsk), "Orenburgskii Listok", "Semipalatinskii Listok", "Turkestanskie Vedomosti" (
Tashkent
Tashkent (), also known as Toshkent, is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uzbekistan, largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of more than 3 million people as of April 1, 2024. I ...
), "Stepnoi Pioner" (Omsk), and "Sary-Arqa" (
Semipalatinsk
Semey (; , formerly known as Semipalatinsk ( ) until 2007 and as Alash-Qala ( ) from 1917 to 1920, is a city in eastern Kazakhstan, in the Kazakh part of Siberia. When Abai Region was created in 2022, Semey became its administrative centre. I ...
). He was also a contributor to ''
Ay Qap ''Ay Qap'' (آی قاپ, ''Айқап, Aıqap'' in modern scripts) was a Kazakh journal of opinion and debate published in Troitsk from January 1911 until September 1915 under the editorship of Mūhammedjan Seralin.