Алаш Орда

Kuderin Zhumakhan Mausumbaevich  was a enlightener, scientist of encyclopedic knowledge, geographer, ethnographer, biologist. He was born  in the bay family of of Sredneayaguzsky volost of Semirechye. The Cuderin family was ancient and respected in the Semirechie. Men in this family of several generations were literate,  they were elected biys or judges in the clan union. Zhumahan followed in the footsteps of his older relatives. As a result of the jute, his family went broke. He was a  ten-year-old child  when he went  into  laborers. Later he studied at the Muslim school of Sergiopolis until 1910-1911. Then he studied at the private school “Mamania” (1912), built in the likeness of the Ufa madrasah “Galiya”. He studied at the Koksyi agricultural school (1914-1917).

Since 1918 he as a member of the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) worked in various land departments. In  1920  he leave party because he  protested against the unjustified repressions of the Cheka  (Emergency commission) with respect to the residents of 13 resettlement villages of Semirechye  which called participants of “Cherkassy Defense”. They resisted Kolchak troops.

In 1924-1930 he studied at the Agricultural Faculty of SAGU. He  simultaneously taught at courses, participated in campaign against illiteracy; he participated in three research expeditions on the study of natural resources and the regionalization of the territory of Turkestan.

Zh.Kuderin worked in the commission “On the Return of the Kazakhs from China”. Thanks for his participation  6000 families returned to their homeland. He participated in the expedition on the Turkestan region. In 1928 he held the position of the land commissioner of KazASSR., J. Kuderin wrote 44 books for  his 44 years.  He is the author of the textbook “ABC” in the Kazakh language (1919.),  a number of books on natural sciences (including “Botany” in the Kazakh language in Arabic script), he  published ethnographic works about Kazakhs ( “The life of refugees in China”, ” Materials about the Kazakh surnames “) and biological research (”  Poppy “,” Sheep and their wool”  “,” Sugar beet “,”Species of snakes in Central Asia “).

Cuderin  made  as a scientist- biologist a lot. In 1930, he grew monogamous hemp which  was cultivated to produce fiber and oil. But Kuderin did not have time to take advantage of the results of his work, because he was arrested and the manuscripts were confiscated.  He  partially published his works. Zhumakhan Kuderin was arrested on a charge of  nationalism  at the agricultural plant near Tashkent, where he conducted experiments after the end of the Central Asian State University on September 1, 1930.  Six months before this event  in February of 1930  his father and all men of their family were arrested .(Later the brothers J. Kuderin went to Xinjiang).  He was sent on stage to the investigation in Alma-Ata. There he was imprisoned in solitary confinement and he was charged with other educated Kazakh scientists and educators of the first generation  of “bourgeois nationalism”  . The investigation was conducted for two years. The suspects sat in single cells all this time.

The guilt in the actions of “bourgeois nationalists” was not proven and the case was sent to Moscow, where they also did not find any strong evidence of their guilt. It was proposed to dismiss them all at home. \But the Plenipotentiary of the OGPU in Kazakhstan said that they could compromise the OGPU, having told about the arbitrary behavior committed, and he suggested that everyone be sent to exile in Russia in order to hide it.

During the arrest  the manuscripts of Kuderin was confiscated. By the decision of the troika of the OGPU PP of Kazakhstan he was sentenced to 5 years on April 20, 1932.   The Central Cherhozem region (the cities of Voronezh and Lvov) were choose by place of exile for Kuderin.  In 1932, Zhumakhan Kuderin was exiled to an administrative exile for 5 years to  Lvov. Then he  was transported by illness to a hospital under the supervision of doctors in Voronezh. The diagnosis was not established, but the term of exile due to illness was reduced by 1 year. In 1934 the term of the exile finished. Zhumakhan Kuderin worked as an agronomist in exile.

In  1935  he returned together with his family to Alma-Ata, where he worked as a senior researcher at the Kazakh Research Institute of Animal Husbandry. Here he met and became friends with Yu.O.Dombrovsky. He worked on a Russian-Latin-Kazakh dictionary  before the new arrest.

In 1936, Zhumakhan Kuderin was dismissed as having a conviction. After that, he worked as an inspector at the Trust “Kauchukonos” .

Kuderin was secondarily arrested on May 21, 1937. He put again under arrest in prison. He was arrested as a leader of an anti-Soviet nationalist terrorist-insurgent and sabotage-espionage organization. It was brought  an action against  Cuderin . He was charged under articles N 58-2, 7, 8, 11 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. The investigation was conducted by the operative of the UGB of the NKVD of Alma-Ata oblast V.Ya. Yakupov. His prisoners called him  “the angel of death”, because he led  the cases which had a death sentence . Zhumakhan Kuderin was convicted on March 7, 1938. By decision of the exit session of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces of the USSR, he was sentenced to death. He was shot the same day. Zhumakhan Kuderin was posthumously rehabilitated  for the arrest of 1930 “for lack of corpus delicti”, in 1957-1958.

The street in Almaty was named by Kuderin. Zhumakan’s daughter  Larissa Kuderina, currently lives in Moscow. She is the creator of the only museum of repressed the Kazakhs  in Moscow today.