Алаш Орда

Asfendiyarov Sanzhar Jagparovich was born in the family of the military interpreter of the Governor-General of Turkestan Sultan Jagpar in Tashkent.  He was a member of the Communist Party since 1919. In the 1912 year he graduated from the St. Petersburg Military Medical Academy. One of the first Kazakh scientific historians.

In the 1912-1917 years he was a military doctor of the 10th Turkestan Regiment (the cities of Termez, Samarkand, Lowicz, Augustow, Warsaw). In the 1914-1917 years he served in the tsarist army. In the1917-1918 years he worked as sanitary doctor of the city health department, he was a member of the Commission to Fight Hunger in the Syrdarya oblast (Tashkent). In the 1919-1920 years he worked as the doctor of the 1st Cherniaevsky Soviet Turkestan Regiment (the Transcaspian Front in the Red Army ). In the 1920-1921 years he was the People’s Commissar of Health of the Turkestan Republic; he was a Deputy People’s Commissar, then he was a People’s Commissar of Agriculture of Turkestan Republic, he was a Deputy Chairman of Turkestan TSIK (Central Executive Committee ) (Tashkent). In the 1921-1922 years he was  a permanent representative of the Turkestan Republic to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the People’s Commissariat for Nationalities of the RSFSR (Moscow). In the 1922-1923 years he was a Deputy Commissar of Agriculture.  In the 1923-1924 years he was a People’s Commissar for Health of the Turkestan Republic (Tashkent). In the 1925-1927 years he was a Deputy Secretary of the Central Executive Committee (Moscow). In the  1927 year he was a director of the Moscow Institute of Ethnic and National Cultures of the Peoples of the East named after N.N. Narimanov. He was a delegate of All-Russian and Kazakh Congresses of Soviets. He was a member of the Central Executive Committee and its Presidium (1925-1929 years.) He was a member of the Turkestan  Central Executive Committee (1920-1924 years) and he was  a  member of Kazakhstan Central Executive Committee  (1928-1933 years.). He was a Delegate of the XIV Congress of the VKP(b)( All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (1925),  of Congresses of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan and Turkestan.   He was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Turkestan (1920-1924) and the Central Asian Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)  (1924-1925 years).

In the 1928-1931 years he was the first director of the Kazakh Pedagogical Institute and he simultaneously was a  director of the Kazakh Medical Institute (Almaty)  from November 1930.  From May of the 1931 year to July of the 1933year he was a People’s Commissar of Health of the KASSR. In the 1933-1937 years he was a Deputy Chairman of the Kazakh branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, he  simultaneously was a  Deputy People’s Commissar of Education of the KASSR from August 1933. Then he was a head of the department of history of the Kazakh Scientific Research Institute of National Culture.

Studying the  history, S.D. Asfendiyarov published the works: “The reasons of origin of Islam” (1928), “Islam and nomadic economy” (1928), two volumes “The Past of Kazakhstan in Sources and Materials”, “History of Kazakhstan since ancient times” (1935), textbook for the Kazakh schools “Essays on the history of the Kazakhs” (Kzyl-Orda, 1935), the monograph “National liberation uprising of 1916 in Kazakhstan” (1936), etc. In all works S.D. Asfendiyarov studied the history of the people and the spiritual culture of the Kazakhs. For the first time he gave a basis and appreciation of the formation of Kazakh zhuzes, the history of their formation, linking this process with objective production relations and ethnic culture of the Kazakh people. The scientist was able to discover  the features of the political structure, the specifics of centripetal and unifying tendencies in the formation of Kazakh zhuzes. In total, he prepared 11 books and numerous articles in Russian, Kazakh and Uzbek.

He was repressed. On August 1937 he arrested  and was sentenced to death in February 1938.On May 1958 he was rehabilitated.