Алаш Орда

Bilyal Suleyev is a public figure, member of the “Alash” party, educator, journalist, and playwright.

Suleyev was born in 1893 in the Almaty region, Aksu district, Kapal district. In 1911 he graduated from the “Mamania” school. Maecenas Yesengul Mamanuly sent B.Suleyev to continue his studies at the “Galiya” madrasah. In 1913-1916 he studied at the teachers’ seminary in Orenburg. In 1916-1918 he was the head of the educational part of the Tatar school in Kapal. From 1918 to 1927 he was engaged in educational activities.

After the revolution and civil war in 1923, Bilyal Suleyev joined the Communist Party and worked in responsible positions in the field of education. By the efforts of B.Suleyev in all settlements of Semirechiye the first schools and boarding schools were established, he supervised the redeployment of the Kazakh Pedagogical Institute from Tashkent to Semipalatinsk, the Orenburg Institute to Aktyubinsk. In 1928 Bilyal Suleyev together with Oraz Dzhandosov prepared the opening of the first Kazakh University in Almaty. In 1929 Bilyal Suleyev headed the regional department of education and the Suleyev’s family moved to Aktyubinsk. In the same year, Bilyal was sent as director of the Semipalatinsk Pedagogical Institute. From 1932 to 1934, Suleyev worked in the People’s Commissar of the Karakalpak Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. He was published in the newspapers “Kazakh”, in the “Shura” Tatar magazine, etc.

In 1931 he was arrested by the bodies of the USPA (United State Political Administration) on charges of nationalism. In 1933, he was acquitted and released, and then left for Moscow, where he was until 1934, from there he was sent to the Karakalpak Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in Turtkul to manage the department of higher educational institutions and schools. He was arrested again in 1937 by the PCIA. He became a victim of repression. He was posthumously rehabilitated.