Алаш Орда

Yermekov Alimkhan Abeuovich  is a public and statesman, one of the founders of the “Alash” party, scientist, the first Kazakh professor-mathematician.

He was born in the Temirshinsky volost of the Karkaralinsky district of the Semipalatinsk region (now the Aktogay district of the Karaganda region) in 1891. In 1912 he graduated from the Tomsk Technological Institute.

During the October events of 1917, Alimkhan Yermekov was at the fifth  course of the Institute. These events forced him to interrupt his studies. In 1917, the All-Kazakh Congress of the Alash Party was held in Orenburg. The congress was elected the government of “Alash-Orda” headed by Alikhan Bukeikhanov. Alikhan Yermekov joined  to the government with other representatives of the progressive national intelligentsia.

In 1920, A. Yermekov, as a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Kazakh SSR, was sent to Moscow. At a meeting chaired by V. I. Lenin, he made a report on the situation in Kazakhstan. In the during of discussion about the borders of the republic, he managed to achieve the return to Kazakhstan of a number of very important territories that previously belonged to Russia. Among them are the Korostylevskaya steppe, Semipalatinsk and Akmola regions and the northern coast of the Caspian Sea.

In 1920, Alimkhan Yermekov became the chairman of board  on the regional management. After graduating from the Tomsk Technological Institute, he received a mining engineer diploma and a geological exploration specialty. In 1921, Alimkhan Yermekov opened a two-stage school and a pedagogical college in Karkaralinsk. In 1925 A. Ermekov was invited to the city of Semipalatinsk and approved by the Deputy Chairman of the State Planning Committee of Kazakhstan in Orenburg and headed the industry section. Since 1926, as one of the few highly qualified specialists, he was involved in work at universities in Tashkent (Higher pedagogical institute), then at universities in Almaty. He worked as a head of the Department of Mathematics at the Kazakh Pedagogical University, Almaty Animal researcher  Institute.

In 1935 he was awarded  the title of professor of mathematics and theoretical mechanics with the Higher Attestation Commission of the USSR.  At the Almaty Mining and Metallurgical Institute, he was the dean of the general technical faculty. He was the first Kazakh  mathematician, professor, author of a textbook on higher mathematics in the Kazakh language. He knew  a number of European languages. He was an example of a versatile educated, highly cultured and erudite teacher. In 1932-1936 he developed mathematical terminology in the Kazakh  for higher educational institutions and published  the first textbook on this discipline in the Kazakh . In the end of 1937, A. Ermekov left for Moscow and received a referral to the post of head of the department of mathematics of the Kuibyshev Planning Institute. Here  he worked until March 1938. In the same year he was arrested and sentenced to ten years. He was for nine years under arrest until 1947. In 1948 he was again arrested for ten years. In 1955 A. Ermekov was released and  came to  Karaganda. Altogether A. Ermekov was under investigation and imprisoned for eighteen years. However, even after the official rehabilitation in 1955-1957, his name was banned for a long time. He was fully rehabilitated and restored to his rights on March 7, 1955.

Streets in the cities of Karaganda and Karkaraly, a specialized House of Books, school №131 of Agadyr are named after A. Ermekov. In 1998, a monument  of active leaders of the “Alash Orda”: Alikhan Bukeikhanov, Alimkhan Ermekov, Zhakyp Akbaev was opened  in the homeland of A. Yermekov, in Aktogay.