Zhakhanshah (Zhansha) Dosmukhamedov

In various sources, Dosmukhamedov’s name is spelled differently – Zhansha, Jansha, Jagansha, Zhiansha, etc., but the correct and full name of Dosmukhamedov is Zhakhanshah, which means “Universe”. Zhansha was his pet name in childhood.

        

 Wife- Olga Konstantinovna Pushkareva (Dosmukhamedova)

Student Zhakhansha had sympathy for Russia, for Russians, and respected Russian culture. He did not separate the fate of his people from the fate of the Russian people, and always adhered to the position of rapprochement, and not dissolution of the Kazakhs among the Russians. During his years of study in St. Petersburg, Dosmukhamedov became close to the Kolossovsky family. The head of the family, Konstantin Kolossovsky, was at one time the district chief of the city of Chernyaev (present-day Shymkent) and knew well the traditions, customs and even the language of the Kazakhs.

In his last year at the university, Zhakhansha get married to his daughter Olga, a medical student. Subsequently, she adopted Islam (Muslim name Zaira).  She was with her husband all the time; they had no children.

With Olga Konstantinovna Pushkareva (Dosmukhamedova), Zhakhansha lived to the end, until he is repressed. After the death of her husband, Olga remained in Moscow and repeatedly spoke out in defense of Dosmukhamedov against whom unfounded accusations were made. She fought to restore the honorable name of Zhansha Dosmukhamedov and achieved her goal.

After the execution of Zhakhanshi, Olga married his nephew Hadith, who was fourteen years younger than him.

According to available information, Zhakhansha Dosmukhamedov lived in Moscow in a house on Lesteva Street, building 19,  corps 2, apartment 84, from approximately March 1930 until the day of his arrest in the summer of 1938.        According to other sources: “At the time of the second arrest, Zhagansha lived together with his wife Olga Konstantinovna in Khavsko-Shabolovsky Lane, 11, bldg. 7, apt. 265  in Moscow.  His wife is 42 years old, stenographer of the arbitration of the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry of the USSR. Also he lived with her mother-in-law Pushkareva Olga Fedorovna (70 years old, housewife) and nephew Khadis Dosmukhamedov (28 years old, student at the Institute of Public Utilities Engineers).”

Vladimir Ryskulov is the grandson of the party and political figure of Kazakhstan Turar Ryskulov and Nadezhda Konstantinovna Pushkareva.  Nadezhda was the sister of Olga Konstantinovna, the wife of Zhakhansha Dosmukhamedov.  Vladimir remembers well a two-room apartment in a house on Lesteva Street. Since childhood, he often visited his grandmother Olga Pushkareva, the wife of Zhakhanshi Dosmukhamedov. “I lived there while I was taking my exams,” he says.

According to Vladimir Ryskulov, Turar Ryskulov initially gave an apartment in a building on Lesteva Street to his wife Nadezhda Pushkareva. Zhakhansha Dosmukhamedov was arrested for the first time in Moscow on October 30, 1930, when he lived in this house.

After Zhakhanshi was executed in 1938, his wife Olga Pushkareva lived in this apartment until the 1980s. The apartment was later sold. Vladimir Ryskulov remembers what this two-room apartment in a five-story building was like.

– There was furniture in the style of the era of Louis XIV. The room had a lot of utensils brought from Kazakhstan: carpets, vases, bowls. By the way, it was in this house that I learned to drink tea from a bowl. Relatives and friends from Western Kazakhstan always came to this house. Parcels were constantly coming from there. I still remember how they sent me a whole box of meat. The apartment had a gas water heater. The gas was burning and heating the water. Later, the house was completely renovated, leaving only the walls. Everything has changed inside,” says Vladimir Ryskulov.

Moscow volunteer Inna Drobinskaya of the “Last Address” project of the Russian human rights society “Memorial” , intends to install a memorial a sign on the house where Alashorda activist Zhakhansha Dosmukhamedov once lived. The  goal of the society is to install memorial plaques on those houses where victims of political repressions of the 1920s–1930s who were shot or died in camps spent their last years of life.

Literature:

  1. Amanzholova D.A., Ryskulov V.V. Chairman of the Western Branch of Alash-Orda D. Dosmukhamedov and the fate of the Kazakh intelligentsia during the period of Stalinist repression // https://eurasica.ru/articles/kazakh/predsedatel_zapadnogo_otdeleniya_alash-ordy_d_dosmuhamedov_i_sudby_kazahskoy_intelligentsii_v_period_stalinskih_repressiy/

2. Dosmukhamedov Zhakhansha // ttps://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dosmukhamedov,_Zhakhansha

  1. Victims of mass terror. Butovo training ground of the NKVD in 1937-1938: Jagansha Dos-Mukhamedov (Dosmukhambetov) // http://p8.inetstar.ru/?q=bio&id=82693
  2. Mukankyzy M. The house in Moscow in which Zhakhansha Dosmukhamedov lived // https://rus.azattyq.org/a/zhakhansha-dosmukhamedov-dom-v-moskve/28908910.html. – 2017. – December 11
  3. Olga Konstantinovna Zaira Pushkareva (Dosmukhamedova) // https://ru.rodovid.org/wk/%D0%97%D0%B0%D0%BF%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%8C:1129127
  4. Russian wives of famous Kazakh figures: who are they // https://www.caravan.kz/news/russkie-zheny-izvestnykh-kazakhskikh-deyatelejj-kto-oni-748969/
  5. Zhakhanshi Dosmukhamedov’s thorny path to freedom and independence // https://vecher.kz/ternistiy-put-zhakhanshi-dosmukhamedova-k-svobode-i-nezavisimosti. – 2021. – May 29