Kozhanov Sultanbek (1894 – 1938)
Kozhanov Sultanbek Kozhanuly is a state and public figure, scientist, publicist.
Sultanbek Kozhanov was born in the village of Aksumbe of Sozak district of the South-Kazakhstan oblast in September 10, 1894. He graduated from Turkestan four-year Russian-Kazakh elementary school, Tashkent teacher’s seminary. In 1927 he graduated from Moscow courses of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) . His political activity began with the underground youth organization “Kenes” from among the students of the seminary. In 1917 he published the newspaper “Birlik Tuy” ( “Flag of unity”) together with M. Shokay, K. Hodzhikov, K. Bulganbayev, S. Akaev in Tashkent. He actively supported the Turkistan autonomy. Being a member of the Central Commission to fight with hunger he organized special places for the hungry people in Turestan ,Sozak, Zhanakorgan, Kyzylkum, Shielinsky districts in 1918. In 1919-1920 he worked as a deputy chairman of the Syrdarya Uyezd Committee, the chairman of the Turkestan uyezd-city executive committee, the Syrdarya oblast revolutionary committee.
In late of 1920 Sultanbek Kozhanov was appointed People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Turkestan Republic. In October 1921 he was a People’s Commissar of Education. He required teaching in the language of the local population in the sphere of education. He made a significant contribution to the development of the press and the national theater of Turkestan. Kozhanov organized the publication of the newspaper “Ak Zhol” ( “Bright road”) and he was appointed a first editor of this newspaper. He paid special attention to the state of agriculture. In 1922-1924 he worked as a secretary of the Central Committee of the Turkestan KP, adeputy chairman of the executive committee, a member of the bureau of the Central Asian Central Committee of the CPSU .During the national-regional disengagement in Central Asia Kozhanov distinguished himself as a statesman. In November 1924 he was appointed second secretary of the Kazakh Regional Committee of the CPSU, and from February 1925 Kozhanov was appointed as the second secretary of the Kazakh regional committee.
At the suggestion of Sultanbek Kozhanov, the First Congress of Soviets restored the true name of the Kazakhs, having corrected the name “Kyrgyz” for “Kazakh” distorted during the tsarist period, the Congress also renamed the capital city of Kyzylorda. In November of 1925 , Kozhanov was invited to the Central Committee of the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) and as a responsible instructor for the national republics was sent to the Caucasus. In 1928 he went to Tashkent, where he organized the department of the VASKHNIL( All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences named after V.I. Lenin). In 1929 Sultanbek Kozhanov formed the Central Asian Cotton-Irrigation Polytechnic Institute and he was its first principal. In 1929-1931 he worked as a director of the Central Asian cotton spinning mill. In 1931-1932 Kozhanov worked in the apparatus of the Central Committee of the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union)
In 1924 Kozhanov published a textbook for schoolchildren “Eseptanu Kuraly” ( “Textbook of Mathematics”) . In 1928 his research “On the Decade of the Turkestan Soviet Autonomy” in Russian was published. On July 16, 1937 he was arrested and repressed. In 1957 he was rehabilitated.
