Oriental Studies (Apr 2018)
Historiography of Modern Kazakhstan: Revisiting Some Studies in the History of the Dzungar Khanate
Abstract
Insight into relations between the Dzungar and Kazakh Khanates in the 17th - mid-18th centuries shows the important and essential historical role performed by the Oirats in Central Asia during the period under consideration. At the same time, the once complete and well-established Soviet range of views on the history of Russia’s and Kazakhstan’s peoples, as well as other Central Asian states and nations during the mentioned period, tends to fall to pieces nowadays. This requires deep and critical analysis of the accumulated experience pertaining to contemporary historiographic studies (in Kazakhstan) of Kazakh-Dzungar, Russian-Kazakh, Russian-Dzungar relations, including the issues of organizing research on the history of the Dzungar Khanate and Oirats by Kazakhstan’s scholars who, to a certain extent, revise the existing historical ideas which results in a ‘new reading’ of the Kazakh history and that of other peoples involved in centuries-old mutual relations. Thus, when it comes to Kazakh national historiography, the years of state sovereignty are marked by significant development of ‘historical mythology’. This historiographic world-view is vividly represented in the form of Kazakhstan’s ‘alternative history’ which, following the new trends, re-examines historical events one-sidedly. So, the present-day Kazakh historiography introduces significant ‘corrections’ and distortions into the history of Kazakh-Dzungar relations. The article provides a detailed analysis of a number of contemporary Kazakh historiographic works on the history of the Dzungar Khanate; it notes both positive and negative stereotypes inherent to the historical science of Kazakhstan. The 17th - mid-18th cc. Dzungar-Kazakh relations were a key stage in the development of Kazakh statehood and a crucial direction of international relations in the whole of Central Asia. The topic has been investigated in a number of works by western, Chinese, Japanese and Kazakh researchers. And it is the Kazakh historiography which is abundant in most specific accounts of the period under study. The paper considers some concepts adopted by contemporary Kazakh scientists on the topic of Kazakh-Dzungar relations.
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