- Convenors:
-
Gabriel McGuire
(Nazarbayev University)
Zhanar Abdigapbarova (Nazarbayev university)
Meiramgul Kussainova (Nazarbayev University)
Galiya Galymzhankyzy (Nazarbayev University)
Send message to Convenors
- Chair:
-
Christopher Baker
(American University of Central Asia)
- Discussant:
-
Kristen Fort
(Independent)
- Format:
- Panel (closed)
- Mode:
- Face-to-face part of the conference
- Theme:
- Gender Studies
- Location:
- 505
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 19 November, -
Time zone: America/New_York
Abstract
This panel addresses gender as represented in Kazakh literature of both the 19th century and the Soviet era. In what ways do oral literary texts represent women and their place in society? How did women themselves participate in performance traditions, whether of oral literature or of songs? How did turn of the century native intellectuals on the Kazakh steppe imagine the role of women in their society changing, and how was this social imagination shaped by the emergence of newspapers and attendant genres of print culture? In the Soviet era, how did Kazakh writers reflect on this history? How did they represent the lives of women before the Soviet era, and in particular, how did they understand and represent the lives of women who did participate in the cultural life, whether musical or literary, of Qazaq society? How were oral literary narratives and their depiction of female characters reshaped as they were adapted to both Soviet norms and to novel performance contexts such as the opera or the theatre? The papers on this panel offer partial answers to these questions through four interlocking examinations of gender and its representation in history, literature, and the popular press. Gabriel McGuire’s examination of one of the most famous of Kazakh oral epics, Qozı-Körpeş–Bayan Sulü, attends to the ways in which the text is driven by anxieties over marriage and the ways in which it can elevate or undermine male status. Meiramgul Kussainova’s paper takes up the example of a real 19th century female singer, MayraShamsutdinova, who was later the subject of a Soviet era novella by the famous author Ghabit Musrepov, asking both what were the ways in which Shamsutdinova challenged the conventions of how women might participate in cultural life but also asking how Musrepov in turn made use of this history in a Soviet context. Zhanar Abdigapparova’s paper is a bridge between the two eras examined by Kussainova’s paper, as Abdigapparova surveys early 20th century newspaper articles focused on the topic of gender, showing how intellectuals of the time argued for reform. Finally, Galiya Galymzhankyzy takes up another Qazaq oral narrative, the famous romantic epic Qyz Jibek, tracing how the depiction of its eponymous and famously iconoclastic heroine across both oral literary texts and Soviet era adaptations.
Accepted papers
Session 1 Wednesday 19 November, 2025, -Abstract
This paper examines the Soviet-era reinterpretations of the Qazaq epic Qız Jibek within the broader context of the institutionalization of Socialist Realism, which began with the formation of the Union of Soviet Writers in 1932. Drawing on both published materials, including studies on the idea of the epic during the Soviet era, and archival materials from the Central State Archive of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the paper traces how evolving ideological demands reshaped the narrative and thematic emphases of Qız Jibek. Focusing on Jüsipbek Qoja’s and Musabay Jıraw’s pre-Soviet variants alongside Ğabït Müsirepov’s Soviet-era reinterpretations in his opera libretto and film script, I showcase how Qız Jibek was transformed into a didactic narrative that aligned with Socialist Realist principles.
Central to this transformation was a shift in the epic’s conclusion: where earlier versions valorized idealized romantic resolution that featured the custom of ämeñgerlik jesirlik (levirate marriage), Müsirepov’s adaptations returned the epic to an ending that dramatizes social injustices through the tragic death of lovers at the hands of a new fabricated enemy — social class. This revision foregrounded the heroine Jibek as a symbolic figure within a newly created narrative of class struggle.
By emphasizing the Soviet polemical campaign to replace the putative imagery of the feudal, archaic, and patriarchal with ideologically appropriate motifs, this paper argues that Qız Jibek became a key site in integrating pre-Soviet folklore into the realm of Soviet ideological imperatives. Anticipating Soviet critiques of religious and archaic motifs, Müsirepov’s adaptations reconfigured the epic’s rhetoric to support a Soviet vision of modernity and gender.
This study contributes to the scholarship on the repurposing of folklore under the Soviet regime and the gendered dimensions of Socialist Realism. It also offers a case study of how oral literature was not merely preserved but strategically transformed to serve state ideology.
Abstract
This paper explores the depiction of women’s roles in Society through the lens of Soviet-era Kazakh language literature. The analysis focuses on the novella Mayra the Singer by Gabit Musrepov (1902-1985), a prominent Soviet-era Kazakh writer and playwright of the Soviet era and one of the founders. His 1981 novella is a fictionalized account of the life of Mayra Shamsutdinova, a famous singer and composer who lived in the early 20th century in Kereku (now Pavlodar), in northern Kazakhstan. Maria played traditional Kazakh instruments such as the dombra and syrnai, composed lyrical songs, and performed in Kazakh, Russian, and Tatar with professional skill. She gained wide recognition by performing at fairs and celebrations in the regions of Kereku, Bayanaul, Karkaraly, and Semey. Several of her performances of Kazakh songs were recorded and transcribed by the musicologist Alexander Zatayevich. Her life was also marked by personal hardships, including health issues, and she died at the relatively young age of 37 in 1927. In converting her life into fiction, Musrepov represents her story as one of both triumph and tragedy. Her triumph is reflected in her musical talent and artistic accomplishments. In Musrepov’s words, Mayra says: “Singing is my whole life. When I sing and see the joy on people’s faces, I feel as if I am being cradled in their palms. What more could a singer ask for?” The tragedy in her life is rooted in the limited and often contradictory role of women in traditional Kazakh society, particularly in the field of art. Musrepov represents Maira as struggling with a series of challenges, including corrupt and abusive leaders, bride-kidnapping, but perhaps especially the convention that men and not women could take on the role of public performers of music. This paper uses both the story of the historical Maira together with the novelization of her life by Musrepov first to examine the challenges and the shifting beliefs about the role of women in society and of women as artists on the Kazakh steppes at the turn of the century and then second to examine Soviet era engagement with this history.
Abstract
The Qazaq oral narrative poem Qozı-Körpeş–Bayan Sulü is a classic tale of divided lovers, but with the twist that the two are engaged to be married while still unborn. A further twist is that the father of the boy, Qozı-Körpeş, is killed before he ever meets his own son, and the father of the girl, Bayan Sulü, is so incensed at the thought of his daughter marrying an orphan that he flees with his family and his herds. Eventually, Qozı-Körpeş learns of his engagement and goes in pursuit of his lost bride, and the narrative recounts the various twists and turns of the lives of the two titular lovers as they struggle to be united with each other. This paper argues that the plot of Qozı-Körpeş–Bayan Sulü is at once both a version of the ‘return of the hero’ narrative and a kind of allegory of the social and moral obligations attendant on marriage. Although both Bayan Sulu and Qozı-Körpeş may be read as iconoclastic figures defying the norms of a patriarchal society, the travels of Qozı-Körpeş across the steppe and even his clandestine visits to Bayan in fact read as shadow versions of the formal journeys between the homes of affianced families that typified the marital traditions of wealthy families on the Qazaq steppe in the 19th century. In this way, the plot is driven by the conventions and status anxieties that cluster around the institution of marriage. In particular, the plot hinges upon conflicts between genders and generations over these norms. In carrying out this analysis, the paper draws primarily to Mäšür Jüsip Köpeyulî’s 1904 version, though with comparative recourse to the multiple other versions known from 19th century and Soviet era collections.
Abstract
This research addresses the changing image of women’s role in society as shown in the pages of Kazakh language print media from the beginning of the 20th century with the goal of identifying both the changes themselves and the factors behind them. The articles analysis is based on a selection of articles from the journals Aiqap, Qazaq, and Äiel Tengdigi focused on the questions of women’s equality, their rights, and their role in society. Major Kazakh intellectuals of the time, including figures like Mirjakup Dulatuly, Akhmet Baitursynuly, Mukhtar Auezov and others depicted women as figures whose importance was not limited to domestic labour but who were rather crucial actors in the work of education, enlightenment, and other tasks of national reform. Dulatuly’s article in Äiel Tengdigi argued that it was crucial that women receive an education and be free to participate in society. In this way, the question of female emancipation took center stage in political debates and a new image of women came to be depicted. This article analyses the articles in which these debates played out as well as documenting the emerging role of the press in Kazakh society as an arena in which questions of social reform and renewal were argued out.