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Abstract

I would like to present the results of a research project on the history of the Kazakh Soviet magazine Zhanga Adebiet (Жаңа Әдебиет [New Literature]). Together with a group of students from Nazarbayev University, we are working on an online catalog that will contain information about all the texts published from 1928 to 1941 in what was the first Kazakh Soviet literary magazine. The first issues of the magazine were published in Tote zhazu, but Latin script was used starting from the 1930s. The work of our research group included translating the list of titles into modern Kazakh, English, and Russian languages. We identified the authors and translators of the texts signed by initials and revealed a number of pen-names.

In my presentation, I would like to talk about the magazine as a unique source of information on the history of Kazakh literature in the 1930s and 1940s, present the results of the research group’s work, and demonstrate how the collected database can be used.The value of the magazine lies in the fact that it published texts of various genres. The magazine contains many unique texts created by writers who perished during the repressions of the 1930s as enemies of the people and whose works were later removed from the libraries. In addition, the magazine contains a large number of political articles that allow one to trace the transformation of Soviet policy toward culture during the establishment of the Soviet regime in the region. The study of the magazine as an institution contributes to our understanding of literary life in the Soviet republic and might be of interest to those studying the history of Kazakh literature.