Final Draft. Ayan Syzdykov

Fiction aspects in historical textbooks

Fiction aspects in historical textbooks as a tool to manage the nation’s worldview

Academic Reading and Writing II

Section 20

Syzdykov Ayan

20121747

Almaty, 2013

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Abstract

The present study investigates historical textbooks as tool to manage people’s worldview.

This study calls into questions the credibility of the information that is given in historical

textbooks. This study will base on analyzing the history and facts, comparing history with

myths and conducting a survey among Kazakhstani people to identify the influence of history

textbooks on their points of view. The research questions:

What functions that mythical history is playing in our world?

What reasons of that the fiction aspects in history are exists?

How the existence of mythical aspects in history influence on people’s minds?

The results of the work show us that the government plays an important role in

constructing textbooks for scholars and not always people realize it.

Conclusion: Government and people themselves should reconstruct their approach to he

historical textbooks.

Introduction

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The foundation of knowledge about the history people receive from school textbooks

However, at different times, we had different governments that published different textbooks.

Especially, in Kazakhstan people had two different systems of scientist’s education. The first

system was in the Soviet Union, and the second one is the system of the Republic of

Kazakhstan. The information in the textbooks that were published in the Soviet period of time

is really distinguishes from the data that are written in contemporary textbooks. For instance,

the history of middle Ages in the textbooks of Soviet period does not disclose the topics about

the process of formation of the Kazakh nation and how the Kazakh Khanate was created

because at the Soviet period of time it was not important. Therefore, the knowledge of different

generations is differing from each other.

So, the present study attempts to analyze the attitude of citizens that were educated

under different systems to the history of Kazakhstan. It is important to do this investigation

because any information which is created to convey people in something has a structure of the

myths (Campbell, 1997). A lot of scientists use the myths as the basis of the historical facts,

and there are a lot of similarities found between them (Slotkin. 2005). In most cases these

similarities appear because of false history which Kazakhstani historians have created. It is a

real problem because it questioned the existence of history as a science. For instance, even the

image and personality of Abylai Khan is based on incredible sources. In the XX century the

archeologists found the burial place of Abylai Khan, and with the help of new technologies

reconstructed his real face but it was not nationally published, and now we are using the

fictional portrait of Abylai Khan (Kadyrov, 2011). According to this author, “although the

biography of the great politician seems to have been studied far and wide, there are still many

white spots in it” (p.1). Moreover, the famous historical scientist Nurov (2011) claims that the

existence of majority of Kazakhstani “batyrs” is questionable (p.85). The main issue of this

study is whether to trust what is written in the history textbooks. Therefore, the main purpose is

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to investigate the relation between mythical aspects in history, politics and people’s worldview.

The research questions: What are functions that mythical history playing in our world? What

are reasons of that the fiction aspects exist in history? How does the existence of mythical

aspects in history influence people’s minds? This study will make a review of literature,

describe a methodology of this project and conduct a survey among Kazakhstani people to

identify the influence of history textbooks on their points of view. According to the results of

this survey I will make a conclusion does this system of spreading the different stories among

people is working or not?

Literature review

History is a connection between the present and the past. At the present time, a lot of

theories have been proposed to explain several questionable moments in history of Kazakhstan

such as the war between Kazakhs and Djungars, attachment of Kazakhstan to the Russian

Empire and the cult of Abylai Khan as a unifier of the Kazakhs. This study is going to

determine the problem of fictional aspects in historical textbooks of Kazakhstan. Although, the

literature covers a wide variety of such theories; this review will focus on three major

consistent explanations of existence of fiction aspects in the history of Kazakhstan. They are:

fiction aspects in written history for scholars; the reasons of fiction aspects in history; fiction

aspects in history of Kazakhstan. Especially, this paper will focus on survey among people of

different ages, to analyze the ability of Kazakhstani people to evaluate the information, namely

the written history.

According to Clark (2010), history is very useful to politicians, and Australian politicians

try to use it in order to tell people what they are doing comes from the mainstream of

Australian folklore and Australian idealism. This article will help me to prove, that the fiction

history is existing and our country is not exception. In this case, I will take the relationship

with Russia in nowadays, and using the arguments and examples of Ms. Clark I will prove that

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creating a visibility of voluntary annexation plays into the hands of politicians. Furthermore,

this article reveals secrets how politicians can use the history, for what purposes and mainly,

the author puts forward the main idea of his research: is the history operates the international

relationships or international relationships controls the history. However, history connected not

only with the international relationships, but with people at whole. In modern life, unproved

history is named historical myths, fictions and people can not distinguish what is true and what

is false without special knowledge. For the most part people do not possess this knowledge. So,

in this research paper I want to analyze how the fiction history which people passes for the

truth impact on their world outlook.

By searching information for my project I found the article by Campbell (1991). In this

article “Four functions of myths” distributes myths be their implications for human. They are:

cosmological, sociological, psychological and mystical. In this study it will be useful to

consider sociological and cosmological functions of myths.

Another research article by Kadyrov (2011), investigates interesting facts about the life

of Abylai Khan such as his descendants and diplomatic activity. The author finds out some

unproved facts that were written in textbooks. For example, there is evidence that Abylai Khan

was not born in 1711, as it is now assumed, but a year or two later; although his date of birth is

not precisely known, known is the date of his death. There is a view that Abylai was not

declared the Khan of all the Kazakhs, but headed only Middle Horde. In any case, information

on his accession to the throne is vague and unconvincing. But convincing is the attitude of

Russian tsars to him, who appealed to Abylai as the head of the entire Kazakhstan. These facts

alone show that information in historical textbook has fictional aspects. The article tries to

analyze why Abylai Khan acquired so big popularity among history makers. The author

concludes that the nation needs the hero, especially in that difficult time for the nation that was

in the colonial. One of the reasons which are served to appearing of the fiction in written

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history is national identity. Historians should risk and do experiments with interpretations of

the past, because poor history will lead to poor nation awareness that in his turn can lead to

weak citizenship of people (Slotkin, 2005). According to Sokolov school course of history

traditionally plays the role of “ideological brace” in many countries. Nurov (2011) also claims

that Kazakhstan tries to embellish our history to develop the patriotic sense among the people.

Saying about a fiction for the purpose of history, the following article by Slotkin (2005)

describes the argument most frequently made on behalf of historical fiction is that, fiction can

stimulate interest in the study of history. The article answers to questions: Why do historians

risk and do experiment in creating history based on myths and novels? And what consequences

will be if they won not do that? The author protects historians and textbooks for schools. He

explains what reasons served to the fiction history. Especially this article explains the fiction

about the war with Djungars and cult of Abylai Khan. The author raises the issue of national

identity and about political allegiance of history.

The article, which was written by Maleev (2012), thinks over the facts and different

sources which prove another point of view to the war. The author analyzes the main battles and

the archeological confirmation to them. Another author who criticizes an erroneous

interpretation of history is Smirnov (2005). The name of his article is “On the other side of

Bukhara” was published in Rodina journal. Smirnov is a writer and in his article he used a lot

of credible sources like statistics and textbooks. In this article author reveals the description of

Djungars and to some extent justify their action. The writer analyzes the laws and legal

proceeding of XVIII century which are the basis of the Russian and Kazakh history. He tries to

prove that these sources are not trustful, because in that period of time that what was written on

paper can not be considered as a reality. Furthermore, based on this he suggests that the

attaching of Kazakhstan to the Russian Empire was not as friendly as the historians describe.

To prove his point of view the author does a lot of research and he found a lot of

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inconsistencies of historical incidents and facts. Gradually, a second historical fiction of this

research paper is appearing, which concerns the process of attaching the Kazakhstan to the

Russian Empire.

Especially about “unification” of two states in XVIII century was written by Sergaliev

(2012) in the article “About some nuances of the accession of Kazakhstan to Russia”. The

author tries to analyze why Kazakhstan wants to persuade people about friendly association

with Russia for the mutual benefits in XVIII century.

One of the most critical authors is Nurov (2011) that open a new view to the Kazakh

nation in his book “Kazakhstan: national idea and traditions”. He is one of the famous

historians, that was studied and practiced as well as in Kazakhstan in abroad. The book also

contains author’s professional opinion that will be very useful in this study. Nurov covers the

period from formation of Kazakh Khanate until the real days. In general, in this book the

author criticizes the whole history of Kazakhstan and its creators. He claims that all sources are

biased and historians involved in the country’s policy to develop a national identity.

A lot of studies questioned the credibility of the facts and stories that are written in the

Kazakhstani historical textbooks. As an examples of the historical textbooks which information

is questioned by scientists such as Kadyrov, Maleev, Sergaliev, Nurov and others was taken the

textbook of Kuzembaiuly and Amanzholuly (1999) “The History of Kazakhstan” that was

written for scholars. There were a lot of expressions about Abulkhair Khan like “brave, wise

and good”. The authors gave a clear positive response for all Kazakh warriors and actions.

Another book that was written in the same style but with more moderate epithets “The History

of Kazakhstan for university students”, authors Abil and Kuzembaiuly (2004). Nurov (2011)

consider that this glorification of the Kazakh heroes is redundant and perceive as propaganda

of national ideology. Maleev (2012) claims that it is the biggest mistake of historians trying to

disclose the personality of historical individuals. Sergaliev (2012) support his opinion that

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historians ingrain their personal opinion to the audience and do not provide the opportunity to

think. It has a bad effect on school children. In those textbooks that were taken as a samples are

pointed out three main events that were happened in XVIII century: the war with Djungars;

attaching to the Russian Empire; the cult of Abylai Khan as a unifier of the Kazakhs.

In general, the information that I found is credible and it has supporting ideas in order

to prove my suppositions. In this study is presented a problem that the fiction history exists.

The authors who identified this problem are Maleev, Sergaliev, Smirnov, Kadyrov and Nurov.

The authors who explain the reasons of this problem are Slotkin and Clark. And at the same

time the Clark and Campbell explains the consequences of this problem.

Methodology

Participants

The participants of this study were 40 citizens of the Republic of Kazakhstan. There

were ten representatives from each age group with the equal number of males and females. All

participants of the project were of diverse educational backgrounds, and they had different

specialties in universities.

Materials

The research is based on gathering the results of a questionnaire. The questionnaire was

conducted in order to test the hypothesis that historical textbooks have influence on person’s

worldview. The questionnaire consists of multiple choice, open-ended and response scale

questions. Overall, this questionnaire consisted of ten different questions. 23 students who

were participating in a survey were from Kimep University.

Design

I decided to conduct a survey among students of Kimep University and other citizens of

Kazakhstan. The majority of participants were students from Kimep University because it was

interesting for me to know how historical textbooks influence worldview of Kimep University

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students. I analyzed the existed studies of scientists about the issue, then analyzed Kazakhstani

historical textbooks and provided a questionnaire among Kazakhstani citizens.

Procedure

The questionnaire was conducted during a week among people who are older than 18

years because at 18 year the majority of people have graduated from a school. Each person was

examined in a different time and place individually. The participants were chosen randomly.

All participants of my project were tested individually in one face to face session that lasted 10

minutes on average. I explained to each participant that he or she must answer on ten questions

in the written form. The useful action that facilitated the search of participants was the message

distribution in Kimep University Mail. I informed each person about the purpose of my

research and that their identities won not be publicized. Participants who were not students

from Kimep University were examined by me in places which were comfortable for them.

When the information was collected I investigated it very attentively.

Data Analysis

The sample of my survey was the citizens of the Republic of Kazakhstan that graduated

from a school at different periods of time. There are four groups of people divided by the age.

The first group is 18-28 aged people; they received education in independent Kazakhstan. The

second group is people between 28-35, these people received a secondary education in the

Soviet Union (from 1978 to 1985), but they got higher education after the collapse of the

Soviet Union. The third group is a people between 35-50, who get a total education at the

Soviet period of time (from 1963 to 1978), but this is that generation, that after collapse of the

Soviet Union begun to build new ideology and new approach to the study of history of

Kazakhstan. And the last one is the group of people between 50-70. Each group consists of ten

respondents, and in total this survey was conducted from 4 till 10 of November among 40

people.

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The second question is determined the nationality of the respondents. More than a half of

respondents are Kazakhs, it is 55 % (22 people). Russians are 30% of the sample (twelve

people). There are few people with other nationalities: 5 % - Tatars (two people), 5 % - Uyghur

(two people), 2.5 % - Ukrainians (one person) and 2.5 % - German (one person).

Figure 1 that shows the answers of the respondents to the questioning whether they have

a higher education or not. All of the respondents have a secondary education: 60 % of the 18-

28 aged participants and 40 % of 28-35 aged participants have a higher education. So, in

general this survey held among educated people.

Figure 1. Higher education

Figure 2 shows the results of the following question: Do you agree that the textbooks of

the history of Kazakhstan are credible sources? In general, the majority of people agree with

the following statement, 18-28 ages group has 60% (six people), 28-50 aged people has 40%

(eight people). Saying about people between 50-70 ages, 50 % of them trust the historical

textbooks (five people). In addition, only one person from the first group is neutral to the

following statement. According to Figure 2, it is clear that the more people get older the less

they trust the historical textbooks, from 35 till 70 ages 40 % (eight people) of respondents

disagree with the given statement, while ten people (from 18 till 35) agree with the following

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statement.

Figure 2. Credibility of historical textbooks

According to Figure 3, there is no doubt that elder people are likely to agree with that

statement than younger ones, for instance, the results of 28 till 70 aged people are only rising

up, from 40% to 80%, at the same time the number of neutral position decreases from 28 to 70

years. Fifty percent of younger respondents agree with the given statement, 10% that have a

neutral point of view and 40% of people that disagree with that statement. Only one member

from the second and the fourth groups answered that they disagree that textbooks had an

impact on their worldview.

Figure 3. Impact of historical textbooks on people’s worldview

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The next question was: “Do you agree with the following statement: The history has an

impact on the relations between countries”. The majority of people answered that history has

an impact on relations between countries, those who got school education during the Soviet

Union are more convinced in truth of this statement, even if the majority of people of each

generation answered that they agree. Fifty percent of 18-28 and 28-35 aged people agree with

that statement, among 35-50 aged people 70% of people think this way and among 50-70 aged

90% of people. On the other hand, the “disagree” column has another tendency, while among

18-28 aged people this answer were given by 40% of respondents, among 50-70 aged people

nobody disagrees with that statement.

Figure 4. The impact of history on international relations

This question: “Do you agree with the following statement: Other generations have a

wrong representation of the world” helped to determine whether the people notice the

differences between the data that the textbooks give them at different periods of time.

According to Figure 5, the younger generation has a more neutral position than others; only

30% of people between 18-28 ages are neutral to the given statement. Forty percent of the first

three groups of people disagree with that statement and only 30% of the eldest generation

mentioned “disagree” answer. This chart shows that with age’s the relation of the people to

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other generations becomes more categorical.

Figure 5. Wrond representation of the world

According to Figure 6, the eldest generation has the highest level of patriotism, because

the question was: “How would you evaluate the level of your patriotism?” It means that at the

Soviet period of time the ideology was strongly rooted in the educational system.

Figure 6. Level of patriotism

The last question was asked to determine which system is more preferable for citizens.

The question was: “Do you agree with the following statement: The collapse of Soviet Union

had positive consequences”. As it was expected the results show that 18-28 aged people, who

were never educated in the Soviet Union mostly agree that the collapse of the Soviet Union

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was a good event. Those generations that got only a secondary school in the Soviet Union and

the eldest ones disagree with the given statementup to 50% of respondents.

Figure 7.Positive consequences of collapse of Soviet Union

Conclusion

The present study tried to analyze the influence of historical textbooks on people’s

minds; furthermore, to investigate the impact of the historical textbooks on relationships

between countries. To get these objectives, I analyzed the existing studies of scientists about

this issue, designed a methodology for my project and provided a questionnaire among

Kazakhstani citizens.

There are a lot of differences between facts and what is written in the historical books.

For instance, the part of Middle Ages of Kazakhstan is the most questioned period of time in

the Kazakhstani history is more like as collection of myths and legends. So, Kazakhstani

historians need to find out more facts that will evidently prove the heroic past of our nation.

The results of the work show us that the government plays an important role in constructing

textbooks for scholars, and people do not always realize it. Consequences of interventions can

be different such as a bias of Kazakhstani citizens’ knowledge about history in a wrong way

and their incomprehension of various events in History of Kazakhstan. As Nurov (2012) said,

it is important not to bring up Nazis. Therefore, textbooks makers should pay attention not only

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to the propaganda of something but to the developing clever citizens that will be able to

evaluate any information. According to the results, the most neutral attitude to that historical

textbooks influence on people’s worldview was among the 28-35 years old people, the reason

of that this generation had an education in the turning point of the country, so there was an

ideology that cannot develop people’s national awareness. On the other hand, the group of

“Soviet” people, the eldest one has the biggest number of people that agree with that historical

textbooks influenced in their worldview. Obviously, that the eldest and the youngest

respondents have more radical point of view to any questions. It is because those generations

are more than others influenced by the ideology of the countries. For instance, questions when

participants were need to evaluate the level of their patriotism and when they need to show the

relation to the collapse of the Soviet Union. It proves that countries use the textbooks as a tool

to manage nation’s worldview.

In my opinion, it is important to develop national ideology, but people should become

patriots not only because they are taught it in school. It will be better if school will pay more

attention in developing scholars’ personal opinion, by giving them pure facts. So, the scholar

textbooks need to be developed.

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References

Abil, E. &Kuzenbaiuly, A. (2004). Kazakhstan is in XVIII century. In The textbook the history

of Kazakhstan (7th ed., pp. 142-160). Saint Petersburg, SP: Solart.

Campbell, J. (1997). Mythological Themes in Creative Literature and Art. In Antony V. C. The

Mythic Dimension: Selected Essays. (1959-1987 ed., pp. 180-186). New York. NY:

HarperCollins Publishers.

Clark, A. (2010). Politicians using history. Australian Journal of Politics & History, 56, 120-

131

Kadyrov, B. (2011, December). Abylai Khan: warrior and diplomat. Retrieved from January

28, 2013 www.kazpravda.kz/eng/culture/2012-12-08/

Kuzembaiuly, A. &Amanzholuly, E. (1999). The History of Kazakhstan. Astana. Foliant.

Nurov, K.I. (2011). Kazakhstan: national idea and traditions. Almaty: VOX POPULI.

Maleev, S. (2012). The war with Djungars. Retrieved from http://www.altyn-orda.kz/library/s-

maleev-vojna-s-dzhungarami-svyashhennaya-narodnaya-vojna-kazaxov-istoriya/

comment-page-2/

Sergaliev, M. (2012). About some nuances of the accession of Kazakhstan to Russia. Retrieved

from CentrAsiahttp://www.centrasia.ru/newsA.php?st=1343717880

Smirnov, A. (2005). On the side of Buhara. “Rodina” journal, 5, 58.

Slotkin, R. (2005). Fiction for the purpose of history. Rethinking history, 9, 221-236.

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http://www.centrasia.ru/newsA.php?st=1343717880

http://www.altyn-orda.kz/library/s-maleev-vojna-s-dzhungarami-svyashhennaya-narodnaya-vojna-kazaxov-istoriya/comment-page-2/



http://www.kazpravda.kz/eng/culture/2012-12-08/


Appendix

Questionnaire

1. How old are you?15-20

20-25

25-30

30-40

40-50

50-60

60 - ...

*2. What is your nationality?

*3. Where are you from?

4. Education (you can choose several answers) :High School

College

Higher education

Name of the institution, faculty

5. Do you agree with the following statement? The textbooks of history of Kazakhstan are credible sources.

Completely agree

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Agree

I don't know

Disagree

Completely disagree

*6. Do you agree with the following statement? The historical textbooks had an impact on my worldview.

Completely Agree

Agree

I don't know

Disagree

Completely disagree

Why?

*7. Do you agree with the following statement? The history has an impact on the relations between countries.

Completely agree

Agree

I don't know

Disagree

Completely disagree

*8. Do you agree with the following statement? Other generations have a wrong representation of the world.

Completely agree

Agree

I don't know

Disagree

Completely disagree

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*9. How would you evaluate the level of your patriotism?

Very low

Low

Average

High

Very high

I don't know

10. Do you agree with the following statement? The collapse of Soviet Union had positive consequences.

Completely Agree

Agree

Neutral

Disagree

Completely disagree

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Documents

Final Draft. Ayan Syzdykov