Mackenzie Jones holds an MA in Russian, Eurasian, and Eastern European Regional Studies at Columbia University. Her research interests include nationalism, ethnic conflict, and antisemitism in the Soviet Union.
On 22 February 2025, military careerist and Kazakh patriot Oralzhan Masatbayev gave an interview with journalist Nikolai Zhorov for the newspaper Kazakhstanskaia pravda. During the interview, Masatbayev described his work as coordinator for the Bauyrzhan Momyshuly Charitable Foundation. The foundation emerged in January 1991 to honor Kazakh-Soviet military colonel and writer Bauyrzhan Momyshuly (1910-1982) shortly after he was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.
By educating the public about Momyshuly’s military heroism and literary works, the organization has worked to instill patriotism and love of the homeland in Kazakh youth. The interview with Zhorov illustrates how a Hero of the Soviet Union has become venerated as a national hero in contemporary Kazakhstan. Honoring Momyshuly aligns with contemporary state-building efforts to reclaim the history of the Second World War as a part of nation-history distinct from the Soviet Union.
Nearly all Soviet successor states have engaged in processes of historicizing ethnocultural boundaries that link the Soviet past with post-communist identities. However, each successor state has conducted this process differently. In Kazakhstan, official discourse engages in multiethnic dialogues of inclusivity, while also prioritizing the socio-cultural hegemony of ethnic Kazakhs.
Since President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s first term (1991-1999), politicians and state-builders in Kazakhstan have employed Kazakhness as a guiding principle of domestic policy. Kazakhness, as defined by Marlene Laruelle, is a “discursive paradigm” that emphasizes the role of ethnic Kazakhs in modern developments through “state-run narratives about the country’s identity and in policies of ethnic repatriation and promotion of the titular language.” The memorialization of Bauyrzhan Momyshuly in post-1991 Kazakhstan maps onto this construction of ethnonational identity, or Kazakhness.
Born into a family of nomadic herders in the Julay District of southern Kazakhstan on 24 December 1910, Momyshuly rose to notoriety early in the Second World War for military service in the Panfilov Division’s 28 Guardsmen during the Battle of Moscow. In the war’s immediate aftermath, the Soviet state valorized the Panfilov Guardsmen not only for their participation in several decisive battles in Moscow, but also because the unit's multiethnic composition reflected the dynamism of local, national patriotism with supranational Soviet identities. At the time, however, Momyshuly was not a central figure in state efforts to memorialize the Panfilov Division’s 28 Guardsmen.
One plausible explanation is that Kazakh participation in the war effort was viewed as a success of Soviet development, rather than an attribute of individual Kazakh’s agency. Earlier attempts to integrate Kazakhs into the Red Army, most notably during the Russian Civil War (1917-1922), resulted in desertion and in some cases rebellion. To avoid similar outcomes, the Soviet Union’s People’s Commissariat for Defense (NKO) launched several initiatives to mobilize Kazakh soldiers between 1941 and 1942. The formation of national units in Central Asia was one initiative.
An example of these national units was the 8th Guards Rifle Division, formerly known as the 316th Infantry Division, formed in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan where Momyshuly was appointed battalion commander in November 1941. As historian Roberto Carmack has argued, throughout the war, these national units were viewed with suspicion due to popular stereotypes that claimed Kazakhs were unreliable or incapable to fight honorably in a modern, military conflict. When soldiers such as Momyshuly challenged these stereotypes by rising to the rank of colonel, Soviet state narratives attributed his leadership skills to his Soviet identity, rather than his Kazakh one.
Soviet state narratives about the Second World War highlighted the collaborative efforts of civic nationalism, or Soviet patriotism, to defend the multinational homeland—the Soviet Union. In 1975, the Soviet state opened a memorial complex, entitled the “Memorial to Glory” in Almaty’s 28 Panfilov Guardsmen Park. The memorial complex’s location in the nation’s capital honors the fact that several of the infantry units, like the 8th Guardsmen that Momyshuly commanded, were initially formed in that city.
At the same time, the “Memorial to Glory” fails to highlight the strong representation of ethnic Kazakhs and Kyrgyz within these infantry units. Rather, the complex is designed in a way that commemorates Soviet patriotism with Russian language and culture at the center. The site’s main sculpture, “The Feat,” features a Russian-language inscription, quoted from fallen political commissar Vasily Klochkov (1911-1941): “Great Russia, there is nowhere left to retreat, Moscow is behind [us].” Observing the memorial complex, one gets the impression that Russians are the presumed Soviets, and consequently leaders of a Soviet supranational victory.
The statue of Bauyrzhan Momyshuly in Panfilov Park challenges this narrative by making the Kazakh national experience of the Second World War more visible in the public sphere (see Figure 1). For the 100th anniversary of Bauyrzhan Momyshuly’s birth, a six-meter tall bronze and granite statue of the Kazakh-Soviet hero was inaugurated at 28 Panfilov Guardsmen Park on 10 December 2010. Unlike the Soviet-era monument, which depicts the communal aspects of the guardsmen, the bronze figure of Momyshuly stands independently at a completely different entrance from the 1975 “Memorial to Glory.”
Momyshuly is portrayed at a mature age, dressed in a military uniform that is reminiscent of the Soviet era and a tall hat that resembles a traditional felt and sheepskin hat worn in Central Asia. The statue’s inscription, “Hero of the Soviet Union: Bauyrzhan Momyshuly,” is written in the Kazakh language. As such, the monument reclaims the Soviet past as a part of Kazakhstan’s national history by drawing the public’s attention to ethnic Kazakh leadership and participation in the war against Nazism.
In a way, the site of Panfilov Park can be seen as oriented towards neighboring states with a shared Soviet memory of the Second World War. In a news interview, Bahitbek Smagul, a Kazakh veteran of the Soviet-Afghan War, stated that Bauyrzhan Momyshuly’s military heroism acted as a “golden bridge” that united Kazakhstan and Russia. This statement acknowledges Bauyrzhan Momyshuly's importance as both a national hero and a vector for maintaining a positive relationship with neighboring Russia.
Additionally, Bauyrzhan Momyshuly has served to establish historical continuity between pre-modern forms of Kazakh statehood and the present republic. For example, at the Independence Monument in Almaty, Momyshuly’s figure appears alongside national heroes and state leaders. At the center of the monument stands a 180-meter tall column sculpture of the Golden Man, symbolizing the country’s nomadic heritage and folklore traditions. Bas-relief sculptural walls surrounding the Golden Man portray the development of the Kazakh nation from the sixth-century era of Queen Tomyirs to the presidential election of Nazarbayev in 1991.
Most importantly, the monument represents a Kazakh history that does not center on Soviet narratives. The 8th relief, which portrays Bauyrzhan Momyshuly as a mature figure wearing a Soviet-style military uniform, presents the Soviet era as only a small part of Kazakhstan's national development (see Figure 2). Although General Panfilov is seated next to Momyshuly, the images presented alongside the pair speak directly to the “Kazakh” experience.
The Kremlin and Red Square are placed behind Momyshuly's silhouette. Above him are depictions of freight cars and industrial workers that embody stories of the wartime evacuation of people and factories to Kazakhstan. Portraying Bauyrzhan Momyshuly at the center of the relief places Panfilov at the margins of the nation’s history and establishes Momyshuly as the figure of authority. Thus, the heroism, leadership, and valor displayed by Bauyrzhan Momyshuly in the fight against Nazism are framed within the context of Kazakh history and not in the Russian-Soviet context.
The memorialization of Bauyrzhan Momyshuly factors into state narratives about the nation and its identity. By depicting the Soviet hero as a symbol of Kazakhness, the image of Bauyrzhan Momyshuly has become instrumental in creating a link between the Soviet past and modern Kazakhstan. This is done in a manner that does not create competing memories of the Second World War, but rather successfully integrates Kazakh and Soviet memory.
This is distinct from other former Soviet states, such as Ukraine, Latvia, and Lithuania, which have sought to separate the national and Soviet memory of the war by memorializing anti-Soviet war heroes and partisans. These states’ memory politics have implications for their relationship with contemporary Russia. In the case of Ukraine, public memory of controversial figures like Stepan Bandera have been employed to legitimize Putin’s claims that the invasion of Ukraine is a part of a larger policy of denazification.
By contrast, the memorialization of Bauyrzhan Momyshuly provides little material to exploit since there is no public controversy regarding his actions during the war. Additionally, this construction of the Second World War as a part of Kazakh national history challenges the popular assumption in the Western imagination: that ethnic Russians were the primary drivers of Soviet victory over Nazism and calls on one to reconsider the role of Central Asians in Soviet military history.
