Warrior ancestors are reborn as role models
In the struggle to form a new national identity, Kazakhs have seized upon the Huns

By Jeanne Whalen

Attila the Hun may be known to some as the Scourge of God, but to the people of Kazakhstan, the fierce warrior has become an unlikely national hero.

For years the Soviet Union suppressed the Kazakhs' links to the likes of Attila and Genghis Khan, fearing the knowledge would swell the southern Soviet republic with nationalistic pride and illusions of military grandeur. But in the struggle to form a new national identity the Kazakhs have gravitated towards these Huns and so-called barbarians as symbols of strength and wisdom that are indelibly linked to the central Asian steppe.

The people of Kazakhstan have quickly taken to their warrior ancestors, renaming streets and erecting monuments in their honour. Kazakhstan's drama theatres in the capital of Almaty have staged plays in recent months portraying the lives of Attila the Hun, who conquered Rome in the 5th century, and his descendant Ablai Khan, a more diplomatic character who in the mid-18th century preserved the independence of the Kazakh people by placating their two domineering neighbours - Russia and China.

Bulat Atabayev, director of the Kazakh national drama theatre, says Ablai Khan carries a valuable message for Kazakhs of today. "Ablai Khan in the finale says we must fight the enemy within against poor education, ignorance, against idle living," Mr Atabayev says. "And I think this is very real for Kazakhstan. Our government says we have to complete our reforms. But first reforms have to happen in our minds."

The legendary warriors of the steppe may prove valuable role models, but how closely related they are to the Kazakhs is still a matter of debate. Genghis Khan has traditionally been called a Mongol, not a Kazakh or a Turk, the people who emerged after the Huns in the 5th century and are thought to be the Kazakhs' predecessors. Although many historians have deemed Genghis Khan a Mongol, Kazakh writer and historian Akim Tarazi says Soviet Russians purposely and incorrectly promoted this theory to keep the Kazakhs ignorant of their history.

"Russia for its own purposes transferred Genghis Khan to Mongol history," Mr Tarazi says. "We always learned he was a murderer who occupied Russia for 300 years." Indeed, Genghis Khan was one of the most brutal murderers the world has seen, using his fierce cavalry in the 13th century to conquer a vast swathe of land from Beijing to the Adriatic Sea and from India to southern Russia.

While very little about Genghis Khan was written in Russian, historical documents preserved in the Chinese, Armenian and Persian languages have helped modern-day Kazakhs trace their routes and conclude that Genghis Khan was indeed a Turk, says Mr Tarazi.

But what pride can they take in a man known for placing boards on the backs of his victims and eating dinner on the surface while crushing them to death?

"He established a great empire without trying to destroy individual peoples or governments," says Mr Tarazi. Genghis Khan was brutal but did not attempt to wipe out religions or even local leaders so long as those conquered paid their taxes on time. The example perhaps has some resonance for today's Kazakhstan, where Kazakhs and Russians are attempting to live together in peace.

Mr Atabayev praises Genghis Khan's love of nature and nomadic ways. "When a person is a nomad he respects nature. It is a clean way of living, unlike settled living. Genghis Khan was not humane, but I cannot say nature is humane, either."

The Kazakhs' nomadic history may be a source of pride, but it also poses a contemporary dilemma to those attempting to build Kazakhstan's shattered economy and provide for this nation of 17m. Can and should a people who have historically lived as nomads and warriors create a stable, settled economy of factories, agriculture and trade?

Shota Valikhanov, a Kazakh who claims to be a direct descendant of Genghis Khan, calls the question "naive". While his ancestor razed villages and burned buildings, Mr Valikhanov is a respected architect and monument designer, but he sees no irony in his profession.

"A different epoch is upon us," he says. "They were children of their times. It is our duty to continue in their honour and do all we can to build our society." Among Mr Valikhanov's designs for the new capital city of Astana is a powerful statue of Ablai Khan, mounted on a stallion and glaring into the distance with chiselled features.

The khan who kept Kazakhstan independent of Russia and China is indeed a relevant symbol today, as oil-rich Kazakhstan sits exposed as never before between its two powerful neighbours.

Beset with a foundering economy and an uncertain future, Kazakhstan needs all the heroes it can get, says Mr Atabayev.

Audiences gave the Ablai Khan drama rave reviews, the theatre director says. "They lifted their heads after watching it. Art should do that. It should give hope."