The asharshylyq, the great mass famine that struck Kazakhstan in the 1930s, not only destroyed the demographic structure of Kazakh society, but also tore apart the very fabric of the country’s family and social lives. Beyond the great catastrophe that engulfed the entire Kazakh steppe in the early 1930s, the famines of 1917–1919 and 1921–22 forced hundreds of thousands of survivors into displacement. Parents lost children. Children lost parents. Close relatives, scattered across vast distances, lost all contact with one another.
This tragedy also left its mark on the Kazakh press of the time. In newspapers such as Aq Jol and Enbekshil Qazaq, desperate people placed notices in their attempt to find the children and relatives they had been separated from during the famine. For Qalam, historian Abai Myrzagali examines these tragic notices from that period—small ads that tell a much larger story of loss, displacement, and the tenuous hope of reunion.
Searching for Four Missing Children
Even the briefest notices published in Kazakh newspapers of the 1920s were not routine bits of information that could be skimmed over and quickly forgotten. They carried the aching cries of parents searching for children lost during the famine years. Behind each line lay the tragedy of individual families—and the last hope of those forced to flee death across the far reaches of the country. A 1922 notice in the newspaper Aq Joli
When we were ourselves fleeing the famine, our children were taken into care through government relief. To this day, we do not know where they are or what has become of them ...
In this notice, heavy with hopelessness and despair, Dauletkali Almukhambetuly and his wife Gaziza—from the Second Börte Volost of the Aqöbe uezdi
If anyone has seen these children or knows anything about them, we ask that you inform us through the newspaper Aq Jol.
‘The Children Were Moved Elsewhere …’
These notices lay bare the true nature of a famine that was not only a demographic catastrophe but an immense social tragedy that tore families apart. Many parents, desperate to save their children, made an agonizing choice: they surrendered them to state institutions as a last resort. They hoped the state would feed them, shelter them, keep them safe and alive. However, many of those children were later transferred to other regions, and their parents lost all contact with them forever. Often, it was impossible to determine where these children had been sent or which institutions they had been placed in. In an era when communication and the exchange of information were severely limited, newspaper notices became something remarkable: a bridge of sorts between cities, villages, and human lives. For many, they were frequently the only means of searching for the missing.
In a notice published in the newspaper Enbekshil Qazaq in 1925 (No. 323, 1 May 1925), a man named Dashekep Domalanov was likewise searching for his four children, whom he had placed in an orphanage in Aqöbe during the years of famine:
During the famine year, I placed one daughter and three sons in the Aqöbe orphanage. The children have since been transferred elsewhere. I have been unable to find out where they have been taken ...
The children he lost contact with during the disaster were his daughter Madkiya and his three sons, who were named Kanapiya, Yesenbay, and Kaishybai. At the end of his appeal, he also wrote:
If anyone knows anything about them, I ask that they inform me at the following address ... Jalagash Station to Dashekep Domalanov.
How Were the Missing Described?
Most of the letters sent to newspapers were written in a fairly formal style and published without photographs. As a result, people searching for their loved ones described their appearance in great detail: complexion, smallpox scars, the shape of their noses, and even scars on their bodies. Evidently, these distinctive features were what remained most vividly in their memories.
Among the most harrowing testimonies of those years is a notice seeking five children who had been transported to Tashkent as part of an orphanage transfer in 1921. The notice carefully listed the children's names, ages, and distinguishing characteristics:
Mūqan Būqqūlūly—twelve years old, fair-haired, with smallpox marks on his face; Seisengali Ömirbekūly—thirteen years old, dark-complexioned; Baqtybai Alpysbaiuly—twelve years old; Amir Jalmagambetuly—thirteen years old; Tussim Daribaiuly—twenty years old, ruddy-cheeked, with a hooked nose and a scar under the throat.
Another notice published in 1927 contains the following description: A dark-complexioned young man with a large, coarse, uneven nose … This is how the author describes his own younger brother. He continues:
He is now thirty-six years old. During the famine of 1917–18, my younger brother left to wander in the cities of Pishpek [now Bishkek] and Tokmak. Since then, nothing has been known about him. I heard that he worked as a farm laborer for a Russian man named Yakov at a place where, 90 verstsi
— Däulet Kattaubaiūly
The words of a man who continued searching for his brother nearly ten years later cannot fail to move the reader. However, this notice also reveals another dimension of the famine—the massive displacement of people in search of refuge and survival. Testimonies from contemporaries make it clear that many fled starvation by moving to cities in Kyrgyzstan and Russia, while others wandered across the country in search of food and any means to survive.
One such testimony appears in another notice published in the newspaper Enbekshil Qazaq in 1927 (No. 19 [747], 25 January 1927). Maqambet Beksakalūly was searching for his younger brother, Jünis, who had left for the Qostanai region during the 1917 famine and never returned. The notice continues:
Dark-complexioned, with smallpox scars on his face. If anyone has seen him or knows anything about him, I ask that they send word to the following address: Kyzylorda Uezd, Karaozek Volost, Aul No. 1i
The Kazakh Steppe During the Years of Famine
These notices represent the last hope of Kazakhs searching for their relatives in the aftermath of the famines of 1917–1919 and 1921–22, which swept across the entire Kazakh steppe. The famine of 1917–1919 struck the Turkestan region, including the Semirechye and Syr Darya provinces. In 1918, when the disaster reached its peak, mortality among the adult population reached 30 per cent, and in some areas rose as high as 75 per cent.
Among the regions that suffered most severely during the famine of 1921–22 were the Orenburg, Aqöbe, Kostanay, Ural, and Bukeyev governorates, as well as Adai uezd, all of which were part of the Kazakh Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Historians note that the precise death toll from this famine, as well as from the infectious diseases and epidemics that erupted in its wake, has yet to be established.
Even these brief notices—just a few lines printed on newspaper pages—allow us a haunting glimpse of a massive tragedy that affected an entire people. We will never know whether the parents who placed these advertisements ever found their children or how long they continued to search. That uncertainty alone weighs heavily on the heart. Some children were raised by strangers, never knowing their real names or where they came from. Others simply disappeared, swallowed whole by the chaos of famine, war, and displacement.
Only these small notices, preserved on the yellowed pages of old newspapers, endure as the last faint echo of a generation that slipped away in silence.