THE FATHER OF NATIONAL ART

Quan, the future academician’s father, was an educated man, familiar with both the classical Chagatai script and the newer Jadid writing system. However, in official Soviet questionnaires, where personal biographies were required to conform to the rigid ideological framework of class struggle, he was described as ‘a simple laborer’. It appears that in those years, Jubanov had to somewhat ‘adjust’ the details of his social background to survive. Thus, in the autobiography he wrote in Russian, we find the following passage:

In reality, Quan was far from being a ‘middle-ranking peasant farmer’. On the contrary, he was a rather prosperous man who enjoyed great respect among his tribesmen and was considered one of the influential figures in his region. It is, therefore, unsurprising that Jubanov’s autobiography also contains the following testimony:

However, this alone does not fully convey Quan’s level of education and enlightenment. His eldest son Qūdaibergen Jubanov graduated from the prestigious Husainiya Madrasa in Orenburg and later continued his studies in Saint Petersburg. The younger son Akhmet Jubanov first studied in Russian-Kazakh schools and later, following in his brother’s footsteps, received his foundational musical education there as well. It is, therefore, easy to assume that, thanks to the family’s prosperity, young Akhmet grew up in comfort and rarely experienced hardship.

Fluent in Russian, Quan was a respected and authoritative man whose opinion carried weight among both his fellow tribesmen and representatives of the local volost administration. For instance, he petitioned local authorities to have one of the two schools allocated to the Temir district opened specifically in his aul. His request was granted, and in 1913, the Urkachev One-Class Russian-Kirghiz School opened its doors in Akzhar. Despite its modest name, the course of study lasted three years, and all subjects were taught exclusively in Russian.

It was within the walls of this school that Akhmet Jubanov, the future ‘father of national art’, began his journey. He was the best student in his class and received his first systematic training in musical literacy there. His first teacher, Khusain Ashgaliev, did more than teach him. He not only nurtured Akhmet’s love of learning but also introduced him to playing various musical instruments. In that small school at the edge of the steppe, a future was being shaped.

The land of Aktobe has long been regarded as the birthplace of the küisiThe küi is the traditional instrumental compositions of the steppe., and in this landscape, the presence of the great Qazanğap Tlepbergenuly, the author of the renowned cycle Sixty-Two AqjeleñiSixty-Two Aqjeleñ is a sacred cycle of sixty-two dombra küi from western Kazakhstan, traditionally required mastery for a küishi to be recognized as a true artist., has always been strongly felt. Sources indicate that the young Akhmet Jubanov, already at the age of five, had delighted audiences by performing Kazangap’s küi called ‘Shtat’. He learned the works of this master, as well as those of other folk virtuosos, from an elderly dombyra player named Talym.

After graduating with distinction from the Russian-Kazakh school in 1916, Akhmet Jubanov enrolled in a Russian school at the Dzurun Station. Upon graduating in 1918, the young man intended to enter a real school in Uralsk. And it seemed that there was nothing standing in his way: both the family’s financial means and his level of preparation fully allowed for such a step. However, the collapse of tsarist power in Russia and the ensuing Civil War intervened.

That same year, his father and main source of support, Quan, passed away. His elder brother, Qūdaibergen Jubanov, was completely absorbed in his studies in Orenburg, and all responsibility for the large family fell upon the shoulders of thirteen-year-old Akhmet.

With the establishment of Soviet power, he began working as a secretary of the village council, and in 1924, he joined the KomsomoliThe All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, commonly referred to as Komsomol, was a political youth organization in the Soviet Union..

After completing teacher-training courses in Aktobe in 1925, Akhmet Jubanov returned to his native aul of Akzhar and devoted himself to educating the local population. Alongside his pedagogical work, he continued to spend time on music. By this stage, he had already established himself as a virtuoso dombyra player, capable of competing with master performers in the interpretation of the Aqjeleñ, and he had already gained a firm reputation among the people as a composer and küishi.

It should also be noted that during these years, in addition to the dombyra, Akhmet Jubanov mastered the mandolin and violin, refining his musical skills largely through self-directed study. Realizing that without a flawless knowledge of musical notation, he could never come close to his great dream, he ordered textbooks, including Isaac Pirozhnikov’s Musical Literacy and Nikolai Potolovsky’s guide to Music Theory, by mail. Around that same time, silent cinema arrived in the Kazakh steppes, and Akhmet became acquainted with the violinist Pyotr Chernyuk, who accompanied film screenings with live music. Not only did he befriend the musician, but he also began taking private lessons from him in violin and solfeggio.

Recognizing Akhmet Jubanov’s extraordinary talent, Chernyuk advised him to travel to Leningrad for a proper musical education. This time, however, circumstances unfolded favorably, and in 1929, Akhmet set out on the journey together with his elder brother, Qūdaibergen Jubanov, who was entering postgraduate studies at the A. Yenukidze Institute of Oriental Languages.

As Akhmet Jubanov later recalled, the first thing he did upon arriving in Leningrad was to visit the Leningrad Conservatory. In front of prominent professors who were well known across the Soviet Union, the composer Beletsky and Professor Hovhannes Nalbandyan, he performed the Kazakh song ‘Eki Zhiren’ on the violin using the notation transcribed by Alexander Zatayevich.

Nalbandyan responded with a candid assessment:

After this, the admissions committee directed him to the Glinka Music College, where his future mentor Lev Etigon was still a student in his final year. However, tuition there was paid, and Akhmet Jubanov could not afford to stay. He left the college and once again tried his luck at the conservatory, applying to the oboe class. He passed the examinations and was admitted. At last, he had full student status and became eligible for a stipend.

The professor of his specialty, Fyodor Niman, deeply impressed by the young man’s talent, presented his favorite student with his own textbook, School of Oboe Playing. At that time, Niman headed the Andreyev Russian Orchestra and frequently took Akhmet Jubanov to rehearsals, introducing him to the ensemble's internal life, structure, and repertoire. It was during this period in Leningrad that Jubanov first conceived the idea of creating a Kazakh folk-instrument orchestra—an ensemble that would later bear the name Qurmangazy Sagyrbayuly.

At the conservatory, he did not confine himself to the oboe class but simultaneously studied at the historical and theoretical faculty. Deeply immersing himself in demanding disciplines such as polyphony, harmony, orchestration, music history, and acoustics, he quickly earned the recognition of the teaching staff. In 1932, he completed the Leningrad Conservatory as an external student, earning degrees in two specializations. He went on to enter postgraduate studies at the music department of the Academy of Art Studies.

The list of Akhmet Jubanov’s mentors during those years was truly impressive. Among his teachers, for example, was the art scholar Boris Asafyev, author of the first scholarly study on Kazakh music, as well as internationally recognized historians of music and musicologists such as Zinaida Ewald, Evgeny Gippius, Yury Tyulin, Mikhail Chernov, Roman Gruber, and even Andrey Rimsky-Korsakov himself. Having been shaped within such an intellectually elevated environment, Jubanov became firmly convinced that the revival of national culture was his true calling. He meticulously recorded all the cultural events of Leningrad in his notes, gathering ideas piece by piece for his future achievements.

However, in 1933, Akhmet Jubanov was forced to interrupt his postgraduate studies and take academic leave. The reason was an urgent summons from the cultural and educational department of the regional committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the People’s Commissariat of Education of Kazakhstan—his professional expertise was needed to help organize the work of a newly opened music college.

Upon arriving in Almaty, Akhmet Jubanov was appointed deputy director for academic affairs at the first national specialized music college. Alongside administrative duties, he lectured on music theory. At the institution, Jubanov opened an experimental workshop for instrument-making, inviting the brothers Boris and Emmanuel Romanenko to lead it. It was these craftsmen who developed new versions of the qobyz and dombyra adapted for orchestral performance. At the same time, he invited Yevgeny BrusilovskyiYevgeny Brusilovsky (1905–1981) was a Soviet composer who pioneered Kazakh national opera. to Almaty, and soon the first Kazakh opera, Qyz-Jibek, was born.

Yet, Jubanov’s greatest passion, the one that gave him the least rest, was the idea of creating a full-fledged dombyra orchestra. Achieving this required enormous effort: the instruments themselves had to be improved, and a new generation of performers trained in musical notation had to be raised. Thanks to Akhmet Jubanov’s remarkable persistence, an ensemble of eleven musicians had already been formed by 1933, serving as a precursor to a full orchestra.

In 1934, the ensemble achieved major success at the All-Kazakhstan Gathering of Folk Talents, after which it was reorganized into the National Orchestra of the KazCEC. In 1944, the orchestra was named after the great composer Kurmangazy Sagyrbayuly.

The creation of the Kurmangazy Kazakh Folk Instruments Orchestra marked a major milestone in the history of Kazakh national art. Although Akhmet Jubanov drew upon the experience of the Leningrad orchestra of Russian folk instruments, he followed a distinct path in shaping the Kazakh ensemble. For example, Russian folk orchestras did not include a bowed-string section, despite the existence of instruments such as the gudokiThe gudok is an ancient Slavic three-stringed bowed instrument, often neckless, played in the lap, and historically associated with Russian wandering minstrels.. Jubanov, however, preserved an authentic national character by introducing the qobyz into the orchestra.

Having created six varieties of the dombyra—prima, second, alto, tenor, bass, and contrabass—he greatly enriched its tonal palette. And when he additionally incorporated the zurna (in Kazakh, syrnai), a traditional double-reed wind instrument with a loud, piercing tone, the ensemble’s performance capabilities reached an entirely new level. This decision, to build the orchestra around an indigenous national sound, proved to be a brilliant innovation. The orchestra’s greatest achievement lay in the fact that Kazakh küis retained their natural authenticity. At the same time, the harmonious blending of qobyz and dombyra at the Decade of Kazakh Art in Moscow amazed the entire Soviet intelligentsia.

Unfortunately, the triumph of the first orchestra, which had become a true source of national pride, did not sit well with the Party ideologues. Those accustomed to viewing Kazakh folklore merely as ‘raw material’ for chamber genres responded with sharp criticism. Even Jubanov's closest associates, such as composer and musicologist A.V. Zataevich and composer E.G. Brusilovsky, for a long time, if not openly, then in their private opinions, could not accept the orchestral interpretation of Kazakh küis. Their main argument boiled down to the claim that folk music would only attain its true greatness within the walls of symphonic or chamber concert halls.

Akhmet Jubanov managed to melt this ice of skepticism by incorporating small masterpieces of Western European and Russian classical composers into the national orchestra's repertoire. Notably, despite his opponents' shifting attitudes toward his work, he preferred not to resort to criticism in return. On the contrary, in his publications, he consistently emphasized the value of their contributions, and in anniversary speeches, he always offered sincere words of support and recognition to his colleagues.

In the twentieth century, the Kazakh people endured many tragic upheavals: the October Revolution, the Russian Civil War, famine, political repressions, the Second World War, and the subsequent campaign against ‘bourgeois nationalists’. All of this left a heavy mark on Akhmet Jubanov's fate as well.

The open persecution began after 19 November 1938, when his brother Qūdaibergen Jubanov— the first Kazakh professor of linguistics and Turkology, and the man who laid the foundations of Kazakh linguistics—was executed. As the brother of an ‘enemy of the people’, Jubanov was dismissed from the opera theater where he had served as a conductor. In that same year, he was removed from leadership of the folk instruments orchestra that he had quite literally built with his own hands.

Although he himself narrowly escaped imprisonment by sheer chance, his works and scholarly writings came under severe censorship pressure. First and foremost, his educational essays on national art were banned.

In 1950, a large-scale campaign to discredit Akhmet Jubanov began, triggered by his studies on the history of Kazakh music. An editorial article published under the headline ‘Thoroughly Uproot the Remnants of Bourgeois Nationalism’, appearing in issue No. 12 of the journal Sovetskaya Muzyka for 1951, stated the following:

After the publication of this article, his fate was deliberated for two days within the Central Committee of Kazakhstan. During that period, writer Mukhtar Auezov and historian Еrmukhan Bekmakhanov were subjected to political persecution alongside Akhmet Jubanov.

On 28 September 1951, the newspaper Kazakhstanskaya Pravda published an article titled ‘On the Erroneous Direction in the Musicology of Kazakhstan’, in which Jubanov's book Kazakh Folk Composers was subjected to harsh criticism and branded as a work ‘written in a bourgeois-nationalist spirit’.

Following this persecution, Akhmet Jubanov was forced to relinquish his post as rector of the conservatory and was also expelled from the Party. He was stripped of all his leadership positions at the Academy of Sciences of Kazakhstan and other public organizations. Foreseeing that the next step his persecutors would take would be his arrest, he made the decision to leave for Moscow secretly. As a member of the Union of Composers of the USSR, his colleagues in Moscow extended their support, doing everything in their power to ensure his safety. This allowed him to focus on his creative work at the House of Composers in the Moscow suburbs.

It is noteworthy that his foundational monographs, Strings of the Centuries and Nightingales of the Centuries, were written precisely during this period. Further, during his years of forced exile, he committed a substantial body of instrumental and orchestral works to paper. Thus, this outstanding figure of Kazakh art was compelled to spend three years living in Moscow—far from his homeland, against his own will. In the academician's official biography, this period was later tactfully obscured by the phrase ‘relieved of the post of rector in connection with departure on a creative and scholarly assignment’.

He returned to his homeland only in 1953, when the grip of political terror finally began to loosen. Yet the persecution of Akhmet Jubanov did not end there. In 1958, he led the Decade of Kazakh Art and Literature in Moscow. But barely had the applause faded when he was once again branded a ‘nationalist’, and a barrage of accusatory articles from hostile colleagues followed.

Denunciations were sent to the Central Committee: it was alleged that Akhmet Jubanov had deliberately excluded Ruslan and Lyudmila by Mikhail Glinka from the program, which was interpreted as an act of political unreliability. In reality, however, the opera had already been barred from performance by a special commission before the delegation’s departure to Moscow due to the ‘weak quality of the production’, meaning Jubanov had nothing to do with that decision. The true reason, which the complainants carefully avoided mentioning, lay in the overwhelming success of the Qurmangazy Orchestra.

Until the very end of the Decade, the audience’s attention was focused entirely on it. It was during this time that an incident occurred which later became legendary. In a packed hall, where the elite of all fifteen union republics had gathered, the audience forced the orchestra to play Qurmangazy Sagyrbayuly’s küi ‘Saryarka’ several times and erupted in thunderous applause with shouts of ‘Glory to the composer! The composer on stage!’ Central newspapers competed with each other in publishing enthusiastic reviews.

This triumph clearly wounded not only the pride of colleagues imbued with an imperial superiority complex but also of those local figures who had grown accustomed to groveling before foreign art while demeaning their own. In their view, Kazakh folklore had no right to claim laurels comparable to those of academic classical music. Yet, no matter how long they dragged out their proceedings, they were never able to find so much as a crack in Jubanov's conduct.

Nevertheless, this succession of ordeals ultimately took its toll on his health. And while Jubanov had, to some degree, grown accustomed to the constant persecution and surveillance, what truly wounded him was something else entirely—the denunciations of colleagues and students, the betrayal of those in whom he had placed unbounded trust. This pain never left him until his dying day.

When Akhmet Jubanov was already confined to his bed, he was visited by Bauyrjan Momyshuly. In his memoirs, the legendary military commander describes his final farewell with the great composer as follows:

In those same memoirs, Bauyrjan Momyshuly describes how the funeral procession passed by the conservatory building. From the windows came the sound of mournful music—it seemed as though art itself was mourning the departure of a man with a boundless heart, and those sounds pierced straight to the deepest layers of the soul.

At the start of every new era, a few remarkable people are born—people whose arrival turns out to be a true blessing for their nation. Academician Akhmet Jubanov was precisely such an exceptional individual—he revealed Kazakh spirituality to the world, laid the foundations of professional national music, and devoted his entire life to this cause without reservation. His legacy and spiritual testament, left behind on that ‘thorny and treacherous path’, remain with us to this day, resonating in the eternal and majestic sound of the küis.