In the long sweep of Central Asian history, few figures have shaped Kazakhstan’s moral and intellectual fabric as profoundly as Abai Kunanbayev. This year, as Kazakhstan marks the 180th anniversary of his birth, the country is paying homage to a thinker whose ideas still speak urgently to the challenges of the present.
Across the country and beyond, there are events to celebrate Abai’s legacy, reminding the Kazakh nation of the modern challenges and ways to navigate change while preserving its national ethos and soul.
Abai was born in 1845 in the Chingiz Mountains of the Semipalatinsk region, into a family of influence and authority. His grandfather and great-grandfather were byas, judges, and tribal leaders, and his father, Kunanbai, was a senior sultan.
Yet his formative influences came from the wisdom of his mother, Ulzhan, and grandmother, Zere, whose storytelling, songs, and moral teachings lit the path that would shape his worldview.
His education gave him a rare bridge between worlds. He studied in the madrassah of Imam Ahmad Riza, attended a Russian secular school, and immersed himself in Kazakh oral traditions.
By the time he began writing poetry, he had absorbed the verse of Ferdowsi, Nizami, and Saadi, the philosophy of Aristotle and Hegel, and the literature of Pushkin, Lermontov, Goethe, and Byron.
This intellectual range allowed him to adapt global ideas into the language and rhythms of the Kazakh steppe.
Abai’s poetry captured the vast beauty of his homeland but it also reflected a deep unease with the complacency, ignorance, and social divisions he saw around him.
His “Words of Edification”, forty-five prose reflections, explored education, morality, justice, and leadership. In them, he returned to a central question about what makes a complete person?
His answer lay in the harmony of mind, will, and heart.
Education was central, pursued for the enrichment of the human spirit rather than for wealth or status.
As he said in his work:
Strive to know, though the road is long,
Let your heart be pure and your word be strong.
The wealth of the world will fade away,
But the wealth of the mind will light your way.
In the late 19th century, Kazakhstan was under the strain of Russian imperial governance, and traditional structures were being dismantled. Abai saw that survival as a people would depend on the ability to modernise while holding on to moral integrity. He embraced science and literature from Russia and Europe, valued the study of foreign languages as a way to break down prejudice, and argued for merit and fairness over inherited privilege.
His cultural reforms had an economic dimension. Abai tied prosperity to honest work and the mastery of craft, long before “economic diversification” became a policy term. He urged his people to learn trades, develop skills, and seek self-reliance, planting the seeds of what Kazakhstan now calls its smart economy.
The 180th anniversary celebrations show that his legacy has not dimmed. In Astana, thousands of schoolchildren sing his songs in unison. In Lugano, audiences listen to Kazakh melodies on the dombyra and to the poetry he inspired. In Petropavlovsk, his portrait now graces a university building. These events are expressions of pride and acts of cultural continuity. They place Abai in the daily life of the nation.
Abai’s relevance is clear to Kazakhstan’s leaders. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has often shared his teachings in policy discussions on justice, unity, and education reform.
The idea of a “Listening State” that engages with its citizens reflects Abai’s belief that leadership must serve the people with integrity and humility.
His warning against a “fragmented consciousness” resonates in a world where social cohesion is easily eroded by polarisation and distrust.
Beyond Kazakhstan, Abai has become a cultural envoy. His statues stand in Beijing, Berlin, Cairo, Moscow, and other world capitals. UNESCO’s recognition of his legacy underscored his universal appeal. Yet the most enduring monument to him is the continued vitality of his ideas in public life.
What makes Abai’s legacy endure is the balance he struck between realism and aspiration. He could be unsparing in self-criticism, questioning whether his appeals would ever be heard, yet he held fast to the belief that knowledge and morality were worth pursuing.
Even in disappointment, he continued to write — “Paper and ink will be my consolation” — trusting that his words might reach someone, someday.
Kazakhstan today faces its own set of challenges like any other country in the world, and the answers will not be found in poetry alone, but Abai’s work offers a compass. He understood that a nation’s strength is rooted in the quality of its people’s minds and the integrity of their actions. He saw education, merit, and moral responsibility as the pillars of resilience.
These are as relevant to the digital age as they were to the age of the steppe. Commemorating Abai at 180 is an invitation to measure how far the nation has travelled along the path he set.
The richness of this year’s celebrations shows that his voice is still heard — in classrooms, in music, and in public debate. His real tribute will be in whether Kazakhstan continues to build the just, educated, and self-confident society he envisioned.
Abai’s legacy lives because it is woven into Kazakhstan’s modern identity. It is in the insistence that progress must be grounded in values that culture can engage with the world while remaining true to itself and that leadership must be measured by service.
Muhammad Asif Noor
The writer is Director, the Institute of Peace and Diplomatic Studies
