Chokan Valikhanov

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Chokan Valikhanov (1835-1865), is the earliest known Kazakh ethnographer and historian.

[edit] Life

Valikhanov received early education in his village Kushmurune at a private Kazakh maktab, or grade school.

Valikhanov become one of the first Kazakhs who received an education in Russian language and worked for Imperial Russia. He lived in St.Petersburg for two years and worked as a staff of Russian Geographical Society and officer of the Russian army for the remaining days of his life.

Valihkanov published books and articles devoted to the history and culture of Central Asia; among them researches "Kirghiz," "Traces of shamanism in Kirghiz", "About Kirghiz nomads' camp" and others contained ethnographic data that have been used to date. that He also compiled Kazakh epic poem "Kozy-Korpesh and "Bayan-Sulu" as well as Kyrgyz epic "Manas."

Valikhanov report of his trip to Kashgaria in 1858-59 remains a valuable account on the situation in Xinjiang in the aftermath of Wali Khan's invasion of the region and on the eve of the Muslim Rebellion of the 1860s.