ASTANA — There’s something deeply poetic about the way certain lives seem to echo the land they come from. Malik Gabdullin’s story begins on Nov. 15, 1915. He was a soldier, a scholar, a folklorist, and, above all, a humanist. The kind of man whose story doesn’t just belong to history books, it belongs to the living, to every generation that asks what it means to serve something greater than oneself.
Malik Gabdullin was a soldier, scholar, folklorist and humanist. Photo credit: adebiportal.kz
He grew up in a small Kazakh village near Kokshetau, a place wrapped in the green folds of meadows and mirrored in the clear waters of Lake Zheltau. This landscape, with its springs and golden reeds, wasn’t just beautiful; it breathed history, memory, and song.
Gabdullin was born into a large family, seven brothers and three sisters, but fate was merciless. The famine of the 1930s, one of the darkest pages in Kazakh history, claimed them all. Only Gabdullin survived. His father, Gabdulla Yelemesov, was a man literate in both Arabic script and Latin, a rare gift at the time. His mother, Aliya, passed away when he was still a boy.
The loss, the solitude, and the resilience that grew out of it shaped him early on. Yet the land itself, the foothills of Zheltau, the whispering reeds by the lake, and the songs of local akyns, nourished something deep within him. Growing up in a region once home to Abylai Khan, the unifier of Kazakh lands, Kenesary Khan, the last ruler who fought for independence, Baluan Sholak, the legendary strongman and folk singer, Birzhan Sal, the poetic voice of the steppe; and Akan Sere, the romantic bard of freedom, Gabdullin was surrounded not just by nature but by legend. In his family and village, stories of heroism were told by the fire songs of courage, defiance, and love of freedom. To the boy listening wide-eyed, these weren’t just tales of the past. They were a call to become worthy of that lineage.
In 1929, Gabdullin graduated from the village school with a hunger to learn more. But dreams are often tested by reality. His family had no means to send him to the city, and his father, perhaps fearing to lose the last of his children, refused to let him go. So Gabdullin made the choice that would define his life: he left home on his own, with only his grandmother’s quiet blessing. Following the example of the brave batyrs (warrior) he admired, he walked the long road to Kokshetau to pursue his education.
When war broke out, he was already a postgraduate student, ready to build a scholarly life. But like many of his generation, he traded books for a rifle without hesitation. He volunteered for the front, and the path from political officer to Guard Major and Hero of the Soviet Union began.
Zhambyl Zhabayev (L) and Malik Gabdullin (R) — two legends of Kazakh history and culture.Photo credit: open source
Malik served in the legendary 316th Rifle Division under General Ivan Panfilov, a unit that fought fiercely in the Battle of Moscow and earned the title of the 8th Guards Division. Between January and March of 1942, in the brutal battles near the town of Kholm in Russia’s Novgorod region, Malik led a small group of soldiers who destroyed two enemy tanks, eliminated scores of fascist troops, and captured twelve prisoners. Even after being wounded, he refused to leave the battlefield.
As part of the roundtable, the Presidential Archive of Kazakhstan presented a historical exhibition “Hero of the Soviet Union Malik Gabdullin”, featuring 55 documents highlighting key moments of his military, scholarly, and public life.
His bravery earned him the Gold Star and the Order of Lenin in 1943. The official citation reads like a fragment of epic poetry: “In the seven-hour battle for Borodino, Comrade Gabdullin led five assaults and counterattacks, repelling four enemy offensives… The enemy, having lost hundreds of soldiers, retreated. The village remained in our hands.”
But behind the medals and military reports, there was a man with a rare kind of gentleness. As Professor Serik Negimov later wrote in Malik Gabdullin’s biography, the hero’s courage was matched only by his humanity. During the fierce winter battles near Moscow, he found a five-year-old orphan, Vladimir, wandering alone. Gabdullin took him to a Moscow orphanage and registered him under the surname Gvardeitsev — “the Guardsman.”
Another time, he turned a pampered, untrained recruit named Bulat into a true soldier through patience rather than punishment. And in 1943, when the poet Dikhan Abilev was accused of “political unreliability,” it was Gabdullin who stepped in, risking his own position to save a man of letters.
That dual nature, the warrior and the thinker, defined him for the rest of his life. He grew up surrounded by the oral traditions of Kazakh poetry and storytelling, and even in the chaos of war, he carried that heritage within him. He was not only a man of courage, but also of thought, with a quiet sense of dignity and an unshakable belief in the moral strength of his people.
After the war, Gabdullin dedicated himself to knowledge. He served as Director of the Institute of Literature and Linguistics at the Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR, later becoming Rector of the Abai Kazakh Pedagogical Institute, and then Head of the Folklore Department at the Auezov Institute of Literature and Art. His research spanned heroic epics, folk songs, aitys, fairy tales, and proverbs, the living heartbeat of Kazakh culture.
Gabdullin was a writer who recorded the chronology of wartime events, achieved the highest academic ranks, and was awarded the title of Hero for his bravery.Photo credit: open source
He helped compile the monumental History of Kazakh Literature and wrote “The Kazakh Heroic Epic,” which earned him the Shokan Ualikhanov Prize in 1972. But he didn’t stop there. Drawing on his wartime and life experience, he wrote “Conversations with Parents about Upbringing,” a book that, even today, feels ahead of its time in its humanity and wisdom.
And perhaps a glimpse into his soul comes from a letter he wrote at the front, on Oct. 31, 1941: “Months will pass, years will go by. Today’s hardships will end, and bright days of peace will come. Then we will remember our heroic brothers who gave their young lives for the honor and glory of our people — and we will remember their call to serve our nation until our last breath.”
It is not the letter of a soldier hardened by war, it is the voice of a poet who saw the world’s cruelty and still believed in its light.
Today, his legacy lives on not only in books and archives but in Kokshetau itself. In 1995, the Malik Gabdullin Museum opened its doors in the city, beginning its exhibition with a family tree and a diorama of his birthplace, the village of Koisalgyn, in the Zerendy district. There is something fitting about that: a return to the roots, to the land that shaped him.
Gabdullin took pride in being a descendant of Kanai Kuttymbetuly, an 18th-century bi (judge), statesman, and advisor to Abylai Khan. That lineage was more than a point of pride; it was a source of responsibility. Gabdullin lived as if constantly aware that he carried within him the memory of those who came before and the hopes of those who would follow.
