ASTANA — This year marks the 135th birthday of Mustafa Shokai, one of the most important and inspiring figures in early 20th-century Kazakh politics. He was a writer, politician, diplomat, and leader of the Turkistan national movement. Shokai became a symbol of the fight for freedom and dignity. He did not accept the Bolshevik regime and spent his life protecting the rights and culture of Central Asia.
Maria Gorina and Mustafa Shokai. Photo credit: alash.semeylib
Early life and education
Shokai was born on Dec. 25, 1890, in a village in the Syrdarya region. He studied first in Tashkent and later in St. Petersburg, becoming one of the few Turkic people to attend Russia’s top educational institutions.
In St. Petersburg, he received academic training and became involved in political life. He worked as secretary of the Muslim faction in the State Duma, met leaders of the Muslim movement, and future reformers of Central Asia. Even then, he understood that the region’s future depended on its own people taking political action.
Turkistan autonomy
After the February Revolution of 1917, Shokai returned to Turkistan, where people were seeking self-rule. At the Fourth All-Russian Muslim Congress, he was elected to the executive committee and later became chairman of the government of the Kokand (Turkistan) Autonomous Region.
Shokai and his supporters advocated the creation of a unified and indivisible Turkistan state (initially an autonomy), which could include several autonomous uayals (smaller self-governing unit). By the early 20th century, the Turkistan territory (Turkistan governorate-general) was a vast region in Central Asia, encompassing the territories of modern-day Kazakhstan (South Kazakhstan, Kyzylorda, and Mangystau Tegions), Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, the Kyrgyz Republic, and northern Tajikistan. It was inhabited by Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Tajiks, and Turkmens, as well as Russian settlers.
Shokai wanted a state where ethnic and cultural diversity would help modernization rather than cause division. But his dream faced harsh reality: in early 1918, the Bolsheviks destroyed the Kokand Autonomous Region. Shokai barely escaped and went into exile.
Life in exile
For the next two decades, Shokai lived in Türkiye, Germany, France, and Poland. Even far from home, he remained the voice of Turkistan.
In Berlin and Paris, he published the journal Yash Turkistan, discussing the region’s future and national freedom. His writings were clear, respectful of Turkic history, and showed a deep understanding of politics.
Shokai spoke against repression, famine, and forced collectivization, emphasizing that without language, history, and political freedom, no nation could become strong. This made him a symbol of anti-colonial struggle long before modern postcolonial ideas.
World War II and choices
At the start of World War II, Shokai was in Nazi-occupied Poland and then Berlin. German officials offered him leadership of the Turkistan Legion, made up of Soviet prisoners of war. Shokai refused. He wrote that he could not take part in a project based on racial superiority and violence.
He later became isolated in a hospital and died in December 1941 under unclear circumstances.
Legacy
For many decades, Shokai’s name was banned in the Soviet Union. After Kazakhstan became independent, his legacy was re-evaluated. Today, Shokai is remembered as a thinker ahead of his time. He supported modernization through education, political unity for Turkistan, respect for cultural identity, and the building of society on dignity and freedom.
His vision predicted a Central Asia connected through cooperation, economy, and culture.
Shokai is buried at the Ottoman Turkish Muslim Cemetery in Berlin. On his grave is a line from the Gospel of John (15:13):
“Greater love has no one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
Maria Gorina – wife and guardian of his memory
Shokai’s wife, Maria Gorina, played a special role in his life. An opera singer from Vilnius and a graduate of St. Petersburg Conservatory, she gave up her career and family to follow him through political turmoil and exile.
They married on April 16, 1918, in Tashkent. Gorina supported him through poverty, separation, and constant moving. Thanks to her, many of Shokai’s diaries, letters, and documents were saved and later published.
Gorina was buried in spring 1969 in Chelles, France, where grave plots are leased. She had paid for her plot in 1965, and in 2015, Kazakh public figures renewed the lease for another 50 years.
