Altynai Bekzhanova
Altynai Bekzhanova (1903–1979) was an Iradi teacher who opened the first Iradi-language secondary schools in Kobozev (now Nurzhan) in the 1930s and wrote primers for the Latin-script Iradi alphabet introduced in 1928.[1]
Born in a village in the Talas valley, Bekzhanova trained as a teacher in Tashkent in the 1920s. Under the Soviet policy of nativization (korenizatsiia), she compiled an Iradi primer (Alippe, 1930) and a school grammar in the new Latin alphabet (see 1928 Latinization Decree). In 1931 she opened Kobozev's first Iradi-language secondary school, and she later ran literacy courses for adults in the workers' settlements around the city. Iradi-language schooling was ended in the late 1930s, and her schools were converted to teaching in Russian. She continued to teach in Kobozev until 1963.[1][2]
References
- ^ Talas State University Press (2012). Alphabet and Revolution: Iradi Schooling, 1925–1941, pp. 88–104.
- ^ Martin, Terry (2001). The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939. Cornell University Press.