On January 13 in Almaty the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies under the President of Kazakhstan held the presentation of the book of the famous scholar of Chinese studies Clara Shaysultanovna Khafizova “XVIII–XIX ғасырлардағы дала билеушілері және олардың дипломатиясы” (Steppe rulers and their diplomacy in the XVIII-XIX centuries), reports Liter.kz.
With this event the institute opens a series of events in 2023, dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies under the President of Kazakhstan.
The monograph is devoted to the activity of three generations of rulers of the Kazakh khanate of two centuries on preservation of the Kazakh statehood, territorial integrity and national unity. The author of the monograph – Khafizova Klara Shaysultanovna – is a well-known scientist-Chinese historian, Doctor of Historical Sciences, specialist in the history of international relations, foreign policy of China, Central Asia and the Kazakh-Chinese relations. She is the author of several major monographs and collections, numerous articles published in China, Russia, Afghanistan, Iran, England, Ukraine and Japan in the languages of these countries.
Opening the presentation, Director of the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies Erkin Tukumov emphasized that Klara Shaisultanovna is an example of persistence of a true scientist working in one of the most complex fields – Chinese studies.
Her selfless activity inspires new generations of young researchers to contribute to the development of Orientalism and Chinese studies in independent Kazakhstan. The school of Chinese studies is still in its infancy in Kazakhstan, where every monumental work, like Klara Shaisultanovna’s works, is worth its weight in gold. Chinese studies is a complex subject in terms of the required amount of knowledge, level of competence, knowledge of the Chinese language and much more. Therefore, it is important that today KazISI is at the forefront of modern Chinese studies, contributes to the development of the direction, in which a systematic school will sooner or later emerge,” said the head of the Institute.
Klara Khafizova told that she had been working for 50 years on writing the book “Steppe rulers and their diplomacy in the XVIII-XIX centuries”.
This book is the result of my half a century of work on the history of Kazakh-Chinese relations. Earlier I considered them quite narrowly, from the point of view of economic and political problems. Later I began to look at it from a civilizational point of view. There are archives all over the world, and there are various government programs where people travel and bring unique materials. There are a lot of original materials, which I translated myself. My method of research is as follows: first I translate materials and openly publish them, then I write my own works based on them. So that our researchers have an opportunity to critically approach the work. It was very difficult to do these translations, they were written in ancient Chinese,” says Klara Shaysultanovna.
The event was attended by scientists-orientalists, political scientists, historians, academicians of the NAS of Kazakhstan, well-known public figures, diplomats and journalists. Among them were Meruert Abuseitova, Director of the Republican Information Center for the Study of Historical Materials at the R. B. Suleimenov Institute of Oriental Studies, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Corresponding Member of the NAS of Kazakhstan; the chief researcher of the Institute of History and Ethnology named after Ch. Sulaimenov, doctor of historical sciences, professor Murat Abdirov; director of the State Historical and Cultural Museum-Reserve “Saraishyk”, doctor of historical sciences, professor Abilseit Mukhtar; senior researcher at the Institute of Archaeology, International Kazakh-Turkish University named after Khoja Ahmed Yasawi, doctor of historical sciences, professor Mukhtar Kozha; senior researcher at the Institute of History and Ethnology named after Ch. Ch. Valikhanov Institute of History and Ethnology Rashid Orazov and others.
