Alikhan Bukeikhanov

A descendant of Genghis Khan, Alikhan Bukeikhanov graduated from the forestry institute in St Petersburg and wrote scholarly works on the geography and economy of the Kazakh steppe. In 1906 he was elected to the Russian State Duma.

In 1917 he founded the Alash party and in December, at a congress in Orenburg, was elected head of the autonomous Alash Orda government. The Alash movement aimed at the unity of Kazakh lands, education and national statehood.

Persecuted under Soviet rule, he was shot in Moscow in 1937 and rehabilitated in 1989. Today he is regarded as one of the greatest figures of the Kazakh national liberation movement.