Ilyas Zhansugurov

Who was Ilyas Zhansugurov?

Ilyas Zhansugurov was a Kazakh poet and writer. The town of Zhansugirov in Almaty Province is named after him and he is commemorated in Taldykorgan and Almaty.

A friend of another classic writer Mukhtar Auezov, Zhansugurov was the First President of the Writers' Union of Kazakhstan from 1934 to 1936.

He wrote the novel "Comrades", targeted against the Soviet power, but wrote loving poems such as "The Steppe" and "Kulager". He was repressed in 1937 as his writing was seen as a threat and fuel for Kazakh nationalism and he was shot on February 26, 1938.