Aron Qabyşūly Edigeev (born Aron Qabyşūly Nutuşev, ; 31 January 1953 – 24 November 2021), better known as Aron Atabek (), was a Kazakh writer, poet and dissident. He was a leader of an independent Alash National Freedom Party, and the president of the political council of the Kazak Memleketi, the Kazakhstan National Front. After Kazakhstan gained its independence in 1991 upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union, he was a critic of the government and President Nursultan Nazarbayev. He was an author of several poems and a book critical of the Kazakh government, for which he was imprisoned for fifteen years. He was released in October 2021, and died a month later on 24 November, while being treated in a hospital in Almaty for COVID-19.
Early life and education
Atabek was born on 31 January 1953, with a birth name Aron Qabyşūly Nūtuşev, in the village Naryn Khuduk in the Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (now Kalmykia, Russia). His father lived during the Holodomor famine, and spent years in a Gulag camp before eventually becoming the chairman of a collective farm in the Astrakhan Oblast. Atabek's grandfather and great-grandfather were repressed and executed by the Bolsheviks. His great-great-grandfather Makhambet Otemisuly was a poet and warrior who led an uprising in Bukey Horde in 1836–1837, but was later killed by Kazakh mercenaries under the order of the Russian Tsarist authorities.
In 1971, Atabek moved to the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic (now Kazakhstan) when he was 18 years old. There, he graduated from the Faculty of Philology in the Kazakh State University in 1974. He subsequently underwent an internship in the Department of Mongolian Studies and Turkology at Leningrad State University, and then worked as an editor in the State Film Agency and Mektep Publishing House.
Political activism
Because Kazakhstan was still a part of the Soviet Union, Atabek opposed the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). In 1986, he participated in the Jeltoqsan civil unrest that took place in Alma-Ata (present-day Almaty), and consequently hid in remote areas to avoid prosecution. In April 1989, Atabek wrote a letter to the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union demanding "a revision of the political assessment in regards to Jeltoqsan and the release of all its protesters, as well as granting of Kazakhstan's state sovereignty".
In August 1989, Atabek organized Kazakhstan's first ever Zheruyuk National Patriotic Society. Months later in November 1989, he personally submitted an application to the Alma-Ata City Executive Committee in a request to allow a trizna feast in memory of the victims of the Jeltoqsan. As a result, Atabek faced persecution and was imprisoned, and the Zheruyuk Society was abolished. In spite of this, with the approval of the Ideology Secretary Özbekälı Jänıbekov, mourning rallies were held in Alma-Ata on 13 December 1989 at the medical institute and continued until January 1990 to commemorate the third anniversary of the Jeltoqsan. In December 1989, Atabek met with First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev to voice demands that were written prior in a letter to Congress of People's Deputies.
By April 1990, Atabek announced the formation of a nationalist pan-Turkist Islamic Alash National Freedom Party, and he became leader. Apart from calling for Kazakhstan's independence and the establishment of a unified Islamic Turkestan which would expel all Slavs, the party criticized the existing government, specifically Nazarbayev. As a result, Atabek was threatened and forced to move to Moscow in February 1991. In December 1991, the pro-Islamic faction of the Alash attempted to forcefully remove mufti (Muslim jurist) Ryspek Nysambaev from a mosque in Alma-Ata; Nysambaev was attacked and taken hostage before being freed by police. In response, Atabek condemned the incident caused by the party members, accusing the KGB and Islamic fundamentalists of setting up the provocative attack. However, he attempted to achieve the release of his party members from prison using personal connections and financial capabilities. Due to the events, the Kazakh government accused Atabek of staging the incident and slandering Nazarbayev, violating Kazakh criminal code. As a result, a criminal case was opened against him, and Russian security forces arrested him in Moscow in March 1992.