KazNU discussed the history of Japanese prisoners in Kazakhstan

Al-Farabi KazNU hosted the republican conference "Dostyktyn tarikhi danekeri - Askanbek Aldanazarov", organized jointly with the State Archive of Almaty.

The event is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the scientist - military historian, veteran of the Great Patriotic War, retired colonel Askanbek Aldanazarov.

Askanbek Aldanazarov was born in 1924 in Tulkubas district of South Kazakhstan region. After the war, he studied at the History Department of Leningrad University, then graduated from the Higher Officer School with a military specialty, served in the missile department as a commander of a missile brigade.

In 1968, due to health reasons, he retired from the reserve and continued his teaching activities at the Medical Institute, in parallel he worked as a dean of the correspondence department of the Faculty of History of the Kazakh State University.

Askanbek Aldanazarov devoted a significant part of his activity to researching the graves of Japanese prisoners. As a result of his research he found 58,900 graves of Japanese prisoners in 11 regions of Kazakhstan. Askanbek Aldanazarov is the first Kazakhstani to be awarded the "Order of the Land of the Rising Sun with a golden ray" in Central Asia.

He also identified the burial sites of Polish military in the country and discovered the graves of 133 Kazakh soldiers buried in Poland.

Participants of the republican conference discussed the results of research, the range of scientific interests of Askanbek Aldanazarov - scientist-military historian, veteran of the Great Patriotic War and has not lost its relevance today.

According to historians, the conference contributes to broadening the scope of cooperation between scientists, creation of new research projects, joint scientific publications and development of the direction related to the history of World War II, Polish and Japanese forces.

The conference was attended by: scientists, experts, specialists and young researchers.

Press-service of Al-Farabi Kazakh National University