The ancient names of 64 settlements in the Akmola region have been determined. The research results cover the period from the second half of the 18th to the beginning of the 19th century. All the collected data were included in the book album “Historical toponyms of Akmola region,” which was presented in the capital of Kazakhstan. The scientific work is based on the materials collected from the country’s state archives, as well as geographical and cartographic databases of the archive in Omsk region, Russia. In particular, scientists analyzed documents on the resettlement, orders of the steppe governors-general on changing the names of lands and rivers and copies of official letters. 40 percent of the settlements, which still bear Russian-language names, still exist - says the author of the book, Irina Bekzatkyzy. According to her, this is only the beginning of a large scientific work on the study of toponyms. In the future, similar studies are planned to be carried out in North Kazakhstan, Kostanai and Pavlodar regions.
“Currently, in our country, there are a lot of names in other languages. For example, villages. We believe that they should have the ancient Kazakh names. And this is the purpose of our study. In the future, we will not only study, but also present it at the national onomastic commission. If our initiative finds support, I think that historical names will be returned,” said Irina Bekzatkyzy, Research Fellow at Khalyk Kazynasy Research Institute.
Translation by Saniya Sakenova
Editing by Galiya Khassenkhanova
