“Remember Your Name”: From the Tragedy of Mankurtism to the Ideal of “Adal Azamat”

As part of the course Methods of Teaching Russian Literature at School, fourth-year students of the educational programme “6B01718 – Russian Language and Literature” — Makhabbat Kairatova, Balausa Duisebayeva, and Gulasel Zhoomart kyzy — prepared and conducted an extracurricular event dedicated to Chingiz Aitmatov’s novel The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years at Secondary School No. 26 in Astana.

The theme of the event, “Remember Your Name: From the Tragedy of Mankurtism to the Ideal of ‘Adal Azamat’,” was proposed by master teacher Karlyga Asipovna Aldazharova and implemented in collaboration with the students. Exploring the concept of mankurtism enabled school students to reflect on its relevance to the modern world and consider issues of historical memory, national identity, civic responsibility, and moral choice.

Tenth-grade students actively participated in the discussion: they answered thought-provoking questions, expressed their own views, engaged in debate, and learned to defend their positions with well-reasoned arguments. They supported their opinions with quotations and episodes from the novel, thereby developing their communication skills and their ability to engage in dialogue and constructive debate.

The extracurricular event not only deepened the students’ knowledge of Chingiz Aitmatov’s literary legacy but also provided a space for reflection on the preservation of historical memory, human dignity, and civic responsibility. For the university students, conducting the event was an opportunity to put their methodological knowledge into practice and gain experience in organizing educational activities.

The event concluded with reflection on its central question: how do historical memory and fidelity to one’s moral and cultural values help a person remain an “Adal Azamat” — an honest and responsible citizen of the twenty-first century?