Olzhas Omaruli Suleimenov is a Soviet poet, Kazakhstani politician, and Soviet anti-nuclear activist.

Life

Suleimenov was born on 18 May 1936 in Alma-Ata. He graduated from Geological Sciences Department of Kazakh State University in 1959. Suleimenov also finished Gorkii Institute of Literature in 1961. Between 1962-1971, he worked at Kazakhskaya Pravda

Kazakhskaya Pravda

Kazakhskaya Pravda is a semi-monthly Russian-language newspaper printed in Almaty, Kazakhstan, with a print run of 5,000. , the editor in chief was Aldan Aimbetov, a graduate of the Kazakh State University . He has held that position since 1993...

. Suleimenov was awarded Komsomol

Komsomol

The Communist Union of Youth , usually known as Komsomol , was the youth division of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Komsomol in its earliest form was established in urban centers in 1918. During the early years, it was a Russian organization, known as the Russian Communist Union of...

 Prize for Kazakhstan in 1966. Between 1969 and 1989 he was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Communist Party of the Soviet Union

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...

. He became First Secretary of the Committee of the Kazakhstan's Writers Union in 1983. He is a Russophone

Russophone

A Russophone is literally a speaker of the Russian language either natively or by preference. At the same time the term is used in a more specialized meaning to describe the category of people whose cultural background is associated with Russian language regardless of ethnic and territorial...

 writer.

Works

His most influential work AZ-i-IA was published in 1975. AZ-i-IA drew wide-scale criticism from the literary elite in Russia. Suleimenov was charged with "national chauvinism" and "glorifying feudal nomadic culture." Kazakhstan Communist Party first secretary Dinmuhammad Konayev intervened on Suleimenov's behalf; discussing the content of the book with Leonid Brezhnev

Leonid Brezhnev

Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev  – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in...

 and saving Suleimenov's career.

His other works include;

• Argamaki (1961)
• Zemlia Poklonis' Cheloveku (1961)
• Solnechnye Nochi (1962)
• Dobroe Vremia Voskhoda (1964)
• God Obez'iany (1967)
• Glinianaia Kniga (1969)
• Tiurki v Doistorii : o proiskhzhdenii drevnetiurkskikh iazykov i pis'mennostei (2002)

Political activities

Suleimenov again became a worldwide name in 1989, when he led the establishment of the international environmental movement Nevada-Semipalatinsk. Nevada Semipalatinsk campaigned to close nuclear sites in Nevada

Nevada

Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...

 and in the Semipalatinsk Province of Kazakhstan.


After independence, Suleimenov established the Peoples' Congress Party in 1991 and served as the speaker of Parliament until 1994. While at the Parliament, he rose to the position of opposition leader, engaging in several political struggles with President Nursultan Nazarbaev. Many opposition leaders urged him to run as a candidate in the next presidential elections.

In 1995, to preempt his potential candidacy, Nazarbayev brokered a deal, and Suleimenov was appointed as Kazakhstan's ambassador to Rome. From 2002 till now he serves as Kazakhstani ambassador at the UNESCO

UNESCO

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...

in Paris.