Ideological Labeling, Binary Oppositions, and Canon Formation in Sabit Mukanov’s Critical Discourse on Writers of the Alash Period

Abstract

The relevance of the present study is determined by the need to reconsider Sabit Mukanov’s critical discourse on the writers of the Alash period as a space of interaction between Soviet ideological evaluation, literary-critical analysis, and the formation of Kazakh literary historiography. The aim of the study is to identify how ideological markers, binary oppositions, and literary-linguistic techniques of evaluation function in S. Mukanov’s work XX ğasyrdağy qazaq ädebieti (Kazakh Literature of the Twentieth Century) and participate in shaping the literary status of the authors under analysis. The methodology of the study is based on lexicographic-semantic verification of evaluatively loaded vocabulary, literary-discursive and critical discourse analysis, analysis of binary oppositions, strategies of legitimation / delegitimation, and historical-literary interpretation of more than 180 literary-discursive fragments. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the development of an integrative model of ideologically marked literary evaluation and in the substantiation of the concept of negative canonization with reference to the Soviet critical description of writers of the Alash period. As a result of the study, it was established that ideological markers in S. Mukanov’s text function not in isolation, but in interaction with evaluative nomination, predication, antithesis, binary oppositions, and historical-literary attribution. The main findings of the study confirm the dual function of S. Mukanov’s critical discourse as an instrument of Soviet delegitimation and, at the same time, as a form of preserving the writers of the Alash period in national literary memory.