Outstanding role of the great scientist in the development of Kazakhstan
This year marks the 125th anniversary of the birth of the Kazakh genius, scientist Kanysh Satbayev.
Kanysh Satbayev is a Soviet geologist, one of the founders of Soviet metallogenic science, the founder of the Kazakh school of metallogeny. In the history of the Kazakh nation and Kazakhstan, Academician Kanysh Satbayev was an outstanding geologist and organiser of science, and above all, the greatest thinker and natural scientist of his time. A great public figure and subtle politician, a person who contributed to the civilized industrial development of Kazakhstan, he was the informal leader of society.
Kanysh Satbayev was born on April 12, 1899 in Pavlodar, district of the Semipalatinsk region. He was a comprehensively developed scientist - a man who could become a wonderful writer, historian, teacher, and mathematician. On this occasion, the famous writer Mukhtar Auezov said: “The great feature of Kanysh was that he could speak with a chemist, a biologist, a physicist, a physician, a historian and even philologist in their scientific language.”
In his multifaceted activities, Kanysh Satbayev was not limited to geological exploration work; he also carried out broad, multifaceted work in all areas of geological science. He was elected the first President of the Academy of Sciences of Kazakhstan. Kanysh Satbayev combined enormous organizational activity in managing science and concern for the industrial development of Kazakhstan with providing practical assistance to industrial complexes. On his initiative, visiting sessions of the Academy of Sciences were held in the largest industrial regions of Kazakhstan. New academic institutes of nuclear physics, mathematics and mechanics, hydrogeology and hydrophysics, chemistry of oil and natural salts, chemical and metallurgical, mining and metallurgical, ichthyology and fisheries, experimental biology, economics, philosophy and law, literature and art, linguistics were opened. Encyclopedic education allowed the President of the Academy to take personal part in the creation of these centers of great science.
The still young Academy of Sciences of Kazakhstan grew and developed. Scientific personnel were formed. Kanysh Satbayev supported and raised talented youth in every possible way. He personally supervised the research of new deposits of coal, oil, gas, and ferrous metallurgy ores.
The range of interests of Academician Kanysh Satbayev was unusually wide and went beyond the natural sciences. He was a great expert on Kazakh history, literature, culture, ethnography, music and folklore; his archaeological research in the territory of Central Kazakhstan, works on pedagogy and literature are well known. He was the first to appreciate the significance of Mukhtar Auezov’s novel “Abai’s Path”, handed over 25 folk songs to the folklore collector Alexander Zataevich, and left many works on theater, art, culture, and youth education.
At the same time, it should be emphasized that Kanysh Satbayev, first of all, was and remains the largest scientist in the field of geological science. The head of all science in Kazakhstan was deservedly recognized, first of all, as the head of the Kazakh school of geologists, one of the creators of the science of metallogeny. He left behind a large galaxy of scientists and educated a whole school of metallologists in Kazakhstan.
Academician Kanysh Satbayev devoted a lot of strength and energy to the formation and development of international relations of Kazakhstan, strengthening and deepening cooperation of Kazakh scientists with scientists from Russia, Ukraine, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan.
As an outstanding scientist of the country, he represented Kazakhstani science abroad. Thus, in 1947, as part of a delegation from the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, he visited England, where he worthily represented the country’s scientists. As a member of the Soviet parliamentary group, Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of England Attlee, received him. In 1958, Kanysh Satbayev, as part of a representative delegation, visited China, where he took part in the geological conference of the People's Republic of China.
The people of Kazakhstan dearly loved Kanysh Satbayev. Legends are told about him, his name is sung by akyns. The city, the Institute of Geological Sciences of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Zhezkazgan Mining and Metallurgical Combine, a mineral, a glacier and a mountain peak of the Dzhungar Alatau, a variety of flowers, streets and schools in cities and towns of the Republic of Kazakhstan are named after Academician Kanysh Satbayev. Currently, a prize has been established by the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Kazakhstan in his name for outstanding achievements in the field of natural sciences, and the Kanysh Satbayev International Foundation has been created.