Authors

Discussion

This presentation examines the biographies of two pioneering women scientists from Soviet Kazakhstan: geologist Patchaim Tazhibaeva and mining engineer Zhamal Kanlybaeva. Among the first Kazakh women to earn doctoral degrees (Doctor of Sciences), they achieved leading positions in the Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR and gained international recognition. Soviet media prominently featured their accomplishments as evidence of the system’s success in women’s emancipation and the region’s technological modernization.

This study offers a fresh reading of these scientists' lives, exploring what enabled their successful integration into the scientific community and how they navigated between genuine opportunities and systemic limitations within state and academic structures on the Soviet periphery. Their stories serve as a lens for understanding the complex processes involved in forming a ‘native’ scientific and technological elite in post-war Soviet Kazakhstan. The research draws on materials from the Central State Archive of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Soviet press.