“THE SALT RIOT” POEM BY P. VASILIEV AS A SOURCE OF HISTORICAL MEMORY

The article examines P. N. Vasiliev's poem “The Salt Riot” as a source of historical memory about past events in the Pavlodar Irtysh region. The historical events described in the poem are analyzed in terms of their relevance and historical significance for today’s postcolonial discourse, which has been developing in Kazakhstani scholarship over the past decades. From the perspective of historical memory, the main focus is on three chapters of the poem: “Yermak’s Siberian Campaign”, “The Cossacks in the Irtysh Region”, and “Derov”. The article presents perspectives from Russian and Kazakhstani historians on the colonization process of northeastern Kazakhstan and the relationships between the colonizers and the colonized Kazakh people. The article further analyzes the historical memory depicted in Vasilyev’s artistic worldview, where the history of the colonization of the Pavlodar Irtysh region is constructed around the antithesis of “the native – the stranger”, “Kazakhs – Cossacks”. From the perspective of historical memory, the characters Yermak and Arseniy Derov play an important role in the poem, as they are based on real historical figures. Despite the Cossacks' role in guarding the borders of the Russian Empire and suppressing the resistance of colonized peoples, the poet creates not only a negative image of the Cossacks but also positive portrayals of Cossacks who sympathize with the oppressed Kazakhs. Thus, the historical memory recreated by Vasiliev in the poem “The Salt Riot” is not portrayed in a one-dimensional manner. It is ambivalent and thus serves as a foundation for forming a unique multicultural code in the transboundary region of Pavlodar, where core values are universal human ones: mutual respect between people, compassion, mercy, etc.