The paper focuses on how historians produce the meaning-making of Zheltoksan 1986 in post-1991 Kazakhstan. The Zheltoksan 1986 is the protest that occurred in December of 1986 in Kazakhstan initially erupted after the dismissal of Dinmiukhamed Konaev, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan, which was dispersed by the Soviet troops. I argue that the state-sponsored historians have produced the contending narratives on Zheltokan 1986 hinged on their agency due to the influence of the discursive contention between official and Zheltoksan 1986 participants in the post-1991 period in Kazakhstan. I argue that the first group of state-sponsored historians emphasized the democratic nature of the Zheltoksan 1986 to associate it with the current government of Kazakhstan and committed the narratives on the suffering of the protestors during the dispersal. However, the second group of historians attempted to give prominence to the protest. They used the title of an uprising to Zheltoskan 1986 and highlighted the tragedy and suffering of the protestors during its dispersal. As a result of this contention, the school students have introduced the contrasting interpretation of Zheltoksan 1986 based on the selected textbooks. This paper is based on interviews with historians, textbook approval bodies, and authors, and discourse analysis of published texts from 1992 to 2019 on the protest.
