This article analyzes the place of women in traditional Kazakh musical culture, focusing on the life and creative work of Dina Nurpeisova (1861–1955). Dina was a distinguished dombra[i] player, a pupil of the renowned kyushi[ii] Qurmanghazy, and a great kyuishi in her own right. The article reexamines Dina’s life in light of archival records that only became available after Kazakhstan became independent. From the 1930s through the 1990s, Soviet media decried the oppressed status of women in pre-revolutionary Kazakhstan. It maintained that the women of the “savage” Kazakh nation, which lacked both a government and a culture of its own, achieved happiness only after the formation of the USSR. Print media focused particularly on the figure of renowned kyuishi Dina Nurpeisova (1861-1955), casting her as a Kazakh woman liberated thanks to Soviet rule. This vision of Dina has since been cast aside, but this mistaken opinion of women’s position in pre-revolutionary Kazakh culture has become the norm. As a result, Dina is treated as a unique phenomenon in Kazakh musical culture. Yet although she undeniably had exceptional gifts (people even call her “the mother of kyui,” analogous to calling Qurmanghazy “the father of kyui”), Dina was not the only woman to achieve public recognition in traditional Kazakh culture. Female kyuishi were common, and women enjoyed a very high status in traditional society, as evident in the sheer number of names of outstanding female singers, poets, akyns, kyuishi, and warriors that have been preserved to this day. At the same time, Dina Nurpeisova occupies a special place among these eminent Kazakh women. This study aims to free Dina’s biography from obsolete and false interpretations, and to present her artistic path based on more accurate data.

[i] Dombra is a two-string lute, a traditional Kazakh instrument.

[ii] Kyui is an instrumental musical genre. Kyuishi is the musician performing and creating kyuis.

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