Ilyas Zhansugurov

Ilyas Zhansugurov (Kazakh: Ілияс Жансүгіров, 1 May 1894 – 26 February 1938) was a Kazakh poet and writer. The town of Zhansugirov in Almaty Province is named after him and he is commemorated in Taldykorgan and Almaty.

A friend of another classic writer Mukhtar Auezov, Zhansugurov was the First President of the Writers' Union of Kazakhstan from 1934 to 1936. He wrote the novel Comrades (1933), targeted against the Soviet power, but also wrote loving poems such as The Steppe (1930) and Kulager (1936). He was repressed in 1937, as his writing was seen as a fuel for Kazakh nationalism, and shot on 26 February 1938.