Materials on the history of Alma-Ata city cemeteries in the funds of Kazakhstan state archives

Cemeteries have always been included in social processes, they reflect their character and dynamics being an important source of information on genealogy demography, and history. Since the concept of «necropolis» encompasses a set of burials and tombstones (including the lost burials and the graves which appurtenance cannot be identified) as well as the sources on the history of cemeteries, the preservation of the entire complex of the archival documents associated with the necropolis is of great importance. Documentary historical sources preserved in the funds of state archives reflect the history of the foundation, reconstruction and improvement of burial sites and constitute, along with burial registration books, an uncontested resource following the loss of many tombstones and the liquidation of entire cemeteries. Based on the analysis of the documents contained in state archives, a reconstruction of the history of cemeteries in the city of Alma-Ata was carried out for the first time, and the representativeness of the funds as the repositories of the sources on necropolises and regional history was demonstrated. A «hierarchy» of archival funds is proposed in connection with the qualitative and quantitative content of the documents related to the area under consideration. It is concluded that without analyzing the source base it is impossible to carry out some comprehensive work on studying cemeteries – the work that includes searching for burials, inventorying and posting information about them on websites and submitting proposals to government agencies on preserving individual tombstones and cemeteries as cultural heritage sites.

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