The Phenomenon of National Identity in the Works of Abish Kekilbayev: Continuity of Tradition and Processes of Renewal

Abstract

The article conceptualizes national identity as a philosophical form of cultural memory and a mode of historical self-understanding of the subject. The object of the study is the relationship between tradition and modernization in the prose of Abish Kekilbayev, examined within the space of philosophical reflection. The study demonstrates that mythopoetic structures in Kekilbayev’s prose represent history not as a sequence of external events but as an ontological space in which the moral trial of human existence unfolds. The phenomenon of power is reinterpreted philosophically not in terms of force and domination, but through the categories of responsibility and conscience. Modernization is revealed not as a rejection of tradition, but as an ethical transformation, that is, a re-interpretation of historical memory at a new level of meaning. Among the concrete philosophical results, the symbolic functions of the images of the tower and the well are identified. The tower functions as an ontological metaphor for the aspiration to absolutize being and establish a timeless «eternal order,» while the well signifies a liminal situation, an existential locus of trial where the individual confronts conscience and moral responsibility. The correlation between the steppe chronotope and enclosed spaces allows national identity to be interpreted as a dialectical balance between memory and renewal. The scientific novelty of the article lies in substantiating Abish Kekilbayev’s prose not as a literary narration of national history, but as a coherent philosophical model that articulates fundamental categories of the Kazakh worldview — being, time, responsibility, and the limits of violence.