100-year Anniversary of Akhmetova, Mariyam Mukhatayevna, the Famous Kazakh Musicologist, an Art History PhD

Akhmetova, Mariyam Mukhatayevna was born on March 13, 1921 in the Kenes (Kukbastau) village, Chui district, Dzhambul region. She graduated from the Alma-Ata Musical College in 1941, and the historical and theoretical faculty of Kurmangazy Conservatory in Alma-Ata in 1951. In 1951, she was sent by the art history sector under the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR to the PhD courses at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory in the class of the Doctor of Art History, Professor V.M.Belyaeva.
Mariyam Akhmetova defended her thesis on the topic: "Kazakh Folk Traditions and Their Development in the Songwriting of Composers of Soviet Kazakhstan." in 1957.
Since 1958 she worked as a senior researcher in the Department of Musical Art, the Institute of Literature and Art of the Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR. In the same year she became a member to the USSR Composers’ Union. In 1962-1968 she became the head of the musicology section and since 1968 she was a member of the Board of the Composers’ Union of Kazakhstan. In 1962, she was elected a delegate to the III and IV congresses of the USSR Composers’ Union and in 1972 - a delegate to the UNESCO International Conference on the Social and Cultural Development of Central Asian Countries in the 19th-20th centuries.
She is the author of a number of major monographs dedicated to topical issues of Kazakh folk songs. Among them are "Song and Modernity" (1968), "Kazakh Folk Songs about Lenin" (1969), "Kazakh songs" (1970), co-written with A. Zhubanov and B. Erzakovich "Kazakh Soviet Music" (1975), "Traditions of Kazakh Song Culture" (1983), "The Song and the Time" (“An zhane uaqyt” in Kazakh) (1983).
Mariyam Akhmetova is the first Kazakh woman who defended her Ph.D. thesis in art history in Moscow.
Today, a prominent Kazakhstani art scientist, the Art History PhD, Mariyam Akhmetova is 100 years old. We sincerely congratulate you on your anniversary! On this joyful day, we want to wish you good health, prosperity to your family, positive mood, soul youth and endless creativity, energy and inspiration!