Shokan Shyngysuly Valikhanov (, ), given name Mukhammed Kanafiya () (November 1835 – April 10, 1865) was a Kazakh scholar, ethnographer, historian and participant in the Great Game. He is regarded as the father of modern Kazakh historiography and ethnography. The Kazakh Academy of Sciences became the Ch.Ch. Valikhanov Kazakh Academy of Sciences in 1960. English-language texts sometimes give his name as "Chokan Valikhanov", based on a transliteration of the Russian spelling that he used himself. Childhood Muhammed Shoqan Shyngysuly Qanafiya Walikhanov was born in November 1835 in the newly developed Aman-Karagai district within the Kushmurun fort in what is nowadays the Kostanay Province, Kazakhstan. He was a fourth generation descendant of Abu'l-Mansur Khan, a khan of the Kazakh Middle Jüz, he was a direct descendant of Genghis khan. Shoqan's family was very respected by the government of the Russian Empire, and Walikhanov's father was awarded, during his life, six appointments as senior Sultan of Kushmurun okrug, a term as chief Kazakh advisor to the frontier board, a promotion to Colonel, and a separate term as senior Sultan in the Kokshetau okrug. Shoqan spent his youth in his father’s traditional yurt. His father Chingis arranged his son’s early education, enrolling him in 1842 at age six in a small private school, or maktab, which provided a secular education. Here he began his education in the Kazakh language, which used the Arabic script at the time. At an early age Shoqan moved from his father’s home to the estate of his paternal grandmother Aiganym, in Syrymbet. Shoqan was enrolled in the Siberian Cadet Corps by his grandmother. Walikhanov entered the military academy in Omsk in 1847. After graduating from the Omsk Cadet School, where he read not only Russian but also English literature, Walikhanov traveled extensively in Central Asia in the late 1850s. It was during his stay in Omsk that Walikhanov first made the acquaintance of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Adult life His work combined military intelligence and geographic exploration and other things. His first successful expedition was his 1855-56 mission to the region of Issyq Köl. He was afterwards called to the capital in St. Petersburg in 1857 to report, and there he was elected to the Russian Geographical Society. The expedition ended following increased suspicions, and they left Kashgar in April 1859. Walikhanov returned to St. Petersburg and became a fixture of the intellectual and cultural life during his short