A two-day workshop titled “Revitalizing History: Tote Zhazu 2.0” was held at the Faculty of History and Law. Researchers, faculty members, and young scholars interested in applying digital technologies in historical studies took part in the event. The program included a panel session titled “Heritage Algorithms: How AI Reads History” and a top-time seminar “Heritage Algorithms: Rethinking History.”

During the panel session, participants discussed the transformation of historical knowledge in the context of rapid artificial intelligence development, as well as new approaches to working with historical sources. The Dean of the Faculty of History and Law, Academician of the National Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor Ғабит Кенжебаев, in his presentation “The Historian in the Age of Artificial Intelligence,” highlighted the changing role of historians. He outlined the challenges and opportunities of integrating AI into the humanities and emphasized the importance of critically evaluating digital tools.

A special guest of the workshop was Professor Achim Rabus from the University of Freiburg (Germany), who presented on Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) technology. His talk introduced modern methods for the automatic reading of historical manuscripts and their applications in digital humanities. The Polyscriptor platform for recognizing Kazakh-language manuscripts was also demonstrated.

Throughout the workshop, participants explored the potential of AI in analyzing historical sources and discussed issues related to the digital interpretation of heritage. They also considered the prospects of integrating HTR and other digital humanities tools into educational and research practices.

During the top-time seminar, researchers became familiar with the platform designed for recognizing Kazakh historical manuscripts and learned its methodology. In particular, original letters by Akhmet Baitursynuly and Alikhan Bokeikhanov were analyzed, highlighting the richness of the national writing tradition.

These events strengthened the continuity between science and education and gave new momentum to historical research. In the future, work on studying and recognizing manuscripts will continue to develop, with scholars systematically applying artificial intelligence tools.

«Abai University» Media Center