Аннотация
Audiovisual material presents visual and imaginative representations of events and acts as an important historical record. This article traces the history of attempts to preserve such material, at a state or national level, in Kazakhstan (formerly a part of the Soviet Union). It concentrates primarily on the period from 1943, when a separate State archive dedicated to audiovisual materials was first established in what was then the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic (KazSSR), until 1991, when Kazakhstan declared its independence.