Abstract
<jats:p>This article offers a comprehensive examination of the theoretical orientations and scholarly investigations that have emerged within Kazakh literary studies during the period of national independence. Following the attainment of sovereignty, Kazakh literary scholarship was liberated from the ideological constraints characteristic of the Soviet epoch and thereby acquired the capacity to establish autonomous scholarly paradigms. This historical juncture created favorable conditions for the substantive integration of Kazakh literary studies into the global academic discourse. One of the principal domains addressed in the article is literary theory. Inthe independence era, foundational categories of literary theory — such as artistic method, literary movement, literary trend, poetic system, genre theory, the national spiritual code, and the aesthetics of modernism and postmodernism — underwent significant conceptual renewal and received expanded theoretical elaboration. The study systematizes and critically analyses research devoted to these theoretical issues, elucidating the interconnections among key theoretical constructs and their manifestations in Kazakh literature. It further identifies the methodological specificities of various scholars, clarifies the scholarly significance of these categories for understanding literary processes, and pays particular attention to new interpretations of postmodern aesthetics in contemporary prose and poetry. The primary aim of the research is to examine the work of literary scholars who, in the years of independence, investigated such theoretical problems as genre, artistic method, and literary trend, and to provide an evaluative perspective on contemporary theoretical developments in Kazakh literary studies. The article synthesizes the conceptual approaches of national scholars, highlights their contributions to the advancement of literary theory, and considers seminal studies that haveshaped the theoretical discourse. Additionally, the analysis addresses research on the typology of romanticism and realism as artistic methods, the relationship between method and literary trend, and the dynamics between genre and method. The methodological framework of the article is grounded in systemic-structural analysis, the descriptive method, analytical inquiry, and content analysis. These approaches are employed to investigate scholarly works devoted to poetry and prose produced during the independence period. The findings substantiate the conclusion that a defining characteristic of Kazakh literary scholarship in the independence era is its aspiration to conceptualize the aesthetic essence of national literature within the broader context ofglobal theoretical paradigms, as well as its pursuit of an expanded methodological horizon for contemporary literary studies. </jats:p>