Historical audio documents are a unique source of information that allows us to "hear" the past. Audio documents (recordings of musical performances, public speeches by political leaders or famous scientists, recordings of city sounds, sound in documentary chronicles or film soundtracks, etc.) allow us to rethink the content of certain plots of cultural, political, social, intellectual, and everyday history. However, their study is associated with a number of specific issues related to the classification, representation, and interpretation of sound materials.

The aim of the article is to characterize the potential of audio documents on the history of Kazakhstan for the development of their interdisciplinary study and interpretation. The theoretical framework for the classification and interpretation of audio documents in modern historical science is Sound studies, an interdisciplinary field that studies the role of sound in culture, society, and technology. Sound studies cover a wide range of topics, including the history of sound recording and reproduction, the aesthetics of sound, the social and political aspects of sound, and the impact of sound on human experience.

The author presents information on the sound documents on the history of Kazakhstan in the 19th-20th centuries, currently available to researchers in archives, museums, and media corporations of the republic of Kazakhstan.