Bauyrzhan was born in Orak Balga, a now abandoned Aul in the modern Jualy District in southern Kazakhstan,[1] to a family of nomadic herders from the Dulat tribe.

His biographer, Mekemtas Myrzakhmetov, believed this happened because Bauyrzhan was known to read the poetry of Magzhan Zhumabayev and works of other authors associated with the Alash Orda.

When Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June, he was appointed a battalion commander – Kombat – in the 1073rd Regiment of the newly formed 316th Rifle Division, headed by the military commissar of the Kirghiz SSR, Major General Ivan Panfilov.

[9] During October, as the Wehrmacht advanced on Moscow, the 316th – now part of General Konstantin Rokossovsky's 16th Army – was transferred to the theater and tasked with defending the highway passing through the city of Volokolamsk and the surrounding area.

From 16 to 18 November, he and his unit were cut off from the rest of the division in the village of Matryonino, yet managed to hold off the German forces and eventually broke out back to their lines.

Bauyrzhan strongly disapproved of Bek's book, which he claimed to be an unrealistic depiction of events, and criticized the author relentlessly for the remainder of his life.

In August 1942, his superiors had submitted a highly positive report on his conduct, and he was recommended to be awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.

[13] The poet Mikhail Isinaliev, a friend of Bauyrzhan, wrote that a former political officer from the 8th Guards told him that this was due to his Kazakh patriotism, which was regarded as dangerous nationalism by the unit's commissars.

On 16 June 1948, the Kazakh SSR's Council of Ministers appointed him as chief of the republic's Voluntary Society for Cooperation with the Armed Forces, while he still served in the military.

According to Myrzakhmetov, he was the only one of the 500 officers who graduated with him to never receive the rank of a General; the author claimed this was due to a political decision to deny Turkic people a high status in the Soviet Armed Forces.

[18] In 1963, at the invitation of Raúl Castro, Colonel Bauyrzhan travelled to Cuba, where he lectured members of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces on tactics.

[5] Bauyrzhan opposed the Brezhnevite establishment's exaltation of the battle of Malaya Zemlya; according to his son and biographer, Bahytzhan, his position made him powerful enemies in the state apparatus, and nullified his chances to receive the title Hero of the Soviet Union while alive.

[22] When Isinaliev approached Dinmukhamed Kunaev and requested him to arrange for Bauyrzhan to become one such, the First Secretary replied that as long as General Alexei Yepishev was the head of the Red Army's Main Political Directorate, the decoration would never be bestowed.