Information to Users

INFORMATION TO USERS

This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer.

The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction.

In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion.

Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book.

Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6” x 9* black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contaci UMI directly to order.

Beil & Howell Information and Learning 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with with permission permission of the of copyright the copyright owner. owner.Further reproduction Further reproduction prohibited without prohibited permission. without permission. RECONSTRUCTING KAZAKHSTAN: CREATING BOUNDARIES AND

NATIONAL IDENTITIES - A BRAUDELIAN ANALYSIS

Michael T. Fink

submitted to the

Faculty of the School of International Service

American University

in partial fulfillment of

the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Arts

International Affairs

Comparative and Regional Studies; Russia and Central Eurasia

Linda Lucia Lubrano, Chair

______Randolph B. Persaud

U P C y-t - p i'T V Louis W. Goodman, Dean

ao AP.-.t 1311 f l n # A '

CO 1M8EICAK UHIYEP.SITY LI2RKW ^ j

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 1395937

This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.

UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. © COPYRIGHT

Michael T. Fink

1999

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. RECONSTRUCTING KAZAKHSTAN: CREATING BOUNDARIES AND NATIONAL IDENTIES - A BRAUDELIAN ANALYSIS

Michael T. Fink

ABSTRACT

The subject of this thesis is the reorganization of national identity in Kazakhstan.

The dimensions of change I examine concern the formation, legitimation, and

reproduction of Kazakh national identity vis-a-vis post-colonial and post-Soviet

histories. My scope will subsequently look at Kazakh relations with a substantial

Russian population. I investigate the empirical levels of Kazakh tribal structure,

the impact of Russian and Soviet colonization, and the post-independence period,

which addresses how Kazakh identity is informed through official practices, in

order to understand the diachronic process in Kazakhstan. I rely on Fernand

Braudel’s placement of history in short, medium, and long intercycles as the

framework of my analysis. Additional theory is drawn from Max Weber and

other scholars to articulate further interactions of ethnicity and nationhood. The

utility of this theoretical approach is to extrapolate an alternative interpretation of

identity reconstruction, which finds that Kazakh identity has both created and

retrieved new forms of national power.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract ...... ii

Chapter

1. Introduction ...... 1

2. Kazakh Tribal Structure ...... 12

Early History Intertwined with Modern History and the Ecological Contours of Kazakh Identity

3. The Kazakh Intelligentsia and Sovietization ...... 22

Russification and Sovietization - Creating Homo Sovieticus

4. Kazakhization - Post Independence ...... 34

Vernacular Language-The Second Wave

Psychological and Physical Dimensions of Forced Migration

Democracy and Identity in Kazakhstan

5. Some Theoretical and Ideological Implications of Kazakhization ...... 58

6. Conclusion ...... 63

Temporal Rhythms - Temporal Adjustments

Bibliography ...... 70

i i i

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. C h a p te r I

Introduction

To transcend the event means transcending the short time span in which it is set, the time span of the chronicle, of journalism • the brief moments of awareness whose traces give us such a vivid sense of the events and lives of the past It means asking if over and above the passage of events, there is not an unconscious, or rather a more or less conscious, history which to a great extent escapes the awareness of the actors, whether victors or victims: they make history, but history bears them along.”1 Fernand Braudel

If the concept of ‘nation’ can in any way be defined uambiguously, it certainly cannot be stated in terms of empirical qualities common to those who count as members of the nation. In the sense of those using the term at a given time, the concept undoubtedly means, above all, that it is proper to expect from certain groups a specific sentiment of solidarity in the face of other groups. Thus, the concept belongs in the sphere of values. Yet, there is no agreement on how these groups should be delimited or about what concerted action should result from such solidarity.”2 Max Weber

During the latter half of December, 1998, the Government of Kazakhstan ran a series of

full and quarter page advertisements which appeared in The Washington Post, The New

York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, and The International Herald

Tribune. The advertisements were placed on and around the date of the seventh

1 Fernand Braudel. On History (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 1980), 67.

2Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Vol. 2 (New York: Bedminster Press. 1968): 922. I have trained my focus narrowly on Weber’s discussions o f‘nation’ and ‘nationalism,’ pp. 385-398 in Vol. I, and pp. 921-926 in Vol. n.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2

anniversary of independence from the former Soviet Union.3 Sponsored by “Kazakhstan

2030,” and promoted as “A program of the Agency for Strategic Planning and Reforms,”

these advertisements exhibited a common narrative made by the current Kazakh

government of the transformations made over seven years of evolution from

authoritarianism to democracy. The headline on one of these advertisements made the

proclamation of “melding over 100 different peoples into one harmonious nation." The

text went further to say that freedom of religion - specifically Catholicism, Judaism,

Orthodox, Muslim, Protestant, and Buddhist - had been granted to Kazakhstan’s 16

million people, and that Kazakhstan’s sizeable Russian diaspora had equal status and

access to full participation as that belonging to ethnic Kazakhs. Interestingly, the

advertisements came at the same time as Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan Nazarbayev,

was under critical international pressure for the negative atmosphere surrounding

presidential elections.4

In short, the international community3 deemed the election process fraudulent and

unfair. On a domestic front, four opposition candidates similarly raised issues of

unfairness and prohibitive election registration techniques, and although one candidate in

3For example, see especially the full-page advertisement on A2S in the Washington Post, December 18,1998. For other quarter page examples see; page A29, the Washington Post, December 11, 1998; page 16, the Financial Times, December 15, 1998; page 12, Financial Times, December 23,1998; page 14, Financial Times, December 22, 1998; page 8,Financial Times, December 29, 1998.

4Incumbent Nursultan Nazarbayev won by a landslide on January 10, 1999. I will deal with the specifics of the recent election in a later section dealing with democracy and identity in Kazakhstan.

5 Including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Human Rights Watch, and the United States Department of State.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3

particular was prevented from running on a petty technicality, he was undoubtedly the

strongest contender. The fact that Nazarbayev’s party undertook an international media

campaign in the West is significant for two reasons; it shows the extent to which

nationhood and statehood has attained a level of sophistication in Kazakhstan, and it

underscored one of the more powerful processes underway in Kazakhstan - the

reconstruction of national identity and the official constitution of national self.

In a report addressing “National Accord - the Basis of Stability and Development

in Kazakhstan,” at the 5th session of the Assembly of Kazakhstan Nations, held in the new

capital, Astana,6 Nazarbayev outlined his political platform for the next seven years of

presidency. Declaring 1999 the “Year of Unity and Succession of Generations in

Kazakhstan,” the premise of which is to create a kind of moral atmosphere based on the

social experience of older generations, and the continued pursuit of a multiethnic state,

Nazarbayev urged ethnic Kazakhs to “come back to our common homeland, our doors are

open, and we hope that together we will be much stronger.”7 At the same time,

Nazarbayev declared it a national interest to not refuse to protect the Kazakh people who

are a plurality in the country. The challenge and duty, in Nazarbayev’s words, is to strike

a balance of interest in preserving the “national spirit,” which is “not the search for an

external enemy but the development of one’s own national content.”8 The president is

6This assembly was held the day after Nazarbayev’s inauguration, January 21,1999.

7 Svetlana Kulagina, “Peace in the nation is good for every Kazakh citizen,” Central Asian Post, February 1, 1999. no. 4. 2.

8Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. without doubt a balanced politician himself, saying all the right things at the all the

appropriate moments and quite aware of his surroundings, and he may indeed prove

capable of providing Kazakh solidarity while maintaining a Russian equilibrium. Yet, it

is the thrust of this study to decode and expose the complexities of reconstructing

Kazakhstan.

The process of ethnic identity revival in Kazakhstan9, or “Kazakhization,” as I

intend to examine here, encompasses elements of ethnic, ethnosocial, racial, and national

consciousness renewal and its relationship to nationalism; I will also examine

indigenization, self-determination, nation-building, and state-building as they relate to

Kazakh nationality and the reinforcement of a group identity. In particular, these forces

entail a movement towards Kazakhization and away from Russification/Sovietization,

which is the focus of this research paper. Kazakhization may be defined in contemporary

terms as ethnic revival/nationalism, a forceful movement towards reestablishing

communal ties. 1 construct my analysis around a Braudelian framework as a means of

grasping a more comprehensive understanding of Kazakh identity change in relation to

the post-colonial Russian population (or the post-colonial Russian/Soviet legacy) in

Kazakhstan. Kazakhization is not just a matter of purging “Russian-ness” as it is about

replacing certain aspects of this with reinvented/retrieved “Kazakh-ness.”

9The spelling of “Kazakhstan” has undergone shifts as well. Upon independence, the ‘h’ was dropped from the spelling as it was considered a Russification and derogatory. Recently, around late 1997, the ‘h’ has been readded because the Russian pronunciation of “Kazakh” without the ‘h’ sounded too much like“Cossack,” or at least this is one interpretation.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5

This analysis can in turn lend itself to a wider placement of the temporal rhythms

operating within the emerging Kazakh parameters, the interpretation of which seeks to

place ongoing identity shifts within the structures of international relations. In summary,

how does the study and interpretation of identity shifts and the concomitant redrawing of

boundaries contribute to a larger understanding of international relations? Where is the

intersection of identity and international relations? These are the questions which this

work contributes.

The social structures examined in this thesis find their mode of expression

through the inscription of official history, language, civil rights, and citizenship. The

object of investigation here is the formation, legitimization, and reproduction of Kazakh

identity through authoritative practices. I approach the investigation through synchronic

and diachronic analyses. The reason for introducing the thesis with quotes from Braudel

and Weber is to offer an initial framework for the analysis. The dynamics of change and

continuity organized through Braudel's theories serve as the primary reference point for

the whole study. I draw from Max Weber as a secondary theorist thereby benefiting from

his perspectives on race, identity, and ethnicity in the formation of the nation. Where

appropriate, I apply additional theoretical visions (from Benedict Anderson, Roxanne

Doty, Kathryn Manzo) in specific context to extend what is being said in my wider

argument.

Braudel’s historicism can throw a powerful light on perceptions of time and space

and the ongoing transformations taking shape in Kazakh life. It is here that our ability to

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 6

conceptualize the counter movement that is part and parcel of Kazakhization is refined.

There is an innate sense of erasure at the heart of Kazakhness that endeavors to

reestablish unconscious and conscious history in order to differentiate and substantiate

Kazakh identity vis-a-vis Russian/Soviet colonial legacies. This differentiation process

moves inside the time cycles Braudel has set out. There are three layers to this; the first

involves “history that is almost changeless, the history of man in relation to his

surroundings. It is a history which unfolds slowly and is slow to alter, often repeating

itself out in cycles which are endlessly renewed.” This is, in short, the history of the

longue cluree. The second layer is a level “over and above this [first] unaltering history”

subjected to “a history of gentle rhythms, of groups and groupings, which one might

readily have called social history.” Thirdly, there is traditional history “on the scale not

so much of man in general as of men in particular,” it is “the history of events: a surface

disturbance, the waves stirred up by the powerful movement of tides . . . the most

exciting and richest in human interest history, it is also the most perilous.”10

This last concept of history can be likened to Kazakhstan’s shaky independence; it

was a powerful and “exciting” history which has engendered Kazakhness. The second, or

conjectural, refers to social relations on street level, that is the interaction of society and

official dogma. This is important because the currents flowing within this particular

history crystallize the former history and the latter; it is the mortar between timeless

history and happening history. Finally the first corresponds to the recreation of Kazakh

10Braudel, 3-4.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7

spiritual identity - whether it is in the form of clan/tribal/horde association, language use,

or religious identification", it is nonetheless how Kazakhness is manifested in new forms.

The profoundness of these histories cannot be overlooked because it tells us how human

history is fluid and dynamic across time and space. For this study of Kazakhstan, in

short, there is “spatial and temporal distancing couched in the language of culture and

national difference,” which is “coded in practices of boundary creation and maintenance

between nationals and aliens.”12 Braudel would consider Kazakh civilization as one in

the midst of conjectural response;

All the cycles and intercycles and structural crises tend to mask the regularities, the permanence of particular systems that some have gone so far as to call civilizations - that is to say, all the old habits of thinking and acting, the set patterns which do not break down easily and which, however illogical, are a long time dying.13

Weber, I believe, offers a counter-weight to Braudel, one that helps to further

balance my method of analysis. Weber takes on the sociological interpretations of what

‘nation' really means. Because Kazakhstan and Kazakhs are presently in the mode of

retrieving a sense of identity, this process, for Weber, is manifested in the idea of a nation

which most often contains the “legend of a providential ‘mission’” which is “facilitated

"For example the revival of Islam in Central Asia, including Kazakhstan. Although I do not examine this in particular, it can be identified as another avenue Kazakhs use to signify differentiation from the Russian diaspora, a means of reifying us/them.

l2Kathryn A. Manzo, Creatine Boundaries: The Politics of Race and Nation (London: Lynn Rienner Publishers, Inc., 1996), 65.

13Braudel, 32.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 8

through the very cultivation of the peculiarity of the group set off as a nation.”14 Group

formation among Kazakhs is a theme of various levels which this study incorporates to

further define the formation of a Kazakh nation. In Weber’s terms “the significance of

the ‘nation’ is usually anchored in the superiority, or at least the irreplaceability, of the

culture values that are to be preserved and developed [my emphasis] only through the

cultivation of the peculiarity of the group.”15 Braudel’s temporality interacts well with

Weber’s analysis because of the fluidity of national identities.

These theoretical underpinnings can provide a tool to conceptualize what I have

called life on street level, or day to day life. It is my view that theories of ethnicity and

nationalism can facilitate an understanding of change and renewal by viewing the

creation of national identity through a theoretical prism. Max Weber has called this

“solidarity in the face of other groups,” and this is informed through both the masses and

elite, creating a Kazakh “sphere of values,”16 or national consciousness. This is important

because my analysis is an attempt to combine the concrete empirical process of

Kazakhization with the more nebulous variables of nationalism and identity as a means of

clarifying identity renewal.

Katherine Verdery defines the relationship of identity and nation as that which

“joins” individuals to the concept of nation, which “like individuals, are thought to have

l4Weber, Vol: 2,925.

15lbid.

l6Ibid., 922.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9

identities,” and this “national identity” has “life cycles that include birth, periods of

blossoming and decay, and fears of death.”17 Taking this a step further, nationalism for

Verdery is “a quintessentially homogenizing, differentiating, or classifying discourse.”18

Weber’s discussion is penetrating in this sense in that he has realized that “groups...can

engender sentiments of likeness which will persist even after their demise and will have

an ‘ethnic’ connotation.”19 Based on this premise - that there is a persistent, and fluid,

quality about ethnicity and identity - my underlying thesis focuses on the nature of

Kazakhization, its driving force, what the current Kazakh-Russian relationship is in

Kazakhstan, and what the possible future pastiche of these two identities may be in

relation to state/nation-building.

The essence of this argument, its deeper origins, is the consideration of the spatial

and temporal constructs which Braudel suggests encompass overlapping, yet separate,

historical time. It is these “intercycles” and the splitting of history into alternate layers of

time, which will aid in understanding identity encounters in Kazakhstan as well as

emerging identity trajectories. For Braudel “the problem of history is not to be found in

the relationship between painter and painting, nor even, though some have thought such a

17 Katherine Verdery, “Wither ‘Nation’ and ‘Nationalism’?” Daedalus, 122, No. 3 (Summer 1993): 40.

l8Ibid„ 38.

l9Weber, Vol: 1,390.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 10

suggestion excessively daring, in the relationship between the painting and the landscape.

The problem is right in the landscape, in the heart of life itself.”20

Robert Cox’s work can help clarify this epistemological approach. As analyzed

by Timothy Sinclair, Coxian historicism lies outside mainstream, problem-solving (as

opposed to critical), international relations theory in that Cox focuses on world order

change from the perspective of the forms state structures take, and how these are

manipulated by pressure from above and from below; meaning the mechanisms of

globalization and the forces of civil society. The historical structures employed by Cox

ring true in the case of Kazakhstan in that the shape of Kazakh state and nation-ness are

manipulated by the historical, and present-day, make-up Kazakhstan the nation. In this

sense, Braudel’s work operates well at the macro level. It facilitates the ability of looking

at how the state can assume different forms over time, and how such change can be

attributed to “social transformation arising from the contradiction between ascendant and

descendent social forces.”2' The emerging transformation in Kazakhstan is composed of a

shift from outside dominance to an inside propagation of a renewed, meta-historical,

ethnic identity. One complexity to consider here is the extent to which trace elements of

a ‘Soviet way’ of governance endure, or rather the degree of sedimentation observable

20Braudel, 9.

2'Timothy J. Sinclair, “Beyond International Relations Theory: Robert W. Cox and Approaches to World Order,” in Approaches to World Order, eds. Robert W. Cox and Timothy Sinclair (Cambridge Studies in International Relations. Cambridge, UK: Press Syndicate, University of Cambridge, 1996), 14.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 11

from Russian/Soviet colonization. This is especially particular to analyzing current

Kazakh politics, and is important in developing a real picture ot Kazakhstan today.22

I will begin by tracing, and developing - in a Coxian logic - the historical roots of

Kazakh identity and how this feeds the current titular identity, forms internal politics and

contributes to a burgeoning sense of national self, and finally the centripetal and

centrifugal forces at work in the construction of Kazakhstan the State, and Kazakhstan the

Nation.

“ l will credit Ernesto Laclau with the concept of ‘sedimentation.’ To understand the process of construction we must to look at “the psychoanalytic category of identification, with its explicit assertion of a lack at the root of any identity: one needs to identify with something because there is an originary and insurmountable lack of identity. . . The social world presents itself to us, primarily, as a sedimented ensemble of social practices accepted at face value, without questioning the founding acts of their institution. . . Thus a dimension of construction and creation is inherent in all social practice. The latter do not involve only repetition, but also reconstruction.” Ernesto Laclau, ed., introduction to The Making of Political Identities (London: Verso, 1994), 3.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter n

Kazakh Tribal Structure

Eariv History Intertwined with Modern History and the Ecological Contours of

Kazakh Identity

The backdrop of everyday life for the nomadic tribes of Kazakhstan was the wide, at

times unending, expanse of geographic land, and forms the basis of much of Kazakh

identity. Geographical boundaries present a crucial link between past and present, and

the various symbols that arise out of a nomadic tradition remains a common binding

thread for many Kazakhs. Indeed, it is the lack of any real natural geographic boundaries

throughout the area occupied by Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and

Uzbekistan which contributed to the development of a clan structure as a means of

delimiting regions of different social, economic, and religious organization among

different clans.

Presumed to be descendents of first millennium BC Turkic nomadic tribes,

Kazakh history becomes increasingly clear in the third century BC with the appearance of

more refined tribal patterns, namely the Usuns, Kangyu and Alans (reaffirming a triple

territorial division), and later, around the sixth century AD, the emergence and

establishment of a Turkic tribal confederation, or Kahanate in southern regions of

Kazakhstan. When Genghiz Kahn overran Central Asia in the thirteenth century, he 12

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 13

divided between his three sons his immense empire. The eldest son acquired much of

Russia and Siberia, including what is now Kazakhstan. This ‘state' was known as the

“Golden Horde,” and began to disintegrate around the fourteenth century and divide into

sub-groupings with pseudo-autonomy.23 This organizational pattern was essentially the

beginning of what later developed into political system based on similar groupings,

known as hordes.

Being predominately nomadic or semi-nomadic (and I would add even semi-

feudal), Kazakhs based their economic, political, social, and religious prosperity directly

on a fixed system of transhumance.24 As a consequence, the Kazakhs came to migrate

within a broad range of space as necessary pasturage ( steppe), and continuously acquired

new territory so that, towards the end of the seventeenth century, Kazakhs controlled a

majority of land that is relatively close in size to present day Kazakhstan.23 In order to

retain a kind of political cohesiveness among the various tribes (clans, or auls, which

refer to the actual physical migratory group) that were stretched out over these immense

spaces, a Kazakh tribal political culture emerged in the formation of three hordes, or zhus:

the Great Horde {Ulu zhus) roamed the fertile meadows and mountains in the southeast;

^Shirin Akiner, The Formation of Kazakh Identity: From Tribe to Nation-State (London: Chatham House Former Soviet South Project, The Royal Institute o f International 1995), Affairs, 8-9.

24Ibid., 12-14. Akiner does address the etymological origins of the word Kazakh - kaz, meaning white; ak, meaning goose, thus forming white goose (apparently an ancient totemic symbol). There is no agreement among historians on this however.

“ Martha Brill Olcott, The Kazakhs (California. Stanford University, Hoover Institution Press, 1995), 10.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 14

the Middle Horde (Orta zhus) formed migratory patterns from the eastern stretches of

desert east of the Aral Sea to as far east as the Siberian steppe (probably the longest

migratory route of the three hordes); and the Small Horde (Kishi zhus), which traveled up

and down the lower Volga, the western shore of the Aral Sea to the Caspian Sea. There

was significantly more contact with sedentary towns along these western-most routes.26

According to Martha Olcott’s seminal study of the Kazakh tribal structure, this “tripartite

division of the Kazakh people was a response to the unique geography of the steppe.”27

In essence, each horde dominated a specific region of the Kazakh territory (roughly;

northern, southern, and western), although it is important to note that the Kazakhs

maintained a common language, culture, and economy. Also of significance is that

strong communal ties were formed among Kazakh people in the form of loyalty first to

clan or specific tribe (and family or kinship), and then to horde. What subsequently

developed, according to Shirin Akiner, a specialist in Kazakh history and identity

formation, was a type of “ethnogenesis” or “proto-nation” where tribes “were

incorporated into the Kazakh Khanate [or Hordes]” and were “considered to form part of

the Kazakh ethos.”2829

26Shirin Akiner, The Formation o f Kazakh Identity. 13-14.

27Martha Brill Olcott, 11. Also important here is the difference between horde and Zhuz (meaning hundred). According to Olcott, horde “implies consanguinity” whereas the latter does not

28Shirin Akiner, “Melting Pot, Salad Bowl - Cauldron? Manipulation and Mobilization of Ethnic and Religious Identities in Central Asia.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 20, no. 2 (April 1997): 367-368.

29Kazakh identity at this time then, can be defined as one of communion with the land. Likewise, Kazakh tribal and horde relations were “a blend of dependence and independence, subordination and

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 15

The prominent anthropologist Anatoiy Khazanov has exemplified the nomadic

nature of the Kazakhs in terms of a highly developed specialization in response to the

spatial expanse of the steppe. Kazakh nomadism was fixed in roaming with multiple

species occurring during weather determined seasonal cycles, and the nature of this

system encouraged small migratory groups as opposed to larger segmentation, which is

more likely to be the case during extended periods in the summer. Nevertheless, the need

to protect variable grazing lands among groups necessitated the need to eliminate internal

conflict within the auls which could arise from competition for scarce resources.

According to Khazanov, “nomadic managers” originated and formed a leadership strata.

The utility of a leadership hierarchy was to provide a defensive role for sedentary

populations. Essentially, “nomadic societies could never be characterized as independent

and closed systems by any of their main parameters, either economic, or social, or even

ideological. This was connected with ecological and biological limitations of their

foundation, pastoral nomadism, and still more, with their consequences.” 30 The

reference Khazanov is making is that although there was interaction of Kazakh nomads

with sedentary sections of Kazakh society, there was a clear role of selective and

specialized functions that was pastoralism, but that nomadic Kazakhs

could function only as part of a larger continuum including also sedentary rural- urban societies and groups of population. . . Yet while the nomadic part of this

insubordination.” The natural mobility of individual migratory units also allowed for flexible responses and accommodations to recurring changes of balance in regional power politics. Akiner, Formation o f Kazakh Identity, 14.

30 Anatoly Khazanov, “Ecological Limitations of Nomadism in the Eurasian Steppes and Their Social and Cultural Implications,” Asian and African Studies 24 (1990): 8.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 16

continuum was politically the most active one, it was economically and culturally dependent and therefore more vulnerable.31

The suggestion that nomadic Kazakh tribes maintained clear boundaries between

their pastoral psychology and early sedentary cultures is a unique perspective of early

Kazakh identity and implies, 1 believe, awareness of changing regional growth patterns

(modernization?), and an integration with traditional practices. Opposition to, and

acceptance of, some sedentary societies coexisted with each other.32 Horde association

has continued to play a role in society and politics, and has even gained renewed

importance paralleling increased identity trends among Kazakhs. On an unofficial level

the popular consciousness, that is of the Kazakhstani,33 has remained cognizant of

clan/tribe realities.

Modernization introduced new patterns on traditional ones. Norms associated

with modem practices imbued a sense of distance, both social and cultural, between

Kazakhs and Russians, which contributed further to the differences of ‘us’ and ‘them’.

Hence, there was a conceptualization that was reified on a socio-economic basis that

created an ethnic divide that was both highly visible and highly exclusionary.34

31 Ibid., 14-15.

32Khazanov details this phenomena using religion. Kazakh nomads readily accepted Manichaeism, Buddism and eventually Islam in order to integrate and adopt evolving rhythms in the region. However, early elements of Shaminism remained because it was inherently difficult, if not impossible, to instill imported religion on a nomadic culture constantly on the move. The fuller acceptance of Islam today by Kazakhs is an outgrowth of this. Khazanov, Ecological Limitations, 12-14.

33 In referring to ‘Kazkhstani’ I mean the population that considers themselves ethnic Kazakhs, as opposed to ‘ Kazakhs’ as a general term pertaining to the population residing in Kazakhstan proper, which would include Russians, Koreans, Germans, Poles, and Ukranians.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 17

In a study examining modem urban instances of clan/tribal relationships, Saulesh

Esenova portrays the persistence of tribal associations today as something that can

explain current ethnic identifiers among Kazakhs. Esenova’s hypothesis is that given the

historical significance of clan/tribal bonds, today’s clan and kin loyalties have acquired

an urban specificity. An increasingly urbanized Kazakh has channeled clan networks into

the city setting35, and these loyalties have encouraged the “Mafia-type activities which are

currently flourishing in the urban post-communist environment.”36 Any reference to

‘Mafia’ or mafiaoso can acquire a meaning of intensely structured and organized groups,

in particular when talking about business related issues and a sense of concrete divisions

between ‘us’ and ‘them.’ In the case of the Kazakhstani, clan/tribal attachments and

beliefs are the main properties of being Kazakh, it is part of Kazakh history, and this

identification presupposes congruity with a specific space (based on previous horde

delimitations). The Mafia analogy Esenova uses applies more to the organization

structure or the way “patron-client relationships are reduced to the size of the extended

family,”37 than it does to the actual business practices of urban Kazakhs since, given the

34Akiner, “Meltingpot, Salad Bowl - Cauldron?” 370.

35 In his book The Gorbachev Phenomena. Moshe Lewin chronicles the emergence of civil society in the former-Soviet Union through the movement of populations from the village to the “megacity.” What is inherent in urbanization is a “type of social coalescence,” where natural “defensive mechanisms appear, consisting of clinging to relatives and compadres and sticking to some familiar cultural mechanisms.” Moshe Lewin, The Gorbachev Phenomena: A Historical Interpretation (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991), 35. This same phenomena can be applied to Kazakh tribe/clan structures in the urban setting.

36 Saulesh Esenova, “‘Tribalism’ and Identity in Contemporary Circumstances: The Case of Kazakhstan,” Central Asian Survey 17, no. 3 (1998): 449.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 18

chaotic nature of the Kazakh economy, there may be an illusion of illegality where it may

not necessarily exist. Therefore, a modem, urbanized, scenario of Kazakh identity is one

of initial reliance on kinship ties, but that a pyramid type Mafia structure suggests little

“tribal divisions at the bottom but probably some at the top.”38

The re-fabrication of clan/tribal ties would seem to favor ethnic Kazakhs since

leadership patterns in Kazakhstan, even at lower oblast and rayon levels - including those

regions in northern Kazakhstan where Russians are the dominant majority, but are

nevertheless stacked with the titular ethnicity. This is not to say that there has been a

seamless transition of clan/tribal identity in a modernization/urbanization model, but it

gives an indication of the social constructions emanating from the historical variable.

Russian/Soviet colonial rule forced new conditions of structural orientation in Kazakh

society which have, in my opinion, created - not undermined - the way in which

tribalism manifests itself in the modem world. In fact, I disagree with Esenova’s notion

that there is not much going on at lower levels of clan/tribal societal representation and

that these means of capturing certain tribal benefits are only available in the upper

political echelons of society. Certainly it may be easiest to pronounce tribal affiliation for

political purposes at a higher level, which I will deal with in a subsequent chapter on

post-Soviet Kazakhstan, but a Weberian logic would suggest a collective

unconsciousness flowing at lower levels as well, where the most salient issue is a revival

37Ibid., 452.

38Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 19

of Kazakh identity.39 In any case, the development of identity is uneven (as will be

discussed in more precise context below) in Kazakhstan. Southern regions, where there

was considerably less colonial contact outside of major urban centers (Almaty), were able

to maintain closer relations to tribal/clan histories, but there appears to be a northern

‘creep’ of this whole process.40

To be sure, there is a nascent dichotomy developing within a historically imbued

sense of belonging to a particular horde/clan/tribal alliance, and the contemporary usage

of these indentifiers. Increased Kazakhness has naturally led to a greater interest in

retrieving past associations and tribal affiliations, which have a continuity drawn from the

past, within a larger Kazakh consciousness. Russians, on the other hand, have used horde

alliance as a means of “delimitation that provokes intra-ethnic confrontation,” although it

is possible to argue that intra-confrontation among Kazakh hordes may be

overdetermined because subsequent Russian/Soviet colonization thoroughly corrupted

horde affiliation, at least on the surface. The Russians, “by stirring up ancestral and clan

passions, are trying to shake the unity of the Kazakh people,” according to Berik

Abdigaliev, assistant to the director of the Kazakh Institute of Strategic Studies.41 Hence,

39By ‘salient’ I am speaking in terms of a ‘national’ identity. Obviously, on a micro level economic concerns are a priority, while given better economic conditions, issues of national identity may become an easier priority.

40Meaning that the solidification of authoritative Kazakhness has come to be more pronounced in northern Kazakhstan. 41 Berik Abdigaliev, “Russians in Kazakhstan: Problems, Myths and Realities,” in Central Asia: Conflict, Resolution, and Change, eds. Ronald Z. Sagdeev and Susan Eisenhower (Chevy Chase, MD: Center for Post-Soviet Press, 1995), 151.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 20

the latent link among Kazakhs to horde association is recognized by Russians. As Sergei

Panarin has aptly pointed out, “clan loyalties interfere with the formation of unified

national constituencies and fuel corruption and nepotism within governing structures.

Ethnic minorities excluded from these social structures face informal discrimination by

default.”42 Based on these views, both by Russians, there exists the potential for

incohesiveness among Kazakhs based on horde association which is recognized by the

Russian dlite, and which could prove to be a significant variable in the process of nation

building.

On another level, one might see a renewed importance of hordes, politically and

socially, not only as a more benign means of specifying Kazakh identity, but also as a

boundary marker, separating Kazakh identity from that of the Russians at the level of the

longue duree, meaning one that has been in existence over a long span, yet is now

entering a cycle of renewal. In the language of Kathryn Manzo this may suggest a

“nationalist practice” of “political religion that creates boundaries separating sacred kin

and alien kind.” Such conterminous inscriptions of difference can contribute to the

notion that “nationalism’s dominant conceptual partners are not simply nation and state.

They are also race and alien, for without the racialized alien, there can be no national

kin.”43 This in particular will become more evident when considered next to the Russian

42Sergei A. Panarin, “Political Development Paradigms for the Newly Independent States in Political Asia: The Consequences of Migration,” in Cooperation and Conflict in the Former Soviet Union: Implications for Migration, eds. Jeremy R. Azrael and Emil A. Payin (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Publications, 1996), 101.

43Manzo, 3.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 21

and Soviet roles in the disruption of traditional Kazakh social, political, and economic

structures. These historical inscriptions and historical reversals are essential to

understanding the character of Kazakh national revival.

The spatial geography of Kazakhstan provides a direct link to Braudel. For

Braudel geography is an essential story, and this chapter frames the interaction of

Kazakhs with their land in order to present the slow development that is the spatial

container of Kazakh identity, which is integral to Braudel’s longue duree time pace. The

relationship that has begun to emerge between Russian and Kazakh identities, and will be

drawn out more substantially below - yet is worth summarizing here, is primarily one of

interruption. Before the Soviet period Kazakh identity was struggling with early Russian

colonialism, yet it still maintained a core infrastructure based on tribalism and the land,

while incorporating alliances with surrounding power structures, especially with initial

Russian colonial (and thus identity) encounters. One may even view this period as an

organic growth of relationships. It is during the Soviet period, however, that a complete

disruption of Kazakh identity occurred based on forced and violent restructuring. The

Soviets viewed Kazakh tribalism as primitive and cumbersome to communist ideology

and structuring. A Soviet mentality prevailed above any tribal linkages, and this divide

created an atmosphere of animosity between Russian and Kazakh identities as traditional

Kazakh histories, myths, and symbols were forced to survive without authentic and

official practices. After the Soviet period, as we shall see, Kazakh identity has once again

claimed an authoritative role in relation to Russian identity.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter III

The Kazakh Intelligentsia and Sovietization

The idea of a Kazakh national consciousness may never have come into existence were it

not for some fashioning of nationalistic discourse, and certainly the imagination of

community44 could not have found roots without the constructs of ethnic intellectuals.45 It

was in response to Russian colonization that a Kazakh intelligentsia emerged, starting in

the northern expanses of Kazakhstan where the Russian presence was greatest (Russians

established frontier fortresses as early as the 1730’s). Having effectively been pushed out

of their normal pastoral lands by Russian and Cossack farmers, a Kazakh intelligentsia

movement formed in 1905 as a protest movement. It must be noted that there is a real

connection to Russian colonization and the formation of a Kazakh intellectual elite; in an

attempt to lessen the probability of resistance and opposition, the Russians began to

WI am, of course, referring to Benedict Anderson’s classic work Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Speaking of print-capitalism’ ability to produce “new ideas of simultaneity,” (p. 37) Benedict sums vernacular tendencies as such; “Print languages laid the bases for national consciousness in three distinct ways. First and foremost, they created unified fields of exchange and communication below Latin and above the spoken vernaculars. Speakers of the huge variety of Frenches, Englishes, or Spanishes, who might find it difficult or even impossible to understand one another in conversation, became aware of the hundreds and thousands, even millions, of people in their particular language-field, and at the same time that only those hundreds of thousands, or millions, so belonged. These fellow readers, to whom they were connected through print, formed, in their secular, particular, visible invisibility, the embryo of the nationally imagined community. Secondly, print- capitalism gave a new fixity to language, which in the long run helped to build that image of antiquity so central to the subjective idea of the nation,” and thirdly, “print capitalism created languages-of-power of a kind different from the older administrative vernaculars.” Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London, UK. Verso, 1991), 44-45.

4SThis does not presuppose that there was no intellectual tradition among Kazakhs, rather intellectual traditions were based on orally transferred histories and folk tales. One major component of this, as I am told by Kazakh friends, is the tradition of reciting family/clan/tribe genealogies back through 22

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 23

educate the Kazakh aristocracy in Russian institutions. The intended effect was

contradictory, and the Russian educated Kazakhs organized a resistance that included the

formation of a standardized Kazakh language, which was incorporated through the press

and in Kazakh schools.46

The Kazakh intelligentsia adapted the Russian liberal democratic movement

which had developed after the 1905 revolution. In fact, the Kazakh leaders used the

“liberal and oppositional ideas of the Russian Constitutional Democratic party, one of the

strongest parties in Russia at that time, to express their own political demands.”47 The

politicization of Kazakhstani society at this time was achieved in large part through

judicious use of the press, both newspaper and books,48 a wholly new phenomena for the

native population, yet one that communicated a self-identifying nationality.49 Gulnar

Kendirbay’s research is unique in that it makes use of a substantial amount of original

works from Kazakh writers during this period, and is worth quoting at length its

impression on society. What follows is a quote from a well-known Kazakh writer,

Mukhtar Auezov:

several generations by memory, although this practice has diminished for the most part, Kazakhs will still casually inquire about horde association in informal settings.

46Esenova, “‘Tribalism’ and Identity in Contemporary Kazakhstan.” 444-455.

47 Gulnar Kendirbay, “The National Liberation Movement of the Kazakh Intelligentsia at the Beginning of the 20lh Century,” Central Asian Survey 16, no. 4 (1998): 492.

48Ibid., 494-495. Kendirbay also notes that many of these publications were short lived since Russian authorities suppressed views that were critical of colonial rule and which promoted Kazakh nationality.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 24

Popular stories published from time to time in the newspaper Qazaq played a significant role in the education of Kazakh schoolchildren. They disclosed possible dangers and pointed out the right way. The newspaper was a guide for the young and immature generation. Young people who did not want to go to school, read with great interest the newspaper Qazaq, wherever they could get it... It was the newspaper Qazaq, that awakened old and young Kazakhs from their death-like sleep. This paper activated the minds and souls of its readers, just as the circulation of blood animates an otherwise lifeless body.50

In the midst of the February Russian Revolution of 1917 and the preceding

months and years until around 1919, the liberal Kazakh intellectuals succeeded, perhaps

owing to the chaos and diverted attention of the Russian Revolution and the collapse of

imperial Russia, in gaining tangible rights. This was a time of general optimism among

the Kazakhs for there was hope in finally establishing an independent governing system.

To this end, Kazakh intellectuals, having pushed for greater recognition, formed the

liberation oriented party Alash Orda. Naturally there was a distinctively national

character to this movement which sought autonomy and extensive land rights. To a

minimal extent, Alash Orda was able to gain control over land usage, the development of

a military, as well as independent implementation of the Kazakh educational system,51

49See footnote 32 for a lengthy, albeit invaluable, insight from Benedict Anderson.

50Kendirbay, ‘The National Liberation Movement” 49S. Original Kazakh language text taken from; Mukhtar Auezov, Akhannyn elu zhuldyq toiy [The Fiftieth Anniversary o in fAkhanJ, Bes Arys [FiveGiants], (Almaty, 1992): 185-186.

slThe Alash were largely preoccupied with developing the written word in Kazakh, as alluded to previously. Faced with a transforming society, a written tradition was “considered indispensable for the survival of the Kazakh people as a distinct cultural and national entity. Once their identity was firmly based on a standardized written form of their own language, Kazakhs would be in a position to raise their level o f‘culture’ and attain a status in the world equal to that of the Europeans.” Gulnar Kendirbay, “The Early Twentieth-Century Kazakh Intelligentsia: In Search of National Identity” in Post-Soviet Central

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 25

and established the Alash Orda autonomous government.52 From December 1917

through nearly all of 1919 the Alash government fought with the Russian White forces

against Bolshevik rule, and as the White movement began to lose ground to the

Bolsheviks, Kazakh nationalists began to merge with the Bolshevik regime; many began

to join the Soviets in the hope of retaining what limited gains had been made.53 By

November 1919, at a meeting in Semipalatinsk, theAlash movement formally gave in to

advancing Soviet military pressure. Alash leaders who welcomed the move as means of

uniting Kazakhs with the class struggle and the “dictatorship of the proletariat” were

integrated into the regime, while those that were less supportive or critical were either

sent to labor camps, exiled, or executed.54

Both the selective inclusion of native Kazakh intellectuals and the rapid pace of

colonization by Russians did not merely entail a physical ‘coloring’ of Kazakhstan, but it

also engendered difference and dependence. Roxanne Doty, in a poststructuralist

examination of imperial encounters, defines such relations as inherently difficult to

overcome because “representational practices” and discourse surrounding differentiation

are compounded, creating “a chain of equivalences” that is “created between the terms

civilized', rationality, reason, and sovereign, on the one hand, and uncivilized, instinctual,

Asia, eds. Touraj Atabaki and John O’Kane (London: Turis Academic Studies, Bloomsbury Square, 1998), 266.

52Kendirbay, “The National Liberation Movement” 506-507.

53OIcott, 129.

54Kendirbay, “The National Liberation Movement” 512-513.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 26

and dependent on the other. These systematic ensembles of differences resulted in a

unity by which different kinds of international identities were constituted.”55 Many

Kazakh intellectuals of the twentieth century believed that an incorporation of the Soviet

socialist ideology would give rise to a kind of civilized and modernized society. As I

intend to demonstrate, representations of difference were a function of creating the

international Soviet citizen in Kazakhstan, or homo Sovieticus. Concomitantly, we may

begin to understand part of a larger history of Kazakhstan today, the sediment of which

can be seen in trace amounts in current, “short,” Kazakh history.

As Kazakh influence on leadership grew with increased responsibilities and

promotions, Kazakh leaders were able to achieve greater influence in this increasingly

bureaucratic, centralized environment. The structure developing here consists of two

parts: one Kazakh, the other Russian. In keeping with traditional practices, clans and

hordes - or what remained of their infrastructure - held loyal to their members, and this

loyalty provided for a sort of continuation (and perhaps even swelling) of Kazakh

national consciousness, as I have previously profiled. The continuation of certain aspects

of Kazakh identity is getting back to the reinstitution of what I consider to be a retrieved

Kazakh consciousness, which is paramount to the building and reinforcing of national

solidarity. Russification and Sovietization diminished the visibility of Kazakh identity

and nationality as well as the collection of this consciousness by succeeding generations.

55 Roxanne Lynn Doty, Imperial Encounters: The Politics of Representation in North-South Relations (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 46.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 27

Russification and Sovietization - CreatingHomo Sovieticus

It is under early Russian colonization/contact that an incipient transformation of the

Kazakh population would emerge as Russia annexed first northern Kazakhstan, and then

southern portions56. This also brought increased Russian indigenization, often by violent

means, of Kazakhs. As a result, traditional pastoral-nomadic economic society witnessed

unsuccessful national uprisings coupled with revolution and civil war that resulted in the

first steep declines of the titular Kazakh population: between 1850 and 1926 the Kazakh

population declined to 58.5 percent of the national population from just over 90 percent.57

However, it is as early as 1926, with the implementation of the first New

Economic Policies (NEP) initiated under the Bolsheviks, that major contradictions

emerge in Soviet policies in Kazakhstan. The very first NEP was unsuccessful primarily

because of extreme inefficiency in implementing policies of economic restructuring.

Sedentarization and denomadization, or the forced settlement of nomadic peoples whose

existence was based solely on fixed migratory routes and traditions, were seen by Lenin

S6Russian encounters with Kazakh hordes began first in the- mid 150O's. The history from this initial encounter is complex, but involves the gradual annexation of northern Kazakhstan as Russia became increasingly involved in internal horde power struggles (ie., among hordes vying for territorial control • which the Russians had a natural interest as a means of acquiring additional land control), and finally as a result of pushing back Chinese advances - who, like the Russians, where involved in horde politics in the south-eastern extensions of Kazakh territory. Akiner, The Formation o fKazakh Identity. 19-23.

5701cott, 157-158.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 28

as the crux for turning Kazakhstan into a viable economic state for the Soviet Union.

Robert Conquest evidenced such contradictions; the “campaign for the Sovietization of

the Kazakh aul (migrating clan based village) in 1925-1928 failed because the village

Soviets which were formed fell without fuss into the hands of the traditional local

leaders.”58 This general failure led to the formulation of an even more forceful

Sovietization scheme (now the brainchild of Stalin) that would pursue a systematic

“dekulakization” and resettlement (1930) that resulted in the collectivization of 56.6

percent of the semi-nomadic Kazakh population. A further 15,000-20,000 individuals

“self-dekulakized,” or migrated (mostly to Mongolia and China). Resistance, in the form

of livestock slaughter, accounted for a 50 percent reduction in herds (cattle, sheep,

horses) in the first weeks of collectivization alone. What is more, the grand failure of

grain production at this time resulted in large-scale famine whereby upwards of 1.5

million Kazakhs starved to death between 1926 and 1939.59

A devout believer in transforming large portions of the Soviet Union into an

agricultural paradise, Khrushchev resumed agricultural reform and Kazakh resettlement

where Stalin left off beginning in 1953 with the Virgin Lands Campaign. The effect

these measures had on Kazakhs was to increase their alienation from their traditional

homeland as large tracks of land were consumed to grow grain and cotton, which

culminated in a massive influx of Russians who would work in the agricultural and urban

58Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 192.

S9Ibid., 190-197.

with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 29

(industrial) sectors.60 Meanwhile, Kazakhs were relocated to livestock breeding farms,

which were based on ‘scientific’ (i.e. more modem animal husbandry methods) principles

and thus highly untraditional61 to Kazakhs. Ultimately, Khrushchev’s Virgin Lands

scheme failed in large part due to very poor efficiency and the inability to harness the

native peasantry and use their knowledge and practices, but also out of shear ignorance of

both the ecological unsuitability of the land for such purposes and the relationship

between forms of social relations and ecological structures. For much the same reasons,

Brezhnev’s policies in Kazakhstan were unsuccessful too. Although Brezhnev was able

to increase agricultural output through “advanced” techniques (i.e. inordinate and

devastating amounts of fertilizer and pesticides) efficiency soon collapsed, as did much of

the overused agricultural monospecialzation so prevalent in Central Asia under the Soviet

planned economy.

The production of grain and cotton in Kazakhstan never equaled, over the long

run, what Moscow mandated. The Virgin Lands scheme is significant here for the in-

migration of Russian citizens who were settled to help administer and farm the Virgin

Lands. Moreover, both Khrushchev’s and Brezhnev’s policies led to greater integration

and entrenchment of the Kazakh Party and a Sovietized Kazakh economy, as native

“ One argument used to warrant the in-migration of Russians to northern Kazakhstan was that there was no tradition of a working class among the Kazakhs. The inflow of Russians was facilitated by favorable conditions. This would concomitantly set a precedent for a Russian dominated industrial sector in northern Kazakhstan. Esensova, 461.

61 Probably not only untraditional, but perhaps yet another device of driving cultural abandonment

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 30

Kazakhs, comprised mostly of Elite's and intelligentsia drawn from horde leaders as well

as those willing to work the land, were moved into Soviet administrative institutions.

This struggle with the land would affect the Kazakh consciousness and identity of many

of those who took part in this endeavor as they were caught up in the excitement

generated by the possibilities somewhere hidden in the land, and the opportunities to

leave behind a backward pre-colonial nomadism began to surge. Now the land as the

backdrop and living fabric of Kazakh life was little more than a distant memory “drained

of emotional significance.”62

Following a similar pattern of titular representation, Brezhnev’s biggest, and

perhaps unintended, contribution in Kazakhstan was the appointment of D.A. Kunaev as

Kazakh First Secretary, the only Kazakh to have served on the Politburo to this point.

Kunaev was thus able to act with a large degree of influence in forming a cadre in

Kazakhstan’s political system. As a native Kazakh, Kunaev went about subtly

introducing other native Kazakhs into the Soviet political structure of Kazakhstan,

empowering the formation of a Kazakh cadre with a national consciousness.63 This had

the double effect of inculcating, and articulating, Marxist-Leninist thought and concepts

which had steadily been seeping in through various channels through prolonged contact

with Soviet ideology. Such “Soviet ethnic engineering” set up “the boundaries - physical,

metaphorical and imaginary - that were staked out...to differentiate the Kazakhs from

62Akiner, The Formation o fKazakh Identity, 50.

6301cott, 240-243.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 31

their neighbors,” and which ultimately “acquired an emotional validation that largely

outweighed traditional ties and even objective historical realities. Thus, the parameters of

modem Kazakh nationhood that were established and consolidated over the ensuing

seventy-odd years, and which continue to exist today, were essentially a Soviet

creation.

Sovietization resulted in the large scale industrialization of Kazakhstan, starting

primarily in WWII, and continuing through the Cold War. The relocation of war

industries in Kazakhstan was twofold; first, Moscow identified a need to move military

producing industries away from what could potentially be a war zone in the Soviet

Union’s western republics. Moving this industry to Kazakhstan provided a more

confident degree of safety from the possibility of falling into foreign control. Second,

northern Kazakhstan was still within proximity to Russia, and transportation routes had

previously been established. The same rationale would hold for the establishment of a

Soviet nuclear arsenal deep in Kazakh territory.65 Much of this industry was in the form

of a military complex, and was heavily, if not exclusively, dominated by Russians. Most

of the industrialization took place in the northern regions of Kazakhstan, which to this

day have remained populated primarily by Russians. Indeed, the trend is clear that each

Soviet policy initiative, from the Russification of agriculture to the Sovietization of

socio-economic infrastructures, resulted, according to Robert Kaiser and Jeff Chinn, in a

MAkiner, The Formation o fKazakh Identity, 34.

s5Ibid., 193-195.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 32

“massive in-migration of Russians and/or decimation of Kazakhs that became a historic

event that helped nationalize the Kazakhs and orient their mass-based nationalism against

both Russian in-migrants and Moscow.”66 The chart below clearly illustrates the

demographic transitions that have occurred, pointing towards a reversal of Russian-

Kazakh populations.

Russians and Kazakhs in Kazakhstan, 1959-1995 (absolute number and percentage of total population) ______Nationality 1959 1970 1979 1989 1993 1995 January

Russians 3,974,229 5,521,917 5,991,205 6,168,740 6,168,740 N/A Percentage 42.7 42.4 40.8 37.8 36.5 34.8 Kazakhs 2,794,966 4,234,166 5,528,349 6,534,616 7,296,942 N/A Percentage 30.0 32.5 36.0 39.7 43.1 46.0 Source: 19S9: TsSU SSSR, 1962, p. 162; 1970 TsSU SSSR, 1973, p. 223; 1979: Goskomstat SSSR, 1989, p. 179; 1989: Goskomstat KSSR, 1991, p. 23; 1993; Goskomstat RK, 1993, p. 45. demograficheskoi O situatsii v 1995 godu(Almaty, Pravital'stvo respubliki Kazakhstani996) p. 66.

Starting in 1959 we begin to see the slow population growth of Kazakhs. In the

years proceeding this up until 1993, Kazakh growth rates are attributed to higher birth

rates. Between the end of the1980s and the early-to-mid 1990s there has been a reduction

in the Kazakh birth rate (poor economic circumstances being a disincentive to having

large families), but an increase in Kazakh in-migration from other countries, which has

been coupled by Russian out-migration. A significant feature of these population figures

is their distribution in Kazakhstan. If we were to look at a current demographic map of

“ Robert Kaiser and Jeff Chinn. “Russian-Kazakh Relations in Kazakhstan,” Post-Soviet Geography 36, no. 5 (1995): 258.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 33

Kazakhstan, we would see large clusters of Russian populations almost entirely in the

north, with one smaller pocket situated in the former capital of Almaty. All other areas

are composed of the titular population. Twenty years ago these clusters would have

resembled large sections with less fragmentation.

My focus in chapter four will turn to the post-independence period where I will

move into the realm of Braudel’s history of the short time span, “proportionate to

individuals, to daily life, to our illusions, to our hasty awareness - above all to the time of

the chronicle and the journalist.”67 This is perhaps the most capricious of time spans for

the masses that are the architects of its temporal structures because there is a certain

stability and limit which has been brought about by the longer life of generations, the

sedimentation of generations, that is, which include Russian/Soviet legacies. For Weber,

the formation of group identities is borne out of a rational association of previous patterns

which “rests on the belief in a specific ‘honor’ of their members, not shared by

outsiders.”68 The intricacies of forming, legitimizing, and reproducing Kazakh group

identity are part of the examination of this shorter time span.

67Braudel, 28.

68Weber, Vol. 2: 950.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter IV

Kazakhization - Post Independence

Paralleling a general increase in the representation of the Kazakh element in society, at

this point (mid to late 1980's) based mainly on an increase in the Kazakh population,

was a heightened sense of Kazakh nationalism, reinforced by perestroika and glasnost ’

and an overall lessening of authoritarian measures, somewhat similar to the reaction of

other states still in the Soviet Union, such as the Ukraine.69 One manifestation of a

heightened sense of Kazakh nationality, and the first significant and most visible

indication of independence sentiments, arose rather abruptly in December 1986 when

General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev replaced veteran Kazakh Party Chief D. A. Kunaev

with a Russian from the outside, Gennadii Kolbin.70 The decision to replace Kunaev with

Kolbin was part of a larger effort by Moscow to reassert control over local party

organizations and to reestablish the means of subordinating republic economies to the

69In fact, a good deal of literature concerning post-Soviet nationalism often focuses on Kazakhstan and Ukraine in tandem due to their similar Russian diaspora populations. David Laitin is one such comparativist

,0It is my understanding that Gorbachev and Kunaev were not considered close political nor personal associates by any means. However, the replacement of a Kazakh with a Russian follows Gorbachev's seemingly wanton policy in Central Asia. It is apparent that despite Gorbachev’s maneuvers towards openness and less control, he was in the opinion of many (for example Moshe Lewin) a hard-liner intent on maintaining Moscow control in what is now termed the near abroad. Similar replacements of official ethnies with Russians at this time can be observed in the Caucasus.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 35

needs of the Union.71 Kolbin was also a long time advocate of Gorbachev’s anti-alcohol

campaigns, a popular political platform with Gorbachev, that, from a Kremlinological

perspective, it appeared a natural move to place Kolbin in Alma-Ata. The surprising

riots, protests, and mass disturbances that ensued in the capital Alma-Ata (now Almaty)

were a source of intense scrutiny elsewhere in the Soviet Union, and they would serve to

build up the myths and legends surrounding Kazakh nation building.72 “Ironically,”

according to Kaiser and Chinn, “the 1986 events became a catalyst for further

Kazakhization, since it was effectively argued that Kazakh students reacted so strongly to

the removal of Kunaev because of a history of linguistic Russification, and also because

there were ‘blank pages’ in the history of their nation’s relationship with Russia and

Moscow.”73 The equation would be broadened in 1989 when Nursultan Nazarbayev (a

Kazakh native and popular politburo member) became Party First Secretary, and began a

program of greater Kazakh integration, while ostensibly promising protection of the

titular Russian population. Nevertheless, the same authors noted that, “this formula

proved unworkable, since increasing Kazakh privileges necessarily restructured the

national stratification system to the detriment of Russians.”74

7101cott, 249.

72 According to Shirin Akiner, “full details of the criminal proceeding were never made public,” although it is sure that a substantial number of fatalities (some estimates are as high as 200) resulted from the immediate demonstration, and subsequent imprisonments. Shirin Akiner, The Formation o f Kazakh Identity, 55-56.

73 Kaiser and Chinn, 266.

74Ibid., 266.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 36

The two most salient aspects to consider when talking about a movement towards

Kazakhization are indigenization and harmonization ( garmonizatsiia). Both are used to

explain, with varying degrees of forcefulness, the process of increasing Kazakh presence

and establishing a Kazakh state. Most studies of contemporary post-Soviet nationalities

begin with an analysis of the contradictory policies inherent in korenizatsiia.7S Robert

Suny has argued that the policies of korenizatsiia contributed to the consolidation of

nationality because true socialist ideology, under the rubric of Marxism, was to allow for

institutionalized ethnicity and the support of native cultures. Initialized under Lenin,

these policies would be perverted in short time by Stalin.76 In this regard, Stalin can be

faulted - among other significant wrongdoings - for being an impatient Marxist. Yet, the

inherent contradictions within Lenin’s and Stalin’s korenizatsiia policies would resurface.

According to Robert Kaiser, indigenization has reversed itself, whereby Soviet

indigenization processes:

together with the federalization of the state and rapid socioeconomic development - did have the effect of accelerating the process of national formation throughout Kazakhstan. Indigenization policies and processes resulted not in the internationalization or Sovietization of the indigenous peoples in Kazakhstan, but rather in a rising sense of national consciousness and intensification of nationalistic sentiment that members

75Korenizatsiia was the systematic policy of “nativization,” or “indigenization” which contributed to the incorporation of nationality in the Soviet Union by encouraging the use of native language, promoting national intellegentsia and political dlite. Essentially this codified nationality in the state.

76Robert Suny, The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism. Revolution and the Collapse of the Soviet Union (Stanford, CA Stanford University Press, 1993), 102-105.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 37

of the indigenous nation had a right to privileged standing and preferential treatment in their own home republics.77

Clearly, favoritism towards the titular group in Kazakhstan is part of Kazakhization.

This in particular will become more evident.

The very first catalyst of Kazakhization occurred through demographic

indigenization toward the mid - to late 1980's when a considerably higher Kazakh

birthrate and a net Russian out-migration occurred.78 Higher birthrates among Kazakhs

may be the most significant and certainly most visible causal variable,79 yet there are

other variables that need to be considered, especially when looking at inter-state relations,

which involve the ethnodemographic relations between southern Kazakhstan (with a

titular majority) and northern Kazakhstan (with a Russian diaspora majority). A large

percentage of Russians living in northern Kazakhstan are second or third generation

inhabitants, and feel a strong affinity for the rodina (homeland) where they live.80 The

Kazakh government has worked to increase Kazakh presence in northern Kazakhstan.

For instance, local £lite replacement in northern oblasts with Kazakh cadres strongly

reinforced the network to “the center” (no longer Moscow, but rather Almaty) despite

their relevant level of qualification, which has certainly contributed to tensions among

^Robert Kaiser, “Nationalizing the Work Force: Ethnic Restratification in the Newly Independent States,” Post-Soviet Geography xxxvi, no. 2 (1995): 89.

78See population chart

79Kaiser and Chinn, 259.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 38

more experience and qualified Russians.31 In addition, incentives (such as guaranteed

work, housing, and Kazakh citizenship) have been offered to Kazakhs returning from

China, Mongolia, and Uzbekistan to resettle in northern provinces, regardless of the low

skill level of these workers and notably “where they are thus least equipped to move into

occupations where they might influence the regional power balance between Kazakhs and

Russians.”82 Kaiser and Chinn see this more directly as “an effort to dilute the Russian

majority there.”83

As of 8 November 1997, Akmola,84 situated well to the north of Almaty, where

the Russian diaspora are a majority, has become the new capital of Kazakhstan.

Although Akmola was slated to become the new capital as far back as August 1997,

logistical and material (including financial) difficulties stalled the move. Yet the plan to

transfer the capital from Almaty to Akmola has been President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s

grandest plan since his election in 1991. The official line on the transfer of the capital is

to have a more central location away from possible conflicts in Tajikistan and

Kyrgyzstan, and to avoid the danger of earthquakes in Almaty. Akmola is described

“ lan Bremmer, “Nazarbaev and the North: State-Building and Ethnic Relations in Kazakhstan,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 17, no. 4 (October, 1994): 620.

81Ibid., 621.

82Ibid.,621.

83Kaiser and Chinn, 268.

^Formerly called Astana (meaning -white grave in Russian, a reference to its harsh climate), the Russian name was changed to the Kazakh Akmola shortly after plans for the capital move were laid down.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 39

often as a drab city of 245,000, and referred to as the latest Potemkin village owing to its

plastic facades and huge complexes with toilets but no plumbing. In contrast, Almaty is

recognized by many as a lush city, surrounded by mountains, and a more traditional

center.85 The move is hardly one of aesthetics.

In a broader perspective, moving the capital of Kazakhstan into Russian

dominated northern regions operationalizes and reinforces the Kazakh drive towards

reasserting their ethnic nationalism. It is also argued that the capital transfer is a move to

“prevent reunification of the northern territories that are historically Russian lands that

were administratively given to Kazakhstan by Moscow,” and “turned out to be a part of

Kazakhstan after the collapse of the Soviet Union.”86 By increasing Kazakh

representation in the north, Russian representation will decrease, or become more

‘diluted.’ Such decreases have been a recurring theme. In effect, the situation of the new

capital in Akmola drives home “an unmistakable message about who rules Kazakhstan.”87

Vernacular Language - The Second Wave

David Laitin has used the politicization of language and nationalism to hypothesize what

may be the outcomes of “nationalizing projects” in the post-Soviet republics and has

85Daniel Williams, “Kazakhstan’s Dull, Disagreeable New Capital.” The Washington Post. Sunday, November 2, 1997, A32.

“ Abdigaliev, 148.

87Ian Bremmer and Cory Welt, “Kazakhstan’s Quandary,” Journal o f Democracy 1, no. 3 (1995): 144.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 40

come up with some intriguing comparative perspectives worth exploring.88 Based on a

‘tipping game’ scenario whereby titular leaders will pursue particular language polices to

consolidate national power (and identity), the active acquiescence of the population will

lead not only to national revival, but also minority compliance or assimilation. Drawn

from a quantitative analysis with an independent variable “status returns,” the measure of

the propensity of assimilation (the dependent variable) for ethnic Russians in Kazakhstan

was the lowest when compared to Estonia, Latvia, and Ukraine.89 Although this offers

only a sketch of the current language situation in Kazakhstan, it does provide a basic

picture of the language issues facing Russians and Kazakhs. For Laitin then, the

“intergenerational tipping”90 in Kazakhstan does not favor Russians, despite the fact that

Kazakh language today is far from being widely used. There are tangible variables that

lie outside scientific gauging which may be more of a function of bureaucratic pressure

and/or a more invisible historical representation.

Paramount among the changes taking place within Kazakhization are issues

centered on language. The propagation of Kazakh language heritage may prove to be the

most substantial undercurrent of Kazakhization yet implemented by Nazarbayev under

the auspices Kazakh Tili (Kazakh language), a state-wide, government-funded

88David D. Laitin, “Language and Nationalism in the Post-Soviet Republics,” Post-Soviet Affairs 12, no. 1 (1996): 4

89Ibid., 8-9. “Status returns” refers to the expected higher or lower status gained from codifying the titular language on an official level, and thus the expectation of assimilation (dependent variable)of the diaspora population.

90Ibid., 21.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 41

organization “set up at the oblast [local] level for the express purpose of spreading

Kazakh culture and language. Kazakh Tili has been particularly active in the north,”91

according to Ian Bremmer. Kazakhstan’s new constitution states that Kazakh is the sole

“official language” of the state, while Russian has the status of “inter-state” and “inter

ethnic” communication. Such language policies point to some contradictions within

Kazakhization.

Although contact between Russians and Kazakhs in Kazakhstan is an everyday

occurrence throughout the republic, the divide between the two is more pronounced when

looking at the oblast level. In the southern oblasts of Atyrau and Quzylorda, Kazakhs

compose 90 percent of the population and Russians make up only 7 and 8 percent

respectively, yet in the similar sized oblasts Qostonay and Karaganda (the second largest

city in Kazakhstan) in northern Kazakhstan, the Kazakh population is under 25 percent,

and the Russian population numbers 50 percent in Qostonay and 46 percent in

Karaganda. In eastern Kazakhstan the Russian population percentage is about 63.

Kazakhs are a definite majority in rural areas, with a share of over 60 percent overall, and

97 percent in some oblasts, including in the north.92

The complexities of language revival are most clear in urban areas of Kazakhstan

(including Almaty) where Russian is the dominant language still spoken, even among

9IBremmer, 621.

92William Fierman, “Language and Identity in Kazakhstan: Formulations in Policy 1987-1997,” Communist and Post Communist Studies 31, no. 2 (1998): 174.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 42

Kazakhs. So, there is a portion of Russian-speaking Kazakhs who are uncertain about

tendencies towards an all Kazakh language movement, as pointed out by Bhavna Dave;

“The commonly-held assumption of a salient and natural ethnic divide between Russians

and Kazakhs is misleading; it downplays or even ignores internal differences and

contradictions within the national revival movement.”93 An important notion here is that

of mankurtizatsiia, which is a ‘‘term often used to convey a sense of rootlessness and

cultural amnesia among the Sovietized and Russified strata of non-Russian

nationalities.”94 Hence, the term mankurt (which refers originally to a mythical character

in Chingiz Aitmatov’s novel, I dol 'she veka dlit 'sia den ’ - The Day Lasts Longer than a

Century, who could not recall any of his past) is used by Kazakh speakers as a derogatory

phrase towards their ethnic urban cohorts who have given up their native tongue.

Bhavna Dave nevertheless points out that “the ‘provincialism’ of the Kazakh

language is disquieting for those reared in an ‘international’ milieu. For them Russian is

not a ‘colonial’ language, but a medium for acquiring information and for communication

as well.”95 A new Kazakh constitution adopted in 1995 reverses the status of the

Kazakh and Russian languages. Kazakh replaces Russian as the state language.

However, Russian remains a language of official and inter-state communication, thus

93 Bhavna Dave, “National Revival in Kazakhstan: Language Shift and Identity Change,” Post- Soviet Affairs 12, no. 1 (1996): 52.

94 Ibid. See footnote, page 52.

95Ibid., 56.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 43

making Kazakh and Russian legally equal. Because Russian dominates in functional

usage, most Kazakhs are compelled to learn Russian.96

The image held by Russians of Kazakh, as expressed by M.M. Arenov and S.K.

Kalmykov is that “in the social-communicative realm Kazakh is not in accord with its

proclaimed status. It hardly performs official functions, or performs them only

formally.”97 The same authors conducted a survey which indicated that 71 percent of

Kazakh respondents indicated “I speak, read, and write it fluently,” or consider it their

rodnoi iazyk (mother tongue), while the remainder acknowledged a working capacity in

the language, in comparison to roughly 25.5 percent of Russians who could understand

the spoken language.98 Having no idea about the methodology behind the former survey,

there must be some wide discrepancy because it is generally accepted among Kazakhs

that the range of native language speakers ranges around 25 percent.99 Regardless, the

perception among Kazakhs persists that “any representative of any ethnic group who has

made the choice to permanently live in Kazakhstan must realize that their inability to

speak Kazakh leads to certain inconveniences and hurts the rights and freedoms of

Kazakhs.”100

96 Abdigaliev, 141.

97M.M Arenov and S.K. Kalmykov. “Sovremennaia iazykovaia situatsiia v kazakhstane,” Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia (1995): 82. 98Ibid., 77.

99 Fierman, 175. This is again in contrast to official census (1989) which put the percentage of native Kazakh language speakers at 98.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 44

The question to be asked then is if common ground will be found among the

mankurty and Kazakh nationalists. For Dave, “Russian-speaking Kazakhs are troubled at

a near-total appropriation of national identity discourse by the former Party

nomenklatura. They remain as apathetic to the nationalizing state as they were

indifferent to the communist ideology. Soviet-style internationalism is in fact closer to

their life experience than is the ongoing ethnicization of personal identities and the public

sphere by a nationalizing state.”101 Many, as told by Dave, see this Kazakh language shift

as outright oppression, including ethnic Kazakhs who accuse nationalist opportunists of

instituting an “apartheid” policy by “an ethnocratic state dominated by a few clans and

tribal elite's.”102 Do such acts constitute threats to the stability of the country? Clearly,

the language question will not allay itself overnight, and will possibly require even a

generational change (as Kazakh-language schools gain quality and popularity). From a

Kazakh standpoint, to be sure, “the preferential treatment given to Kazakh culture and

language in this sense is fair and important in order to correct historical discrimination of

the language and culture of the indigenous population... which suffered greatly from

centuries of colonialism.”103 But is the nationalization of Kazakh language symptomatic

of internal discontinuities among Kazakhs? Laitin has pointed out that interethnic

IOOAbdigaIiev, 142.

101 Dave, 58.

102Ibid., 58.

103AbdigaIiev, 142.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 45

tensions could more correctly be a product of intraethnic enmity. Theoretically there is a

mystic or aura around nationalizing the language, in reality there is subversion to the

practicality of it,104 and this appears to be comparable to Dave’s mankurts.

Ambiguity surrounding official discourse on language policy formulation in

Kazakhstan hardly contributes to lessening Russian uncertainty about social and

economic opportunities, as well as their own sense of identity. As Laitin has pointed out,

there is more or less a national project underway in the post-Soviet republics which

corresponds to the geometric shifts brought on by independence.105 The most recent Law

of the Republic of Kazakhstan on Languages was passed in June 1997 (the previous Law

on Languages was disseminated in 1989). William Fierman, one of the few western

scholars fluent in both Kazakh and Russian, has examined the fundamental sections of the

law which remain nebulous and open to interpretation, particularly when it comes to

providing employers and managers with a definitive outline of what constitutes rightful

procedures, or what we in the west might call affirmative action. To begin with, the

name of the law as it is in the Kazakh language is in the singular - thus it is possible this

precludes Russian as an equal language of communication, or at least gives the

104Laitin., 13-15.

>0SLaitin concludes by stating that the nature of Kazakh language projection could conceivably follow a Basque revival example, where there was quiet high demand among the population for the use of Basque language, but since the leadership did not have any real knowledge of the language usage patterns of Basque in urban settings did not change. In order for a balance change, or ‘tip’ to occur, intimidation or violence would be required of political leaders who supported a revival of the Basque language. 17. A second possibility in Kazakhstan, according to Laitin, is the Morocco or Algeria model. Here the French did not assimilate into the Arabic-speaking realm, which created a sense of privilege among titular elites who used only French to maintain this high status. Again, only a violent overthrow would upset urban cosmopolitan point of view. Laitin, 23.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 46

impression that there is not more than one official language. This is exemplary of the

way in which Kazakh politicians maintain a Kazakh upper hand while providing a sense

of inclusion to Russians (Fierman is quite clear in that the Kazakh language version is

purposefully left in the singular, although it could easily translate in the plural). Kazakh

is officially recognized as the state language, while Russian is “on par” with Kazakh in

official administrations and state organizations, although there were early references to

Russian being used as a language of “cross-national communication” (iazyk

mezhmtsional nogo obshcheniia) in previous constitutions. One place where the law on

languages is not ambiguous is in stating that the president must have complete fluency of

Kazakh. Knowledge of Kazakh at all jobs below that of the president are simply defined

by having the ability to communicate as is necessary for the job - meaning in either

Russian or Kazakh, presumably to be determined by those in a position to make such a

decision. Since Kazakh (as well as Russian) is obligatory in primary and secondary

education, the issue of Kazakh language testing for entry into higher education is not as

perplexing.106

106 See William Fierman, 177-184. Although 1 have had the opportunity to examine theses laws, I will defer to the expertise of Mr. Fierman on the issue of language laws. However, I will note that, as I previously introduced at the beginning of this paper, the Government of Kazakhstan did publish a series of advertisements on the Seventh Anniversary of Independence stating in one particular advertisement entitled In just seven years, we have melded over 100 different peoples into one harmonious, with nation the following text; “We have given Russian equal [my emphasis] status with Kazakh as the official languages of government, ensuring the full participation of our sizeable Russian minority.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 47

It is perhaps a sign of the times that newspaper articles such as “In Kazakhstan

We’ve Already Answered the National Question,”107 appear with relative frequency. The

tone of this article leans more towards a multicultural view with phrases such as

“harmony in the state” (garmonii v stane), and that “our existence would be

inconceivable without a polyethnic government” (bez kotoroi nemyslimo samo

sushchestvovcmie liubogo polietnicheskogo gosudarstva). This sort of optimism in the

press is partly hype, and partly hopeful. By law, radio and television program content

must be at least half Kazakh language, and the distribution of print newspapers and

journals is even; out of 1425 publications, 581 are in Russian, 574 are in Kazakh, and the

remainder are in other foreign languages108 - 1 would surmise German and Korean would

make up the bulk of this, although there are also a few English language publications, and

Arabic has increased with a rise in Islam.

Psychological and Physical Dimensions of Forced Migration109

107A. Sargaldakov, “V kazakstane davno otvetili na natsional'nyi vopros’,” Panorama (Kazakhstan January 8, 1999): 4.

108Ibid., 4.

109As I have done throughout this paper, I will focus on the Russian/Kazakh scope. Issues of migration do effect other substantial groups in Kazakhstan, most notably Germans and Koreans. The German diaspora has diminished the most, aided by easier emigration laws and economic opportunities. Koreans on the other hand are a people essentially without an ethnic homeland. Originally deported to Kazakhstan in 1935 and 1937 under Stalin to avoid the possibility of their aiding in the fight against Russia for dominance in the Far East, Koreans had no incentive to emigrate to their homelands as the economic situation in Korea during Soviet times was worse. Nor is the possibility of emigrating a real option now since neither North or South Korea will readily accept them. Justin Burke, Kazakhstan: Forced Migration and Nation Buildine. The Forced Migration Projects o f the Open Society (NewInstitute York: Open Society Institute, 1998), 19-20.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 48

The demographic footing of Kazakhstan has been augmented by political representation

so much that it has been suggested by Paul Kolstoe that “the political clout of the

Kazakhs is clearly running ahead of their demographic weight.”"0 Kazakh immigration,

European and Russian emigration and a corresponding high Kazakh birth rate are the

mechanisms of an increased national representation (and thus nationalizing power), yet

one would expect a period of time to pass before the new engine of titular assertion gains

reaches full steam. There still exists a considerable infrastructure and capable workforce

in place that includes Russians. The refurbished tapestry of Kazakh clan/tribal structures

is one form of propulsion that reinforces a national hierarchy and also serves a pulling

motion - attracting ethnic Kazakhs from other countries, and a pushing motion - making

Russians nervous and uncomfortable enough to emigrate usually to Russia, and often to

unknown destinies. This pushing motion, however, has effects within the boundaries of

Kazakhstan that imposes barriers of difference; the Russians are there but have been

forced to migrate into a smaller camp of one’s own kind. This is the psychological

lacunae, and presents complexities of its own.1"

110 Paul Kolstoe, “Anticipating Demographic Superiority: Kazakh Thinking on Integration and Nation Building,” Europe-Asia Studies 50, no. 1 (1998): 61.

'"Cynthia Buckley has examined one psychological spin-off worth noting; suicide rates have increased dramatically in post-Soviet Kazakhstan, in particular between 1990 and 1994. She cites macrosocial changes and “the construction of a new national affiliation based on Kazakh citizenship in a multiethnic state,” (47) as a key variable in suicides. Hardest hit have been males, who are more than likely the main source of income for Kazakh families, and thus “more susceptible to identity threats.” (48). Although economic factors are the primary causality of suicide, economic sustainability and success help shape identity perception. Cynthia Buckley, “Suicide in post-Soviet Kazakhstan: Role Stress, Age and Gender,” Central Asian Survey 16, no. 1 (1997): 45-52. Unfortunately Buckely’s survey did not measure for nationality, as this would provide a very telling insight into identity formation and anomie.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 49

The extreme picture of Russian emigration to Russia was recently represented as a

“flow amounting to 300,000 per year,” and that this movement of Russians was directly

caused by the “Kazakh authorities policy of repression.”112 Language of this sort is

indicative of the alarmist perception many Russians possess. It does not however,

accurately portray the circumstances - clearly 300,000 Russians are not fleeing from

oppression alone. One possible explanation for such massive emigration is the

diminishing socio-economic status of Russians in Kazakhstan. Where Russians had once

dominated white-collar managerial positions and technical fields, ethnic Kazakhs have

made dramatic advances into these areas. Faced with curtailed opportunities and an

unfavorable economic environment in which to pursue untraditional employment,

reorientation among the Russian population in Kazakhstan has been difficult, and this has

been compounded by the rise of language barriers. Nevertheless, the reality of Russian

emigration in Kazakhstan is not as severe as that stated above. Starting in 1992, there

was a considerable rise in Russian out-migration to Russia (96,619; 126,969 in 1993)

which peaked in 1994 at 304,499. Figures for 1995 show a decrease at 191,039.113

A possible downswing in Russian emigration might be a signal that there is a

leveling out, assimilation, integration, or even interethnic harmonization taking place

synonymous with the indigenous population. Just as Kazakh identity assumed a sort of

dormant state during Russian/Soviet colonization while maintaining identities of state

I>2This is according to Dmitriy Rogozin, a deputy from the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliament NTV (Moscow) January 11,1999.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 50

citizenship (that is homo Sovieticus) and regional sub-nationalities (clan/tribal/horde),

Russians in Kazakhstan may be reconceptualizing a colloquial identity to cope with

present requirements and circumstances. Akiner suggests that such identities float “in

free suspension, the hierarchical weighting of each being determined at any given

moment by the current situation.”114 Creative exegesis inspires me to go further in

making a point of the reversal of fortunes that has taken place between Russian/Soviet

colonization, and Kazakh identity reconstruction:

The state identity was reinforced by formal institutions and symbols, whereas the subnational identities were sustained by informal mechanisms. The national identity drew on both of these levels for support, deriving legitimacy from the state identity, of which it was a constituent element, as well as from the sub national complex, which it encompassed.”115

Acute as always, but Akiner is referring to the Russian/Soviet impact on Kazakh identity,

whereas I have reversed it to apply to the Russian population in Kazakhstan, and what the

underlying psychological processes may be. Historicism, as Braudel would extrapolate,

has a way of redefining itself in cycles. Whereas Kazakh identity was once extracted in

two forms under Soviet rule - from official practices and natural tribal associations -

Russians now find themselves facing similar questions of identity which must be worked

out under similar official/unofficial narratives.

113 Valery Tishkov, Ethnicity. Nationalism and Conflict in and After the Soviet Union (Olso, Norway Prio, UN. International Peace Research Institute, 1997), 133.

ll4Akiner, “Meltingpot, Salad Bowl - Cauldron?” 384.

I15lbid., 384.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 51

Democracy and Identity in Kazakhstan

Within the Kazakh political spectrum there is a certain amount of obscurity over what is

being mapped out by the Nazarbayev regime in terms of state-building.116 Not knowing

precisely what political and state-building agenda Nazarbayev has in mind, I will

examine two events which define Kazakhstan as a pluralistic society. The first is the

March 1994 parliamentary elections, and the second is the January 10,1999 presidential

elections. These not only rightfully outline the shortcomings of exclusionary policies and

actions but advance an understanding of the penetration Kazakh identity has made in its

short history. Without a doubt, the character of constitutional evolution can serve as a

blueprint for the powers of Central Asian leaders, and Kazakhstan is no exception. In

addition they provide a reference point that “announce the leaderships determination to

build a nation out of an ethnic or tribal chaos.”117

Constitutional codes in Kazakhstan have been overshadowed by President

Nursultan Nazarbayev since their initial introduction into the public sphere in

Kazakhstan. Nazarbayev’s propensity for strong presidential powers have been justified

by a need to create a solid central apparatus in the face of an unstable economic

infrastructure, the necessity to reside over an uncertain ethnic state, and the sheer size of

the state. As early as 1992 this contention was openly debated in the rewriting of the

116When speaking of regimes here, we have only one; Nazarbayev has been firmly in command of Kazakhstan since his appointment to the highest post in Kazakhstan by Gorbachev. Nazarbayev has subsequently won two elections without any genuine opposition.

117 John Anderson, “Constitutional Development in Central Asia,” Central Asian Survey 16, no. 3 (1997): 301.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 52

Kazakh constitution under fears that abuse of power was highly likely. These fears were

merited, and even found their way into the text of the 1992 constitution which stated that

local administrative officials could be appointed (by the president),"8 which could

undermine the intentions of those potential governors with vested local interests.

A clear example of the politicization of Kazakh identity in motion, provided by

Kaiser and Chinn’s analysis, was the March 7,1994 parliamentary election in which, of

177 parliamentary seats, 42 were appointed by Nazarbayev - not by election. In addition,

although over 700 candidates applied for the remaining 135 seats, the Kazakh ‘electoral’

commission disallowed 200 of these candidates on the basis that they tended to represent

Russian nationalist interests. Political discrimination continues: pre-election agenda

setting was skewed in favor of Kazakhs; only 128 Russians appeared on the ballots,

compared with 566 Kazakhs. In the end, Kazakhs filled 60 percent of the parliamentary

seats, the Russians a mere 28 percent,"9 virtually guaranteeing Nazarbayev concentric

circles of power. The constructs emerging here are not hard to picture. Political

reorientation is a reality. However, so is “political disempowerment and social

disorientation,”120 among Russians.

" 8Ibid., 305.

" 9Kaiser and Chinn, 269-270.

,20Ian Bremmer and Cory Welt, “The Trouble with Democracy in Kazakhstan,” Central Asian Survey 15, no. 2 (1996): 182.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 53

A mere year after the March parliamentary elections, the Constitutional Court

ruled the elections unfair, which led Nazarbayev to dissolve parliament, followed by the

resignation of the Central Election Commission and the government. Undaunted,

Nazarbayev called a referendum in April 1995 to extend his presidential term until 2000,

five years later than scheduled. The proposal was apparently approved in the referendum

by a majority of the population.121 Abetted by a newly legitimized Presidency,

Nazarbayev drafted a new constitution which naturally provided him with substantial

presidential powers, and included a bicameral parliament (which could be dissolved in a

stroke). A new round of parliamentary elections produced an assembly “stuffed full of

presidential loyalists.”122

Following previous instances, Nazarbayev once again called for early elections in

November 1998. The premise this time was that holding elections in 2000 would clash

with, or be overshadowed by, Russian presidential elections. And once again,

Nazarbayev sought parliamentary ruling on extending the presidential term from five

years to seven, which was quickly passed. The reality of the matter was quite different.

Nazarbayev was beginning to face sharp criticism in the press, much of it emanating from

the newspaper “251 ° Fahrenheit,” which received extensive funding from former Prime

Minister turned private enterprise tycoon Akezhan Kazhgeldin, who himself was

beginning to drum up serious support for a run at the presidential seat. Shortly after a

mysterious firebombing destroyed the offices of the aforementioned newspaper,

121 Anderson, 312.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 54

Kazhgeldin was fined (the equivalent of $60) for having participated in a political

meeting of an unregistered party, which subsequently barred him from running for

election on the premise that no one convicted of such a crime could run for president.

Other impediments to registering for election incuded the gathering of 60,000 signatures,

and paying a registration fee of $30,000 (later dropped when it was clear no serious

opposition existed), as well as passing a Kazakh language test with native fluency, all of

which Kazhgeldin was able to manage within the shortened election season123

Nazarbayev won the January 10, 1999 presidential elections with ease, gaining

over 80 percent of the vote. The other votes were distributed among four other

contenders, the nearest rival was a Russian Communist and former customs official who

gained 17 percent of the vote. Ethnic Russians continue to face diminished political

representation. As of January 1, 1999, the ethnic breakdown of deputies with seats in the

parliament are as follows: in the Senate (upper house) there are 44 deputies, 37 are

Kazakhs (77 percent), 8 are Russian (18 percent), one is a Tatar (2.3 percent), and one is

Korean (2.3 percent). In the lower house, the Majilis , there are 65 deputies; 40 (61.5

percent) are Kazakh, 18 (27 percent) are Russian, 3 (4.6 percent) are Ukrainian, 2 (3

l22lbid., 313.

I23This account is given first hand. Although ail of this information is readily available, my impressions were gained while working for the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES), where these proceeding were closely monitored. In December 199S, Kazhgeldin came to IFES to recount the illegality of his disbanded presidential campaign (the illegal meeting he was supposedly at was an informal gathering, and he paid his fine). At this point though, Kazhgeldin was still hopefUl that his ‘conviction’ would be overturned in time for him to at least register some votes. Indeed, with confidence on his side, Nazarbayev encouraged the Constitutional Court to overturn the conviction, which it never did. The point is that Nazarbayev’s presidency is replete with authoritarian tendencies and clan/tribal cronyism.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 55

percent) are Germans, I (1.5 percent) is Uigur, and 1 (1.5 percent) is Tatar.124 By virtue

of his presidential power, Nazarbayev has been able to remain in control of close circle of

supporters, which, as evident from this parliamentary breakdown, would seem to include

a large number of ethnic contemporaries. It would be next to impossible to specify or

inquire about clan/tribal linkages within this circle, but the unspoken word on the street is

that there are clan alliances which determine proximity to Nazarbayev.

Russians, for the most part, have not merely been silent observers of their waning

status. More and more Russians have become politically active in defending their ethnic

and civil rights. For example, the issue of citizenship has been a heated topic in which

Russians have become actively involved. In simple terms, both Russians and Kazakhs

have been required by constitutional law to choose either Russian or Kazakh citizenship.

Russians have been pushing for dual citizenship in an effort to retain what is essentially a

dual identity — Russian-Kazakhs. Many Russians consider Kazakhstan their true home,

but would also like to have the option of migrating back to Russia for either economic

reasons, or for reasons relating to severe ethnic marginalization. Russians argue that dual

citizenship could have a stabilizing effect on ethnic relations. So far the issue of dual

citizenship has remained static; the Kazakh government has refused to reach

compromises with the Russian population.125 The potential for mounting ethnic tension

remains real.

124I am grateful to Marat Begaliev in Astana, Kazakhstan, for tracking down these figures.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 56

One optimistic public opinion survey conducted in 1995 and 1996 suggests that

ethnic relations in Kazakhstan are altogether relaxed, and that among both Kazakhs and

Russians, society is considered pluralistic and not highly polarized. Based on feelings

about Kazakh citizenship 39 percent of Kazakhs and 56 percent of Russians considered

both citizenship and ethnicity equally important or did not care about either.126 More

specifically, 72 percent of Kazakhs were “proud or content” with their citizenship, while

among Russians, 30 percent were “discontented or ashamed” of their Kazakh citizenship.

Perhaps the most fascinating response, and one with broad consensus, concerned the

statement “the people of Kazakhstan have a culture and way of life which deserves to be

protected against foreign influences.” Eighty one percent of Kazakhs agreed with this

statement, 53 percent strongly, while 78 percent of Russians also agree, with 50 percent

strongly agreeing.127

What did come out clearly in this survey, and is highly evident in other surveys of

Kazakh society or in informal discussions, is the multi-ethnic level of dissatisfaction over

the distinct economic disparities over the ‘have’ and ‘have nots,’ which have formed

primarily within the upper levels of power. And while Russians are often the subject of

scrutiny as far as a potential source of internal conflict in Kazakhstan, all segments of

Kazakh society have experienced a declining economic status, no more so than the rural

l25Amerikulov, 165-167.

l26Craig Chamey, Obshchestvennoe mnenie v kazakhstane (Washington, DC: A Publication in the Voices o fthe Electorate Series, international Foundation for Election Systems, April 1997), 65-66.

,27Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 57

agricultural areas where Kazakhs are a majority. In other words, according to Timothy

Edmunds “the potential for instability in Kazakhstan comes from problems relating to the

economy and the wielding of influence, which span the ethnic divide and in which

nationalism is not the primary force. The real division in Kazakhstani [Kazakh] society is

not between ethnic groups but between power and powerlessness.”128

I28Timothy Edmunds, “Powre and Powerlessness in Kazakhstani Society: Ethnic Problems in

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter V

Some Theoretical and Ideological Implications of Kazakhization

There are some theoretical implications to examine in the context of Kazakhization.

Does the pursuit of indigenization policies subordinate the individual to the concerns of

the group? Will increased levels of nationalistic pressure culminate in ethnic conflict?

One has to consider the dynamics at the individual level. As Lawrence Robertson has

argued, “institutionalized discrimination in favor of dominant groups through language

requirements or ethnic preference systems reduces minority life chances and encourages

movement.”129 Indigenization and harmonization policies being undertaken in the

northern oblasts of Kazakhstan can be characterized as moving along these lines. The

potential for ethnic conflict, again particularly in northern Kazakhstan, arises not only out

of policies that induce preferences, but also out of competition for jobs and housing and

the subjectivity of civil rights. Paul Kolstoe has developed a Russian diaspora identity

theory that suggest that since there exists second and third generation Russians in

northern Kazakhstan, these Russians will follow very different identity trajectories, and

form, or create, a new Russian “ethnos.”130 The power of this argument lies in that it

Perspective,” Central Asian Survey, 17, no. 3 (1998): 470.

129 Lawrence R. Robertson, “The Ethnic Composition of Migration in the Former Soviet Union.” Post-Soviet Geography and Economics 37, no. 2 (1996): 125.

l30Paul Kolsto, “The New Russian Diaspora - an Identity of its Own? Possible Identity Trajectories for Russians in the Former Soviet Republic,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 19, no. 3 (July 1996): 619-633. 58

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 59

demonstrates it is these Russians who will most likely need to make accommodations

since out-migrating is really not an option because comparable jobs and cultural roots do

not exist in the Russian Federation. Furthermore, should Russian language face severe

restrictions, will Russians in the northern sections of Kazakhstan be able to establish an

identity — or trajectory, as Kolstoe puts it?

Still others, such as Rogers Brubaker, see the Soviet legacy in Kazakhstan as

providing an infrastructure, by its very contradictory nature,131 that will accommodate and

include ethnonational heterogeneity, through which former Soviet states will seek out the

same functions of “institutionalized multinationality.” In this sense “the Soviet state not

only passively tolerated, but actively institutionalized, the existence of multiple nations

and nationalities as constitutive elements of the state and citizenry. It codified

nationhood and nationality as fundamental social categories sharply distinct from

statehood and citizenship.”132 The idea behind this is that the Kazakh elites will similarly

“codify nationhood and nationality” after establishing a Kazakh national consciousness.

This being the case, a multiethnic, plural society, would emerge. In other words, a kind

of reverse korenizatsiya policy is in effect. However, the obvious problem with this is

that the Kazakh blueprint for a pluralistic, civic state, remains ambiguous and closed to

outside interpretation.

131 Meaning the policy of korenizatsiia.

>32Rogers Brubaker, “Nationhood and the National Question in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Eurasia: An institutional Account,” Theory and Society 23 (1994): 49.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 60

In a recent panel discussion on Kazakh presidential policies, Anurada Bose spoke

on the topic of the Nazarbayev regime. Citing dissident Kazakh intellectuals, the

Nazarbayev presidency is viewed as absolutist and prone to clientalism, based on a

recyclable elite. The conditions for a structurally closed leadership stems from a scarcity

of information - only those closest to the president are privy to the inner workings and

agenda of Nazarbayev. The system that has developed is a mixture of pre-colonial

clan/tribal/horde based governance, or silnaya ruka - where real change is imposed from

the clan patriarch or Khan - and Soviet style diktats, decrees issued from Moscow on a

regular basis. Thus, a presidential decree will always demand as much weight as that of

the parliament where decisions are subject to an approving nod from the president in any

case, and due to a underlying clan/tribal/horde connotations, major decisions and change

are generally expected and accepted by the citizenry133

The worry for the Russians, as expressed by D.V. Dragunskii, is that migration

will

inevitably leave (and, indeed, has already left) many ethnosocial niches free (skilled workers, engineers, and some types of teachers), and therefore open to ethnic Kazakhs. The direction nationalism takes in Kazakhstan will be decisively influenced by who occupies these positions. Will this be a pan-Turkic nationalism (if the places vacated are occupied by the corresponding "foreign specialists’), or will it be a question of local nationalism linked to the ideal of an independent state (and if independently, creates its own ‘national cadres’)? In one way or another, all these things will affect the state of the region and Russia’s

133 Anuradha Bose, “The Krug Presidenta or a Professional Civil Service in Kazakhstan?” Paper presented at the International Studies Association Conference, Washington, DC. February 16, 1999. Professor Bose’s ideas are understood to be a “work in progress,” and this is my interpretation of her presentation.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 61

ability to control, or prevent, ICazakhstan from merging with the Turkic republics, which would cut Russia off from the east.134

This illustrates the concern some Russians have that Kazakhstan could very well

cut off Russia from points south and east (Turkey, China). Some of the data that has been

collected suggests133 that Russian out-migration is not likely to increase drastically.

Another end of the scale would suggest irredentism, the succession of the northern half of

Kazakhstan to Russia, or the incorporation of the Russian dominated northern region of

Kazakhstan into Russian territory.136 If political competition, as assessed by David

Carment and Patrick James, is “manifested through multiparty ethnic factionalism,” then

this could heighten “outbidding” among Russians and Kazakhs, and increase the

possibility of conflict.137

The debates taking place on the subject of Russian/Kazakh identity, particularly in

the north, appear to me to be centered on two evident parallel processes; the

preponderance of Kazakh identity and the as-yet-undetermined development of a

Russian identity. One must keep in mind that Russians as a whole have lost the basis of

i34D.V. Dragunskii, “Ethnopoliticheskie protessy no postsovetskom prostranstve i rekonstruksiia sevemoi evrasii,” Polis, No. 3. 1995.41-42. In Russian, translated by author.

135For example, Bhavna Dave.

136 Alexander Solzhenitsyn is one high profile proponent of irredentism, portrayed in his essay “Kak nam obusttroit Rossiiu?” {How Are We to Organize Russia?) Literatumaia gazeta (Russia), September 18, 1990.

137David Carment and Patrick James. “Internal Constraints and Interstate Ethnic Conflict: Towards a Crisis-Based Assessment of Irredentism,” Journal o f Conflict Resolution 39, no. 1 (March 1995): 85.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 62

identity which was inoculated through the Soviet State, and are now in the process

themselves of redefining a Russian identity. In my mind the movement of Russian-ness

is towards a kind of enclavization where guarantees of identity expression,

haramonization, and assimilation will be carved out. Because Russian language is still a

wide spread mode of communication it seems that Russians will not soon find themselves

thoroughly abandoning their cultural boundaries. They may find ways to become more

incorporated into a political identity in which they now find themselves underrepresented.

Official proclamations and polemics made by the Kazakh government suggest

multiculturalism as part of nation-building. It also seems that Russian culture will not be

measured equally with Kazakh culture - the core of Kazakhness prohibits the formation

of a large Russian power structure. Kolstoe has suggested again that demographics could

be the ultimate determining factor in ethnic superiority. Being predominately a younger

nation than the Russian population, Kazakhs “will win out without engaging the Russians

in direct confrontation, simply by biding their time. The ethnic battle, as it were, will be

fought out in the bed chamber, where the Kazakhs will inevitably be victorious.”138

Regardless, everyday life between Russians and Kazakhs is replete with competition over

language, jobs, administration, and business. As stated previously, even the demographic

model of superiority may be ill conceived since Kazakhs are reducing the number of

children they have in the face of economic hardships, which could in turn support a more

bipolar population distribution.

138Kolstoe, “Anticipating Demographic Superiority,” 62.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter VI

Conclusion

Temporal Rhythms - Temporal Adjustments

There has recently been some concern in parts of the Altai mountain region (in south-east

Kazakhstan) about the threat to the grassland ecology. Privatization has freed certain

segments of the Kazakh economy, and one area where this has occurred is in pastoralism

and animal-husbandry. The threat to the Altai grasslands comes from returning Kazakh

pastoral practices and grazing. In rural areas of Kazakhstan and China, the aul, long a

symbol of Kazakh clan/tribal community, has seen resurgence as a function of organizing

small communities, and in Turkey ethnic Kazakh families who immigrated during the

Soviet period of collectivization continue to reserve one room of their house for the

purpose of drinking tea and conversing.139 These vignettes provide the opportunity to

articulate the multiplicity of identity representations which have many facets that move

beyond the scope of everyday history and can be understood more intimately in the

context of Braudelian analysis.

Spatial models, according to Braudel “are the charts upon which social reality is

projected, and through which we may become at lest partially clear; they are truly models

139Dru C. Gladney, “Nations Transgressing Nation-States: Constructing Dungan, Uygur and Kazakh Identities Across China, Central Asia and Turkey,” in Post-Soviet Central Asia. Eds. Touraj Atabaki and John O’Kane. (London: Tauris Academic Studies, Bloomsbury Square, 1998), 314-3IS.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 64

of all the different movements of time, and for all categories of social life.”140 The

reconstruction of Kazakhstan, as argued in this thesis, combines the descriptive elements

of stasis with the changing phenomena of Kazakh identity. What I have found is a

continuously unraveling history with repetitive rhythms, and this correlates to the

reproduction of Kazakh identity and the collapse of the Soviet empire. Within this

dimension of change are social constructions based on ethnicity, which Weber addresses

with particular insight in stating the difficulty of using the concept of “nation.” The

nation formed on the basis of ethnic identity cannot, he says, be stated unambigously. In

his words “// is proper to expect from certain groups a specific sentiment of solidarity in

the face of other groups.”141 Kazakhs as a group are clearly pursuing solidarity as an

identification and differentiation process in relation to Russian/Soviet history and

Russian/Soviet identities.

Nursultan Nazarbayev commented on the eve of his election in 1991, “God grant

that no one should stir up Kazakhstan on ethnic grounds. It would be far worse than

Yugoslavia.”142 One may wonder if Nazarbayev has kept this thought in the back of his

mind in his pursuit of a Kazakh state. Russians in northern Kazakhstan attribute their

falling political and social status to Nazarbayev’s chauvinistic Kazakhization, and even

authoritarian tendencies. They are probably not wrong on this account given that even

I40Braudel, 52.

141 Weber, Vol. 1.922.

l42Kazakhhstanskiia Pravda, 23, November 1991. 1.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 65

some ethnic Kazakhs see a need for a strong authoritarian figure at the head of

government.143 At the same time, Nazarbayev is seen as a deft politician, merely

restoring Kazakhness to its former level. Again, this is very important among most

Kazakhs, as it is a real consciousness that is important to allow other generations see

expressed, while at the same time, one “cannot simply throw away or forget the Russian

legacy, nor the fact that Russia is an important neighbor.”144 More importantly, as Dave

has been so insightful in emphasizing, “many Kazakhs find the prospect of living in a

“national society” (natsional 'noe obshchestvo), with a diminishing share of Russians, to

be very unsettling. For them, the essence of Kazakh culture lies in its receptivity and

openness to the environs, which have been defining traits of a nomadic civilization, as

distinct from insular and stagnant, sedentary cultures.”145

The real danger in existence “has been compounded by the tendency of titular

majorities to resort to national symbols as a rallying point for the consolidation of control

over the state. The instrumental use of ethnicity has fostered discriminatory internal

policies, excessive concentration on political traditions, formation of personality cults,

and systematic neglect of individual and minority rights.”146 Although Kazakhs are not a

titular majority throughout Kazakhstan, there is a reassertion under way that is built

l43This view was expressed recently by Radik Rakhimbekov (Humphrey Fellow, American University). Interview conducted by author, 20 March 1997.

,44Ibid.

l45Dave, 71.

I46Panarin, 102.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 66

around a reinscribed sense of national identity, a counter movement to Russian legacies,

and now a threat to a decreasing Russian diaspora. Indeed, I found some truth to the deep

impact of this reinscription in an examination of contemporary Kazakh literature by

Asiya Baigozhina, who states, in pointing out that Kazakh translates from Arabic as “free,

valiant,” Kazakh literature today has shown “a flashing awareness of a generation’s

unconsciousness of our history.” What is more, although “the steppe dozed again” under

Soviet rule, “we [Kazakhs] were like hamsters on the treadmill of someone else’s history,

and now that, by the will of fate, we have jumped off that treadmill with a desocialized,

radically simplified consciousness we vaguely understand: now we are something other

than we were. We have Another History. And this history demands its own language,”

which finally, “we must prove to ourselves that we ourselves actually exist. Only then is

further movement possible ... of language, of conscious existence. That is, of real

life.”147

In returning to Max Weber, I think it is important to relate his ideas on

nationalism to the overall context of nationalism in Kazakhstan. Weber’s view, as

interpreted by Vujacic Velijko in a very compelling inquiry, is that a sense of

national solidarity is more often than not, based on particular historical experiences. These historical experiences are first and foremost political in nature. Naturally, such political experiences are subject to interpretation and change over time, and, moreover, the interpretations vary across national political spectrums at any given point in time as well. For this reason, nationalism is

147Asiya Baigozhina, “A Dilettante’s Marginal Notes on National Literature,” World Literature Today 70, no. 3 (Summer 1996): 528-530.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 67

always ‘in the making,’ a field of contested and contestable possibilities, constantly remade by ideologists and politicians.148

Such is the ongoing situation in Kazakhstan. The circumstances are concerned with

establishing a newly created, and newly retrieved, national consciousness, identity, and

political ideology. As Weber has lucently observed in his section entitled “Tribe and

Political Community: The Dissutility of the Notion o f‘Ethnic Group’”

The tribe is clearly delimited when it is a subdivision of a polity, which, in fact, often establishes it. In this case, the artificial origin is revealed by round numbers in which tribes usually appear...[recall that the original Kazakh horde structure was a tripartite division]

and furthermore;

the fact that the tribal consciousness was primarily formed by common political experiences and not by common descent appears to have been a frequent source of the belief in common ethnicity.149

Seen from this perspective, the Kazakh clan/tribal/horde identity is what nurtures

contemporary Kazakh identity and political restructuring.

I have concentrated primarily on the social and political constructs of Kazakh-

Russian relationships as a way of giving weight to a general analysis of ethnicity as it is

played out in this specific locus. The geopolitical territory covered provides a frame for a

nation that can be fixed in strata of history, the territory of which can be “filled up with a

148 Veljko Vujacic, “Historical Legacies, Nationalist Mobilization, and Political Outcomes in Russia and Serbia: A Weberian View,”Theory and Society 25 (1996): 764.

149Weber, Vol. 1:393-394.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 68

particular language and culture.”150 The instance of Kazakhstan allows us to examine

remnants of colonial institutions, culture and language, and a resurgence of the colonized

and what is being retained over time, or even what temporal adjustments are translated

into knowledge. This is the sort of relationship that addresses issues of power,

knowledge and identity that have can also have global applications.

Kazakh identity reconstruction has as much to do with notions of self-expression

and self-assertion as they do with historical legacies. National identity contains

multidimensional levels that are manifested in unequal rhythms of development.

Considering the Braudelian framework of analysis I have employed, this thesis has

interpreted events in a post-colonial, post-Soviet, environment. The degree to which

complexities of identity, ethnicity, and nationalism can effect the translation of the past

are paramount to understanding the direction of modem Kazakh identity. Akiner has

summarized the re-examination of history as the “imperative to construct ‘contestatory’

histories that challenge the received wisdom of the ‘colonial’ narrative, with its

embedded assumptions of European/Russian superiority and Central Asian [Kazakh]

subaltemity.”151 The precursor to this would be the need to legitimize identity through

retrieved and/or reworked institutions, symbols, myths, etc. This process has been

enlivened by a determined sense of official practices in Kazakhstan.

150 Rogers Brubaker, “Nationhood and the National Question in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Eurasia: An Institutional Account,” Theory and Society 23 (1994): 29.

151 Akiner, “Meltingpot, Salad Bowl - Cauldron?” 363.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 69

The magnifying lens of Fernand Braudel’s temporal and spatial concepts have

been used in this thesis to gather the fragments of identity reconstruction in Kazakhstan.

The descriptive dimensions of this perspective, I believe, can contribute to a more

comprehensive focus when looking at many interrupted and deconstructed nations

engaged in the process of building national identity.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 70

Bibliography

Abdigaliev, Berik. "Russians in Kazakhstan: Problems, Myths and Realities," in Central Asia: Conflict. Resolution, and Change, eds. Ronald Z. Sagdeev and Susan Eisenhower. Chevy Chase, MD: Center for Post-Soviet Studies. 1995. 98-112.

Anderson, John. “Constitutional Development in Central Asia,” Central Asian Survey 16, no.3.1997. 301-320.

Akiner, Shirin. "Melting Pot, Salad Bow - Cauldron? Manipulation and Mobilization of Ethnic and Religious Identities in Central Asia." Ethnic and Racial Studies 20 no 2. (April 1997): 362-398.

______. The Formation of Kazakh Identity: From Tribe to Nation-State. Chatham House, London: The Royal Institute o f International Affairs, 1995.

______. “Sociological and Political Reorganization in Central Asia: Transition from Pre-Colonial to Post-Colonial Society,” in Post-Soviet Central Asia, eds. Touraj Atabaki and John O’Kane. London: Tauris Academic Studies, Bloomsbury Square, 1998. 1-34.

Arenov, M.M. and S.K. Kalmykov. "Sovremennaia iazykovaia situatsiia v kazakhstane," Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, 1995. 76-81.

Baigozhina, Asiya. "A Dilettante's Marginal Notes on National Literature," World Literature Today 70, no. 3 (Summer 1996): 527-530.

Braudel, Fernand. On History. Chicago, IL: The Chicago University Press, 1980.

Bremmer, Ian. "Nazarbayev and the North: State Building and Ethnic Relations in Kazakhstan," Ethnic and Racial Studies 17, no. 4 (October 1994): 619-635.

Bremmer, Ian and Cory Welt. "Kazakhstan's Quandary," Journal o f Democracy 1, no. 3. (1995): 139-154.

______. “The Trouble With Democracy in Kazakhstan,” Central Asian Survey 15, no. 2. (1996): 179-199.

Brubaker, Rogers. "Nationhood and the National Question in the Soviet Union and Post-Soviet Eurasia: An Institutional Account," Theory and Society 23 (1994): 47-78.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 71

Brubaker, Rogers. “Aftermaths of Empire and the Mixing and Unmixing of Peoples: Historical and Comparative Perspectives,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 18, no. 2 (April 1995): 189-218.

Buckley, Cynthia. “Suicide in post-Soviet Kazakhstan: Role Stress, Age and Gender,” Central Asian Survey 16, no.l (1997): 45-52.

Burke, Justin. Ka7alchstan: Forced Migration and Nation Building. New York, NY: The Forced Migration Projects of the Open Society Institute, 1998.

Carment, David and Patrick James. "Internal Constraints and Interstate Ethnic Conflict: Towards a Crisis-Based Assessment of Irredentism," Journal o f Conflict Resolution 39, no. 1 (March 1995): 82-109.

Chamey, Craig. Obshchestvennoe mnenie v kazakhstane. A Publication in the Voices o f the Electorate Series. Washington, DC: International Foundation for Election Systems. April 1997.

Conquest, Robert. The Harvest of Sorrow. New York, New York: Oxford University Press. 1986.

Dave, Bhavna. "National Revival in Kazakhstan: Language Shift and Identity Change," Post-Soviet Affairs 12, no. 1 (1996): 51-71.

Doty, Roxanne, Lynn. Imperial Encounters: The Politics of Representation in North/South Relationships. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota. 1996.

Dragunskii, D.V. "Etnopoliticheskie protesty na postsovetskom prostranstve i rekonstruktsiia sevemoi evrasii," Polis 3 (1995): 40-47.

Dunne, Fiona. “Kazakh Russians Fleeing Oppression.” NTV, Moscow. BBC Monitoring. (January 13, 1999): 9:30 p.m.

Edmunds, Timothy. “Power and Powerlessness in Kazakhstani Society: Ethnic Problems In Perspective,” Central Asian Survey 17, no. 3 (September, 1998): 463-470.

Esenova, Saulesh. “‘Tribalism’ and Identity in Contemporary Circumstances: The Case of Kazakstan,” Central Asian Survey 17, no. 3 (September, 1998): 443-462.

Fierman,William. “Language and Identity in Kazakhstan,” Communist and Post- Communist Studies 31, no. 2 (1998): 171-186.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 72

Gladney, Dru C. “Nations Transgressing Nation-States: Constructing Dungan, Uygur and Kazakh Identities Across China, Central Asia and Turkey,” in Post-Soviet Central Asia. Eds. Touraj Atabaki and John O’Kane. London Bloomsbury Square: Tauris Academic Studies. 1998. 301-325.

Kaiser, Robert and Jeff Chinn. "Russian-Kazakh Relations in Kazakhstan," Post-Soviet Geography 36, no. 5 (1995): 257-272.

Kaiser, Robert. "Nationalizing the Work Force: Ethnic Restratification in the Newly Independent States," Post-Soviet Geography xxxvi, no. 2 (1995): 87-110.

Kendirbay, Gulnar. “The National Liberation Movement of the Kazakh Intelligentsia at the Beginning of the 20th Century,” Central Asian Survey 16, no. 4 (1997): 487-515.

______. “The Early Twentieth-Century Kazakh Intelligentsia: In Search of National Identity,” in Post-Soviet Central Asia. Eds. Touraj Atabaki and John O’Kane. London, Bloomsbury Square: Tauris Academic Studies. 1998. 248-268.

Khazanov, Anatoly. “Ecological Limitations of Nomadism in the Eurasian Steppes and Their Social and Cultural Implications,” Asian and African Studies 24. (1990): 1-15.

Kazakhstanskiia Pravda. (Kazakhstan) November 23, 1991.

Kulagina, Svetlana. “Peace in the nation is good for every Kazakh citizen,” Central Asian Post, (Kazakhstan) February 1,1999. No.4.

Laclau, Ernesto, ed., introduction to The Making of Political Identities. London: Verso. 1994.

Laitin, David, D. “Language and Nationalism in the Post-Soviet Republics,” Post-Soviet Affairs 12, no. 1 (1996): 4-24.

Moshe Lewin, The Gorbachev Phenomena: A Historical Interpretation. Los Angeles: University of California Press. 1991

Manzo, Kathryn, A. Creating Boundaries: The Politics of Race and Nation. London: Lynn Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1996.

Kolsto, Paul. "The New Russian Diaspora - An Identity of its Own? Possible Identity Trajectories for Russians in the Former Soviet Republics," Ethnic and Racial Studies 19, No. 3 (July 1996): 609-635.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 73

______. “Anticipating Demographic Superiority: Kazakh Thinking on Integration and Nation Building,” Europe and Asia Studies 50, No. 1 (1998): 51-69.

Olcott, Martha Brill. The Kazakhs. Stanford University: Hoover Institution Press. 1995.

Panarin , Sergei, A. "Political Development Paradigms for the Newly Independent States in Political Asia: The Consequences of Migration," in Cooperation and Conflict in the Former Soviet Union: Implications for Migration, eds Jeremy R. Azrael and Emil A. Payin. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Publications. 1996. 98-112.

Rakhimbekov, Radik. Humphrey Fellow, American University. Tape recorded interview by author, 20 March 1997.

Robertson, Lawrence, R. "The Ethnic Composition of Migration in the Former Soviet Union," Post-Soviet Geography and Economics 37, No. 2 (1996): 113-128.

Sinclair, Timothy, J. “Beyond International Relations Theory: Robert W. Cox and Approaches to World Order.” in Approaches to World Order. University of Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Studies in International Relations: 40. 1996. 3-14

Shoumikhin, Andrei. “Russians in Central Asia and the Caucasus: An Uncertain Future.” Perspectives on Central Asia 2, no. 9 Chevy Chase, MD: The Center for Political and Strategic Studies (December 1997): 1-5.

Suny, Robert. The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism. Revolution and the Collapse of the Soviet Union. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 1993.

Tishkov, Valery. Ethnicity. Nationalism and Conflict in and After the Soviet Union. Olso, Norway: Prio, UN. International Peace Research Institute. 1997.

Vujacic, Veljko. "Historical Legacies, National Mobilization, and Political Outcomes in Russia and Serbia: A Weberian View,"Theory and Society 25. (1996): 763-801. Weber, Max. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Vols. I & II. New York: Bedminster Press. 1968.

Williams, Daniel. "Kazakhstan's Dull, Disagreeable New Capital." The Washington Post. November 2,1997.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.