From the Steppe to Astana: The Development of Kazakh Nationalism

Abstract

Nationalist ideologies are a strong political and social force based on the principle of one sovereign nation’s rights over a given national territory. These ideas may seem simple, but the arguments, symbol-making and historical revisionism inherent in such a matter need strong elaboration, active nation-building efforts, and are prone to interruption by transformative crises. Kazakh nationalism is no exception to this rule. This paper shows the origins, competing nation-building efforts and the major transformative crises within this now one hundred-and-thirteen-year long tradition. In this paper I argue, following the theories of Miroslav Hroch, that Kazakh nationalism 1) begins in Orenburg periodicals under the Horde of Alash, 2) expands to the status of a mass national movement via Soviet nation-building and by reactions to that process under the tenure of Dinmukhamed Kunayev, 3) is greatly transformed during the 1986 Jeltoksan riots in Alma-Ata, which engendered a hard cleft between Kazakh national activists and the USSR center, and 4) is a common feature of Kazakhstani politics in the post-independence period, used when and where the narrative supports state projects or state legitimacy. Taken as a whole, we see a tradition built to be national in form but Soviet in character then realized as Soviet in form but national in character. Thus, this work serves as a guide to the major elaborations, transformations, and conjurations of Kazakh Nationalism through history by synthesizing the works of many scholars of Kazakh national movements, historians, and various primary sources of national character.