The politics of multiple identities: Lineage and ethnicity in Kazakhstan

Europe - Asia Studies

Volumn 52, Issue 3, 2000, Pages 489-506

  Schatz, Edward ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN MADISON   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ETHNICITY; IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION; STATE BUILDING; STATE ROLE;

KAZAKHSTAN;

EID: 0034123206     PISSN: 09668136     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/713663070     Document Type: Article

References (114)

1. Mark Beissinger gives us good reason to distinguish Russian overland imperialism from more traditional overseas imperialism. See his 'The Demise of an Empire-State: Identity, Legitimacy, and the Deconstruction of Soviet Politics', in Crawford Young (ed.), The Rising Tide of Cultural Pluralism: The Nation-State at Bay? (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1993). Of all the regions that came under Russian imperial control, Central Asia had the most classically colonial relationship to Russia, given the rapidity of conquest of the region and the exploitation of this peripheral region's raw materials.
2. Crawford Young, The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective (New Haven, Yale, 1994).
3. On Tajikistan see Shahram Akbarzadeh, 'Why Did Nationalism Fail in Tajikistan?', Europe-Asia Studies, 48, 7, 1996, pp. 1105-1129. On Somalia see I. M. Lewis, Blood and Bone: The Call of Kinship in Somali Society (Lawrenceville, NJ, Red Sea Press, 1994).
4. On Tajikistan see Shahram Akbarzadeh, 'Why Did Nationalism Fail in Tajikistan?', Europe-Asia Studies, 48, 7, 1996, pp. 1105-1129. On Somalia see I. M. Lewis, Blood and Bone: The Call of Kinship in Somali Society (Lawrenceville, NJ, Red Sea Press, 1994).
5. Work derived from Gurr's enormous Minorities at Risk data-set is one example of this tendency. See Ted Robert Gurr, Minorities At Risk (Washington, DC, United States Institute for Peace, 1993).
6. I would like to thank Mark Beissinger, Bhavna Dave, Martha Merritt, Michael Schatzberg, Crawford Young and several anonymous reviewers from Europe-Asia Studies for their perceptive comments on previous versions of this article. In its earlier stages, the article was presented at the annual meetings of the Association for the Study of Nationalities (Columbia University, 17 April 1999) and the American Political Science Association (Atlanta, 3 September 1999). Research for the article was supported by a grant from the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), with funds provided from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the US Department of State. The author alone is responsible for the views expressed.
7. This article does not discuss the aristocratic 'white bone' identities (aq suiek), which included the ostensible descendants of Chinggis Khan (tore) and of the Prophet Muhammed (qozha).
8. Rogers Brubaker, Reframing Nationalism (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996).
9. On language use see David Laitin, Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Population in the Near-Abroad (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1998); and Bhavna Dave, 'The Politics of Language Revival: National Identity and State Building in Kazakhstan', unpublished PhD dissertation (Syracuse University, 1996). On new histories see Viktor Shnirelman, Who Gets the Past? Competition for Ancestors among Non-Russian Intellectuals in Russia (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); Katherine Verdery, What was Socialism and What comes Next? (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1996); and Rainer Lindner, 'Besieged Past: National and Court Historians in Lukashenko's Belarus', paper presented at conference of Association for the Study of Nationalities (Columbia University, 16 April 1999).
10. On language use see David Laitin, Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Population in the Near-Abroad (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1998); and Bhavna Dave, 'The Politics of Language Revival: National Identity and State Building in Kazakhstan', unpublished PhD dissertation (Syracuse University, 1996). On new histories see Viktor Shnirelman, Who Gets the Past? Competition for Ancestors among Non-Russian Intellectuals in Russia (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); Katherine Verdery, What was Socialism and What comes Next? (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1996); and Rainer Lindner, 'Besieged Past: National and Court Historians in Lukashenko's Belarus', paper presented at conference of Association for the Study of Nationalities (Columbia University, 16 April 1999).
11. On language use see David Laitin, Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Population in the Near-Abroad (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1998); and Bhavna Dave, 'The Politics of Language Revival: National Identity and State Building in Kazakhstan', unpublished PhD dissertation (Syracuse University, 1996). On new histories see Viktor Shnirelman, Who Gets the Past? Competition for Ancestors among Non-Russian Intellectuals in Russia (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); Katherine Verdery, What was Socialism and What comes Next? (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1996); and Rainer Lindner, 'Besieged Past: National and Court Historians in Lukashenko's Belarus', paper presented at conference of Association for the Study of Nationalities (Columbia University, 16 April 1999).
12. On language use see David Laitin, Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Population in the Near-Abroad (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1998); and Bhavna Dave, 'The Politics of Language Revival: National Identity and State Building in Kazakhstan', unpublished PhD dissertation (Syracuse University, 1996). On new histories see Viktor Shnirelman, Who Gets the Past? Competition for Ancestors among Non-Russian Intellectuals in Russia (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); Katherine Verdery, What was Socialism and What comes Next? (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1996); and Rainer Lindner, 'Besieged Past: National and Court Historians in Lukashenko's Belarus', paper presented at conference of Association for the Study of Nationalities (Columbia University, 16 April 1999).
13. On language use see David Laitin, Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Population in the Near-Abroad (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1998); and Bhavna Dave, 'The Politics of Language Revival: National Identity and State Building in Kazakhstan', unpublished PhD dissertation (Syracuse University, 1996). On new histories see Viktor Shnirelman, Who Gets the Past? Competition for Ancestors among Non-Russian Intellectuals in Russia (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); Katherine Verdery, What was Socialism and What comes Next? (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1996); and Rainer Lindner, 'Besieged Past: National and Court Historians in Lukashenko's Belarus', paper presented at conference of Association for the Study of Nationalities (Columbia University, 16 April 1999).
14. Brubaker, Reframing Nationalism, p. 5.
15. Ronald Suny, The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1993); Yuri Slezkine, 'The USSR as Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism', Slavic Review, 53, 1994, pp. 414-453; and Brubaker, Reframing Nationalism.
16. Ronald Suny, The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1993); Yuri Slezkine, 'The USSR as Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism', Slavic Review, 53, 1994, pp. 414-453; and Brubaker, Reframing Nationalism.
17. Ronald Suny, The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1993); Yuri Slezkine, 'The USSR as Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism', Slavic Review, 53, 1994, pp. 414-453; and Brubaker, Reframing Nationalism.
18. Gurr, Minorities At Risk.
19. Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley, University of California, 1985), pp. 563-684; and Arend Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1977).
20. Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley, University of California, 1985), pp. 563-684; and Arend Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1977).
21. For an important overview of trends in the literature on ethnicity and cultural pluralism see Crawford Young, 'The Dialectics of Cultural Pluralism', in Crawford Young (ed.), The Rising Tide of Cultural Pluralism: The Nation-State at Bay? (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1993.
22. Andrew Shryock, 'Tribes and the Print Trade: Notes from the Margins of Literate Culture in Jordan', American Anthropologist, 98, 1, 1996, pp. 26-40.
23. In this sense, its post-colonial nation-building experience might be fruitfully compared with that of Malaysia. See Barbara Watson Andaya & Leonard Y. Andaya, A History of Malaysia (London, Macmillan, 1982); and Geoffrey Stafford, 'Ethnicity in the Age of Globalization: Economic Development Policy in Multi-Ethnic Malaysia', unpublished PhD dissertation (University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1998).
24. In this sense, its post-colonial nation-building experience might be fruitfully compared with that of Malaysia. See Barbara Watson Andaya & Leonard Y. Andaya, A History of Malaysia (London, Macmillan, 1982); and Geoffrey Stafford, 'Ethnicity in the Age of Globalization: Economic Development Policy in Multi-Ethnic Malaysia', unpublished PhD dissertation (University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1998).
25. On some of the political implications of this internationalism for social mobilisation see Edward A. D. Schatz, 'Notes on the "Dog that Didn't Bark": Eco-Internationalism in Late Soviet Kazakstan', Ethnic and Racial Studies, 22, 1, January 1999, pp. 136-161.
26. Nursultan Nazarbaev, Strategiya - 2030: poslanie Prezidenta strany narodu Kazakhstana (Almaty, Bilim, 1997), p. 104. Some of the historically sedentary areas of what is today southern Kazakhstan were on the northern fringe of this trading corridor; the Silk Route is less central to a history of the areas that today comprise Kazakhstan than to a history of those regions that today comprise Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. This fact did not prevent Nazarbaev from appropriating it for its symbolic value.
27. Al'bert Grigor'evich Levkovsky, 'Qazaqstan - mening ekinshi otanym', Turkistan, 29 April-5 May 1998. All translations from Russian and Kazakh are the author's.
28. The choice of the term 'extra-legal' here is deliberate. These practices were less 'illegal', in the sense of contravening existing legislation, than they were outside the law, which in most cases was simply irrelevant.
29. A dangerous economic contraction in the post-Soviet period, broad-scale privatisation of state industries, the geographical contiguity of colonising power and colonised region, among other factors, also distinguish the Kazakhstani case from the Malaysian case. See Andaya & Andaya, A History of Malaysia; and Stafford, 'Ethnicity in the Age of Globalization'.
30. A dangerous economic contraction in the post-Soviet period, broad-scale privatisation of state industries, the geographical contiguity of colonising power and colonised region, among other factors, also distinguish the Kazakhstani case from the Malaysian case. See Andaya & Andaya, A History of Malaysia; and Stafford, 'Ethnicity in the Age of Globalization'.
31. Nursultan Nazarbaev, Na poroge XXI veka (Almaty, Oner, 1996), pp. 104-105.
32. Khasen Qozha-Akhmet, 'Oqighany kim uimdastyrdy?', Ana tili, 21 November 1996, p. 6.
33. Nazarbaev, Strategiya-2030.
34. M. Bazarbaev, ' "Kazakhstanskaya pravda" seet vrazhdu?', Kazakhstanskaya pravda, 8 August 1992, p. 3.
35. See Laitin, Identity in Formation, for a comparative analysis of the politics of language revival in the former USSR.
36. O yazykakh v Respublike Kazakhstan (Almaty, Zheti Zharghy, 1997), p. 25.
37. Ibid., p. 24.
38. Nurbulat Masanov & Igor Savin, Model' etnopoliticheskogo monitoringa: Kazakhstan (Moscow and Almaty, MOST, 1997), p. 71.
39. The data presented here on language use in education come from Zh. Nauryzbai, 'Etnokul'turnoe obrazovanie v Kazakhstane', Mysl' (Almaty), 1997, 9, pp. 65-75.
40. Data reported in Igor Savin, 'Spetsifika osushchestvelniya i rezul'taty kul'turno-yazykovoi i obrazovatel'noi politiki v Kazakhstane', unpublished paper (Shymkent branch, Kazakhstan Academy of Sciences, 1998), p. 13.
41. Interview, Erbol Shaimerdenov, Director, Department for the Development of Languages (Astana), 15 September 1998.
42. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty electronic report - Kazakh Service, 20 January 1999.
43. Article 18, 'On Languages in the Republic of Kazakstan', specifies that Kazakh broadcasts must constitute at least one-half of all broadcasts (O yazykakh ..., p. 28). One informant who ran the Kazakh-language broadcasts for the Otyrar station in Shymkent estimated that 15-20% of broadcasts on his station were conducted in Kazakh (interview, Asan Kelesbaev, 26 May 1998).
44. See Dave, 'The Politics of Language Revival', for a full account of how the large numbers of russified Kazakhs significantly alter the dynamic of what otherwise might be viewed as a simple bi-ethnic linguistic 'tipping game'. Most of the data presented by Laitin, Identity in Formation, on Kazakhstan come from Dave's field-work.
45. See Dave, 'The Politics of Language Revival', for a full account of how the large numbers of russified Kazakhs significantly alter the dynamic of what otherwise might be viewed as a simple bi-ethnic linguistic 'tipping game'. Most of the data presented by Laitin, Identity in Formation, on Kazakhstan come from Dave's field-work.
46. Shaimerdenov, 15 September 1998.
47. Dave, 'The Politics of Language Revival'.
48. Interview, Kenzhekhan Matyzhan, Deputy, Department for the Development of Languages (Astana), 15 September 1998.
49. Of the non-Turkic ethnic groups of Kazakhstan, many rural Germans had a striking facility with the language. By contrast, Russians and other Slavs, as in other former union republics, were distinguished by their near-total ignorance of local languages. For most Kazakh-speaking Kazakhs, someone with a European face speaking Kazakh was a shock - something borne out in my field-work over and over again. A Kazakh-speaking European was about as unusual as a former Soviet citizen who could not understand Russian (i.e. it was very unusual).
50. Masanov & Savin, Model' etnopoliticheskogo monitoringa, p. 35.
51. Conversation with the editors of the newspaper Yuzhnyi variant (Shymkent), 25 May 1998.
52. Askar Kumakovich Tulegulov, Rekrutirovanie politicheskoi elity v usloviyakh transformatsii Kazakhstanskogo obshchestva, kandidat dissertation (Almaty, Institut Razvitiya Kazakhstana), 1998, p. 88.
53. Gregory Gleason & Gulnara Dadabaeva ask whether the technocratic or the ethnic principle is more significant in their 'The Ethnic Factor in Government Reform in Kazakhstan', paper presented at the meeting of the American Political Science Association (Boston, MA), 2-4 September 1998.
54. Stafford, 'Ethnicity in the Age of Globalization'.
55. Acculturation in highly russified milieux proved difficult for these repatriants. In addition, the Kazakhstani press reported numerous examples in 1998 of immigrants who never received the material support promised them by the state.
56. On the Kazakh diaspora see G. M. Mendikulova, Istoricheskie sud'by Kazakhskoi diaspory (Almaty, Ghylym, 1998). On ethnodemographics see Maqash Tatimov, Qazaq alemi: qazaqtyng sany qansha? (Almaty, Atamura-Qazaqstan, 1993).
57. On the Kazakh diaspora see G. M. Mendikulova, Istoricheskie sud'by Kazakhskoi diaspory (Almaty, Ghylym, 1998). On ethnodemographics see Maqash Tatimov, Qazaq alemi: qazaqtyng sany qansha? (Almaty, Atamura-Qazaqstan, 1993).
58. Pål Kolstø, 'Anticipating Demographic Superiority: Kazakh Thinking on Integration and Nation-Building', Europe-Asia Studies, 50, 1, 1998, pp. 51-69.
59. The image was one of Kazakhs as a monolithic unit standing in opposition to other groups. The internal divisions among Kazakhs, especially along linguistic lines, were routinely left out of this understanding of majoritarian democracy. See Dave, 'The Politics of Language Revival'.
60. Nurbulat Masanov, 'Migratsii v Kazakhstane: istoriya, problema i metod', paper presented at Soros Foundation seminar on interethnic relations (Almaty, 25 March 1998), p. 19.
61. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty - Kazakh Service, 8 January 1998.
62. National Statistical Agency, p. 12.
63. Aleksandr Alekseenko, 'Etnodemograficheskie protsessy i emigratsiya iz suverennogo Kazakhstana: prichiny i perspektivy', in Galina Vitkovskaya (ed.), Sovremennye etnopoliticheskie protsessy i migratsionnaya situatsiya v tsentral'noi azii (Moscow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1998), p. 106.
64. Perepis' naseleniya, Pervaya natsional'naya perepis' naseleniya v Respublike Kazakhstan: predvaritel'nye rezul'taty (Almaty, 1999), p. 23.
65. Conversations in 1997-98 with many different scholars affiliated with the Institute of History and Ethnology in Almaty.
66. Many thanks to my (anonymous) local informants for bringing to my attention these (and other) attempts to stretch the historical imagination.
67. K. Daniyarov, Al'ternativnaya istoriya Kazakhstana (Almaty, Zhibek zholy, 1998), p. 175.
68. Abdirov, Khan Kuchum (Almaty, 1998), p. 165.
69. For manifestations of this trend in other contexts see Verdery, What Was Socialism and What Comes Next?; and Shnirelman, Who Gets the Past?.
70. For manifestations of this trend in other contexts see Verdery, What Was Socialism and What Comes Next?; and Shnirelman, Who Gets the Past?.
71. Novoe pokolenie (Almaty), 19-26 April 1996, p. 11.
72. Dzhezkazganskaya pravda, 19 November 1991, p. 3.
73. Mestnoe vremya (Mangystau oblast'), 9 December 1997, p. 3.
74. Interview, Kulgazira Nurlanovna Baltabaeva, Department of Social and Humanitarian Sciences, Academy of Sciences (Almaty), 28 September 1998.
75. Interview, anonymous expedition participant, 29 September 1998.
76. For a perceptive ethnography of such multi-ethnic rural locales, see Ol'ga Naumova, 'Nekotorye aspekty formirovaniya sovremennoi bytovoi kul'tury Kazakhov v mnogonatsional'nykh raionakh Kazakhstana', in A. Zhilina & S. Cheshko (eds), Sovremennoe razvitie etnicheskikh grupp Srednei Azii i Kazakhstana (Moscow, Institut etnologii i antropologii, 1992).
77. Kontseptsiya stanovleniya istoricheskogo soznaniya v Respublike Kazakhstan (Almaty, 1995).
78. Abish Kekilbaev, Secretary of State, Republic of Kazakhstan, 'Vozrozhdenie istoricheskoi pamyati - put' k obshchestvennomu vozrozhdeniyu', Kazakhstanskaya pravda, 9 January 1998.
79. Interview, Berik Abdugaliev, Deputy Director, Department of Internal Politics, Ministry of Information and Social Accord, Astana, 14 September 1998.
80. Konstitutsiya Respubliki Kazakhstan (Almaty, Zheti Zharghy, 1996), p. 9.
81. His having the resources to pay travel expenses and court fees also separated him from more ordinary Kazakhstani citizens. Interview, Aleksei Goncharov, Shymkent, 28 May 1998.
82. Interview, Kabyl Juraruly Duisenbi, Department of Information and Public Accord, Shymkent, 6 June 1998.
83. That such knowledge was axiomatic does not preclude several possibilities: (1) that it was in no small part fictive, (2) that knowledge was unevenly distributed among members of society, and (3) that class stratification, especially keen with the increasing Russian imperial influence in the region, in some cases served to cut society along non-genealogical lines.
84. Cited in Igor Savin, 'O kategoriyakh gruppovogo soznaniya u Kazakhov-kochevnikov', unpublished paper (Shymkent branch, Kazakhstan Academy of Sciences, 1998), p. 6.
85. Dinmukhammed Kunaev, O moem vremeni (Almaty, 1992) pp. 10-11. This mode of introducing oneself stands in contrast to alternatives that emphasise physical location and geographical landmarks, as well as to those which centre on the person's given name understood as separate from family lineage.
86. By suggesting that segmentation was a necessary, functional response of nomadic societies to harsh ecological conditions, Nurbulat Masanov, Kochevaya tsivilizatsiya Kazakhov (Almaty, Sotsinvest, 1995), echoes E. E. Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Niolitic People (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1940).
87. By suggesting that segmentation was a necessary, functional response of nomadic societies to harsh ecological conditions, Nurbulat Masanov, Kochevaya tsivilizatsiya Kazakhov (Almaty, Sotsinvest, 1995), echoes E. E. Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Niolitic People (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1940).
88. Zamanbek Nurkadilov, Ne tol'ko o sebe (Almaty, Shartarap, 1996), p. 11.
89. Conversation with Bakhyt Murzhabekova, Almaty, 14 August 1998.
90. Shakarim Qudaiberdy-uly, Rodoslovnaya Tyurkov, Kirgizov, Kazakhov i khanskikh dinastii, translated by Bakhyt Kairbekov (Alma-Ata, Zhazushy, 1992).
91. Zaiyr Sadibekov, Qazaq shezhiresi (Tashkent, Uzbekiston, 1994); Izturghan Sariev, Ush zhuzding shezhiresi (Almaty, Olke, 1997).
92. Zaiyr Sadibekov, Qazaq shezhiresi (Tashkent, Uzbekiston, 1994); Izturghan Sariev, Ush zhuzding shezhiresi (Almaty, Olke, 1997).
93. Serikbaiuly, Kongyrattyng shezhiresi (Almaty, 1992).
94. Although women were often the transmitters of this knowledge through early socialisation, men were assumed to be the carriers of it, since family was understood patrilineally and living conditions defined patrilocally. I am unaware of any published shezhire by female authors.
95. Conversation with Gulnara Dadabaeva, Almaty, 3 March 1998.
96. Qazaq adebieti, 18 February 1998, p. 3.
97. Ernest Gellner, 'Tribalism and the State in the Middle East', in Philip S. Khoury & Joseph Kostiner (eds), Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1990).
98. Tsentral'nyi Kazakhstan (Dzhezkazgan), 26 June 1993, p. 1.
99. Industrial'naya Karaganda (Karaganda), 6 March 1997, p. 1.
100. Mestnoe vremya (Aktau), 9 December 1997, p. 3.
101. A. Saduakasov & A. Bolgozhina, 'Sokhranim svyaz' vremen', Madeniet (Semei), 1994, 4, 15-28 February, p. 11.
102. Egemendi Qazaqstan, 10 September 1992, p. 3.
103. Egemendi Qazaqstan, 17 September 1992, p. 4.
104. Kazakhstanskaya pravda, 31 October 1992, p. 2.
105. Kazakhstanskaya pravda, 14 August 1991.
106. Tselinogradskaya pravda, 8 June 1991.
107. Egemendi Qazaqstan, 22 June 1991. All indications are that at this event any scholarship on Bogenbai took a back seat to paeans sung in his honour.
108. The local newspapers indicate that the proposed location for a Bogenbai monument generated much controversy, with the authorities in much smaller Ermentau arguing his close ties to their small town and those in larger Akmola claiming that a monument there would have greater visibility.
109. Tselinogradskaya pravda, 23 May 1991.
110. Tselinogradskaya pravda, 12 June 1991.
111. Kyzylordinskie vesti, 7 May 1992, p. 3.
112. Akmolinskaya pravda, 23 November 1993, p. 4.
113. Mestnoe vremya (Aktau), 27 January 1998, p. 2.
114. Ann Swidler, 'Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies', American Sociological Review, 51, 1986, pp. 273-286.