Russia Looks East: Kazakhs and the Russian and Soviet State

Abstract

This issue showcases the work of three leading historians from Kazakhstan. Their essays, which cover the Russian imperial and Soviet periods, attest to the vibrancy of historical scholarship in Kazakhstan. Unfortunately, this fact is not as well-known as it should be. Scholarship from Central Asia remains underrepresented in the historical discipline as it is practiced in the West. There are many reasons for this neglect: In the United States, few libraries regularly collect materials from Central Asia, and it can be difficult to get access to key titles from the region, particularly those with small print runs. Important works from Central Asia are also rarely translated into English. This tendency is particularly evident when the piece is published in one of the vernacular languages of the region, as the industry of translating from these languages to English (and vice versa) is not well developed. Other factors, including a lingering Eurocentrism within the Russian and Soviet field, have also played a role in the marginalization of scholarship from Central Asia. In light of these considerations, it is a particular pleasure to present these articles and make scholarship from the region known to a wider audience. It should be noted that all three pieces were translated from Russian. There is also an important Kazakh-language secondary literature in Kazakhstan. But given the challenges of orchestrating a translation, including the scarcity of qualified Kazakh-English translators, it was not possible to include Kazakh-language materials. The goal then with this issue is not to be perfectly representative of Kazakhstani historical scholarship as a whole. Rather, it is to shed light on aspects of the Russian and Soviet state’s long-running project to incorporate the Kazakh steppe and its peoples, as well as the consequences of these attempts for Kazakhstani society.