Kazakhstan's National Identity - Building Policy: Soviet Legacy, State Efforts, and Societal Reactions

Abstract

The collapse of the Soviet Union led to profound changes in ethnicity and identity policies and practices in the newly independent countries, including Kazakhstan. The ethnically diverse population of Kazakhstan presented a particularly unique challenge for the new regime and its approaches to the identity-building policies. This paper focuses on the ethnic and identity-building policies of Kazakhstan and offers an overview of the legal framework regulating language use, education, media, citizenship, and official identity policy. The paper also focuses on the de-facto implementation of the officially stated policies and explores reasons behind inconsistencies and discrepancies between the declared policies and situation on the ground. Finally, this paper also looks at the societal reactions towards the official identity and language policies, expressed in the country’s public and media discourse. This paper argues that the post-independence Kazakhstan’s and identity-building process is affected by several important implications, including legacy of the Soviet nationality policy, significant amount of continuity with late-Soviet policies and practices, search for a new identity and the regime’s aim to prevent political confrontation along ethnic lines by assuring Kazakh hegemony while allowing nominal minority representation.