Scientific article
Published:
Discourses of Russian-speaking youth in Nazarbayev’s Kazakhstan: Soviet Legacies and Responses to Nation-building
Summary:
Research into post-independence identity shifts among Kazakhstan’s Russian-speaking minorities has outlined a number of possible pathways, such as diasporization, integrated national minority status and ethnic separatism. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with young people in Almaty and Karaganda, I examine how Russian-speaking minorities identify with the state and imagine their place in a ‘soft’ or ‘hybrid’ post-Soviet authoritarian system. What is found is that Russian-speaking minorities largely accept their status beneath the Kazakh ‘elder brother’ and do not wish to identify as a ‘national minority’. Furthermore, they affirm passive loyalty to the political status quo while remaining disinterested in political representation. Russian-speaking minorities are also ambivalent towards Kazakh language promotion and anxious about the increasing presence of Kazakh-speakers in urban spaces. This article argues that two factors are central to these stances among Kazakhstan’s Russian-speaking minorities: the persistence of Soviet legacies and the effects of state discourse and policy since 1991.
- Published year: 2019
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DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1080/02634937.2019.1615409
- Language: English
- Volume: 38
- Journal: Central Asian Survey
Written by
Matthew Blackburn
Senior Researcher