Discourses of Russian-speaking youth in Nazarbayev's Kazakhstan: Soviet legacies and responses to nation-building. Issue 2 (3rd April 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Blackburn, Matthew
• Is Part Of: Central Asian survey. Volume 38:Issue 2(2019)
• Page Start: 217
• Page End: 236
• Publication Date: 2019-04-03
• Subjects: National minorities -- post-Soviet identity -- Russian-speakers -- Soviet legacies -- post-Soviet nation-building -- national belonging; Asia, Central -- Periodicals; 958.005
• DOI: 10.1080/02634937.2019.1615409
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0263-4937

Abstract

ABSTRACT: 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.