5. Identity politics
Kazakhstan’s political transition is complicated by identity questions. A resurgent ethnic Kazakh identity (long suppressed under Soviet rule) and rising religiosity are colliding with the state’s civic-based definition of nationhood.
Kazakhstan’s transition of power is unfolding amid rising tensions over various competing forms of national and societal identity. In broad terms, a strengthened ethnic ‘Kazakh’ identity is being pitted against the prevailing civic ‘Kazakhstani’ identity, the resulting pressures fuelled by factors such as expanding use of the Kazakh language instead of Russian. The picture is complicated by tribal affiliations that still hold sway in some sectors, and by suggestions that religion could increasingly have an important influence on individual identity.
Defining national identity
Following the collapse of the USSR, Kazakhstan was forced to address whether, as a new state, its identity should be predominantly ethnic or civic-national in nature. As a concept, civic-national identity usually involves an individual’s recognition of being part of a nation, and acceptance of a social pact whereby loyalty to the state is exchanged for various benefits. A citizen is willing to take on certain responsibilities such as obeying the law, paying taxes and performing national service in exchange for the protection of rights and freedoms and the creation of favourable socio-economic conditions.
However, as shown by numerous opposition protests during the presidential election in 2019 – in which Kassym-Jomart Tokayev was in effect anointed as successor to Nursultan Nazarbayev – such a pact does not entirely work in Kazakhstan. This is due to the country’s ineffective public administration, its failure to adequately uphold citizens’ rights and freedoms (see Chapter 4, in particular), an unfair judicial system, a lack of political opposition, poor education, and the absence of a sufficiently large middle class.
Leshek Baltserovich, a Polish economist, has suggested that if a society wants to be competitive, sustain development and have ‘something to look forward to’, it must be founded on three pillars: private ownership rights and a market economy; a framework of rules and institutions, including taxation and justice systems; and democratic government.269 In the case of Kazakhstan, only a half-pillar exists – its semi-market economy in which private ownership rights, unless they are linked to the elite, go unprotected. Add to these structural and institutional shortcomings a context of unfavourable socio-economic factors, increasingly provocative public protests and a crisis of confidence in the government, and it is hardly surprising that many Kazakhstani citizens – rather than embracing civic identity – are seeking to emigrate.
People of all backgrounds and ages are opting to leave Kazakhstan. According to Finprom, a Kazakhstan-based analytical organization, 37,700 people left the country in 2017. This was 25.3 per cent more than in 2015.270 The majority of those leaving were specialists in engineering, economics and education. In 2018, the number of emigrants reached 40,000, according to official data.
If the decision for many is largely an economic calculation, for others it reflects broader concerns over their future in the country, with the transition of power from Nazarbayev to Tokayev seen as a threat rather than an opportunity. Debates increasingly frame identity in terms of ethnicity or nationality, which is unnerving for many in a multi-ethnic state such as Kazakhstan.
‘Kazakh’ or ‘Kazakhstani’?
Kazakhstan suffered some of the worst consequences of the heavy-handed imposition of the Soviet identity, economic model and political structure on Central Asia
The American historian Sarah Cameron talks about the rivalry between ethnic and civic identities, rooted in the country’s Soviet history, in The Hungry Steppe: Famine, Violence, and the Making of Soviet Kazakhstan. She writes: ‘[Kazakhs] became an ethnic minority in their own Republic. During the Soviet era the Kazakhs in Kazakhstan had a peculiar position: they were simultaneously a titular nation and an ethnic minority.’271
Kazakhstan differs from other post-Soviet countries in its ethnic diversity. It counts nearly 130 different ethnicities among its population of more than 18 million.272 Its demographic make-up was drastically changed by Soviet rule, which focused on building the civic identity of the Soviet ‘people’ and pushing ethnic and nationality-based identity criteria into the background. Kazakhstan suffered some of the worst consequences of the heavy-handed imposition of the Soviet identity, economic model and political structure on Central Asia. For example, the number of ethnic Kazakhs occupying their traditional territory declined catastrophically in the 1920s and 1930s.
This was a far cry from the pre-Soviet position. Around the end of the 19th century, there had been more than 4 million ethnic Kazakhs in Kazakhstan (according to the results of the first general census of the Russian empire in 1897, cited by Mukhamedzhan Tynyshbayev, a Kazakh social activist at the time and a member of the pro-autonomy Alash Ordy Party).273 This made Kazakhs the sixth-largest population within the empire (though Tynyshbayev believed that the actual Kazakh population was considerably bigger). By 1914, according to Alikhan Bukeikhanov, the head of the Alash Ordy government (1917–20), the number of Kazakhs had reached 6 million. However, these numbers appear to fall dramatically in the two following decades: two Soviet censuses show that the number of Kazakhs in Kazakhstan dropped from 3.96 million in 1926 to just 2.18 million in 1937.
Civil war, devastation, illnesses and famine in the 1920s and 1930s gravely depleted the Kazakhs as an ethnic group. Unlike the infamous Ukrainian ‘Holodomor’, the Kazakhstan famines are not widely known. Forced collectivization resulted in the procurement of animal herds from the nomads, the breakdown of the traditional Kazakh way of life and the destruction of people’s means of survival. Millions perished, and hundreds of thousands left their native steppe for good. Today about 6 million Kazakhs live outside Kazakhstan.
According to Cameron:
… the cause of the 1930–1933 famine in Kazakhstan was the result of Moscow’s radical attempt to transform the nomadic Turkic speaking Muslim people who were known as Kazakhs and a particular territory, Soviet Kazakhstan, into a modern Soviet nation … through the most violent means the Kazakh famine created Soviet Kazakhstan as stable territory with clearly delineated boundaries that was an integral part of the Soviet economic system. It has also created a new Kazakh national identity that largely supplanted Kazakhs’ previous identification with the system of pastoral nomadism.274
Murat Auezov, a Kazakh writer and social activist, calls this tragic period in the history of the Kazakh people a loss of nomadic civilization.275 Its traditional value system and indigenous form of identity – encompassing language, culture, customs and family ties – became a victim of Soviet industrialization, collectivization and Russification. In the 1930s, the Soviet authorities ordered the Kazakh alphabet to be transcribed into Cyrillic after representatives of the Kazakh intellectual elite began to advocate the use of Latin as the basis for the Kazakh alphabet.
The Kazakh language was one of the most important symbols of the ethnic Kazakh identity. It succumbed to Soviet policies on several levels. First, it suffered through the extermination of the ethnic intellectual elite and the creation of the Soviet intelligentsia, who used Russian as their main tool in professional or creative work. Long-term discrimination against the use of Kazakh led to the emergence of Russian-speaking Kazakhs. This would later create another fault-line in post-Soviet Kazakhstan’s society: between Kazakh-speaking nagyz (‘true’) Kazakhs and shala-Kazakhs (those who do not speak their mother tongue).
Second, there was a drastic decline in the number of native speakers of Kazakh during the Soviet era. Ethnic Kazakhs in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) finally overtook the Russian population by a small margin in 1989, when the census recorded Kazakhs and Russians respectively accounting for 39.7 per cent and 37.8 per cent of the general population. The rest of the population (22.5 per cent) was made up of a mixture of other ethnic groups, who had come to Kazakhstan from other regions of the Soviet Union either for work or through forced deportation ordered by Stalin, thus forming a multi-ethnic society on the territory of the Kazakh SSR. In this context it was hardly surprising that Alma-Ata (now Almaty) – the capital of the Kazakh SSR, and subsequently the capital of independent Kazakhstan until 1997 – had just one school teaching in the Kazakh language in 1989.
Professor Rustem Kadyrzhanov of the Institute of Philosophy, Political Science and Religious Studies in Almaty believes that Soviet national policy imposed its own hierarchy of identities on the Kazakhs, with the Soviet identity and its internationalist slogans at the top. This was followed by the civic-national ‘Kazakhstani’ identity, which artificially blended Kazakhs and other nationalities into one Kazakhstani community. As for the ethnic ‘Kazakh’ identity, the Soviet authorities mostly associated this with Kazakh folklore and popular culture in the context of the ‘Peoples’ Friendship Laboratory’ (one of the synonyms for the Soviet Union that the Soviet authorities used to emphasize the multinational composition of the USSR).276
Despite this hierarchy, by the late 1980s Kazakh nationalism had begun to grow. In December 1986, young Kazakhs, mostly students, protested on the central square in what was then Alma-Ata in response to Mikhail Gorbachev’s dismissal of Dinmukhamed Kunaev as leader of the Kazakh SSR, and the replacement of Kunaev with Gennady Kolbin, who had never worked in Kazakhstan. On 17–18 December, protesters demanded the appointment of an ethnic Kazakh leader; however, the protests ended in armed confrontation and the deaths of many of the young demonstrators. The events of 1986, remembered as the Zheltoqsan (‘December’) protests, were akin to earlier national uprisings in the Soviet Union against central power. Similar protests by young Kazakhs followed in other regions of Kazakhstan.
Since the early 1990s, nearly 1 million ethnic Kazakhs living in other countries have returned to Kazakhstan
Since the fall of the USSR and Kazakhstan’s independence, Kazakh nationalism has grown rapidly. Kazakhstan has also experienced a big demographic shift in terms of the number of ethnic Kazakhs in the country. Since the early 1990s, nearly 1 million ethnic Kazakhs living in other countries have returned to Kazakhstan. According to the online magazine Vlast, by the end of the 1990s ethnic Kazakhs accounted for more than half the population of Kazakhstan for the first time since the 1920s. By 2016, they had become the fastest-growing ethnic group, accounting for two-thirds of the population. In some regions, the number of Kazakhs has exceeded 95 per cent of the population.277 In 2019, the total proportion of ethnic Kazakhs in the country was nearly 68 per cent.
The decision to change the Kazakh alphabet from Cyrillic to Latin was taken many years ago; yet the development of the new alphabet did not start until 2018. This reflects demographic trends and the public mood. What was unachievable in the 1990s is now becoming viable thanks to the majority of the population being ethnic Kazakh, the emergence of an entire post-independence generation, and the expanding use of the Kazakh language.
These demographic trends are likely to affect future political preferences. The strengthening of national-patriotic moods and movements is occurring organically, and suggests that supporters of ethnic or tribal identities will continue to increase in number while the use of the Russian language will decline further. A similar phenomenon is already in evidence in most countries in Central Asia.
At the same time, there remains active support for the idea of civic identity among certain ethnic groups living in Kazakhstan, including some Russian-speaking Kazakhs. Kadyrzhanov argues that ‘those on the side of the Kazakhstani identity, first of all Russian and other non-native peoples of Kazakhstan’ do not want to see the Russian language and other symbols ‘pushed to the periphery of the new society from the central positions they once held in Soviet society’. He adds: ‘Naturally, there is resistance to determination of the Kazakh language and other Kazakh symbols to dominate the symbols hierarchy in the new Kazakhstan society.’278
‘Ideological separatism’
Demographers estimate that the Russian population in Kazakhstan has fallen sharply since independence, to just 19.8 per cent of the total in 2018.279 Many members of other ethnic groups have emigrated to their countries of origin, including Germans, Ukrainians and Poles. These same ethnic groups, long-term supporters of President Nazarbayev, perceived him as the chief guarantor of inter-ethnic stability in the country. Some felt that the impending end of his political career and the transition of power presented a threat to their futures.
For non-Kazakh groups living in Kazakhstan, the disappearance of the concept of the ‘Soviet citizen’ following the collapse of the USSR continues to affect their notions of identity. Some members of Russian-speaking minorities and some Russian-speaking Kazakhs feel ‘trapped’ – they live physically in Kazakhstan but mainly identify with the ideas and discourses of the Russian political, ideological and media spheres. This sensibility is amplified by the influence of Russian media generally in Kazakhstan, and by reporting on Russian social media sites, such as Odnoklassniki and VKontakte, where pro-Russian separatist ideas have been published.280
The events associated with Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 illustrate the potential consequences for Kazakhstan of Russian media dominating weaker domestic media. The conflict in Ukraine, although not directly related to Kazakhstan, drastically split Kazakhstan’s society into those opposing and those supporting the Russian intervention. The conflict raised alarm about how far the Russian mass media was influencing public opinion in Kazakhstan. Russian media influence was evident from the results of a 2015 Gallup survey in which Kazakhstan ranked fourth among post-Soviet states in terms of support for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin: some 72 per cent of respondents backed his policies.281
Kazakhstan’s authorities must take note of this: it shows how many citizens could see their loyalties divided between their own state and Russia were a conflict or tensions to arise in the future. Beyond the popularity (or otherwise) of the government and its policies, political stability is partly determined by the number of people willing to defend the state against internal and external threats. Kazakhstan’s security in the context of hybrid conflict, in particular, does not simply depend on the army and international treaties. To a great extent, the country’s fate depends on how its citizens identify with their own country.
As the new president, Tokayev has inherited this conflict of identities. Moreover, aside from the tension between the Kazakh and Kazakhstani national identities, society is fractured along many other lines: ethnic, tribal, urban versus rural (including the capital’s relationship to the provinces), secular versus religious. These complex divisions overlap, presenting new challenges to political development during the transition of power.
Tribal identity
Kazakhs have traditionally been divided into three zhuz, which can be understood as alliances or clans aggregating multiple tribes. The famous Kazakh historian Nurbolat Masanov argued that each zhuz had its own system of tribal divisions. The Kazakhs of the ‘Senior Zhuz’ were divided into 11 tribal groups, those of the ‘Middle Zhuz’ into seven, and those of the ‘Junior Zhuz’ into three intermediate and 25 main groups.282
Tribal forms of identity among the Kazakhs, partially preserved during the Soviet period, properly re-established themselves with the fall of the USSR. The development of ethnic Kazakh identity accompanied that of tribal and zhuz identity. This gained new impetus during the period of socio-economic hardship after the collapse of the USSR, when people’s tribal and zhuz membership provided a form of collective defence and support.
For many Kazakhs, knowledge of one’s tribe or zhuz is important. Research in 2016 into the values and sociopolitical views of the country’s Kazakhs, conducted by the Institute of World Economics and Politics under the Foundation of the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, showed that only 6.9 per cent were unaware of which tribes had historically occupied their places of birth. In answer to the question, ‘How important is it to you to know your clanship?’, 24.9 per cent of respondents indicated interest in their clanship, perceiving it as important to their approach to life; 21.2 per cent felt it was a part of their family history. In total, 46.1 per cent of respondents considered their clanship an important part of their identity.283
The aim for political leaders was to use the zhuz system to create checks and balances, and to keep potential rivals out of positions of influence
Zhuz membership was a determining factor in government appointments in Soviet Kazakhstan. The regime kept the zhuz system in check by appointing members of other ethnic groups to posts within the elite. According to Nurbulat Masanov, ‘during the Soviet period … the Kazakhs a priori evaluated the degree of influence and authority of their own or others’ zhuz-tribe according to how well it was represented within the ruling establishment’. The aim for political leaders was to use the zhuz system to create checks and balances, and to keep potential rivals out of positions of influence. This exerted a ‘psychological effect’ on political life by determining appointees’ scope of power, their susceptibility to manipulation and the length of their tenure.284
Since independence, and as demographics have changed, tribal influences have grown stronger. More ethnic Kazakhs have been appointed to government positions. Particularly in middle and lower levels of government, such as in the regions, loyalty to tribes is seen as important. In wider society, young Kazakhs migrating in growing numbers from the countryside have brought tribal and zhuz identities into the cities.
In the context of efforts to sustain a ‘super-presidency’, Nazarbayev and his government regarded the zhuz system and tribes both as a potential destabilizing factor and as a means to play off members of the elite against each other. Control relied on the regime’s ability to manage conflict between different forms of political loyalty or identification, so that loyalty was directed not towards an individual’s zhuz but towards the head of state personally. In what was in effect a personality cult, any excessive loyalty to a tribal group was considered undesirable by the regime.
Nazarbayev used several methods to neutralize tribal/zhuz loyalties within government, and thus concentrate his power. He formed a new bureaucracy, filling posts with younger officials, some Western-educated and cosmopolitan in worldview. He created favourable conditions for the emergence of financial-industrial groups, closely linked to the government, that relied on presidential patronage and approval for access to resources and property. These businesses operated in the pursuit of economic gain rather than tribal interests. This may explain why the Forbes list of billionaires for Kazakhstan includes not just members of the presidential family and ethnic Kazakhs, but also figures from other ethnic groups. The emergence of a Kazakh business elite – mostly identifying as part of the international business community, and subject to its rules, networks and values – has gradually weakened the influence of zhuz and tribes in the financial-industrial sector.
The effects of such tactics have been limited, nonetheless. Group identity still comes before national identity. Zhuz identity has not been pushed to the sidelines, and indeed may be revived more widely during the political transition. At the same time, zhuz and tribe identity may also encounter increasing competition from a religious renaissance that is occurring in Kazakhstan, especially among young people.
Religious identity
According to the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Kazakhstan, around 70 per cent of the population consider themselves Muslim. This is consistent with data in the Pew Research Center’s Global Religious Landscape report, which indicates that 70.4 per cent of Kazakhstan’s population are Muslim (although not all are observant).285 The second-largest religion in the country is Christianity (mostly Orthodox), accounting for 24.8 per cent of the population.
The very high percentage of Muslims recorded in statistics in Kazakhstan can be explained by the fact that the authorities used to automatically link religion and ethnicity. All Kazakhs – as well as members of numerous other ethnic groups, including Uzbeks, Uighurs, Dungans and Tatars – were classified as Muslim. Among these groups, ethnic Kazakhs are generally Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi school, although other Islamic denominations and identities exist within the country.
A representative survey of 1,400 people in 2012 found that people ranked religious identity third in importance after civic and ethnic identities.286 However, Timur Kozyrev, from the International Turkic Academy, has observed significant religious changes in Kazakhstan – particularly in respect of Islam – as society has become more urbanized. New religious traditions are replacing those previously rooted in rural life.287
The Soros Foundation-Kazakhstan published a report in 2013 which showed that 72.3 per cent of migrants arriving in Almaty were young people aged 14–29, and that these people were finding it hard to adapt to their new lives.288 Their confidence in the authorities and civil society institutions – such as trade unions, political parties and the police – was low. The report noted that 57.9 per cent of respondents in this age group trusted religious institutions the most.289 Mosques in the cities are increasingly being used as a means for communication and group identification.
The rising prominence of religious identity presents a number of concerns for the government. First, there is increasing evidence of a power struggle between religious factions – ranging from adherents of Sufism to those of Wahhabism – over the control of official information channels. Second, there are fears about the rise of radicalism. In 2014, the Abai.kz web portal reported that Dossay Kenzhetayev, a professor at the L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University in the capital, had written to Nazarbayev expressing concerns about religious extremists:
Professor Kenzhetayev said that despite a ban on Wahhabism or “takfir” in Kazakhstan its ideas were spreading and finding new recruits among young people. Some young men were radicalised to become jihadists in Syria. He raised the alarm that the followers of the “pure Islam” were inciting vandalism and could destroy the religious peace and stability in Kazakhstan …290
Tensions also exist between secular actors (as represented by the state) and religious groups. During the country’s current political transition, religious groups could escalate their struggle for power against supporters of the secular state, as well against each other and national-patriotic movements. Some political players could try to consolidate their positions by mobilizing protest factions associated with national-patriotic or religious movements, possibly igniting confrontation. Some observers believe that a conflict between ‘radical religious devotees’ and advocates of ‘secular radicalism’ remains likely, and that ‘[this] would risk destabilizing the country and exacerbating the national identity crisis, with severe long-term consequences’.291
The growth of religious self-identification in Kazakhstan also has potential regional implications. Kazakhstan is perhaps best described currently as a ‘hybrid society’, reflecting beliefs that are a mixture of Western cosmopolitanism, nomadic paganism and various interpretations of Islam. Yet over time, the rise of religious identity politics could produce a cultural shift towards Islam. Growth in religious identity in other parts of Central Asia will further create challenges for geopolitical actors with interests in the region. For instance, the relationship between China and Central Asia may worsen as state pressure on Muslims in China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region continues.
Destructive urbanization
The effects of ongoing urbanization are also fuelling identity conflict. Around 58 per cent of the population now lives in cities. According to official data recorded since 2009, about 60,000 people migrate from rural areas to cities each year. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Kazakhstan estimates that by 2030 about 66 per cent of the population will be living in cities. In June 2018 the population of Shymkent officially reached 1 million, prompting the government to bestow special status on the city, alongside the capital, Nur-Sultan, and the city of Almaty.
This means that cities, and not rural areas, have become the principle locations where many young people come into contact with society and form their ideas and values. The historical context is also relevant here, as the collapse of the USSR also prompted the collision of rural (more traditional) and urban identities in Kazakhstan. For example, tribal identity was less pronounced among urban Kazakhs, many of whom began to identify with the ideas of cosmopolitanism and became divorced from their traditional roots – and often from their native language.
Many young people leave rural areas for the cities due to poor socio-economic development in the regions, most of which are classed as depressed. Out of 14 regions and three major cities, the largest contributors to the national budget are the oil- and gas-producing Atyrau and Mangistaus regions and the city of Almaty.
Young people arriving in cities are often unable to find formal employment. They take up low-paid, low-skilled informal work, are often self-employed, and lack access to social benefits or pensions
The marginalization of migrants has an effect on identity. Young people arriving in cities are often unable to find formal employment. They take up low-paid, low-skilled informal work, are often self-employed, and lack access to social benefits or pensions. They settle in micro-districts on the outskirts of cities and remain outsiders. In the context of debates over identity, this ghettoization can result in migrants prioritizing ethnic, tribal or religious identities, which are often more conservative and traditional than those of pre-existing urban communities. Communal tensions can also be inflamed by the fact that, whereas non-Kazakhs from various ethnic groups have traditionally lived in cities since Soviet times, the majority of recent migrants from rural areas are Kazakhs from socially vulnerable and poorer sections of society.
Nation-building and the failure of government policy
When members of Kazakhstan’s ruling elite came to power after independence, they saw the rise of nationalism not only as a threat to inter-ethnic stability but also as a rival to their political dominance. In the early 1990s, the authorities sought to neutralize the surge in popularity of national-patriotic movements. This caused consternation among many Kazakhs, who viewed such movements as a legitimate attempt to rebuild a national Kazakh identity after its suppression during Soviet rule. What the ruling elite failed to realize, however, was that ‘ideological separatism’ – whereby people feel allegiance to a different state to the one in which they live – within the non-Kazakh population would be a much bigger problem than Kazakh nationalism. Nation-building was also set back by the fact that many government officials themselves did not genuinely believe in the multiple state-led initiatives to develop some kind of national idea or definition of a ‘Kazakhstani’ identity.
One such initiative, in 2009, involved a ‘Doctrine of National Unity’ developed by the authorities in close collaboration with the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan (an advisory body on issues of inter-ethnic relations, created in 1995 and overseen by the president). The doctrine quickly caused great division, as there was a strong negative reaction to its position that national unity was only possible if based on a civic, rather than ethnic, identity. In the end the authorities had to remove the emphasis on civic identity, although this did not help to produce a working document and the doctrine was eventually shelved.
A new attempt to address the identity issue, in 2015, introduced the ‘Concept of strengthening and development of Kazakhstan’s identity and unity 2015–2025’. This was partially a recreation of the Doctrine of National Unity. One of the concept’s key policies was to place civic principles at the core of the Kazakhstani identity. The same document emphasized the role of the middle class as the backbone of this identity, and its growth as central to national unity.
However, the prospects for achieving this goal are complicated by the economic challenges disproportionately affecting the middle class, notably weak growth among small and medium-sized enterprises. So long as members of the middle class remain outnumbered by the poor, it will be impossible to develop a civic identity in Kazakhstan, as development of the universal values (e.g. political loyalty in exchange for an effective state) through which the regime hopes to guarantee its long-term stability will be impaired.
Overall, one of the chief risks to stability in Kazakhstan is that the transition of political power will be accompanied by identity conflict. For some national-patriotic groups, there is no Kazakhstani identity as such, just a Kazakh identity based on ethnicity. Among various religious movements, there is a view that a person must identify with the religion to which he/she belongs, then with his/her ethnic group. Equally, there remain some who believe that tribal identity should come first. Finally, for the authorities and many ethnic minorities, civic self-identification takes precedence, meaning that people should identify as citizens of Kazakhstan regardless of their ethnicity or background.
These differences in outlook and nation-building philosophy are not easily resolved. As this chapter has illustrated, the conflict between identities in Kazakhstan is only likely to deepen while different social, political, demographic, ethnic, religious and other groups maintain their often confrontational views on Kazakhstan’s future and their place within society.
269 Razumov, Y. (2018), ‘Какие последствия может иметь эрозия среднего класса в современных обществах’ [What are the consequences of the erosion of the middle class in modern societies], Forbes Kazakhstan, 29 April 2018, https://forbes.kz/life/view/sredniy_samyiy_vajnyiy_1524906570/ (accessed 04 Nov 2019).
270 Kapital (2018), ‘Казахстан покидает все больше специалистов’ [More and more specialists are leaving Kazakhstan], 20 February 2018, https://kapital.kz/economic/67059/kazakhstan-pokidayet-vse-bol-she-spetsialistov.html (accessed 4 Nov. 2019).
271 Cameron, S. (2018), The Hungry Steppe: Famine, Violence, and the Making of Soviet Kazakhstan, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, p. 2. The term ‘titular nation’ was first used by Maurice Barrès, a French poet and politician, in the late 19th century. The titular nation is the dominant ethnic group whose language and culture become foundations for the state educational system.
272 Abuyov, N. (2013), ‘Ethnocultural processes in Kazakhstan: history and present’, 18 September 2013, https://e-history.kz/ru/contents/view/1472 (accessed 18 Sep. 2019).
273 Igibaev, S. K. (2009), ‘Казахи в составе России в конце XIX века: их численность, размещение, занятия и образовательный уровень’ [Kazakhs as part of Russia at the end of the 19th century: their numbers, placement, occupations and educational level], Сборник материалов с конференции «Вклад молодых исследователей в индустриально-инновационное развитие Казахстана» [Collection of materials from the conference on ‘Contribution of young researchers to the industrial and innovative development of Kazakhstan’], https://articlekz.com/article/6768 (accessed 18 Sep. 2019).
274 Cameron (2018), The Hungry Steppe, p. 3.
275 Brusilovskaya, E. (2019), ‘Колодцы времени’ [Wells of time], Kazakhstanskay Pravda, 17 May 2019, https://www.kazpravda.kz/articles/view/kolodtsi-vremeni (accessed 4 Nov. 2019).
276 Kadyrzhanov, R. (2012), ‘Национальная идентичность Казахстана и этнокультурный символизм’ [National identity and ethno-cultural symbolism of Kazakhstan], Республиканский общественно-политический журнал ‘Мысль’, 13 October 2012, http://mysl.kazgazeta.kz/?p=266 (accessed 23 Aug. 2019).
277 Vlast (2016), ‘Как изменилась этническая карта Казахстана за 25 лет’ [How the ethnic configuration of Kazakhstan has changed over 25 years], 17 October 2016, https://vlast.kz/obsshestvo/19747-kak-izmenilas-etniceskaa-karta-kazahstana-za-25-let.html (accessed 23 Aug. 2019).
278 Kadyrzhanov (2012), ‘Национальная идентичность Казахстана и этнокультурный символизм’.
279 Ibraeva, A. (2018), ‘Миграция как угроза экономической безопасности: почему казахстанцы уезжают за границу’ [Migration as a threat to economic security: why Kazakhstanis go abroad], 29 August 2018, https://kursiv.kz/news/tendencii-i-issledovaniya/2018-08/migraciya-kak-ugroza-ekonomicheskoy-bezopasnosti-pochemu (accessed 23 Aug. 2019).
280 For example: ‘Kazakhstanis expressed anger and indignation at two VKontakte groups using the popular Russian social media site to call for the return of the Northern territories of Kazakhstan to the Russian Federation’, in Zakon.kz (2014), ‘Казахстанке удалось заблокировать пропагандирующие аннексию СКО группы «ВКонтакте»’ [Kazakhstani woman managed to block a VKontakte group which spread propaganda on the annexation of the North Kazakhstan region to the Russian Federation], 13 August 2014, https://www.zakon.kz/4646296-kazakhstanke-udalos-zablokirovat.html (accessed 23 Aug. 2019).
281 Nur.kz (2015), ‘Политологи увидели опасность в популярности Путина в Казахстане’ [Political scientists see danger in Putin’s popularity in Kazakhstan], 25 June 2015, https://www.nur.kz/800198-politologi-uvideli-opasnost-v-popul.html (accessed 23 Aug. 2019).
282 Tulegenov, A. (undated), ‘Без этого Казахстан не понять: карта расселения казахских племен – «жузов»’ [Kazakhstan cannot be understood without this: Map of the settlement of the Kazakh tribes “zhuz”], https://www.brif.kz/blog/?p=1122 (accessed 4 Nov. 2019).
283 See Institute of World Economics and Politics under the Foundation of the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan – The Leader of the Nation (2016), Valuable and socio-political attitudes of Kazakhs in Kazakhstan, report on the results of a sociological study, p. 45. The survey took place in 2016 in all regions of Kazakhstan and covered 1,500 respondents.
284 Masanov, N. (2006), ‘Реноме кочевников (Последняя статья Нурбулата Масанова)’ [Reputation of the nomads: Nurbulata Masanov’s last article], zakon.kz, 6 October 2006, https://www.zakon.kz/76838-renome-kochevnikov-poslednjaja-statja.html (accessed 23 Aug. 2019).
285 Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project (2017), ‘Kazakhstan’, http://www.globalreligiousfutures.org/countries/kazakhstan#/?affiliations_religion_id=0&affiliations_year=2010®ion_name=All%20Countries&restrictions_year=2016. (accessed 4 Nov. 2019).
286 It included a sociological survey of 1,400 respondents from the South Kazakhstan, Aktobe, Eastern Kazakhstan, Karaganda and North Kazakhstan regions, as well as the cities of Almaty and Astana, taking into consideration nationality, gender, age and rural/urban location of the respondents. See Kazakhstan Institute for Socio-Economic Information and Forecasting (2012), Levels of religiosity in Kazakhstan Society, p. 51.
287 Nurseitova, T. (2012), ‘Тимур Козырев: Устанавливать правила в своей стране мы будем сами’ [Timur Kozyrev: We will set the rules in our country ourselves], zakon.kz, 24 October 2012, https://www.zakon.kz/4520521-timur-kozyrev-ustanavlivat-pravila-v.html (accessed 23 Aug. 2019).
288 Makhmutova, M. (2013), Internal Migration of Young People in Kazakhstan: case-study of Almaty, Public Policy Research Center and Soros Foundation-Kazakhstan, https://www.soros.kz/en/internal_migration_of_young_people_in_kazakhstan/ (accessed 19 Oct. 2019).
289 Ibid.
290 Mumirov, A. (2014), ‘Прямая и явная угроза. Назарбаева просят спасти мавзолей Яссауи от ваххабитов’ [Direct and clear threat. Nazarbayev is being asked to save the Yassawi mausoleum from Wahhabis], InoZpress, 17 November 2014, http://www.inozpress.kg/news/view/id/42942 (accessed 23 Aug. 2019).
291 Kozyrev, T. (2013), ‘Национальная идентичность: казах и/или мусульманин’ [National identity: Kazakh and/or Muslim], Expert Kazakhstan, 1 April 2013, http://expertonline.kz/a10566/ (accessed 23 Aug. 2019).