About the Language and People
Where is Kazakh spoken?
As you might have assumed, Kazakh is the language of Kazakhstan. In recent years, it has become Kazakhstan's official language. Before Kazakhstan's independence from the Soviet Union in December 1991, Kazakh had taken back seat to Russian as an official language in most professions. However, since independence, Kazakh has made a resurgence due partly to an impetus to assert national identity in Kazakhstan and state initiatives to raise the status of Kazakh.
A Short History of the Kazakh People
Historically Kazakh has been spoken by nomadic groups who traveled across the Central Asian steppe. The Kazakh people themselves were historically divided into three political groups, called "Zhuz", translated into English as horde, namely the Great Horde, the Junior Horde, and the Middle Horde3. These groups, while sometimes politically divided, sometimes united when dealing with external powers like the Russian Empire to the north and the Dzungars and the Chinese Empire to the East.
With the expansion of the Russian and Chinese Empires, nomads on the Central Asian steppe came under increasing political influence. Intitially, Russian and Chinese diplomatic links were formed with Kazakh leaders, or Khans. However, with the Russian Empire's ambitions to expand its influence southward and need to secure trade routes and authority over colonists moving into the Kazakh steppe, more Russian political institutions, including a governorship was placed in the steppe. Russian control over Central Asia was secured after Russian military expeditions in Kokand and Tashkent, cities in present day Uzbekistan.
In the 20th Century, Central Asia was nearly completely integrated into the Russian Empire. In the years leading up to World War I, and in the beginning of World War I, Kazakh intellectuals, along with Russian intellectuals, began demanding more representation in Russian politics, which had been up to 1905, an absolute monarchy under the Romanov dynasty. Kazakh intellectuals themselves, with other Central Asians and Muslims living in the Russian Empire, began demanding greater autonomy for themselves and their region, but stopped short of asking for complete independence from the Russian state1.
The October Revolution of 1917 brought sweeping changes to the political landscape in Russia, Central Asia, and Russia's far east. At this point, real independence seemed possible. From 1917-1925, a briefly lived independent state called the Alash Autonomy, created by secular Kazakh intellectuals established itself in Central Asia with its capital at Semey2.Those aspirations were soon crushed when Bolshevik-led revolutionaries and militias set up their own governments in the former Tsarist provincial capitals in Central Asia. The area which is now Kazakhstan became the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic.
Independence finally came in December 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union into 15 independent republics. With this change, Kazakhs, who had in the Soviet Union been one of many smaller ethnic groups, became the ethnic majority in their new state. With this came a new impetus to revive the Kazakh language, and a Kazakh national identity. Indeed, not only was the Kazakh language given precedence over the formerly more prestigious Russian language, but streets formerly named after Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin were re-named after Kazakh intellectuals and national heroes such as Kenesary Kasymov and Akhmet Baitursynov. Even the old capital of Almaty was soon replaced with a new seat of political power in Astana, complete with new government buildings and a visual look distinct from Almaty's more "Soviet" appearance.
References
- Akhmetjanov, Kh., Djetpisov, G. (1917). Protocols of the Meetings and Resolutions of the Ural Oblast' Meeting of Kazakhs. The Alash Movement. Almaty: Alash. pp. 260-269.
- Alash Autonomy. (2015, June 17). Retrieved July 22, 2015, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alash_Autonomy
- Cummings, S. (2005). Kazakhstan power and the elite. London: I.B. Tauris