Introduction: Ethnic, Civic, or Both? The Ethnicities of Kazakhstan in Search of an Identity and Homeland

Abstract

Thirty years after its independence by-fait-accompli, Kazakhstan, both as a polity and as a society, is still trying to manage the formation of its national and civic identity. Kazakhstan and the Central Asian region in general have somehow always been subject to clichés involving a ‘hotbed of ethnic tensions.’ During the period between 1985–1995, it was often assumed that the ethnic hyper-diversity that characterized the Kazakh Soviet republic and the deep societal crises caused by the decline and demise of the Soviet Union would inevitably result in open ethnic conflict, if not in the breakup of the country. Despite a series of local incidents, such a scenario did not materialize. This suggests the existence of a viable level of both state legitimacy and societal cohesion. The tragic events in Yugoslavia, the Caucasus, and Tajikistan in the 1990s might also have dissuaded Kazakhstan from large-scale unrest. To this day, however, the definition and practice of an identity—offered by the state and state-affiliated civil society—which all citizens, regardless of their ethnicity, are able to identify with is crucial, not only for the country’s aspired international reputation, but also for internal cohesion and stability. The official statements about the success thus far of the multi-ethnic civic model of Kazakhstan, developed under its first president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, are open for interpretation. However, the contributions in this article cluster suggest that the majority of the population somehow assesses this development as positive, or at least agrees that things could have been worse. There is no doubt that society and the state have become ethnically ‘more Kazakh’ in the years since independence. This is demonstrated by the composition of its population and the share of the titular Kazakh population, going from 40% in 1989 (a minority in their own titular republic) to 68.5% in 2020. This shift is also noticeable at the local level. Kazakhs now form majorities in cities and provinces that had clear non-Kazakh majorities or ethnically diverse populations dating back to 1989, the year of the last Soviet census. For example, if ethnic Kazakhs formed less than one-quarter of Almaty’s population in 1989 (when it was still Alma-Ata, the capital of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic), their share is now likely closer to two-thirds. In Atyrau on