Russian-Kazakh Relations in Kazakhstan

The development of relations between Russians and Kazakhs in Kazakhstan during the late 1980s and early 1990s is examined. Particular attention is devoted to conflicting perceptions in the post-Soviet period (among broad segments of the Russian and Kazakh populations, respectively) of Kazakhstan as a multinational vis-a-vis nation state. The impacts on the Russian population of efforts by Kazakh nationalists to restructure the system of national stratification in favor of ethnic Kazakhs are investigated within the context of interactive nationalism—whereby a Kazakh nationalist political action program engenders counter-hegemonic nationalism among the republic's Russian population. 3 tables, 43 references.