KAZAKHSTAN

Abstract

The last third of the twentieth century witnessed a surge in ‘ethnic revival’, with renewed emphasis on language. The post-Soviet Central Asian republics were not an exception to this tendency. During the Soviet era, citizens of the USSR were very conscious of belonging to a particular ethnicity that was registered as a permanent classification in their official documents. At the same time, the central government attempted to cultivate a single integrative ‘Soviet identity’; the Russian language was the linguistic glue that was supposed to bind all ethnic groups together. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the former republic faced the problem of state/national identification and language became the single most important instrument in defining new independent states and nations. One of the greatest challenges to the countries’ leaders in the coming decades will be to consolidate new nations while satisfying the conflicting interests of different ethnic groups, complying with international requirements on minorities’ rights, all within the larger context of international, regional and global forces. This article aims to shed some light on the nature of language conflict in Kazakhstan and the stabilizing factors that have prevented open ethnic and language conflict. It underlines some of the challenges to language planning efforts, allowing a better understanding of the dynamics of Kazakh, Russian and other languages in Kazakhstan.