Abstract
The resilience and survival of multinational states, in the long run, are contingent upon the ability of the institutional mechanisms of the state to accommodate ethnic and cultural diversity and create a shared public culture.1 The availability of legal and institutional safeguards for both individual and group-based rights and the presence of civil society are indispensable in maintaining the effective functioning of multiethnic states and crediting them with legitimacy.
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References
Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights, Oxford, 1995.
2. Rogers Brubaker, ‘National minorities, nationalizing states, and external national homelands in the new Europe’, Daedalus, 124(2), 1995, pp. 107–32. According to Brubaker, ethnic conflict in the post-Soviet states is likely to be manifested along a triadic nexus of the titular nationality, the largest nontitular group and its external homeland.
Anatoly Khazanov, After the USSR: Ethnicity and Nationalism in the Commonwealth of Independent States, Madison, WI, 1995.
Strong secessionist attitudes are present in the regions bordering Russia in East and North Kazakhstan (most notably in Ust-Kamenogorsk and Petropavlovsk). Although the paper makes some references to these regions, this issue merits a separate study.
Fear of reprisal has similarly been a most crucial factor that explains the lack of ethnic activism on the part of other major non-titular groups in Central Asia – notably Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan, concentrated heavily in the Osh oblast in Southern Kyrgyzstan, and Tajiks in Uzbekistan living in Samarkand and Bukhara. Barring a few local organizations or movements generally devoted to cultural or other symbolic ethnic issues, the non-titular groups (‘minorities’) lack a cohesive leadership or close ties with the ‘kin’ state.
6. For a detailed account, see Bhavna Dave, ‘The politics of language revival in Kazakhstan: National identity and state-building in Kazakhstan’, unpublished PhD. Dissertation, Syracuse University, 1996.
About 64 per cent of Kazakhs claimed fluency in Russian in 1989 and almost 98 per cent have a basic proficiency in the language. Estimates of native language proficiency among Kazakhs remain varied. My own ethnographic observations during the period 1992–95 suggest that almost two thirds to three fourths of Kazakhs living in urban settings almost exclusively spoke Russian though many of them claimed to understand Kazakh and be able to speak it if the situation warranted.
Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict, Berkeley, CA, 1985, p. 22.
According to the 1999 Kazakhstan census, 99.4 per cent of Kazakhs claimed proficiency in the state language. The ‘proficiency’ in question was determined solely on the basis of subjective assessment and did not differentiate between distinct domains, such as speaking, reading and writing. For details, see Bhavna Dave, ‘The Entitlement through numbers: nationality and language categories in the first post-Soviet census of Kazakhstan’, Nations and Nationalism, 2004.
Interview with Erbol Shaimerdenov, Astana, 9 September 1999.
It also showed that 15 per cent among the ethnic Russians claim to know the ‘state language’, a remarkable improvement from 1989 when less than 1 per cent claimed any facility in Kazakh. It should be noted that the 1999 census questionnaire did not contain the more emotionally charged category ‘mother tongue’ and only required respondents to list knowledge of the ‘state language’ and ‘any other language they know fluently’.
For a comprehensive discussion on how the 1999 census has facilitated the attainment of state’s language and ethnic policies, see Dave, ‘Entitlement through numbers’.
Kazakhstanskaia pravda, 15 December 2000.
See Nurbulat Masanov, ‘Migratsionnye metamorfozy Kazakhstana’ in S. A. Panarin, A. N. Vyatkin and N. Kosmarskaya (eds), V dvizhenii dobrovol’nom i prinuzhdennom: postsovetsie migratsii v Evrazii, Moscow, Natalis, 1999, pp. 127–53 (p. 143); Alexander N. Alekseenko, ‘Perepis’ naseleniia 1999 goda v Respublike Kazakhstana’, http://www.zatulin.ru/institute/sbornik/001/03.shtml
Rogers Brubaker, ‘Aftermaths of empire and unmixing of peoples: Historical and comparative perspectives’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 18(2), 1995, pp. 189–218.
David Laitin, Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Population in the Near-Abroad, Ithaca, NY, 1998.
Albert O. Hirshman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organisations and States, Cambridge, MA, 1970.
Kazakhstanskaia pravda, 15 December 2000.
Aina Antane and Boris Tsilevich, ‘Nation-building and ethnic integration in Latvia’ in Pal Kolsto (ed.) Nation-Building and Ethnic Integration in Post-Soviet Societies: An Investigation of Latvia and Kazakhstan, Boulder, CO, 1999, pp. 63–152.
Jorn Holm-Hansen, ‘Political integration in Kazakhstan’ in Kolsto (ed.), ibid., pp. 153–226.
The Slavs form about two thirds among the group of pensioners, who are the most politically-engaged social group.
22. Edward Schatz, ‘ “Tribes” and “clans” in modern power: The state-led production of subethnic politics in Kazakhstan’, unpublished PhD. Dissertation, University of Wisconsin at Madison, 2000, pp. 129–30.
A similar distinction between ‘Ukrainian and other people’ has been retained in Ukraine although the Ukrainian state professes to be a ‘civic’ state. It has put forth the notion ‘people of Ukraine’ (narod Ukrainy) as an inclusive category. Ukrainian deputies voted to capitalize the first letter to refer to the civic category, whereas the ethnonym is to be written without capitalization. See Dominique Arel, ‘Interpreting “Nationality” and “Language” in the 2001 Ukrainian census’, post-Soviet Affairs, 18(3), 2002, pp. 213–99. Russia has distinguished between the ethnic (russkii) and civic (rossiskii).
Dominique Arel, ‘Language categories in censuses: Backward-or forwardlooking?’ in David Kertzer and Dominique Arel (eds), Categorizing Citizens: The Use of Race, Ethnicity and Language in National Censuses, Cambridge, 2000, p. 168.
Konstitutsiia Respubliki Kazakhstana, Almaty, 1996, p. 9.
Radio Free Europe /Radio Liberty Newsline, 15 March 1996.
27. Valery Tishkov, ‘The Osh riots’ in Tishkov, Ethnicity, Nationalism and Conflict in and After the Soviet Union: The Mind Aflame, London, 1997.
Interview with Irina Erofeeva, Almaty, 19 September 1999.
Ibid.
Karavan, 20 March 1998, p. 37.
Germany has offered extensive help to enable the shrinking German community to remain within Kazakhstan. The Deutsches Haus in Kazakhstan distributes free medicine, produce and fuel for winter and runs free German language classes. Similarly, South Korea has offered a large renovated building for housing the Korean Cultural Centre and the Korean theatre. It also offers facilities for learning Korean, training in English, as well as other subjects related to the growth of market economy and marketing skills in Korean institutions. Samsung and Daewoo, huge investors in Kazakhstan, use local Koreans for promoting business ties.
Panorama, 13 August 1999, p. 6.
Pavel Atrushkevich, ‘Politikov s chervotochinoi pugaet edinstva naroda’, Kazakhstanskaia pravda, 8 October 1998, p. 2.
Author’s conversations with some Cossack leaders in Ust Kamenogorsk, July 1997.
Author’s interview with Gennadii Mikhailovich Ni, President of the Koreans’ Association of Kazakhstan, Almaty, August 1999.
Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict, p. 25.
Among the works by Kazakhstani scholars detailing the domination of regional and clientelistic networks among the ruling Kazakh elite, see Nurbulat Masanov, ‘Kazakhskaia politicheskaia i intellektual’naia elita: klanovaia prinadlezhnost’ i vnutrietnicheskoe sopernichestvo’ (hereafter, ‘Kazakhskaia elita’), Vestnik Evrazii, 1, 1996, 2, pp. 46–61 and Vitalii Khliupin, Bol’shaia sem’ia Nursultana Nazarbaeva: politicheskaia elita sovremennogo Kazakhstana, Moscow, 1998.
Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict, p. 25.
Masanov, ‘Kazakhskaia elita’, p. 56.
Author’s interview (name withheld), Almaty, August 1999.
Delovaia nedelia, 27 June 1997, p. 7.
On the ethnonational roots of the impending demographic crisis in Kazakhstan, see Aleksandr N. Alekseenko, ‘Demograficheskaia katastrofa v Respublike Kazakhstana’, 2001, http://www.zatulin.ru/institute/sbornik/001/03.shtml
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Dave, B. (2004). Management of Ethnic Relations in Kazakhstan: Stability without Success. In: Slater, W., Wilson, A. (eds) The Legacy of the Soviet Union. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230524408_5
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