Les Russes du Kazakhstan

Les Russes du Kazakhstan.

Identités nationales et nouveaux Etats dans l’espace post-soviétique

[Russians in Kazakhstan. National identities and new States in the Post-Soviet space]

co-authored with Marlène Laruelle, Preface by Catherine Poujol, Paris, Maisonneuve et Larose - ifeac, 2004, 354 p.

This book is based on materials collected during several long stays in Kazakhstan between 1999 and 2005, with the principal field-research conducted in 2000 and 2003 in several cities of the republic. The main sources are local periodicals and books devoted to the topic under consideration, especially the newspaper published since 1994 by the Russian minority organization “Lad,” and interviews with leaders of the Russian movement and with ordinary Russians living in Kazakhstan . The book develops three main points: the non-homogeneous nature of Russian community in Kazakhstan , the development of non-ethnic allegiances that could explain the failure of local Russian political parties, and the difficulties the leaders face in choosing between the defense of political rights or cultural rights of the country’s first minority. While dealing with these points, the authors focus, first, on the place of nationality question in the Kazakhstani public debate and the political activities of the Russian minority; second, on linguistic and ethnic Kazakhisation; third, on the Russian identity narratives and rewriting of history; fourth, on the Cossacks’ issues and their secessionist claims; and, finally, on emigration trends and the narrative of a “return” to Russia.

In the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, former dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn denounced both its breakup and the independence of the new states, such as Kazakhstan . In a speech at the Russian State Duma, he denounced the independence of the Russian Federation , which would abandon 25 million Russians. Indeed, in December 1991, many Russians residing in the other fourteen former Soviet republics suddenly found themselves living “abroad.” The transformation of the internal borders, until then considered administrative divisions, into internationally recognized external borders, gave rise to questions and concerns. This was the case especially among the Russians who became a minority in a titular state ruled by another nationality. This book aims to highlight the situation of, and around, the Russian minority in Kazakhstan and to reveal the political, social, and identity transformations this country has experienced since independence. More than fifteen years after the collapse of the Soviet Union , the Russian issue that, according to some analysts, could have destabilized the area, eventually underwent a more peaceful evolution. This issue seems to have been gradually solved through a double phenomenon — emigration of those who wanted to leave the country and de-politicization of those who preferred to stay or had no choice.

As in the other Central Asian states, the Russian minority in Kazakhstan became further de-politicized in the 2000s. The political movements and parties, like those of the Cossacks, “Lad,” and “Russkaya obshchina,” failed to mobilize the millions of Russians living in the republic. Numerous relevant sociological studies testify that the majority of Russians living in the Near Abroad have no connections with these associations, which supposedly represent them. Many Russians have never even heard of them nor feel that they could defend them. These associations used to disseminate very pessimistic views on the situation of Russians in the Near Abroad. They gave a gloomy assessment of their future, either massive repatriation to Russia or complete assimilation into a hostile, culturally alien state. They refused to admit that a critical segment of Russians prefer the integrationist strategy and do not view Russia as their motherland. Moreover, many Russians in Kazakhstan developed their own ways to deal with their new minority status. These include cultural and linguistic acculturation, passive loyalty to the new state, formation of a double “Russian-Kazakh” identity, and, above all, indifference to any nationalist rhetoric, whether Russian or Kazakh.

Since 1991, Kazakhstan, and neighboring post-Soviet Central Asian states in general, used in their political discourses rhetoric on their fight for independence and mandate to choose their own political and economic paths. For Kazakhstani political authorities, massive Russian and European emigration corresponded more to their dreams than to post-imperial disengagement with Russia . Ethnic diversity in Central Asia decreases, whereas the mono-ethnic character of the states is increasingly reality. However, these phenomena allow the political authorities to be held accountable for their duties. Soon it will be increasingly difficult to blame the Soviet regime or the Russians for the lack of democratic, industrial, agricultural, and ecological choices, or to blame contemporary failures and difficulties on their presence. Building a nation-state was not easy for Kazakhstan . This huge territory has a sparse population. The titular nationality was, until very recently, a minority in their own state. The national language competes with Russian for usage, even among the Kazakh population. Russians were — and in some areas near the Russian boarders, still are — a majority. Yet, even with such handicaps, Kazakhstan succeeded in preserving its territorial integrity and Kazakh national identity. The price to pay for this success remains important. The consequences of political authoritarianism, the exclusion of national minorities from public life, and cultural impoverishment have not yet been properly assessed.

The “Russian question” in Kazakhstan raises several more general questions. It first invites to question the nature of “Russian colonialism” in Siberia and Central Asia and, in return, to question Russian identity and its paradoxical relationship to the imperial territory. If Turkistan was a classic “colonial” space, what about Northern Kazakhstan, Ural, and Altay, where the history of the population is actually the history of the Russian progression in Siberia ? Second, the issue of minorities opens the debate on the future of independent Central Asia , which must deal simultaneously with its ethnic diversity, its geopolitical and economic enclosure, and the rise of authoritarianism. Finally, the presence of Russians in Kazakhstan confirms the formation of a pattern common to the whole post-Soviet space, confronted with processes of identity adjustments between territory, population, and state and of new relations between center and periphery. Whatever the future of Russians in the Near Abroad, their return to their homeland that started in the 1970s is probably a major, long-term component of Russia history.

For the first time in five centuries, the space occupied by Russians is decreasing. What, then, will stop Russian emigration from the CIS republics in Russia ? Does the collapse of the Soviet Union suppose a possible implosion of the Russian Federation in areas where Russian and autochthonous populations live together? Does the departure of Russians from Siberia to the central regions of the Federation encourage this evolution? Russians do not view Kazakhstan as a part of the empire occupied from the 19th century as Turkistan was, but as a space conquered during the Russian progress in Siberia . Although control over part of present day Kazakhstan was established only in the 1860's, the regions of Ural, Northern Kazakhstan, and Altay, marked by Russian old-believers’ presence since the 17th and 18th centuries, are always cited as the first historic references of the “Russianness” of Kazakhstan. Renouncing a territory that is such a strong national symbol then raises a complex problem. To refuse Russians the right to consider themselves as natives in this area can also be viewed as a challenge to the Russian presence beyond the Urals. The Caucasus, Siberia , and the Volga–Ural area, populated with non-Russian peoples and autonomous administrative entities, could follow the “Kazakh pattern” in the future.