Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T21:30:45.389Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Alash movement and the question of Kazakh ethnicity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Özgecan Kesici
Özgecan Kesici*
Affiliation:
School of Sociology, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
*
*Email: ozgecan.kesici@ucdconnect.ie
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper considers how the Alash movement, the Kazakh national movement led by Russian-educated Kazakh intellectuals in the Russian Empire at the beginning of the twentieth century, redefined Kazakh ethnicity into the Kazakh nation. Aimed at modernizing Kazakh society by declaring itself a nation, the movement used the myth of common descent. It is not surprising, then, that the movement took on the name of Alash, a mythical figure believed to have been the father of all three Kazakh zhuz (tribal confederations). This paper examines the discourse around Kazakhness and its distinction from its Muslim neighbors with respect to five factors; the “true” myth of common descent of Kazakhs, Kazakh history as one of common fate, a nomadic way of life, the weak links to Islam among Kazakhs, and, finally, the legitimization of the Alash leaders as the legitimate speakers for the Kazakh nation. This analysis, in turn, may provide a better understanding of the ways in which social and intellectual movements can redefine belonging, depending on historical circumstances and opportunities and constraints in the social sphere.

Keywords

NationalismethnicityKazakhstanAlash Ordaempire
Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 45 , Issue 6 , November 2017 , pp. 1135 - 1149
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Amanzholova, Dina. 1994. Kazakhskii avtonomizm i Rossiia: Istoriia dvizheniia Alash. Moscow: Rossiia molodaia.Google Scholar
Amanzholova, Dina. 2013. Alash: istoricheskii smysl demokraticheskogo vybora. Almaty: Taymas.Google Scholar
Anderson, Benedict. (1991) 2006. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Revised and extended ed. New York, NY: Verso.Google Scholar
Aqqululy, Sultankhan Zhusyp. 2009. “Alikhan Bokeikhannyng publitsistikasy zhayinan tyng malimetter.” In Alikhan Bokeikhanov: Shygharmalarynyng tolyq zhinaghy. III. Tom, edited by Zhusyp Aqqululy, Sultankhan, 5–25. Astana: Saryarqa.Google Scholar
Auezova, Zifa-Alua. 2014. “Writing a History of Kazakhs at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century: The Shezhyre (Genealogy) of Shakarim Qudaiberdiyev.” In Central Asian Intellectuals on Islam. Between Scholarship, Politics and Identity, edited by Roche, Sophie, 208–225. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag (Studien, 32).Google Scholar
Barth, Fredrik, ed. 1969. Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Bätishuly, Kärim. (1911) 1995. “Qazaq Shezhiresi.” In Aiqap, edited by Subkhanberdina, U., with assistance of S. Dauytov, 56–57. Almaty: Qazaq Entsiklopediyasy.Google Scholar
Bergne, Paul. 2003. “The Kokand Autonomy, 1917–1918: Political Background, Aims and Reasons for Failure.” In Central Asia. Aspects of Transition, edited by Everett-Heath, Tom, 30–44. London: RoutledgeCurzon.Google Scholar
Bokeikhanov, Alikhan. 1994. Shygharmalar, edited by Koigeldiev., Mambet Almaty: Qazaqstan.Google Scholar
Bokeikhanov, Alikhan. (1913) 2009a. “Qazaqtyng Tarikhi (I.).” In Qazaq Gazeti. 1913 Zhyly, edited by Smagulova, O., with assistance of G. K. Enes and T. A. Zamzaeva, 6 vols, (1), 22–23. Almaty: Arys.Google Scholar
Bokeikhanov, Alikhan. (1913) 2009b. “Qazaqtyng Tarikhi (IV.).” In Qazaq Gazeti. 1913 Zhyly, edited by Smagulova, O., with assistance of G. K. Enes and T. A. Zamzaeva, 6 vols, (1): 77. Almaty: Arys.Google Scholar
Bokeikhanov, Alikhan. (1917) 2013. “Zhalpy Sibir siyezi.” In Alikhan Bokeikhanov: Shygharmalarynyng tolyq zhinaghy. VII. Tom, edited by Zhusyp, Sultankhan, (7), 55–59. Aqqululy, Astana: Saryarqa.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1990. The Logic of Practice. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1997. “The Forms of Capital.” In Education. Culture, Economy, and Society, edited by Halsey, A. H., 46–58. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dave, Bhavna. 2007. Kazakhstan – Ethnicity, Language and Power. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Dughlat, Mirza Haider. [1898] 2009. The Tarikh-i-Rashidi. Translated by E. Denison Ross. Srinagar: Karakoram Books.Google Scholar
Eitzen, Hilda. 1998. “Refiguring Ethnicity Through Kazak Genealogies.” Nationalities Papers 26 (3): 433–451.Google Scholar
Esenova, Saulesh. 2002. “Soviet Nationality, Identity, and Ethnicity in Central Asia: Historic Narratives and Kazakh Ethnic Identity.” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 22 (1): 11–38.Google Scholar
Frank, Allen J. 1998. Islamic Historiography and “Bulghar” Identity among the Tatars and Bashkirs of Russia. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Gorenburg, Dmitry. 1999. “Identity Change in Bashkortostan: Tatars into Bashkirs and Back.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 22 (3): 554–580.Google Scholar
Hayit, Baymirza. 1971. Turkestan zwischen Russland und China. Eine ethnographische, kulturelle und politische Darstellung zur Geschichte der nationalen Staaten und des nationalen Kampfes Turkestans im Zeitalter der russischen und chinesischen Expansion vom 18. bis ins 20. Jahrhundert. Amsterdam: Philo Press.Google Scholar
Hutchinson, John. 1987. The Dynamics of Cultural Nationalism: The Gaelic Revival and the Creation of the Irish Nation State. Boston: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Hutchinson, John. 1999. “Re-Interpreting Cultural Nationalism.” Australian Journal of Politics and History 45 (3): 392–407.Google Scholar
Hutchinson, John. 2004. “Myth Against Myth: The Nation as Ethnic Overlay.” Nations and Nationalism 10 (1/2): 109–123.Google Scholar
Kendirbay, Gulnar. 1997. “The National Liberation Movement of the Kazakh Intelligentsia at the Beginning of the 20th Century.” Central Asian Survey 16 (4): 487–515.Google Scholar
Khalid, Adeeb. 1998. The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform. Jadidism in Central Asia. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Koigeldiev, Mambet. 1994. “Alikhan Bokeikhanov.” In Alikhan Bokeikhanov: Shygharmalar, edited by Koigeldiev, Mambet, 5–94. Almaty: Qazaqstan.Google Scholar
Koigeldiev, Mambet. 1995. Alash qozghalysy. Almaty: Sanat.Google Scholar
Masoero, Alberto. 2010. “Layers of Property in the Tsar's Settlement Colony: Projects of Land Privatization in Siberia in the Late Nineteenth Century.” Central Asian Survey 29 (1): 9–32.Google Scholar
Noack, Christian. 2000. Muslimischer Nationalismus im russischen Reich. Nationsbildung und Nationalbewegung bei Tataren und Baschkiren, 1861–1917. Stuttgart: Steiner.Google Scholar
Qudaiberdiuly, Shäkarim. (1911) 2015. Türik, qyrghyz, qazaq, häm khandar shezhyresi. Accessed December 4, 2017. http://kitap.kz/index.php/catalog/book/5338-turik_qyrhyz_qazaq_am_xandar_shezhiresi.Google Scholar
Roy, Olivier. 2000. The New Central Asia. The Creation of Nations. London: Tauris.Google Scholar
Sabol, Steven. 2003. Russian Colonization of Central Asia and the Genesis of Kazak National Consciousness, 1868–1920. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Smith, Anthony D. 1986. The Ethnic Origins of Nations. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Togan, Zeki Velidi. 1969. Hatiralar. Turkistan ve diger Musluman Dogu Turklerinin Milli Varlik ve Kultur Mucadeleri. Istanbul: Tan Matbaasi.Google Scholar
Uyama, Tomohiko. 2002. “From ‘Bulgharism’ Through ‘Marrism’ to Nationalist Myths: Discourses on the Tatar, the Chuvash and the Bashkir Ethnogenesis.” Acta Slavica Iaponica 19: 163–190.Google Scholar