The Politics of Memory and History Production of the Soviet Past in Kazakhstan (1992-2019)

Abstract

The historical events of the Soviet past in post-1991 Kazakhstan are not only a matter of revision and contestation; they are a source for resistance and for challenging the domination of the cardinal discourse in post-independence Kazakhstan. This discourse comprises a stable triangular semantic of "stability-prosperity-president," which concentrates on present-day achievements and future aspirations. I study how and why four significant turning points in the history of Soviet Kazakhstan - a) the Alash movement; b) collectivization and famine; c) World War II; and d) the 1986 Jeltoqsan demonstrations have been constructed, used, contested, and disseminated in the nexus of the politics of memory and history of Kazakhstan in the period between 1992 and 2019. I examine original data through the undertaking of archival research, analysis of text sites, and interviews with school history textbook authors and chief articulators on these turning points. In doing so, my research departs from the application of nationalism theories to study nation-building in Kazakhstan. By using the nexus of the politics of memory and history production as a conceptual framework, I challenge the instrumentalist approach to the politics of memory that assumes that construction and usage of the memory would be fundamentally different in democracies and non-democracies. My research reveals that the non-democratic case of Kazakhstan contains debates over this usage of the politics of memories that are not dissimilar to those occurring in democracies. Furthermore, I argue that contestation between the official and non-official narratives over the interpretation of these four turning points has become an avenue for the agencies of historians and textbook authors who re-think these points in the historic production process. This argument challenges previous literature that has concentrated on the unidirectional "power" wielded by political elites when addressing Kazakhstan's nation-building. Show more