Paper abstract:

Mongolia’s transition from socialism to democracy in the 1990s was sudden and rocky, but the country has since developed a diversified private sector. Images of Chinggis (Genghis) Khan, the founder of the Mongol Empire who united various warring tribes over eight hundred years ago, are visible throughout the country in the forms of everything from government-sponsored monuments and banknotes to liquor and beer bottles to packages of dumplings. This proliferation of Chinggis stands in sharp contrast to socialist Mongolia, where open discussions and portrayals of the Great Khan were strictly limited. However, since the democratic transition, Chinggis Khan’s dominance of the pantheon of national heroes has solidified into incontrovertible fact—influencing not only government decisions but also daily life in Mongolia. Using Eric Hobsbawm’s invented traditions theory, this paper examines how the Mongolian government and private companies alike use and misuse Chinggis Khan’s legacy and its associated intangible cultural heritage to craft modern narratives rooted in an imagined past. First, I will build on existing literature to discuss how the post-socialist, democratically elected Mongolian government has reappropriated the figure of Chinggis Khan to legitimize their own rule as the “true heirs” of the Great Mongol Empire—building national unity around an ancient historical figure and signaling a separation from the socialist regime of the twentieth century. Second, I will examine how Mongolian companies have developed what I term “Brand Chinggis.” Brand Chinggis is a strategic, profit-driven appropriation of Mongolia’s perceived glorious past that aims to sell goods and services using an imagined version of Chinggisid Mongolia—tying products directly to Chinggis Khan and the Mongol Empire. In doing so, brands selling everything from hotel stays to vodka legitimize themselves in much the same way as the democratic government. Using specific case studies including monumental architecture, banknotes, and the advertising campaigns of branding of several private companies, I argue that while Chinggis Khan is in fact a figure of national importance to Mongolia, this “cult of Chinggis” has been appropriated to further specific and intertwined state, individual, and corporate goals—flattening the legacy of the Mongol Empire and its leader in an attempt to draw Mongolian citizens to their cause, convince them to consume, and define “Mongolian-ness” in relation not to the country’s larger, more powerful neighbors, but to a stronger, more glorious past.

Paper abstract:

One of the important tasks of Kazakhstan's internal migration policy is to ensure the regional and demographic balance of the country's development. To achieve this goal, over the past 10 years, the Government of Kazakhstan has adopted 5 state programs and projects aimed at stimulating the rational resettlement of Kazakhstanis, the resettlement of citizens from labor-surplus regions to labor-deficient ones. However, despite the intensification of internal population movements, the issues of adaptation of migrants in Kazakhstan remain poorly studied. In this paper, based on 24 in-depth interviews, the results of a sociological study of the migration and adaptation processes of residents of the southern regions of Kazakhstan in the northern regions of the country are presented.

The study revealed that, depending on the socio-resource characteristics, goals and results of migration, as well as plans for the future, migrants can be divided into 3 main groups: the first group - resource strong - are those for whom migration is a development strategy; resource weak – those for whom resettlement is a survival strategy. The third group consists of migrants, who by their characteristics belong to both groups: as in the case of the second group, their main goal is to acquire their own housing and gain official regular employment, but in the long term, as representatives of the first group, they focused on expanding income sources and involvement in secondary employment.

In other words, in the case of the first group, we are talking about socio-economic push factors, in the second – about the attractive nature of internal migration. In the third group, the same importance of both push and pull factors is noted.

Paper abstract:

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sent shockwaves through the global economic, political and communication landscape. It has also prompted new discussions around decolonization, dependency, and identity in Central Asia and the rest of the so-called post-Soviet space.

Since Russia announced mobilization in September 2022, hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens and residents fled Russia to nearby countries (Reuters, 2022) in an urgent attempt to avoid being drafted into the war in Ukraine and to avoid the economic and political consequences of the war. In Russia, this movement of people became known as relocation and people fleeing Russia became colloquially known as “relocants” (“релоканты”), as opposed to migrants, emigrants, or refugees. Faced with limited options due to travel restrictions and skyrocketing ticket prices, thousands of these “relocants” fled to countries of Central Asia (Mirovaliev, 2022). This paper analyzes the term “relocant” and situates it in the context of migration and privilege in the so-called “post-Soviet space”.

At the same time, with millions of Central Asian migrants working in Russia and facing discrimination, economic disadvantages, media misrepresentation, police violence and other forms of marginalization (Abashin, 2014), migrants in Russia have been established as “the other” for the past three decades since the collapse of the USSR and continuing dependency of Central Asian countries on Russia. However, the influx of Russian citizens and residents seeking refuge in Central Asia since the start of the war in Ukraine demonstrated a possibility for a shift in how Russians position themselves vis-à-vis people in Central Asia, as well as how Central Asians think about the Russian population.

To unpack this complex issue, this paper conducts a critical discourse analysis (Van Dijk, 2015) of social media discourse around Russian “relocants” in Tajikistan. Using purposeful sampling, this study identifies and collects social media content that reflects the experience of “relocants” in Central Asia, specifically in Tajikistan, and posts that represent local attitudes in Tajikistan towards the influx of Russian citizens. This paper engages with the critical literature on issues of migration, decolonization in post-Soviet space, as well as post-Soviet dependencies and resistances. The paper contributes to the critical analysis of power, identity, media and knowledge production in Russia and Central Asia. The paper further suggests that the war in Ukraine only highlighted the existing importance of applying critical, post-colonial and decolonial approaches to study changing sensibilities in the so-called post-Soviet space.