Abstract:

In the last couple of years, especially from 2022, the image and the name of Dinmukhamed Akhmedovich Qonaev (1912-1993) suddenly became more visible in public places in the forms of portraits and pictures, media sources, different commemoration events, and even in the country`s toponymal system. The main question of this research paper is: what caused such interest in the Soviet Kazakhstani leaders who passed away practically at the beginning of Kazakhstan’s independence? The focus of this research is on how Qonaev's symbolic power is used or better to say, how different actors both state and non-state from hip-hop bands to Islamic preachers apply to the symbolic power of Qonaev. During ethnographic fieldwork which included digital ethnography and interviewing I came up with several preliminary arguments: first, the sudden popularity of Qonaev on the state level can be explained as some form of the dismantling of the legacy previous leader of the country, Nursultan Nazarbayev by contemporary president Qasymzhomart Tokayev. Second, non-state actors such as musicians, hip-hop singers Islamic preachers, and many common Kazakhstanis on the ground level reimagine Qonaev as the ‘ideal ruler”, as a kind of “anti-Nazarbayev” whom the country “lost” during its historical development. However, such as nostalgia and romantic idealization mixed with the heavy nationalistic critique of Qonaev too.