Abstract

The paper focuses on the issues of a linguistic loss, breakdown of cultural transmission and identity crisis among ethnic Koreans in Kazakhstan deported from the Far East in 1937 during the Soviet era. Drawing upon archival data from the Central State Archive and the Archive of the President of Kazakhstan, other historical accounts, memories, contemporary cultural discourses and narratives among the second and third generations of Koreans about their cultural heritage in Kazakhstan, the current study explores and analyzes the processes and outcomes of the linguistic loss and breakdown of cultural transmission among deported Koreans in Kazakhstan. The findings of the study have indicated that the breakdown of cultural transmission, linguistic loss, identity crisis, adaptation and integration of Korean communities into local socio-cultural environments were caused and facilitated by the top-down state-orchestrated forced uprooting and assimilationist practices and policies of the Soviet regime. The findings have also demonstrated that the cultural and linguistic losses within Korean communities in Kazakhstan were caused by the violent deportation of Koreans from their own cultural environment to unknown and inhospitable socio-cultural milieus, which brought about collective national trauma and breakdown of social cohesion within Korean communities in exile. The findings have also shown that due to the top-down state-inspired policies, the Soviet regime systematically suppressed the Korean language, restricted and eliminated it from education, reducing it to domestic usage, which gradually resulted in cultural erosion, language loss and assimilation of Koreans in Kazakhstan. The disruption of cultural transmission and language loss among Koreans in Kazakhstan was owing to the large-scale, long-term and sustained policies of the Soviet regime that facilitated and ensured their integration into the Russian-speaking Soviet culture. The current study contributes to a larger body of scholarly literature on lived experiences, collective national trauma, cultural and linguistic losses, disruption of social cohesion and breakdown of cultural transmission across generations among deported ethnic communities in exile in Kazakhstan in the Soviet era.