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Abstract

This article examines how debates on language reform in the early Kazakh press became a key site for articulating visions of Kazakh nationhood under late imperial conditions. Focusing on periodicals published between 1911 and 1917, particularly Qazaq, it argues that linguistic purism and deep anxiety over cultural survival were not opposing tendencies but mutually constitutive elements of an emerging national project. Assertions of the “purity” and distinctiveness of the Kazakh language did not reflect linguistic confidence; rather, they expressed an acute awareness of cultural endangerment and dependence within an imperial and transimperial cultural order. Language reform provided a framework through which Kazakh intellectuals translated diffuse fears about cultural extinction into a coherent vision of collective future. While Kazakh authors frequently criticised Tatar newspapers for alarmist narratives about linguistic decline, similar anxieties permeated Kazakh discussions themselves, revealing a shared condition of perceived vulnerability. In this context, purist language claims functioned as aspirational statements of cultural sovereignty, projecting an image of national integrity that did not yet exist institutionally. References to linguistic scholarship and expertise appeared in these debates but played a secondary, legitimising role. More significant was the way language reform came to define the contours of Kazakh nationhood: as a community bound by a shared language, educated through national schooling, sustained by its own literature, and mobilised around a national press. By tracing this transformation, the article reframes linguistic purism as a myth-making practice central to the formation of a Kazakh national project rather than a narrowly linguistic concern.

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Abstract

This paper examines the decolonial discourse articulated in Jusipbek Aimautuly’s 1918 article “Love for the Nation” (Ultty süyu/Ұлтты сүю) and situates it within the intellectual and political framework of the Alash movement in early twentieth-century Kazakhstan. Written during a period of profound political transformation and colonial domination within the Russian Empire, the article presents a programmatic vision for national awakening and civic responsibility. The study argues that Aimautuly’s text functions not merely as a journalistic essay but as an ideological manifesto that articulates the decolonial aspirations of the Alash intellectual elite.

The research employs historical and discursive textual analysis of Aimautuly’s article originally published in the journal Abai in 1918. The analysis is contextualized within the broader intellectual and political environment of the Alash movement and early twentieth-century Kazakh public thought. Through close reading of the text, the paper identifies key conceptual elements that structure Aimautuly’s understanding of national consciousness, civic duty, and social responsibility.

The analysis demonstrates that Aimautuly conceptualizes love for the nation not as a purely emotional attachment but as an ethical and civic commitment grounded in service to society. The article emphasizes the crucial role of the educated elite in guiding social transformation and promoting national development through knowledge, culture, and responsible leadership. At the same time, Aimautuly critically reflects on the social and psychological consequences of colonial rule, including the internalization of imperial administrative values, careerism, and the alienation of intellectuals from the broader population.

The findings suggest that “Love for the Nation” (Ultty süyu/Ұлтты сүю) represents an important articulation of decolonial thought in Kazakh intellectual history. The text contributes to a broader understanding of how early twentieth-century Central Eurasian intellectuals conceptualized national identity, political agency, and cultural renewal under colonial conditions. By examining this text as a form of political and intellectual discourse, the paper contributes to scholarly discussions on decolonial thought, national ideology, and intellectual history in Central Eurasia. The paper will be presented in the Kazakh language.

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Abstract

This paper examines the role of Kazakh historical prose of the independence period, particularly the historical novel, in revitalizing national historical memory. It aims to identify the generic, thematic, and ideological features of historical works produced after independence, as well as their broader literary orientation and dominant ideas.

The study is based on a corpus of nearly fifty historical works written during the independence period, including historical novels, novel-essays, historical narratives, and documentary-historical prose. It employs textual-hermeneutic, comparative-historical, typological, and interpretive methods. The analysis is also informed by scholarship on the historical novel, historical memory, postcolonial discourse, and national narrative.

The findings suggest that the proliferation of historical writing in the independence period was not a random literary phenomenon. Rather, it reflects an aesthetic and intellectual need to return to historical origins, recover suppressed or obscured memory, and revisit a past distorted by colonial domination. In these works, the idea of freedom is no longer represented merely as a struggle to attain liberation; instead, it is rearticulated through the preservation of independence, the consolidation of national consciousness, the restoration of historical justice, and the pursuit of spiritual renewal. In this context, historical figures and events are frequently reinterpreted beyond Soviet or imperial explanatory frameworks and are imaginatively reconstructed and reassessed from the perspective of national interest.

The study also shows that Kazakh history of the eighteenth to twentieth centuries occupies a particularly prominent place in historical prose of the independence era. Special attention is given to the colonial expansion of the Russian Empire and the Soviet regime, national liberation movements, the weakening of khanate authority, land dispossession, and the fate of batyrs, biys, and national intellectuals. This pattern indicates the emergence of a decolonizing orientation in contemporary historical prose. From this perspective, the Kazakh historical novel of the independence period should be understood not merely as a genre that narrates the past, but as an important literary space for affirming national subjectivity, renewing historical consciousness, and shaping postcolonial discourse.