Abstract

Under conditions of imperial and colonial domination, how did the Kazakh political elite of the Alash movement, scholars, intellectuals, and writers conceptualize national consciousness, political independence, cultural freedom, and historical memory? This panel examines the reconfiguration of national ideas in Kazakhstan from the perspectives of intellectual history, literary studies, and language ideology. Covering different historical periods and discursive spaces, the panel explores how debates about national consciousness developed across various cultural forms, starting from early twentieth century journalism and the press to historical prose of the independence period.

The first paper analyzes the decolonial discourse in Jusipbek Aimautuly’s 1918 article “Love for the Nation” (Ultty süyu). The article is examined within the intellectual and political context of the Alash movement and is interpreted as an important text articulating programmatic ideas about national awakening, civic responsibility, and cultural renewal. The study shows that Aimautuly understood love for the nation not as an emotional attachment but as a decolonial ethical and civic duty grounded in service to society.

The second paper examines debates on language reform in the Kazakh press between 1911 and 1917, particularly in the newspaper Qazaq. It argues that linguistic purism and anxieties about cultural loss were not opposing tendencies but mutually reinforcing elements of an emerging national project. Language became a crucial arena in which Kazakh intellectuals articulated the boundaries of a future national community.

The third paper analyzes the Kazakh historical prose of the independence period. It demonstrates that the proliferation of historical novels and documentary-historical works after 1991 reflects a broader effort to restore national historical memory. In these works, historical figures and events are reinterpreted beyond imperial and Soviet frameworks and reassessed from the perspective of national interests.

Taken together, the panel demonstrates that language debates, literary production, and intellectual discourse played a central role in shaping modern Kazakh national consciousness and in rethinking the colonial legacy. By bringing together analyses of political writing, linguistic debates, and literary narratives, the panel highlights the diverse intellectual pathways through which decolonial thought has developed in Kazakhstan.

The panel will be conducted in the Kazakh language.