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- Convenor:
-
Daniel Scarborough
(Nazarbayev University)
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- Chair:
-
Curtis Murphy
(Nazarbayev University)
- Discussant:
-
Curtis Murphy
(Nazarbayev University)
- Format:
- Panel
- Theme:
- History
Abstract
This panel examines the reciprocal influence of Russian and Central Asian cultures through travel, religious art, and the Orthodox Church. Each paper examines how colonial forces sought to define Central Asian identity, but were themselves influenced in the process. The panel brings together a variety of research methods, including large data analysis of the Turkestanii sbornik, an examination of the application of canon law to the Orthodox Church in Kazakhstan, and an analysis of Christian art in Kazakhstan. Chronologically, the three papers present a progression of reciprocal influence. The first surveys the level of bias among travel accounts over an extended period of time, noting an increase in fixed ethnographic categories that traveler accounts used to describe Central Asian peoples over time. It also examines the agency of the Central Asian subjects of these accounts in the creation of these categories. The second paper discusses the resistance of the Moscow Patriarchate to the formation of a separate, “Kazakhstani Orthodoxy” and the movement for an autocephalous Orthodox Church of Kazakhstan. This resistance ultimately took the form of a diplomatic pressure on the government of Kazakhstan through a media outlet of the Moscow Patriarchate. This pressure resulted in the prosecution on drug charges of the hieromonk who headed the movement to disassociate Orthodox Christians in Kazakhstan from the war in Ukraine. The third paper discusses the recruitment of non-Christian, Kazakhstani artists to contribute traditional Kazakh motifs to the iconography of Greek Catholic Churches. This initiative is an effort on the part of Ukrainian Orthodox Christians to assimilate to the historical culture of their adopted homeland.
Accepted papers
Abstract
This research explores how Christian denominations in Kazakhstan use Kazakh traditional imagery and artistic forms (Kazakh ornamental motifs, decorative patterns, and visual references to traditional textiles or steppe symbolism) to engage with local culture and negotiate belonging in a multiethnic post-Soviet society. I examine the hypothesis that some churches demonstrate greater openness to local cultural forms than others. For example, the frescoes in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Cathedral in Astana incorporate Kazakh ornamental motifs and were painted by a Kazakh non-Christian artist with the Church’s official permission. In 2022, an artwork by the Kazakh painter Dosbol Kassymov depicting the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus with Kazakh facial features and employing Kazakh symbolism was recognized by the Vatican.
The study combines visual analysis of icons, frescoes, and other church imagery in selected Christian churches in Kazakhstan with discourse analysis of parish publications, sermons, and official media materials. It examines (1) how churches connect faith, culture, and national identity, and (2) how visual choices reflect broader strategies of outreach, cultural adaptation, or the preservation of inherited traditions.
This project contributes to Central Eurasian Studies by highlighting the role of visual culture in shaping religious and cultural interaction in Kazakhstan as a multiethnic state. By tracing how Christian communities incorporate Kazakh motifs and visual languages, the project offers a new perspective on how religious groups negotiate identity and belonging across the region. In doing so, it reconceptualizes the region as a space where global religious traditions are continuously reinterpreted through local cultural forms.
Abstract
A call has been made in recent years to de-colonize machine learning and AI by putting them into use for emancipation of marginalized voices instead of profit. Replying to this call, our project implements an NLP analysis of over 200 travelogues describing the life of ethno-social communities on the territory of present-day Kazakhstan between the 1760s and 1910s. Travelogue literature, written mostly by Russian administrative and military officials and European travellers, constitutes one of the richest sources of knowledge about people of Central Asia at the time. Subject to critical analysis, this literature - manifesting hybridity of a “contact zone” - becomes indispensable for recovering the voices of indigenous population. Our study answers the question which factors determined to what extent the local voices were represented or reduced to the passive objects of imperial gaze. A team of undergraduate coders manually processed the travelogues from Turkestanskii sbornik, selecting over 3000 passages covering boundary-setting features, symbols and markers of local identities (e.g. rites, material culture, self-names, etc.). In addition, those passages were labeled according to the presence of indigenous voices. Then, the shares of local voice, top keywords, and bi-gram probabilities were calculated centuries, decades, and authors in R. We find that indigenous presence was filtered through the imperial gaze with weak local voices as the norm across all decades, indicating that Central Asian people were described almost entirely through an external lens. Yet, local voice was suppressed not uniformly or incidentally, but depended on the author’s identity, depth of local embeddedness and purpose of writing. The local voice markedly receded in the travelogues by the end of the nineteenth century signifying the final Russian conquest of Central Asia. In other words, similarly to Africa and Latin America, political colonial expansion invigorated imperial gaze. Ethnographers, culturally embedded travellers, and orientalists included the higher shares of moderate and strong local voices, while writers with military and administrative affiliations proved to be the most exclusive. Thus, we add a more systematic nuance to the conclusions of those scholars who have found diversity or even “the anti-conquest” in imperial travel writing.
Abstract
In the early hours of February 13th, 2026, hieromonk Iakov (Voronstov), a defrocked Orthodox priest of the Russian Orthodox Church in Kazakhstan, was arrested at his home in Almaty, and accused of trafficking in narcotics, a charge he denies. He remains in solitary confinement. His Bible and prayer book have been confiscated and his beard shaved against his will.
The actual reason for Fr. Iakov's arrest may have been his public condemnation of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and his calls for the creation of an autocephalous Church of Kazakhstan. He was defrocked by a diocesan court in July of 2023, but continued his campaign. While his Kazakhstani citizenship put Fr. Iakov beyond the reach of Russia's law against "discrediting the Russian armed forces," Church leaders nevertheless appealed to the state's penal code to silence him. In December of 2023, a criminal case was initiated against him anonymously for “inciting religious hatred,” but was later dismissed. In January of 2026, a group of clergy publicly appealed to President Tokaev of Kazakhstan to reopen the criminal investigation, and the Russian television channel "SPAS" dedicated an episode to Fr. Iakov's "attack on the Orthodox Church in Kazakhstan." His incarceration on narcotics charges followed soon thereafter.
Fr. Iakov’s ongoing legal ordeal is rooted in the history of Orthodox canon law, and its porous boundary with the secular state. In particular, his case illustrates how deeply the Moscow Patriarchate’s legal structure is entangled with the political and ideological power of the Russian Federation, even beyond its borders.