Abstract

The volume "Traditions and Values of Kazakhs in the 21st century” brings together research and reflections by leading Kazakhstani historians, anthropologists, philosophers, and writers devoted to understanding the transformation of Kazakh identity in the final decades of the twentieth century and the first quarter of the twenty-first century. Its aim is to offer a historical-philosophical and cultural perspective on the processes shaping contemporary Kazakhstan. Over thirty-five years of independence, Kazakhstani society has undergone large-scale demographic, economic, and sociocultural transformations. A new generation of independence has entered the historical stage and now constitutes the majority of the country’s population. Linguistic and cultural hierarchies have changed, as have forms of self-expression and mechanisms of collective memory. More than half of Kazakhstan's population—over 10 million people—were born during the era of independence. Who forms their understanding of the past and the future? Which actors today set the direction of nation-building?

In the Soviet period, Kazakhstan underwent nation–building modernization, shaped by the Soviet vision of how nations, particularly those of the East, should mature and catch up with the developed nations. With the slogan “socialist in content, nationalist in form,” all the nations gradually had to reach the same high level of development and adopt the same form of national culture - to have opera, theater, ballet, the national novel, and other attributes of European culture. Following Kazakhstan's independence, a new era of Kazakh nation-building began. Due to migration in the 1990s and 2000s and the 2010-2020s baby boom, the share of Kazakhs in the country has more than doubled, and their share among the urban population has increased dramatically. The Russian language was, for some time, supported as a lingua franca, gaining the status of the “official language” of interethnic communication while remaining the “prestigious” language of bureaucracy, culture, and education. However, the position of the Kazakh language and Kazakh culture gradually strengthened. The stigma associated with everything “traditional,” “backward,” and “countryside” among Kazakhs has weakened. Language hierarchies and the linguistic landscapes of cities and the countryside have changed, and today they include not only Russian and Kazakh but also English. To attract potential clients, businesses and advertising have increasingly switched to Kazakh. Both modern (rap) and traditional (aitys) genres have emerged in Kazakh. The Kazakh language became the dominant language of media and culture.