Abstract

In the early twentieth century, tsarist settler colonialism produced severe socioeconomic decline among non-Russian populations. For Kazakh nomads, resettlement policies led to devastating land and resource losses, creating unjustifiable material disparities between indigenous populations and dominant ruling groups comprised of both settlers and collaborating local elites. While historians often view this transitional period through the lens of anticolonial nationalism or top-down state-building, the relationship between national identity and economic justice remains underexplored. The purpose of this study is to examine how Kazakh intellectuals and indigenous communities articulated social justice in response to this economic dispossession, focusing specifically on their reactions to socioeconomic inequalities produced by both imperial-colonial forces and traditional nomadic structures. To investigate this, I qualitatively analyzed primary sources—including political writings, memoirs, and legal documents—to explore everyday struggles and debates from the perspective of indigenous actors. The analysis reveals that confronting both the inegalitarian structures of colonial rule and the internal hierarchies of nomadism was central to Kazakh intellectual discourse. Furthermore, results demonstrate that economic disparity functioned not merely as a social grievance, but as a core ideological critique that generated demands for egalitarian principles during the nation-building process. Ultimately, by centering the material dimensions of social justice, this paper provides a broader understanding of Kazakh national identity that transcends purely state-centered or identitarian interpretations.

Keywords: national identity, social justice, economic oppression, tsarist colonialism, nomadic social structure, Kazakh intellectuals.