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Abstract

This paper studies the role of Kazakh-Soviet historical prose from the period of the Sino-Soviet split (1960s-1970s) in constructing the image of China and the Chinese as the historical Other. Drawing on a thematic analysis of two novels – spanning four books – the trilogy Koshpendiler [Nomads] by Ilyas Yessenberlin and the novel Gonetz [Rider] by Anuar Alimzhanov, this paper argues that the canonical Soviet period literary works produced sinophobic narratives depicting China as the “eternal enemy”, “existential threat”, “greater evil”, among others. Building on the established argument regarding the role of late Kazakh-Soviet literature in constructing post-Soviet Kazakh ethno-nationalism, this paper claims that these narratives reified China’s image as the Other for the Kazakh Self. The results of the paper also suggest that othering of China can be understood as one of the trade-off strategies that allowed Kazakh ethno-nationalist rhetoric in these novels to pass censorship by serving Moscow’s anti-China propaganda during the Sino-Soviet ideological divergence.