Paper short abstract:

Paper discusses oral stories on the migration of 1950-1960s from China to Kazakhstan putting them into the context of construction of memory and politics of history in Kazakhstan

Paper long abstract:

The paper will discuss the results of the project on Oral history of migration of 1950-1970s from China to Kazakhstan organized at Turan University in Almaty. It will focus on recollections of the migrants of various ethnic groups living now in Kazakhstan. Recollections of the migrants are determined by various factors, including the age of the migrants (most of the interviewers were teenagers when moving to the USSR), ethnic affiliation, experience of the life in the Soviet Union. Of particular politics of memory and politics of history practiced at Soviet times and in post-Soviet Kazakhstan, as well as oppressive policy of the Chinese authorities towards Muslim ethnic groups in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) which fames particularities of the memory. The paper will discuss how present shapes memory of the past and limitations of holding Oral history interviewers with various groups of migrants, since the memory of migration is differently constructed for different ethnic groups of Kazakhs, Uyghurs, Tatar and Dungans.