An ethnically diverse region that abuts the Caspian Sea in southwestern Russia, Astrakhan Oblast is home to the country’s largest Kazakh community. Almost 150,000 people, or 18 percent of the oblast’s population, identify as ethnic Kazakhs. Although Astrakhan does border Kazakhstan, most of them are not recent immigrants from the neighboring country. Their families have been living in what is now Astrakhan since long before the current national borders were drawn.

Author

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Dor Shabashewitz

Dor Shabashewitz is a Russia-born Israeli journalist and political analyst with a background in anthropology and sociolinguistics. He worked as a junior researcher at the RAS Institute for Linguistic Studies and conducted extensive fieldwork in Astrakhan’s Kazakh and Nogai rural communities as a part of his Master’s studies at the European University at St. Petersburg. In 2021, the Russian Federal Security Service forced him to leave the country following politically motivated accusations of “extremism” and “separatism.” These days, he covers ethnic minority rights and regional politics in the Lower Volga and Central Asia for RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir Service.

*The article that follows provides a brief overview of the sociolinguistic situation among those Kazakhs living in the Russian part of the Volga River delta. It is based on field research conducted by the author during his master’s studies between 2019 and 2021.

In the Middle Ages, Astrakhan was part of the Golden Horde and, later, an independent khanate. In 1556, it was conquered by the Russians and eventually incorporated into the Russian Empire as a governorate. The first major wave of Kazakh migration to Astrakhan Governorate began between 1799 and 1801, when Bökey Khan, son of the Junior jüz leader Nuraly, led several thousand nomadic families from across the Ural River to a more fertile area in the Volga River delta. A steady influx of Kazakh settlers continued well into the mid-nineteenth century. The new Astrakhan Kazakh community led by Bökey enjoyed the status of a semi-independent vassal state for several decades before gradually ceding most of its autonomy under pressure from the Russian authorities.

The early Soviet years revived the idea of a Kazakh autonomous area in Astrakhan. In 1919, some of the Kazakh districts of Astrakhan Governorate were grouped together under the name Volga-Caspian Kirghizia and transferred to what later became the Kazakh SSR. Most of them stayed and became part of Kazakhstan upon its independence, but some of the transfers were reversed in the 1920s. Thus, the Volodarsky and Krasny Yar districts ended up in Russia’s Astrakhan Oblast despite 70 percent and 50 percent of their inhabitants, respectively, being ethnic Kazakhs.

Notwithstanding the omnipresent linguistic Russification of the Soviet era, Kazakh enjoyed certain formal privileges in the Kazakh SSR as a co-official language that was used in many schools, especially in rural areas. State-funded magazines, newspapers, books, and movies were produced in the language. Government support for the national language and its social prestige only increased after Kazakhstan became a sovereign country in 1991. This was not the case in Astrakhan Oblast—the region’s Kazakh community had no linguistic autonomy or representation under the Soviets, and this did not change when the USSR fell apart.

Vitality Factors

In what state, then, is the Kazakh language among Astrakhan’s Kazakhs after decades without formal recognition? In what domains is it still spoken? What do the Astrakhan Kazakhs think of their ethnic language, and what role does it play in their identity? These were the questions I hoped to answer when I set off on a fieldwork trip to my home region’s Volodarsky district as a master’s student in social anthropology back in 2019.

During my fieldwork, I visited numerous rural settlements of varying sizes, ethnic compositions, locations, histories, and economic conditions. It became evident that all of these factors played a significant role in the vitality of Kazakh in any given village, but the relative weight of each factor was rather unexpected. My analysis showed that the share of ethnic Kazakhs in a village did not correlate strongly with how much they used the language in their daily lives. I have been to monoethnic Kazakh villages that spoke almost exclusively Russian, as well as mixed ones where Kazakh was still maintained by some members of the younger generations.

Geography and the perceived history of a settlement turned out to be the two most defining factors. Inhabitants of villages that are close to Astrakhan City and have a stable public transport connection to the city tend to switch to Russian more quickly than residents of more remote ones. Career opportunities in rural areas are scarce, prompting villagers to look for jobs in the urban center. When logistically possible, many opt to continue living in their villages and commute to work several times a week instead of moving to the city. Despite its impressive ethnic diversity, Astrakhan City is overwhelmingly Russian-speaking. Kazakh rural commuters tend to integrate into this environment and “bring it home” after work, influencing the linguistic landscape of their communities.

“Perceived history” deserves an anthropological study of its own. Many of the Astrakhan Kazakhs I interviewed explained that their villages were originally founded by Russian peasants or created by the Soviets in a centralized way and populated by collective farm workers of diverse origins. Many settlements with such histories gradually became majority-Kazakh, but most locals believed they were “not really Kazakh villages” and thus considered Kazakh a rather inappropriate language to use in public spaces. In settlements such as Vinny, this mentality led to Kazakh becoming a family language only, with Russian as the sole means of communication in all other domains—even between Kazakhs.

This stands in stark contrast to the village of Altynzhar, which was founded by Kazakh settlers and has a long tradition of local pride. The renowned nineteenth-century Kazakh composer Qurmangazy is buried in Altynzhar; the village hosts a museum dedicated to his life and to the culture of the region’s Kazakh community more generally. Altynzhar was also home to the Kazakh poet and language activist Mäjilis Ötejanov. Due to its history and cultural significance, Altynzhar is often viewed as the informal capital of the Astrakhan Kazakhs. This status, combined with the lack of reliable public transportation, helps the local population to maintain their language and identity better than elsewhere.

Language Use

Despite the differences between individual settlements, home is by far the most common domain of use for the Kazakh language across Astrakhan Oblast. For most of my respondents, constant code-switching between Russian and Kazakh is the default register when they talk to their relatives. The ratio of elements from the two languages, however, varies widely. Kazakh may dominate or it may only be represented by several words—but, as my experience shows, it is never fully absent.

In Vinny, I interviewed a young Kazakh man who was born and raised in the village but went to an urban high school and later moved to a different part of Russia for university. These days, he lives and works in Astrakhan City. At the time I met him, he was visiting Vinny to see his parents, who still lived there permanently. During the interview, he said he spoke no Kazakh at all: “I do not speak Kazakh… Never wanted to learn it, thought it was useless. Grandma would talk to me in Kazakh, and I am like… I do not understand everything, but I can get the general idea.”

Just an hour later, I overheard him using numerous Kazakh words in a Russian-language conversation with his mother. Answering my ensuing question, the young man explained: “There are still some words that are easier for me to say in Kazakh. Like ‘scoop’ or ‘ladle’—I just say ojaw.” Later, I discovered other Kazakh words in the speech register he used at home. They were terms related to farming, as well as the names of certain traditional foods and houseware items.

This case is by no means unique—in fact, it is very typical. Lexical domains related to rural ways of life and things you find in a traditional household seem to be the least likely to be forgotten by young and predominantly Russian-speaking Astrakhan Kazakhs. This may be because they lack any similar rural experience gained in a non-Kazakh context.

Leaving the “Kazakh” village for the “Russian” city, one practically replaces one’s entire vocabulary—but with exceptions. The array of subjects discussed in urban settings is at least as wide as that in rural areas, but the two sets of lexical domains do not always coincide. Traditional ethnic cuisine, cattle farming, agriculture, and culturally specific rural household items are not things that city dwellers usually speak of, hence the words for them are not as easily replaced with Russian equivalents in the speech of first-generation urbanites. Sometimes, the Kazakh words remain the only ones they know. The lack of need or even opportunity to talk about these things in Russian makes this set of Kazakh vocabulary more resistant to attrition. It is only natural for urban Kazakhs to use these terms when they go to a rural area to visit their family. This may be viewed as a “light version” of cue-dependent language retrieval.

Equally, even among those Astrakhan Kazakhs who live in rural settlements and use Kazakh-Russian code-mixing as their default home register, one can point to specific domains that almost universally trigger the use of a much higher share of Russian-language elements. This includes all of the “complicated” domains, as the respondents call them. For example, a middle-aged man from the village of Novy Rychan said: “When fixing a TV set, we are most definitely talking in Russian.” In a different settlement, I witnessed four men talking in almost “pure” Kazakh—that is, using few Russian elements. Then one of them mentioned the COVID-19 pandemic, and this change of subject, combined with “complex” vocabulary related to healthcare and government policies, triggered an instant switch to almost equally “pure” Russian.

As is evident from these situations, Kazakh is often regarded and used as a rural and “simplistic” language, fitting for discussions of farming but not technology or anything modern. This set of associations speaks to its low social prestige—but may also be viewed positively by some. Many heritage speakers of Astrakhan Kazakh associate the language with a sense of home and strong family ties. “Kazakh is… It is something about your home, you know, where you feel most comfortable and secure. It is the mother language, after all. Whenever I hear it, I think of those evenings I spent in the village of Multanovo with my parents and grandma as a kid. I miss this feeling now that I live in the city,” said one of my respondents.

Two other important domains associated with Kazakh, which are intertwined with each other, are religion and ethnic celebrations. While overwhelmingly secular in daily life, most Astrakhan Kazakhs identify as Muslim. Many hardly ever go to mosques—in fact, there are large, exclusively Kazakh villages with no mosques at all. Moreover, the minority that does adhere to a strictly Islamic way of life is viewed as odd and even suspicious by the more secular majority.

Still, events such as weddings and funerals almost universally have an Islamic element to them. Interestingly enough, many of my respondents think of Islam as inseparable from the Kazakh language. “When the Quran is being recited, you are supposed to talk in Kazakh,” said a middle-aged man from Novy Rychan. Obviously, the recitation itself happens in Arabic, and one is supposed to listen to it rather than talk simultaneously. What this respondent meant was that the “religious” and “traditional” atmosphere of such events triggered increased use of Kazakh before and after the recitation and other rituals.

Kazakh as an Unwritten Language

While still widely spoken in some of the more remote villages, Astrakhan Kazakh remains a practically unwritten language. In the early Soviet years, Kazakh was used at numerous village schools as the primary language of instruction, but it was quickly downgraded to being taught as a subject only. By 1966, it had disappeared from the region’s school system entirely.

The perestroika era brought a surge in ethnic activism, with Kazakh language lessons being reintroduced in almost a hundred village schools in the late 1980s and 1990s. Unfortunately, this did not last long: Vladimir Putin’s rule brought another wave of linguistic Russification as part of his “unity through uniformity” policy. Kazakh was soon downgraded to an optional, once-a-week class. Today, fewer than 20 Astrakhan Oblast schools offer it in any form, even though over 140 of the region’s rural localities have a Kazakh majority or plurality.

This lack of Kazakh at school has resulted in entire generations having little exposure to written Kazakh and being functionally illiterate in it, even when perfectly literate in Russian. This can be seen from the way the names of many Astrakhan Kazakhs are written in their Russian IDs and passports. When giving their children legal names, many parents opt for naive phonetic approximations that do not match the way a name is normally spelled in Kazakhstan (eg., Kuvanshkirey rather than the more typical Qwanışkereý in Kazakh or Kuanyshkerey in Russian). Many of my respondents said they had trouble understanding and distinguishing the “weird letters” used in Standard Kazakh, referring to the additional and modified Cyrillic characters that are absent from the Russian alphabet.

Lack of language-specific literacy is not the only linguistic barrier between Kazakh-speakers in Astrakhan and those in Kazakhstan. As explained above, Russian dominates all of the “formal” domains in Astrakhan Oblast, from education to technology and interactions with the government. This means that most Astrakhan Kazakhs never discuss these topics in Kazakh and may be unfamiliar with the more “complex” vocabulary in that language, even when fully proficient in the registers related to home, family, traditions, and rural lifestyle.

“The Kazakh word for ‘proof’ is dälel, which I only know because I looked it up. My neighbor grew up speaking Kazakh, but she would not understand me if I used it when talking to her. She just uses the Russian word, dokazatelstvo,” said a respondent from Multanovo. This is a perfect example of a term perceived as “complex” and thus unknown to many Astrakhan Kazakhs.

Most Astrakhan Kazakhs are well aware of the differences between their ethnic language and the Kazakh of Kazakhstan. A middle-aged, native Kazakh-speaking respondent from Novy Rychan talked about his trip to Atyrau, Kazakhstan, saying that he felt insecure about his Kazakh skills while there. He opted to talk to locals in Russian because he feared they would mock his “incorrect” Kazakh. This perception of Astrakhan Kazakh as “simplified” and “Russified” is fairly common among its speakers. While somewhat negative, it may also serve as a marker of the community’s identity, helping to distinguish between “us” (Astrakhan Kazakhs) and “them” (Kazakhstan Kazakhs).

Future of Kazakh in Astrakhan

The case of an Astrakhan Kazakh person looking up and memorizing a “complex” word associated with the Kazakh language of Kazakhstan illustrates a small but important tendency. A growing number of young, native Russian-speaking Astrakhan Kazakhs are deliberately immersing themselves in Kazakhstani media, explaining that they want to learn the “proper” way to speak their language and reconnect with their culture, which has been partially lost to colonization and assimilation.

While most young Astrakhan Kazakhs seem to have no interest in using their ethnic language in any form, this minority tendency offers hope that Kazakh will live on in Astrakhan Oblast. If the language policy does not change in the decades to come, the local dialect may eventually die out as a natural form of communication in rural communities, but Standard Kazakh is likely to be maintained by the conscious activist minority.

That being said, the continuity of the language policy is a big “if.” Russia’s government has been increasingly unstable since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. In many regions, ethnic minorities feel that they are unfairly overrepresented among those sent to fight in Ukraine, and this is especially true for Astrakhan Kazakhs. At the same time, the federal government is cracking down on indigenous activism more heavily than ever.

The growing dissent among minorities has led to the emergence of numerous secessionist organizations. An overview of pro-independence movements that view Astrakhan as a part of their hypothetical states can be found in my recent article for New Eastern Europe. It is hard to make predictions about the success of these movements, but in the event that they succeed, language policy and power dynamics between the region’s ethnic groups are more than likely to change.

All photos by

Dor Shabashewitz and Valery Maslov

I was nineteen years old when I left the US to study for the first time. I spent five weeks on a summer exchange program at the International University in Moscow, sponsored by my home university in Texas. With twenty or so other students, I listened to lectures, watched Russian films, and went on various tours of museums and historical sites. As part of the program, we were assigned local students—native Russian-speakers—as tutors.

The minute my tutor and I met, we clicked. It was instant—we were sisters. Just like me, she was one of the only Asian people in her group. I am Cantonese-American, with both parents from Hong Kong. My tutor is part Kazakh. Unlike most of the other pairings, we remain close friends long after the end of the program.

Author

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Katherine Leung

Katherine Leung is an independent researcher specializing in youth culture and contemporary art in Tuva. She publishes her work in New Research of Tuva, reviews books for Lossi 36, and has curated multiple art exhibitions showcasing emerging artists from Kalmyk, Tatar, and Central Asian communities. She taught English in Samara, Russia as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in 2014 and at English camps in Tuva, Buryatia, and Primorsky Krai in 2015. She holds dual degrees, having earned a Bachelor of Arts in Russian and a Bachelor of Science in Education from the University of Texas at Austin.

While abroad, I found that I received discreetly preferential treatment from the Central Asian shopkeepers—a smile, an extra piece of candy slipped into my bag. I frequently received dinner on the house from workers at the shawarma stand. I soon realized that my experience was different from that of the other students. While every American was firmly warned against getting into an unlicensed taxi—so-called “gypsy cabs”—I realized that those rules did not apply to people who looked like me. As they did for Uzbek, Kyrgyz, and Tajik people, cars would stop for me, the driver frequently slowing down just to ask if I needed a lift. It was a constant, and it was safe—even in the bustling expanse that is Moscow.

Three years later, I returned to Russia, this time to a small city in a southwestern province. I was a part of a group of American English teachers sent to work in every corner of the country. The town in which I was placed relied on hundreds of marshrutki, vans driving specific routes and charging ten rubles a ride, as the main method of transportation. These vans were driven by Central Asians blasting their own music, to the chagrin of elderly riders. Frequently, drivers instructed me to climb into the elusive front passenger seat when the cab was full. Nobody else got to sit in the front. The drivers rarely accepted my fare.

I wasn’t prepared for my first winter. A Kazakh beautician struck up a conversation with me on social media, and the next day she helped me pick out a real jacket at a mall to which I would have never ventured on my own. My experience in other cities mirrored this kindness. On my way home on a minus-twenty-degree night, a Bashkir guy picked me up and took me to the city center in Ufa, saving me from a two-hour wait for the next bus. In Novosibirsk, a Kalmyk and Tuvan couple waited for me at the train station with snacks, just because some fellow Asian friends in Buryatia had mentioned to them that I would be in town (for half an hour, the entirety of the train’s stop in that city). On the road from Abakan to Kyzyl, a Tuvan woman took me under her wing, going so far as to order my meal for me at the sole rest stop in the 400-kilometer stretch between the republics of Khakassia and Tuva. In Tuva, strangers declared that I was Tuvan just because I look Tuvan.

With white Russians, I faced prejudice, whether it was the police profiling me as a sex worker or uninhibited drunks shouting “China!” or “Kazakhstan!” at me on the street. But in reflecting on the hospitality I experienced, as an outsider, from people who look similar to me, I couldn’t help but wonder what aspect of my privilege spoke to other Asian people. Obviously, I was a young female with youth on my side. Maybe it was naive to accept free food and bus rides, embedded in cultural routines and stigmas I didn’t understand. I didn’t exactly wear my Americanness on the outside, though my innate financial capital must have helped.

Perhaps it’s a trait of diasporic peoples, a minority outside our “homeland.” I was a perpetual foreigner in Russia, just as I had been my entire life in the US. I was used to this community care in the homes and worship centers of my pan-Asian immigrant community—and found it replicated on Russian soil.

Being Asian in the US

In the US, Asian American political movements are taking hold. Asian Americans are winning key political offices. Our vice-president is Indian-American. Simultaneously, media representation is starting to be noticed by non-Asian audiences. Films and media created by Asian Americans are gaining recognition from white Americans. On the surface, we are having a moment.

The US has always been a mixing pot of cultures and our mainstream media are trying to show that. In large cities, foods served in immigrant-owned restaurants are a mainstay of American life. Crimes against Asian immigrants are no longer ignored.

Absent from these narratives and cultural representations are Central Asians. The consumables to which Westerners have grown accustomed favor Eastern Asian diasporic narratives and the stories of Southern Asian creators over anything else. The ethnic groups originating from East and South Asia are much more populous than Central Asian countries, and the global immigrant diaspora reflects that. But let’s get real: even many Russians are not familiar with the Asian republics within their country’s borders.

Mainstream discourse centering on identity politics really falls short when it comes to Central Asian representation. Conversations about diversity or “seeing yourself represented” in the media are self-absorbed at best and a sinister commodification at worst. Much like the co-opted LGBTQ+ movement, Asians represent a growing market share that capitalism has opportunistically included without any real sense of solidarity.

Yet I still vividly remember the first time I saw a Central Asian character on American TV. It was a Netflix reality show based on the lives of New York socialites, Bling Empire. Released just a few years after Crazy Rich Asians, it was clearly riding the coattails of that phenomenon. The show featured a Thai heiress; a Taiwanese billionaire’s daughter; a Cantonese-American influencer; and a Taiwanese ABC entrepreneur dating a Kalmyk-Korean model, Vika Abbyaeva from Russia. At first quiet and often talked over, Vika slowly came into her own during the arc of the season (but not enough to break up with her lame boyfriend).

Upon seeing her face on TV, I wondered if this was the representation we all hoped for. Suddenly, more shades of the world’s largest continent were being shown to us in the mass media. But Vika was a beautiful supermodel—hardly relatable to the average diasporic Asian. She wasn’t a representative for all of us, and she shouldn’t have that responsibility placed upon her.

One character on a reality show isn’t an attempt to rectify the countless injustices perpetrated against Central Asians by colonizers in the last century. Leaving aside the complication that Kalmykia is presently located in Europe, Asians—or rather, Asian-looking peoples—in Russia have long had a complex relationship with Russian colonization.

Kalmyks found temporary solace under the Russian Empire but experienced mass atrocities and forced migration under Stalin with Operation Ulusy. In American academic discourse surrounding decolonization, researchers focus on Native Americans and enslaved Africans because of the clear power imbalance and bloodshed. It’s difficult for the average diasporic Asian person to place oneself in that colonizer/colonized dichotomy. Identifying the colonizer and source of oppression is not always clear when there have been long centuries of conflict, immigration, and colonization between historic people groups. Vika from Netflix’s Bling Empire is not the amalgamation of her ancestors dating back to the Kalmyk Khanate, nor am I the direct product of the civilizations before me. Dominant perceptions of identity politics can be inconsistent and exhausting.

Diasporic Solidarity

I feel kindred to other Asians, and while I don’t speak for the people I met while studying and working in Russia, I imagine they might have as well. The way nomadic peoples have historically been welcoming to guests probably influenced the generosity with which I was treated while living in Russia: attributing hospitality to a shared Asian bloodline and hypothetical “big Asian family” are remnants of old customs still present today. Language barriers, including sometimes not even having Russian as a mutual language, didn’t impact understanding for me.

Leaving behind capitalistic definitions of representation and diversity, I often wonder how to consolidate shared experiences with identity politics and history. We are not black or white, but occupy a third space left out of academic discourse on race, class, and power in the white-majority countries in which diasporic Asians reside. When white majorities discuss anti-Asian racism, it should be addressed only in combination with community care and mutual aid. Mutual aid between Turkic peoples and Mongol groups within Central Asia is embedded in their customs.

Real solidarity between Asian people is not about parades or visible political offices, but rather about systematically restructuring social norms to support everyone, with an emphasis on the most marginalized. I don’t think people consciously realize that what they seek is an efficient welfare-based social system, instead of citizens building one in the gaps left by existing institutions. Mutual aid is not charity, but the building and continuing of new social relations where people give what they can and get what they need, outside of unjust systems of power. Free shawarma and taxi rides are surely versions of this idealized mutual aid.

Without extrapolating too much from my personal experiences and realizing that I wasn’t able to return the care shown to me, I write from a place of appreciation and the hope to do more. Asian culture could not be any more different across ethnic groups, but there are a few similarities. One is the anti-blackness prevalent in all our societies. It’s reflected in how Asian Americans navigate culture in the West, but it’s also evident in everyday language.

In Buddhist-majority populations, there’s prevailing Islamophobia. In Kyzyl, I was told that the market was dangerous, as Muslims might steal “girls like us” for ISIS brides. In Buryatia, I was praised for my light skin. This behavior is entrenched across Asian society. Addressing it, discussing ways to end it, and ultimately working to end anti-blackness would take us one step closer to a world where all marginalized peoples can live in solidarity.

As diasporic Asians, we cannot give into white supremacist rhetoric that ultimately divides us. The idea of a hierarchy of religions that determines our outcomes is drawn directly from the playbook of white supremacy. Identifying that this exists in our culture and combatting it via education, interfaith meetings, and mutual aid will overcome rigid institutions. Solidarity will look like unity against wars, apartheid, and neocolonialism. The easy answer to the complex issues is to build solidarity networks amongst ourselves first and foremost.

Another factor that turns identity politics on its ugly head is the growing influence of the Chinese government in Central Asia. Old narratives of colonization as the purview of Russians or Western Europeans are changing rapidly as the Chinese government exerts ever more control over Central Asia, building new infrastructure, destabilizing daily life, and using every form of capital to dominate these smaller countries. The Belt and Road Initiative builds infrastructure in the name of development, not unlike British colonization in previous centuries. Journalists and NGOs in Central Asia have been speaking out against this for years, yet governments continue to—and always will—make decisions without the consent of the people.

The Asian solidarity we seek does not entail excluding Asians from more powerful or wealthier groups (i.e. Chinese nationalists), but banding together to understand the presence of real oppression. Authentic solidarity develops when ordinary people work to end oppression together, a charge that is rooted in care and love for one another. Mutual aid has always included taxis and community care, but I know it will ultimately play a huge role in uprooting broken systems.

All photos by
Katherine Leung

What are the origins of the Kazakh nation? What do the Kazakhs, Uzbeks, and Cossacks have in common? In this interview, Joo-Yup Lee tells us about the political vagabonds or ambitious brigands called qazaqs who played an important role in the formation of new states, including the Timurid states of Central Asia and India and the Uzbek and Kazakh khanates.

Interview with

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Joo-Yup Lee

University of Toronto

Joo-Yup Lee, who holds a Ph.D. in Turko-Persian Studies from the University of Toronto (awarded in 2012), is an intermittent lecturer at the University of Toronto, where he teaches courses in Central Eurasian history. He has published a number of books and scholarly articles, including Qazaqlïq, Or Ambitious Brigandage, and the Formation of the Qazaqs: State and Identity in Post-Mongol Central Eurasia (Brill, 2016), which won the 2017 CESS (Central Eurasian Studies Society) Book Award, and the entries “Kazakh Khanate” and ”Turkic Identity in Mongol and Post-Mongol Central Asia and the Qipchaq Steppe” in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History.

This publication is part of the Abai Center Series. The Abai Center recognizes the legacy of Abai Kunanbaiuly, a great Kazakh poet, philosopher, and founder of written Kazakh literature, as well as the rich heritage of the Kazakh culture more broadly. It is both a virtual space for articles and blogs via the website, https://abaicenter.com, as well as a welcoming host of events such as presentations and discussions on literature, arts, cinema, music, history, archeology, and anthropology.

As the author of Qazaqlïq, or Ambitious Brigandage, and the Formation of the Qazaqs, can you please tell us about the main arguments of this book? And how did you prepare it?

The main argument of my book is that the formation of the Kazakhs at the turn of the sixteenth century should be understood in the historical context of qazaqlïq, a custom of political vagabondage that played an important role in state and identity formation in post-Mongol Central Eurasia. Let me elaborate on this.

Let me now tell you why my explanation of the formation of the Kazakhs matters and how it differs from previous explanations. My book challenges both the contemporary Kazakh interpretations of Kazakh ethnogenesis, which mainly argue that the Kazakhs were formed by the amalgamation of all the nomadic peoples that inhabited the steppes of Kazakhstan from the Bronze Age until the Mongol invasion, and the Western explanation of the origin of the Kazakhs, which simply equates the emergence of the Kazakhs with the formation of the Kazakh Khanate in the second half of the fifteenth century. The former explanation overlooks the important historical fact that a separate Kazakh identity did not exist prior to the mid-fifteenth century. The latter, meanwhile, overlooks the complex nature of Kazakh ethnogenesis. My book, by contrast, emphasizes the fact that the development of Kazakh identity in the eastern Qipchaq Steppe following the qazaqlïq activities of Jānībeg Khan and Girāy Khan occurred in line with the rise of the Shibanid Uzbeks in Transoxiana following Muḥammad Shībānī Khan’s qazaqlïq activities and conquest of southern Central Asia at the turn of the sixteenth century. In other words, my book argues that the formation of the Kazakhs should be understood as part of the larger historical process through which the Jochid/Uzbek ulus, or people, became divided into the Kazakhs and the Shibanid Uzbeks as a result of the conflictual and interrelated qazaqlïq activities of Jānībeg Khan and Girāy Khan (of Urusid/Chinggisid lineage), on the one hand, and of Muḥammad Shībānī Khan (of Abulkhairid/Chinggisid lineage), on the other.

My book further argues that the Cossacks of the Black Sea steppes were also the products of the qazaqlïq phenomenon. As the Jochid ulus (Golden Horde) gradually disintegrated into smaller polities over the course of the fifteenth century, the Black Sea steppes became a political no-man’s-land known as the Wild Field (Dikoe Pole) in which a great number of fugitives, in search of freedom and booty, took refuge. The first Cossack groups were made up of Tatar fugitives but in time the latter were replaced by East Slavic adventurers and fugitives from Poland-Lithuania and Muscovy. Among these Cossack groups, Ukrainian Cossackdom occupies the most important place. The qazaqlïq activities of the Ukrainian adventurers and fugitives not only led to the formation of the Ukrainian Cossack Hetmanate, but also contributed to the eventual consolidation of a separate Ukrainian identity distinct from the Russian one.

As you can see, my book deals with two different themes: the qazaqlïq phenomenon and the formation of the Kazakhs. Combining these two themes was not my own idea, but the suggestion of my co-supervisors, Professor Victor Ostapchuk and Professor Maria Eva Subtelny. Initially, I had planned to focus on Kazakh history. However, I believe that combining these two themes made my study unique and original, enabling it to win the 2017 CESS (Central Eurasian Studies Society) Book Award.

In order to write my book, I utilized a wider range of primary sources than had been used in previous discussions about the formative period of Kazakh history and the socio-political phenomenon of qazaqlïq. While the sources pertaining to the early Kazakhs and qazaqlïq are somewhat disparate and fragmentary, the extant source base is large. The major primary sources that my book used can be categorized as Uzbek, Moghul, Timurid, Ilkhanid, Crimean and Volga Tatar, Muscovite, Kazakh, and Chinese histories written in various languages. Prior to embarking on this research project, I had to study many different languages, including Persian, Chaghatay Turkic, Mongolian, Chinese, Russian, and Kazakh, among others.

Some historians suggest that the words “Kazakh” and “Alash” have the same historical origin. There is also an argument that the word “Kazakh” is derived from the concept of “Qashaq” (lit. “runaway,” which is close to your term of political vagabonds). Where did the word “Kazakh” come from?

Let me first clarify one point. [As an admirer of Kantian critical philosophy,] I would like to distinguish between what we can learn from surviving sources and what we cannot. My book is not concerned with the etymology of the word “qazaq” because any argument about the origin of the term has to rely on conjecture. As such, my book only introduces the arguments of such scholars as Gyula Nemeth, Peter B. Golden, and V. P. Yudin in a footnote.

What I did in my book was conduct a comprehensive examination of the meaning of the term “qazaq” as found in the written sources and oral traditions produced during the post-Mongol period. I investigated the various contexts in which the term “qazaq” was used in a broad range of sources in order to provide the first truly integrated understanding of the socio-political phenomenon of qazaqlïq and its historical significance. In that process, I did not find any evidence that would corroborate the hypotheses that the words “Kazakh” and “Alash” have the same historical origin or that the word “Kazakh” derives from the concept of “Qashaq.”

However, based on a thorough examination of numerous qazaqlïq activities described in reliable historical sources, I can offer the following findings.

First, in Timurid and post-Timurid Central Asian sources, the term “qazaq” was generally used in the sense of “a (political) vagabond/wanderer” and “a (frontier) brigand/freebooter,” whereas in the Turkic, Slavic, and Latin sources composed in the western Qipchaq Steppe and Eastern Europe, the term “qazaq” (kazak in Russian and kozak in Ukrainian) was used in a broader sense to denote “a political dissident” or “a fugitive/runaway,” as well as “a vagabond/wanderer” and “a brigand/freebooter.”

Second, the term “qazaq” in the sense of a fugitive, freebooter, or vagabond gained wide currency from the fifteenth century. In other words, the widespread diffusion of the term “qazaq” did not occur in the fourteenth century. Although the term “qazaq” also appeared in sources written prior to the fifteenth century, it carried different meanings. For instance, in mid-fourteenth century Mamluk dictionaries, the term “qazaq” carried the meaning “freed, free” or “bachelor, single” (qazaq bašlı). Also, quasi-qazaq bands—such as the Negüderi that became active in Khorasan from the second half of the thirteenth century—were not referred to as qazaqs by their contemporaries, implying that the term “qazaq” was most likely not used in Central Eurasia to designate political fugitives or frontier freebooters in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The term “qazaq” in the sense of a fugitive, freebooter or vagabond began to appear in those sources written in the fifteenth century. Importantly, whereas the Timurid histories written in Persian in the early fifteenth century did not refer to Temür as qazaq, the contemporary histories of Sulṭān-Ḥusain Bayqara (r. 1469–70 and 1470–1506) and Babur (r. 1526–30)—sources written in the second half of the fifteenth century and thereafter—used qazaq to denote the qazaqlïq days of these two Timurid princes.

If further investigations are made of the qazaqlïq activities described in those historical sources of which I am not aware, I believe we will gain a more comprehensive understanding of the meanings of the word “qazaq.”

So Qazaqs, Shibanid Uzbeks, and Ukrainian Cossacks were all founded by qazaqs, or “ambitious brigands.” So the term qazaq had no ethnic connotation?

From the fifteenth century onward, in Central Asia and the Qipchaq Steppe, the name qazaq was attached to those political vagabonds who fled their state or tribe and/or lived the life of a frontier freebooter. In this sense, qazaq had no ethnic connotation. However, qazaq became an ethnonym when it was attached to the Uzbeks who broke away from Abū al-Khair Khan’s state in the second half of the fifteenth century. I should explain here that Uzbek was a new designation for the Jochid ulus, or people, after the reign of Uzbek Khan (r. 1313–1341). Although the term “Uzbek” is usually associated, in the modern scholarly literature, with the ulus of Abū al-Khair Khan or the modern Uzbeks, it was a name encompassing all Jochid nomads during the post-Mongol period. The same Jochid people were called Tatars by the Russians and Ottomans. At first, the dissident Uzbeks were called qazaq Uzbeks, meaning fugitive or brigand Uzbeks, while the Abulkhairid Uzbeks were called Shibanid Uzbeks by their contemporaries since Abū al-Khair Khan was a descendant of Shībān, the fifth son of Jochi. In time, the qazaq Uzbeks came to be called simply Qazaqs—that is, Kazakhs. Importantly, the early Kazakhs and the Shibanid Uzbeks were considered one and the same people by their contemporaries. They were made up of the same Jochid/Uzbek tribes and used the same Kipchaq Turkic language.

However, one should differentiate between the modern Uzbeks and the Shibanid Uzbeks. The former came into existence in 1924, when the Soviet Union decided to bestow the name Uzbek also on various non-Uzbek Persian- and Turkic-speaking groups of modern-day Uzbekistan. Therefore, one can say that the modern Uzbeks are only partly related to the Kazakhs.

As for the Cossacks, the English word cossack is derived from the Ukrainian kozak and the Russian kazak, which in turn have their roots in the Turkic qazaq. The earliest Cossacks were Turkic-speaking Tatar fugitives, who were the same people as the Uzbeks of the eastern Qipchaq Steppe. As I mentioned earlier, the Tatar Cossack groups were later joined and supplanted by East Slavic adventurers and fugitives from Poland-Lithuania and Muscovy.

In short, the Kazakhs, the Shibanid Uzbeks, and the earliest generations of Cossacks were virtually one and the same people. They were all Turkic-speaking nomads from the Jochid ulus (Golden Horde) and the Mongol empire. However, the Shibanid Uzbeks became mixed with Iranian-speaking groups, while the early Tatar Cossacks were assimilated and supplanted by East Slavic Cossacks. This means that the Kazakhs are arguably the most direct descendants of the Jochid ulus (Golden Horde).

Uzbeks in Central Asia are also a young nation. What do you find special about the formation of national identities? How did the Soviet period affect them? And in general, how close are the nations of Central Asia to each other historically?

As for the Kyrgyz and Tajiks, they are descended from the peoples that had previously been known as such. The Persian-speaking Tajiks are an indigenous Indo-European people of Central Asia. The Kyrgyz are descended from the ancient Yenisei Kyrgyz, who were most likely of Scythian/Indo-European origin. They came to modern-day Kyrgyzstan during the post-Mongol period.

If the Soviet Union had not created the new Uzbek nation in 1924, the Kazakhs and Uzbeks would have been much closer to each other ethnically than they are now. The Tajiks and Sarts would also have formed a much larger group than they currently comprise.

Many Kazakhs identify with different historical groups, from the Scythians to the Mongols. Anthropologically, Kazakhs range from green-eyed and red-haired to Caucasian- or Japanese-looking. This is partly why genetic studies among Kazakhs are especially popular. What do you think about this? What has influenced this portrait of the nation? How young is Kazakh identity or do you think it is already formed?

Modern DNA studies demonstrate that the Kazakhs are descended from both Inner Asians and West Eurasians. Contrary to the popular belief that the Kazakhs were originally Indo-Europeans who gradually transformed into Inner Asians due to their intermixture with the latter, the Kazakhs are and were made up of heterogeneous elements. It would be more correct to say that some Kazakhs are descended from Indo-Europeans, while others are descended from Inner Asians. This logic applies to both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA lineages. I would also like to add that a Kazakh individual of Inner Asian descent may have a West Eurasian physiognomy, while a Kazakh individual of West Eurasian descent may possess Inner Asian phenotypes. This is because phenotypes are not always linearly inherited.

DNA analysis shows that the Kazakhs—or, more precisely, the Jochid/Uzbek ulus—were formed after the rise of the Mongol empire, in which virtually all Turkic, Iranic/Indo-European, and Mongolic nomadic groups of the Eurasian steppes were merged into one entity.

What historical topics do you find relevant to study? Kazakhstan recently opened the Golden Horde Institute. What materials or topics remain blank spots in history?

I firmly believe that the Golden Horde Institute will contribute greatly to the study of the history of the Golden Horde/Jochid ulus. I am also aware that Kazakh historians have already been covering all the relevant materials and topics. What I would personally like to see in the study of Jochid history is a holistic approach to Central Eurasian history. In the Mongol and post-Mongol periods, “Turks” and “Mongols” were not differentiated from each other based on language. The nomad followers of Chinggis Khan and the Chinggisids were all considered Mongol, while the Mongols were identified as Turks in the Islamic world. Accordingly, there was no division between Turk and Mongol in the Golden Horde and the Kazakh khanate. In my opinion, this means that if Chinggis Khan comes back to life, he will identify himself as both Kazakh and Mongol.

Could you please tell us about your connections with Kazakhstan? Have you been to Kazakhstan? Could you share your impressions of and observations about the country, the culture, the Kazakh language, etc.?

I have now been studying Kazakh history for about twenty years. Along the way, I have always been fascinated by the rich heritage of Kazakh history and culture. My impressions and observations of Kazakhstan based on my experience and studies are that Kazakhstan is a developed country, a regional power, and, along with Mongolia, the most important direct successor of the Mongol empire. Also, Kazakhstan seems to me a vast, cosmopolitan, multi-ethnic country like Canada, where I have been living for the past seventeen years. As a Korean, I feel that Kazakhstan and Korea have a lot in common in that we both experienced rapid economic development and democratization. I hope we will deepen our strategic partnership.

I visited Kazakhstan for about a month in 2010 after receiving a research travel grant from the University of Toronto. While staying in the beautiful city of Almaty, I also visited Sairam, where the mausoleum of Yassavi’s father is located. I had a tasty shashlik in a small bazaar in Shymkent before going, by marshrutka, to Turkistan, capital of the Kazakh Khanate. I was captivated by the city’s historic charm. I then took a seventeen-hour train ride from Turkistan to Almaty. Since I traveled alone, communicating in my poor Russian, my journey was not easy at all. However, I had the time of my life. If I visit Kazakhstan again, I will definitely drop by the futuristic city of Nur-Sultan. I will also travel to Zhezkazgan in order to visit the mausoleums of Alash Khan and Jochi Khan.

In 2010, I was unable to meet any scholars or students. I was a stranger there. However, I cannot forget the kind Kazakhs I met in the street. When I got lost in Almaty, a café owner helped me with directions and gave me a very good map of Almaty as a gift. A lady at a travel agency (I recall her name was Arina) spent half a day without complaining trying to book train tickets to Shymkent for me. During my train ride to Almaty, a young man named Kanat from Atyrau befriended me and offered me sausages and tea. I bow to them in gratitude.

I am also very grateful to Nygmet Ibadildin, who is now a professor at KIMEP University, for treating me to a wonderful dinner at a splendid mall (Mega) and taking me on a night drive around Almaty even though he had met me only briefly once at a conference in Toronto. Nygmet has become one of my best friends.

Before I end my interview, I would like to express my unbounded gratitude to my Korean Kazakh friend Professor Sofia An, the late professor of Sociology at Nazarbayev University, for offering me indispensable help and support at various stages of my research. Unfortunately, she passed away two years ago due to cancer. Her nephew, Dmitri Choi, who showed me the kindest hospitality during my stay in Kazakhstan, is now my adopted nephew. He took me to many places, including the Medeu Resort, the movie set of Nomad, and the Ili River, which was my ultimate destination in Kazakhstan. His wife, Olga, cooked the tastiest pilau for me.

To conclude, Kazakhstan is in my brain and heart.

All photos provided by Joo-Yup Lee, main photo: Kazakh horseman riding through winter steppe of fire, by Josh Brann.

While the only existing studies consider trilingualism in Kazakhstan in general, this research aims to identify possible risks and prospects for the implementation of the program of trilingualism at regional level, specifically in the East Kazakhstan Region.

Zhuldyz Moldagazinova

Zhuldyz Moldagazinova’s main research areas include sociolinguistics, ethnosociology, and world history. She is a Leading Specialist of the Center of Social Monitoring and Forecasting of the Shakarim State University, Semey. Zhuldyz holds an MA in History and Pedagogy (Barnaul, Russia) and a BA in History (Semey, Kazakhstan).  Zhuldyz is currently pursuing her PhD in Sociology.

The survey was funded by the Oumirserik Kassenov grant, established by the Institutional Foundation “International Charitable Foundation—Altyn Kyran” and the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan (KISI). Professor Oumirserik Kassenov (1945-1998) was a famous Kazakhstani scholar and international affairs expert. He was the first head of KISI (1993-1997). His area of expertise covered a wide range of pressing issues in the sphere of international relations, including preventing nuclear proliferation; geopolitics in Central Asia; regional, political, economic, energy, and military security; and the issues of development and nation-building in Kazakhstan.

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Kazakhstan’s State Language Policy

For the entire history of independent Kazakhstan, language issues have occupied an important place in state policy, becoming some of the most hotly debated questions on the national stage. Sociological research conducted by the “Alternativa” Center of Current Studies with the support of the “Open Society” Institute of Regional Studies in August 2008 revealed that 98.4 percent of Kazakhs identify the Kazakh language as their native tongue even though only 74.7 percent speak fluent Kazakh: 14.4 percent speak Kazakh but cannot write in Kazakh; 6.2 percent understand and speak Kazakh but cannot write in Kazakh; 2.9 percent understand Kazakh but cannot speak or write it; and 2 percent do not know the Kazakh language at all. To this day, there are some regions of Kazakhstan where the Kazakh language is not widely used.

At the same time, there are regions where Kazakh predominates (chiefly in the south and the west of Kazakhstan). The ethnic composition of the different regions might explain this variation.

Given the low level of Kazakh knowledge in some regions, it is evidently necessary to strengthen the state language. However, this should be done not by displacing Russian, but by developing an adequate and accessible methodology for teaching Kazakh.

In addition to these two languages, which are officially recognized in Kazakhstan, the current policy aims to incorporate English into the linguistic environment of Kazakhstan.

Numerous draft laws on language development have been formulated in Kazakhstan. The Law on Languages, adopted on September 22, 1989, introduced the term “state language”: the Kazakh language received the status of “state language,” while the Russian language was given the status of “language for inter-ethnic communication.” Later, Article 7 of the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan (1995) spelled out the status of the two languages: Kazakh was declared a state language; Russian was put on equal terms with Kazakh and was declared the official language of state bodies and local authorities.

Today, knowledge of Kazakh is a necessary precondition for getting a job in the government. A presidential decree published on June 1, 2006, stated that by 2010 all official paperwork in Kazakhstan should be done in Kazakh. The decree ruled that state authorities should “carry out a step-by-step transition of paperwork, statistics, financial and technical documentation to the state language by 2010.”

However, the Soviet legacy of linguistic and cultural Russification has helped keep the Russian language alive in Kazakhstan. The Russian language prevails in the industrial and scientific spheres. In the last decade, the English language has also come into use. Evidently, the knowledge of at least three languages—Kazakh (state language), Russian (interstate language in CIS countries), and English (international language)—has become a requirement for citizens of Kazakhstan in an increasingly global world.

In 2015, Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Education and Science and its Ministry of Culture and Sport developed a Roadmap of Trilingual Education Development for 2015-2020. One of the main goals it lays out is to promote unified trilingual education within the entire education system with the help of universal standards for language learning at all levels of education. The Roadmap proposes that high schools conduct a phased transition toward teaching the natural sciences and math (IT, physics, chemistry, biology, etc.) in English; the history of Kazakhstan and geography in Kazakh; and world history in Russian.

Some public figures and politicians are concerned about the standing of Kazakh language, as they believe that trilingualism will result in the state language being overshadowed. Former president of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev believes that the Kazakh language will maintain its status after the transition to trilingualism: “During the transition to trilingualism, Kazakh will keep its dominant position.” Significant attention, he indicated, will be paid to its further development.

“Strong” and “Weak” Languages

According to the concept by Joshua Fishman, an American sociologist and linguist, language choice depends on factors such as group, situation, and topic. For instance, a bilingual Kazakh may speak only Kazakh at work, Russian and Kazakh at a store, and exclusively Russian at home. Another factor that influences language choice is the topic of a conversation. For example, in Kazakhstan, experts mostly speak in Russian when discussing technical and medical topics due to the lack of corresponding terminology in Kazakh.

Fishman’s studies provide a good lens for studying the trajectory of the Kazakh language and assessing the prospects for its future coexistence with the Russian language. Fishman’s concept divides languages into strong and weak. During the Soviet era, Russian was the “strong” (dominant) language across the USSR. In Soviet-era Kazakhstan, the Russian language practically displaced the Kazakh language from the managerial, industrial, and cultural spheres. At the time, Kazakhs were embarrassed to speak Kazakh, and most of them did not know the language at all. As a result, the use of Kazakh was minimized; at that time, the status of the language of the dominant ethnic group could be considered weak.

In independent Kazakhstan, the title of “strong language” is gradually being transferred to Kazakh; the Russian language continues to lose its dominant position in many spheres. A balanced language policy should rely not on replacing weak languages with strong ones, but on finding a balance that will allow for the coexistence of different languages.

The language shift from a bilingual state to a trilingual one is a fruitful area for research. In October 2016, therefore, the author conducted sociological research in the East Kazakhstan region, in the cities of Ust’-Kamenogorsk, Semey, and Ridder and in the village of Novobajenovo. She interviewed forty individuals aged 18-65, including 24 Kazakhs, 12 Russians, 2 Tatars, and 2 Germans. Among the respondents were 4 men and 36 women; by profession, they were university professors, school principals, businessmen, teachers, doctors, students, retirees, journalists, and lawyers. Respondents included ethnic Kazakhs who had returned to Kazakhstan from abroad (Oralmans).

The views of mothers of schoolchildren were of particular interest, as they are inherently interested in the issue of trilingual education.

East Kazakhstan

Today, nearly 1.4 million people live in the East Kazakhstan region. This region is multiethnic, with Kazakhs (60 percent) and Russians (36.5 percent) the largest ethnic groups. The Kazakh population lives mainly in the former Semipalatinsk region and the Russian population in the former East Kazakhstan region and mostly in the cities. However, the region as a whole is comparatively rural (40 percent of the population lives in rural areas) and most of the rural dwellers are ethnic Kazakhs. Alongside these dynamics, the region has also seen migration from villages to cities over the course of the past decade.

Many urban Kazakhs in the East Kazakhstan region speak Russian, which is the dominant language in the urban landscape of East Kazakhstan. This is due to the predominance of Russians in the cities of Ust’-Kamenogorsk and Ridder; these populations were drawn there by industrial opportunities.

Red shades indicate areas where Russians constitute above 50% (darker red shades – above 80%). Green shades indicate areas with Kazakh population above 60% (dark green – above 90%). Source: Census from 2009, Wikipedia

The city of Semey and the village of Novobazhenovo (located 55 km from Semey) present a slightly different picture. There, Kazakhs constitute a majority, with the result that bilingual signage in both Kazakh and Russian is very much in evidence. The difference between Semey and Ust’-Kamenogorsk or Ridder is likely due to the lack of industrial enterprises in the former, which has had the result of minimizing the use of the Russian language, as fewer ethnic Russians have ever lived there. Moreover, an influx of migrants from Abay, Aksuat, and other villages has brought the Kazakh language into the urban environment of Semey. The 2009 Kazakhstan National Population Census revealed that 61.4 percent of the population aged 15 years and older indicated having an understanding of oral Kazakh. However, even in Semey there is a group of Kazakhs who have weak command of the state language (Kazakh), most of whom are urbanites.

Migration, geography, a high proportion of Russians, industrial development, and, most importantly, the Russification policy carried out by the Soviet government are among the main factors that have strengthened the position of the Russian language in Eastern Kazakhstan. These factors were the reason why this area was selected as a pilot area for the implementation of trilingualism.

Challenges of Trilingualism

East Kazakhstan was chosen as a pilot region for the implementation of trilingual education. The present study therefore chose this region as a case study for assessing the risks and opportunities of this program.

The East Kazakhstan Department of Education developed a comprehensive plan for the development of trilingualism for 2015-2019. In the summer of 2016, language teachers were tested for their knowledge of different languages. In total, 3,400 teachers participated, including 1,200 teachers of Kazakh from schools with a non-Kazakh language of instruction, 900 teachers of Russian from Kazakh-language schools, and 1,300 teachers of English. The tests revealed that only 14.3 percent of teachers have a professional command of the chosen language: 28.6 percent of teachers of Kazakh in Russian schools, 10.6 percent of teachers of Russian in Kazakh schools, and 3.6 percent of teachers of English. After taking the test, language teachers were sent for additional training: 1,178 teachers of Kazakh from schools with a non-Kazakh language of instruction, 985 teachers of Russian as a second language, and 1,291 teachers of English.

In August 2016, the Nur-Orda school and the Kazakh-Turkish lyceum in Semey hosted professional English courses for teachers at regional gymnasiums and lyceums specializing in different subjects (physics, IT, chemistry, and biology).

According to official data from the Department of Education of Eastern Kazakhstan website, the modernization of textbooks and reference books will be the determining factor in the success or failure of trilingual education. The region has acquired uniform textbooks for studying Kazakh and English. It has also developed a standard teaching methodology for teachers of Russian in Kazakh-language schools, a unified teacher evaluation system, a criteria-based evaluation system for assessing students, and diagnostic tests for teachers and students.

Trilingual dictionaries in Kazakhstan

The study identified the risks and prospects surrounding the implementation of the program. Concerns about trilingual education included:

• Loss of knowledge in schools;

• Segregation of society;

• Further decline of the role of the state language in the life of the society;

• Work overload for students;

• Insufficient competency of teachers to teach within a trilingual system.

On the positive side, the implementation of trilingual education will put an end to an unofficial division between regions according to language preferences. All regions will use a unified curriculum on teaching in three languages and all languages will be equally used in the sociolinguistic environment of the regions of Kazakhstan.

If trilingual education manages to reach the entire population of Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan’s position on the world scene will improve, for the following reasons:

• Trilingualism is a major step toward Kazakhstan becoming one of the 30 most developed countries in the world;

• Kazakh youth will be able to study abroad freely;

• It may cause the number of foreign investors willing to invest in Kazakhstan’s manufacturing to increase;

• The number of tourists who feel “at home” in Kazakhstan will increase as the share of the Kazakhstani population that can speak English grows.

In general, the population of the East Kazakhstan region supports the transition, but they are also very much aware of the obvious obstacles to the implementation of trilingualism. These include the lack of qualified teachers; the lack of necessary material and technical resources, especially in rural areas; the lack of a unified methodology of trilingualism; and a lack of funding for training teachers. Illustrating the final point, the university lecturers who are required to teach their subjects in English are currently obliged to learn or improve their English by self-funding English classes.

It is necessary to weigh all pros and cons and study the experience of other countries with implementing similar policies. The most important requirement for the success of trilingual education is the necessity to establish an appropriate language environment. The efforts taken by schools and universities are not enough; the challenge is the lack of the language environment in day-to-day family relations. The publication of books and the broadcasting of TV programs and cartoons in three languages will allow great results to be achieved.

Linguistic differentiation between Kazakhstan’s regions is another factor that requires attention. It is necessary to assess to what extent the transition to trilingualism is possible in such Russian-speaking regions as East Kazakhstan and North Kazakhstan. In regions where the Russian-speaking population dominates, many Russians have not learned the state language. Our observations reveal that there is a category of people in East Kazakhstan who do not want to study Kazakh and do not want their children to study the history of Kazakhstan or geography in the Kazakh language. They recognize the necessity of English and place a priority on Russian, presumably due to their geographical proximity to Russia, the high percentage of the population that speaks Russian, and the lack of competitiveness of the state language. In the Kazakh-speaking regions, such as in the southern and western parts of Kazakhstan, the situation is the opposite. There, the Kazakh language dominates and is a requirement for having a full life. There is a negative attitude toward the Russian language and, more importantly, toward ethnic Kazakhs who speak in Russian.

In a sphere as sensitive as language policy, it is best not to rush to achieve certain indicators. It is more important to work competently with the state language and support the citizens in their desire to learn it.