This collaborative work by two of the most dynamic French scholars of the post-Soviet era is a project rooted in the post-Soviet experience. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, in spite of the 94 percent vote of Kazakhs to preserve the union, Kazakhstan forged a new path towards independence. This was a path embraced by ethnic Kazakhs and intensified by the authoritarian political system of Nursultan Nazarbaev to the chagrin of many Russians living in Kazakhstan. In a carefully planned and well-organized monograph, Marlène Laruelle and Sébastien Peyrouse consider the fate of Russians who find themselves in a newly independent and increasingly foreign linguistic space, also called the «Russian problem.» They describe how a potentially catastrophic situation was defused by the emigration of unhappy Russians and the de-politicization of those who stayed in a survey of social, political, and religious issues.
This is an experience understood across the former Soviet space but it is particularly striking in Kazakhstan where Russians still comprise one-third of the population along a 6,800 km frontier between the two countries. Laruelle and Peyrouse offer a plethora of statistical data, of which the population shift is particularly telling: 1926 (3.6 million Kazakhs, 1.3 million Russians); 1939 (2.3 million Kazakhs, 2.6 million Russians); 1959 (2.8 million Kazakhs, 4.0 million Russians); 1979 (5.3 million Kazakhs, 6.0 million Russians); and 1999 (8.0 million Kazakhs, 4.5 million Russians). These statistics illuminate the dramatic shift from 1959 to the present. This transformation in just one generation continues to have a profound impact on Russians in Kazakhstan today.
Following a useful historical introduction, briefly detailing the Russian conquest and resettlement in Kazakhstan before the Soviet era (Pp. 22-25), this study focuses on the aftermath of Soviet-era migrations when Kazakhs became a minority in their own republic. We then fast forward to the independent era of the 1990s when we witness increasing contestation over the «Russian question» in Kazakhstani politics. For the authors, the «turn to authoritarianism» beginning in 1995 was a key moment when diverse political interests started to disappear (Pp. 43-48). A change in the expression of Russian identity followed from Soviet terms of folkloric and administrative concerns to new exhibitions of political activism in the face of eroding ethnic rights (Pp. 66-70). Ultimately, the term «Kazakhstani» replaced Soviet-era terms.
Laruelle and Peyrouse then turn to legal citizenship and national-language issues. For Russians, the question of citizenship became increasingly expressed in Kazakh terms and the Russian community began to fear its sustainability. Russians re-interpreted Soviet terms of «nationality» that existed at the personal level to engage concepts with deeper communal significance. Russian activists spoke more of Kazakh «citizenship» when double citizenship was no longer an option. Language emerged as yet other sphere of political pressure and of Kazakh-language dominance. In the Soviet period, Kazakhs expressed their Kazakh-language proficiency in censuses but the reality was that many urban Kazakhs chose Russian-language education for social promotion and career opportunism. By 1993, however, Nazarbaev affirmed his support of Kazakh language as the language of the state (P. 108). While Russian associations sought to protect the Russian language in the public sphere and in schools, by the end of the 1990s, the national government adopted a Kazakh language policy that alienated every other ethnic group. Nurbulat Masanov described this process as an «ethnocratie» (P. 146).
To enrich their analysis, Laruelle and Peyrouse spend the subsequent two chapters relating how the re-writing of history, changing religious identities, and political activism of Russian ethnic groups fit into their interpretations. In historical terms, official views clashed with the multi-ethnic population by asserting a primordial Kazakhification of the territory of Kazakhstan; new criticisms of Russia’s conquest and Soviet exploitation arose. In political terms, separatist and secessionist movements in northern Kazakhstan took up the mantle of «Cossack» identity for the region divided by the border with Russia. There was even an interesting scholarly exchange over the etymology of «Cossack» and «Kazakh» as a common community. Yet the critical question remained for Russians whether loyalty went to Russia or to Kazakhstan. Should Russians in the north seek secession to Russia or autonomy within Kazakhstan? Laruelle and Peyrouse explain that «the situation of Russians in Kazakhstan, like politics and identity, to a great extent depends on the state of their relations with Russia and on the choices which are made in their favor or disfavor» (Pp. 236-237).
In the end, this is a story of diversity and co-habitation, rather than an effort to peacefully coexist. Laruelle and Peyrouse contextualize an idea of decolonization where the Russian-minority activist groups, such as Lad and Russkaia obshchina, can be understood as «pied-rouge» like the French in Algeria (P. 269). Russians living in Kazakhstan are nevertheless a diverse group, and they undermined political extremists by pursuing non-ethnic associations. Despite the widespread discrimination against Russians in the political sphere, there has been limited migration back to their Russian «homeland.»
Laruelle and Peyrouse provide an excellent case study of diasporic populations in the aftermath of empire. Their research supported by the invaluable Institut français d’étude sur l’Asie centrale benefits from an impressive array of sources in books, periodicals, official reports, and interviews. Rarely do we see such expansive use of footnotes, supplemented by a detailed chronology and statistical appendices. Laruelle and Peyrouse give voice to a variety of political perspectives, including Russian separatist groups as well as Nazarbaev, resulting in a more thoughtful and comprehensive political analysis than The Kazakhs and Kazakhstan: Unfulfilled Promise by Martha Olcott.^[1] At the moment, many Russians have adopted a Russian-Kazakh identity and have eschewed either nationalist discourse, Russian or Kazakh. But Russian identity will remain an issue for the immediate future, not only in Kazakhstan but also in many other areas of the former Soviet Union; such research contributes to our understanding of this complex postcolonial question.