РУССКИЕ В КАЗАХСТАНЕ: МЕЖДУ ДИАСПОРАЛЬНОСТЬЮ И ГРАЖДАНСТВЕННОСТЬЮ

Abstract

Kazakhstani specialist in the field of diaspora studies G.Kim pointed out that “issues related to ethnic diasporas are becoming increasingly relevant for domestic science, because the fate of peoples separated and scattered by circumstances largely depends on how relations between representatives of the national diaspora and the titular population develop under new conditions.” The question arises: who are the Russians in Kazakhstan—an “imposed diaspora” or part of the Kazakhstani people? And how do Russians feel in Kazakhstan: have they been able to acquire a Kazakhstani identity or do they feel like a “russian diaspora”?

Russians were and remain the second largest ethnic group in Kazakhstan. However, the change in the status of the russian ethnic group in independent Kazakhstan in the early 1990s, as well as the systematic decline in its share of the population today, raises the question of how Russians feel about themselves in the country.

In this article, based on desk research and analysis of sociological studies, the authors attempt to determine how Russians integrated into the process of forming the “Kazakhstani nation” and acquired a Kazakhstani identity. The results of the research show that the basic markers of the identification matrix of Russians is generation/age, locality (resident of their city/village) and civil nation; one in four speaks Kazakh to some extent; Russians are well represented in the public and civil sectors of society and demonstrate moderate electoral and political activity. Migration of Russians from Kazakhstan has decreased eightfold.