2016/05/27 by Diana T. Kudaibergenova · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics #Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics #Soviet and Russian History
paper · doi:10.1080/09668136.2016.1194967
openalex publication_date 2016/05/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
The article explores the concept of political postcolonialism and how political groups appropriate and contest this discourse. Elites and contesting political groups utilise postcolonial rhetoric to legitimate their political goals by projecting that their country, in this case Kazakhstan, was colonised by the Tsarist Russia and then by the Soviet Union. For President Nursultan A. Nazarbayev’s nationalising regime the status of Kazakhstan as a colony represented a vital item in post-1991 nation-building projects. Political opposition and Kazakh national-patriots contested this official discourse, blaming the regime for scarce efforts towards ‘full decolonisation’. The absence of major intellectual discussion allowed these elites and political players to reappropriate these discourses in the political rather than critical intellectual domain.