(Re)Constructing Memory: The Contemporary Resemiotization of Kazakh Opposition Leaders Online amid Russian Expansionism

• In Event: From Digital Tricksters to Social Media: Rethinking Information Technology in the Post-Soviet Space

Abstract

This paper examines how contemporary social media users in Kazakhstan engage with early Soviet-era figures known as the Kazakh Intelligentsia, particularly in the context of the war in Ukraine. It explores how historical memory and nostalgic longing are reconstructed, contested, and repurposed through the digital representation of Alash movement leaders of the 1920s. These figures are increasingly reimagined in various cultural forms, including sculptures, AI-generated animations, and digital art. The study argues that the resemiotization of Alash leaders functions as a spatiotemporal trope, allowing social media users to symbolically reclaim a chosen part of a mythologized sovereign past. Employing multimodal discourse analysis and digital ethnography, the research investigates how social media platforms operate as sites of ideological negotiation and cultural resistance. Drawing from decolonial theory, sociolinguistics, and memory studies, this project contributes to discussions on de-Russification and de-Sovietization in Kazakhstan’s digital space, culminating in a monograph’s final chapter.

Author

• Alina Kamalova, Queen Mary, U of London (UK)