Identity and Cultural Perspectives amongst Kazakhs: Linking Past to Present through Ethnic Policy in Mongolia

• In Event: Cultural Policy and Identity among the Mongols of Socialist Central Asia - Sponsored by the American Center for Mongolian Studies

Abstract

The Socialist period in Mongolia was a time of social, economic, and cultural upheaval. Located at the far periphery of the Soviet sphere of influence, Mongolia was a remote borderland region. Within Mongolia, the ethnic minority Kazakh population was largely clustered in the far western province of Bayan-Ulgii, an even more remote, less connected region of this remote country. The Kazakh population in western Mongolia is regarded as one of the few populations of Kazakhs to have extensively preserved cultural traditions and lifeways into the contemporary period, despite religious repression and collectivisation efforts in this country. Although Mongolia maintained its autonomy as a nation-state during the Socialist Period, its policies towards minorities deeply resembled those of the USSR, where a dual approach to managing ethnic minority populations simultaneously promoted individual ethnicities while seeking and demanding centralized control and creating a supra-national structure primarily concerned with ethnic (Russian) majority status.

This paper seeks to tease out the nuances of Kazakh ethnic identity and its perpetuation in Mongolia from the mid-20th century to present, arguing that the policies enacted and maintained during the Soviet period facilitated the maintenance of strong ethnic identity amongst the Kazakh population in Mongolia. Data come from historical accounts and contemporary field data collected during the early 2000s. Mongolia’s Kazakhs maintained their strong sense of ethnic identity into the contemporary period, although more recent migrations to and from Kazakhstan and Ulaanbaatar and broader access to global culture are rapidly changing the cultural preservation pathways once embraced by Mongolia’s Kazakh population.

Author

• Holly Barcus, Macalester College