• A
  • A
  • A
  • ABC
  • ABC
  • ABC
  • А
  • А
  • А
  • А
  • А
Regular version of the site

Nationalism and Siberian Regionalism in the Context of Alash Autonomy, 1905-1917

This Tuesday the member of the project: ‘Applied GIS in Humanities: Linguistics, History, Project Work’, Korobeynikov Alexander, presented his own research. The presentation was called “Nationalism and Siberian Regionalism in the Context of Alash Autonomy, 1905-1917”.

In the context of global spread of nationalists ideas, self-administration and Enlightenment national outskirts of Russian Empire began to play an important role in the state crisis in the late XIX – early XX centuries. Being under influence of the Siberian regionalists regional Kazakh intellectuals became active participants of power relations demanding to consider the question about the rights of the Kazakh population on the state basement.

After the deprivation of the Kazakh deputies in the State Duma became the period of independent intellectual’s activity, headed by A.N. Bukeikhanov, for enlighten of Kazakh population and involving it in the new socio-political discourse. Aspiration of Kazakh intellectuals were directed to establishment an autonomy, based on the Kazakh nation.

Following the theoretical project, intellectuals acted gradually to construct the Kazakh nation. In this case, with the aim of education of population of the Steppe region A. Baitursynov initiated in 1912 a reform of the Kazakh language. He had simplified language to allow inhabitants of the potential nation read and write about the problem of the Kazakh society in accessible language. The first national novel “Poor Jamal” written by M. Dulatov described oppressed position of population in difficult social condition and the poem “Wake up! Kazakh” became a real anthem of liberty within Kazakh society. A.N. Bukeikhanov worked with literary heritage of Central Asia wrote a lot about territorial patriotism, focusing on the steppe as a special marker o national identity. Besides, following B. Anderson, print capitalism played an important role for “imagined community”, in this case, the main press organ of Alash’ intellectuals was the newspaper “Kazakh”.

Thus, following the theoretical project of potential nation and using the mechanisms of construction the nation, the Kazakh intellectuals saw the final phase of construction in establishment of their own autonomy – Alash.

alash (rus)
Report is prepared by Korobeynikov Alexander.