Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan is very ethnically diverse, with only a slight majority
of Kazakhstanis being ethnic Kazakh. Other ethnic groups include
Russian, Ukrainian, Uzbek, German, and Uyghur. Religions are Sunni
Muslim, Russian Orthodox, Protestant, and other. Kazakhstan is a
bilingual country. The Kazakh language has the status of the "state"
language, while Russian is declared the "official" language. Russian
is used routinely in business; 64.4% of the population speaks the
Kazakh language. Education is universal and mandatory through the
secondary level, and the literacy rate is 98.4%. |
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Nomadic tribes have been living in the region that is now Kazakhstan
since the first century BC, although the land has been inhabited at
least as far back as the Stone Age. From the fourth century AD
through the beginning of the 13th century, the territory of
Kazakhstan was ruled by a series of nomadic nations. Following the
Mongolian invasion in the early 13th century, administrative
districts were established under the Mongol Empire, which eventually
became the territories of the Kazakh Khanate. The major medieval
cities of Taraz and Turkestan were founded along the northern route
of the Great Silk Road during this period.
Traditional nomadic life on the vast steppe and semi-desert lands
was characterized by a constant search for new pasture to support
the livestock-based economy. The Kazakhs emerged from a mixture of
tribes living in the region in about the 15th century and by the
middle of the 16th century had developed a common language, culture,
and economy. In the early 1600s, the Kazakh Khanate separated into
the Great, Middle and Little (or Small) Hordes--confederations based
on extended family networks. Political disunion, competition among
the hordes, and a lack of an internal market weakened the Kazakh
Khanate. The beginning of the 18th century marked the zenith of the
Kazakh Khanate. The following 150 years saw the gradual colonization
of the Kazakh-controlled territories by tsarist Russia.
The process of colonization was a combination of voluntary
integration into the Russian Empire and outright seizure. The Little
Horde and part of the Middle Horde signed treaties of protection
with Russia in the 1730s and 1740s. Major parts of the northeast and
central Kazakh territories were incorporated into the Russian Empire
by 1840. With the Russian seizure of territories belonging to the
Senior Horde in the 1860s, the tsars effectively ruled over most of
the territory belonging to what is now the Republic of Kazakhstan.
The Russian Empire introduced a system of administration and built
military garrisons in its effort to establish a presence in Central
Asia in the so-called "Great Game" between it and Great Britain.
Russian efforts to impose its system aroused the resentment of the
Kazakh people, and by the 1860s, most Kazakhs resisted Russia's
annexation largely because of the disruption it wrought upon the
traditional nomadic lifestyle and livestock-based economy. The
Kazakh national movement, which began in the late 1800s, sought to
preserve the Kazakh language and identity. There were uprisings
against colonial rule during the final years of tsarist Russia, with
the most serious occurring in 1916. The destruction of the nomadic
life, prior to and during the Communist period, created a Kazakh
diaspora in neighboring countries, especially western China. Since
independence in 1991, the government has encouraged the return of
ethnic Kazakhs by offering subsidies for returnees.
Although there was a brief period of autonomy during the tumultuous
period following the collapse of the Russian Empire, the Kazakhs
eventually succumbed to Soviet rule. In 1920, the area of
present-day Kazakhstan became an autonomous republic within Russia
and, in 1936, a Soviet republic.
Soviet repression of the traditional elites, along with forced
collectivization in late 1920s-1930s, brought about mass hunger and
starvation, leading to civil unrest. Soviet rule, however, took
hold, and a communist apparatus steadily worked to fully integrate
Kazakhstan into the Soviet system. Kazakhstan experienced population
inflows of thousands exiled from other parts of the Soviet Union
during the 1930s and later became home for hundreds of thousands
evacuated from the Second World War battlefields. The Kazakh Soviet
Socialist Republic (SSR) contributed five national divisions to the
Soviet Union's World War II effort.
The period of the Second World War marked an increase in
industrialization and increased mineral extraction in support of the
war effort. At the time of Soviet leader Josif Stalin's death,
however, Kazakhstan still had an overwhelmingly agricultural-based
economy. In 1953, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev initiated the
ambitious "Virgin Lands" program to turn the traditional
pasturelands of Kazakhstan into a major grain-producing region for
the Soviet Union. The Virgin Lands policy, along with later
modernizations under Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, sped up the
development of the agricultural sector, which to this day remains
the source of livelihood for a large percentage of Kazakhstan's
population.
Growing tensions within Soviet society led to a demand for political
and economic reforms, which came to a head in the 1980s. In December
1986, mass demonstrations by young ethnic Kazakhs took place in
Almaty to protest Moscow's installment of a non-Kazakhstani First
Secretary as leader. Soviet troops suppressed the unrest, and dozens
of demonstrators were jailed. In the waning days of Soviet rule,
discontent continued to grow and find expression under Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of glasnost. Caught up in the groundswell
of Soviet republics seeking greater autonomy, Kazakhstan declared
its sovereignty as a republic within the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics (U.S.S.R.) in October 1990. Following the August 1991
abortive coup attempt in Moscow and the subsequent dissolution of
the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan declared independence on December 16,
1991.
The years following independence have been marked by significant
reforms to the Soviet command-economy and political monopoly on
power. Under Nursultan Nazarbayev, who initially came to power in
1989 as the head of the Kazakh Communist Party and was eventually
elected President in 1991, Kazakhstan has made significant progress
toward developing a market economy, for which it was recognized by
the United States in 2002. The country has enjoyed significant
economic growth since 2000, partly due to its large oil, gas, and
mineral reserves. |
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