KAZAKH CULTURE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE TRADITIONAL CIVILIZATIONS OF RUSSIA AND ASIA: THE ORIGINS OF MULTICULTURALISM

Abstract

This article focuses on determining the place and role of the Kazakh culture in the Eurasian civilizational areal. It examines the choice of sociocultural development models for the Republic of Kazakhstan in globalization and localization conditions. The Kazakh culture is identiied in the context of its interaction with the nomadic, Islamic, Russian, Central Asian, and East Asian
civilizations. It analyzes the role of cultural factors in building the new post-Soviet Central Asian states. The claims for cultural sovereignty put forward by the postSoviet states are drawing different responses; many ind them unsubstantiated. This assessment is usually based on the modest resources at the disposal of the new “contenders” for sovereignty. Upon closer investigation, however, cultural heritage and the symbols that the elites of the post-Soviet states would like to use as national
proved to be part of a broader civilizational area. Nevertheless, despite all the apparent irrationality of such efforts, they are entirely substantiated. First, the contemporary world political system is the sum-total of all the states. The states are
regarded as sovereign units that are seats of power or so-called receptacles of power. Let us clarify that we are talking not only about military-political and economic power, but also about cultural power. So the attempts by states to position themselves as homogeneous nations are fully justiied; this strategy makes it possible for them to improve their position in the global rivalry. In this way, the state will have to make a choice between two possible alternatives: either force other nations to treat it as an autonomous cultural and political whole, or present itself as “not entirely” a state. Second, these efforts are seen as a striving toward self-assertion and, if you like, revenge; to this we can add the extraordinary popularity that the discourse on so-called post-colonialism gained at the beginning of the 1970s. In other words, by claiming to restore their supposedly desecrated authenticity, the postSoviet states are only playing according to the rules posed by the global community, and their nationalism is nothing other than subordination to trans- national political imperatives.