Astana As a Postcolonial Narrative

In my paper I’ll aim to show the possibility of postcolonial ideas in exploring of emerging new Kazakh capital and evaluate how this new Kazakh elite project was succeeded? 15 years ago the capital of Kazakhstan had moved from the Soviet Alma-Ata to unrenowned, provincial small town Akmola.

At the very beginning of independence the new national Kazakh state should handle with some issues. The most important issue was question of nation building and stabilization of the national state. For stabilizing and strengthening the new national state the new capital was required which would become the strongest object of identity with new national state. Ethnic composition, ethno demographic disproportion in distribution of population was one of the strongest challenges for new Kazakh state. Therefore new nation state faced with question: how to balance the national state without violent exile of Russian-speaking population? How to bring here Kazakhs? How to stimulate southern Kazakhs to move, to migrate to very Russian and Russian-speaking North? It is important to remember that historically population’s density in Kazakh Steppe always was low.

Secondly new Kazakh state needed for the new centers of modernization; here it is important to notice that new Kazakh state chose strategy typical for the postcolonial state. I mean the enclave type of modernization, strategy of creation of new enclave of Kazakhstan on the North in addition to already existing enclave on the South created by Empire. Here I argue that soviet Almaty was not Kazakh city, during Soviet time Kazakhs never defined Almaty as a cradle of the Kazakh nation.

Finally it seems to be obvious that modernization was understood by Kazakh elite as urban modernization in parallel with kazakhization of North and then the whole society.