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Kazakstan
Clans
One aspect of Kazak traditional culture, clan membership, is
acquiring importance in the postindependence environment. Historically
the Kazaks identified themselves as belonging to one of three
groups of clans and tribes, called zhuz , or hordes,
each of which had traditional territories. Because the Lesser
Horde controlled western Kazakstan and the Middle Horde migrated
across what today is northern and eastern Kazakstan, those groups
came under Russian control first, when colonial policies were
relatively benign. The traditional nobles of these hordes managed
to retain many of their privileges and to educate their sons in
Russian schools. These sons became the first Kazak nationalists,
and in turn their sons were destroyed by Stalin, who tried to
eradicate the Kazak intelligentsia during his purges of the 1930s.
The Large, or Great, Horde was dominant in the south, and hence
did not fall under Russian control until colonialism was much
harsher. Substantially fewer Great Horde Kazaks became involved
in politics before the revolution, but those who did became socialists
rather than nationalists. For that reason, the Great Horde members
came to dominate once the Bolsheviks took power, especially after
Kazakstan's capital was moved from the Lesser Horde town of Orenburg
(now in Russia) to a Great Horde wintering spot, Almaty. Kunayev
and Nazarbayev are said to have roots in clans of the Great Horde.
With the collapse of the CPK and its patronage networks, and
in the absence of any other functional equivalent, clan and zhuz
membership has come to play an increasingly important role
in the economic and political life of the republic at both the
national and the province level. The power of clan politics has
been visible in the dispute over moving the national capital to
Aqmola, which would bolster the prestige of the Middle Horde,
on whose lands Aqmola is located. In general, members of the Lesser
and Middle hordes are more Russified and, hence, more inclined
to cooperate with Russian industrial and commercial interests
than are the members of the Great Horde. Akezhan Kazhegeldin,
prime minister in 1996, was a Middle Horder, as was the opposition
leader Olzhas Suleymenov. Although mindful of Russia's strength,
the Great Horders have less to lose to Russian separatism than
do the Lesser and Middle horders, whose lands would be lost should
the Russian-dominated provinces of northern Kazakstan become separated
from the republic.
Data as of March 1996
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