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Kazakstan
Culture
Before the Russian conquest, the Kazaks had a well-articulated
culture based on their nomadic pastoral economy. Although Islam
was introduced to most of the Kazaks in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, the religion was not fully assimilated until much later.
As a result, it coexisted with earlier elements of shamanistic
and animistic beliefs. Traditional Kazak belief held that separate
spirits inhabited and animated the earth, sky, water, and fire,
as well as domestic animals. To this day, particularly honored
guests in rural settings are treated to a feast of freshly killed
lamb. Such guests are sometimes asked to bless the lamb and to
ask its spirit for permission to partake of its flesh. Besides
lamb, many other traditional foods retain symbolic value in Kazak
culture.
Because animal husbandry was central to the Kazaks' traditional
lifestyle, most of their nomadic practices and customs relate
in some way to livestock. Traditional curses and blessings invoked
disease or fecundity among animals, and good manners required
that a person ask first about the health of a man's livestock
when greeting him and only afterward inquire about the human aspects
of his life.
The traditional Kazak dwelling is the yurt, a tent consisting
of a flexible framework of willow wood covered with varying thicknesses
of felt. The open top permits smoke from the central hearth to
escape; temperature and draft can be controlled by a flap that
increases or decreases the size of the opening. A properly constructed
yurt can be cooled in summer and warmed in winter, and it can
be disassembled or set up in less than an hour. The interior of
the yurt has ritual significance; the right side generally is
reserved for men and the left for women.
Although yurts are less used for their original purpose than
they once were, they remain a potent symbol of "Kazakness." During
demonstrations against Nazarbayev in the spring of 1992, demonstrators
and hunger strikers erected yurts in front of the government building
in Almaty. Yurts are also frequently used as a decorative motif
in restaurants and other public buildings.
Because of the Kazaks' nomadic lifestyle and their lack of a
written language until the mid-nineteenth century, their literary
tradition relies upon oral histories. These histories were memorized
and recited by the akyn , the elder responsible for remembering
the legends and histories, and by jyrau , lyric poets
who traveled with the high-placed khans. Most of the legends concern
the activities of a batir , or hero-warrior. Among the
tales that have survived are Koblandy-batir (fifteenth
or sixteenth century), Er Sain (sixteenth century), and
Er Targyn (sixteenth century), all of which concern the
struggle against the Kalmyks; Kozy Korpesh and Bain
sulu , both epics; and the love lyric Kiz-Jibek
. Usually these tales were recited in a song-like chant, frequently
to the accompaniment of such traditional instruments as drums
and the dombra , a mandolin-like string instrument. President
Nazarbayev has appeared on television broadcasts in the republic,
playing the dombra and singing.
The Russian conquest wreaked havoc on Kazak traditional culture
by making impossible the nomadic pastoralism upon which the culture
was based. However, many individual elements survived the loss
of the lifestyle as a whole. Many practices that lost their original
meanings are assuming value as symbols of post-Soviet national
identity.
For the most part, preindependence cultural life in Kazakstan
was indistinguishable from that elsewhere in the Soviet Union.
It featured the same plays, films, music, books, paintings, museums,
and other cultural appurtenances common in every other corner
of the Soviet empire. That Russified cultural establishment nevertheless
produced many of the most important figures of the early stages
of Kazak nationalist self-assertion, including novelist Anuar
Alimzhanov, who became president of the last Soviet Congress of
People's Deputies, and poets Mukhtar Shakhanov and Olzhas Suleymenov,
who were copresidents of the political party Popular Congress
of Kazakstan (see Structure of Government; Political Organizations,
this ch.). Shakhanov also chaired the commission that investigated
the events surrounding the riots of December 1986.
An even more powerful figure than Shakhanov, Suleymenov in 1975
became a pan-Central Asian hero by publishing a book, Az i
Ia , examining the Lay of Igor's Campaign , a medieval
tale vital to the Russian national culture, from the perspective
of the Turkic Pechenegs whom Igor defeated. Soviet authorities
subjected the book to a blistering attack. Later Suleymenov used
his prestige to give authority to the Nevada-Semipalatinsk antinuclear
movement, which performed the very real service of ending nuclear
testing in Kazakstan. He and Shakhanov originally organized their
People's Congress Party as a pro-Nazarbayev movement, but Suleymenov
eventually steered the party into an opposition role. In the short-lived
parliament of 1994-95, Suleymenov was leader of the Respublika
opposition coalition, and he was frequently mentioned as a possible
presidential candidate.
The collapse of the Soviet system with which so many of the
Kazak cultural figures were identified left most of them in awkward
positions. Even more damaging has been the total collapse of public
interest in most forms of higher culture. Most of the books that
Kazakstanis buy are about business, astrology, or sex; the movies
they see are nearly all American, Chinese, or Turkish adventure
and action films; most concerts feature rock music, not infrequently
accompanied by erotic dancing; and television provides a diet
of old Soviet films and dubbed Mexican soap operas. Kazakstan's
cultural elite is suffering the same decline affecting the elites
of all the former Soviet republics. Thus, cultural norms are determined
predominantly by Kazakstan's increasing access to global mass
culture.
Data as of March 1996
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