The World or the Oyster? Constructing Kazakhness in the Kunaev-Era Nomenklatura

Abstract

This dissertation examines the formation, consolidation, and internal differentiation of the Soviet Kazakh elite from the 1920s to the late Soviet period, with particular attention to the interplay between institutional structures and informal practices of power. Tracing the effects of Soviet nationality policy, the dissertation argues that the authority of the Soviet Kazakh elite was rooted both in formal inclusion within the nomenklatura system and in the strategic mobilization of ethnocultural identity. Focusing on the careers of Atymtai Kisanov, a first-generation Soviet bureaucrat, and Lyailya Galimzhanova, a representative of a later, more educated cohort with ties to the late imperial intelligentsia, the study reconstructs two distinct yet overlapping patterns of elite reproduction, conceptualized as “ethnocratic” and “technocratic.” Ethnocratic actors derived authority from their role as custodians of national culture and their capacity to consolidate control over symbolic and administrative resources within the republic. Technocratic actors, by contrast, emphasized professional expertise, institutional rationalization, and integration into all-Union structures, while remaining committed to projects of modernization rooted in earlier intellectual traditions associated with the Alash movement. The dissertation demonstrates that these orientations emerged from the contradictory logic of Soviet nationality policy, which simultaneously promoted national development and constrained political autonomy. During the Khrushchev era, attempts by the central leadership to promote a supraethnic Soviet identity challenged the dominance of ethnocratic elites, provoking resistance within the republican cultural and political establishment. Under Brezhnev, policies of “trust in cadres” facilitated the consolidation of informal networks and the expansion of ethnocentric practices, as witnessed in the symbolic transformation of the republican capital. Drawing on archival materials, memoirs, and published sources, the study highlights the prevalence of patron–client networks, kinship ties, and informal affiliations in elite interactions and career trajectories and demonstrates the longue durée persistence of ideas associated with late imperial Kazakh modernization projects.