THE ‘GREAT STEPPE’ NARRATIVE: ORIGINS, POLITICS, AND ASPIRATIONS OF ETERNAL KAZAKHSTAN

Mukhlissova, Nazerke

THE ‘GREAT STEPPE’ NARRATIVE: ORIGINS, POLITICS, AND ASPIRATIONS OF ETERNAL KAZAKHSTAN

dc.contributor.author	Mukhlissova, Nazerke
dc.date.accessioned	2022-06-27T03:56:39Z
dc.date.available	2022-06-27T03:56:39Z
dc.date.issued	2022
dc.description.abstract	In the last several years, a person living in Kazakhstan is likely to notice more and more of the different manifestations of the Steppe: be that the “Tomiris” 2019 movie, depictions of the Steppe on billboards, or government campaigns featuring “Nur-Sultan - the heart of the Great Steppe.” These kinds of expressions are not solely based on historical facts, but they emphasize, focus, and interpret the ancient past in various, volatile ways. The public narrative and newly constructed modern traditions in Kazakhstan started employing more Steppe-related themes. The Eurasian Steppe is being increasingly portrayed with the epithet “Great” - as the “Great Steppe”, and the Kazakhstani establishment is seeking towards taking ownership over that Steppe. While it is understandable when people tie their identity to the ancient past and the Steppe (an informal memory, invoking myths), since people will always look forward to solidifying their identities and remembering the past in a certain way, it is still unclear what purposes authorities want to satisfy by over-emphasizing, re-creating the Great Steppe in their projects and state ideology. The approaches to the Steppe embodied in government rhetoric have been fluctuating, reflecting changing and often mutually exclusive claims. Purposefully ambiguous, the Great Steppe narrative experiences internal contradictions as well as external. Kazakhstani officials are trying to claim everything that happened and everyone who lived in the Steppe for the history of modern Kazakhstan	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Nazerke Mukhlissova (2022). The ‘Great Steppe’ narrative: origins, politics, and aspirations of Eternal Kazakhstan. Nazarbayev University, Nur-sultan, Kazakhstan	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://nur.nu.edu.kz/handle/123456789/6293
dc.language.iso	en	en_US
dc.publisher	Nazarbayev University School of Sciences and Humanities	en_US
dc.rights	Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States	*
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/	*
dc.subject	Type of access: Open Access	en_US
dc.subject	Great Steppe	en_US
dc.subject	Eternal Kazakhstan	en_US
dc.title	THE ‘GREAT STEPPE’ NARRATIVE: ORIGINS, POLITICS, AND ASPIRATIONS OF ETERNAL KAZAKHSTAN	en_US
dc.type	Capstone Project	en_US
workflow.import.source	science