“A Central Asian regional identity might have been a very feasible identity project: shared language, religion, and Soviet experience—all of this could have been mobilized to build a shared identity. But, as we all know, this did not happen,” explains Helge Blakkisrud, Senior Research Fellow at Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) in an interview to CABAR.asia analytical platform.
Helge Blakkisrud, PhD in Political Science from the University of Oslo, is a Senior Research Fellow at NUPI. His main research interests include Russian federalism, nationalism, and national identity, with a special focus on state-building and nation-building processes across the post-Soviet space, the Eurasian de facto states in particular. Since 2008, Dr Blakkisrud has taught the module Nation, State and Nationalism at the OSCE Academy in Bishkek.
On the 30th anniversary of the independence of the Central Asian countries, let’s look back and briefly analyze the nation-building process in these countries. What was the peculiarity of this process at the initial stage? What challenges and problems did the countries face in the 1990s?
One point to note here is that the Central Asian republics had not been very eager to break away from the Soviet empire. In the late Soviet period, the overwhelming majority of the local population had voted in favor of preserving the Soviet Union. In other words, the Central Asian republics stumbled into an independence that they had not actively sought at the time.
Moreover, ethnic categories and administrative borders in Central Asia were Soviet constructs. Unlike in the Baltics, for example, there was no meaningful pre-Soviet state tradition to revert to.
The Soviet period had shaped national identity in ways that fitted the needs of Soviet society. Considerable resources had been invested in the various titular nations, especially during “korenizatsiya” in the 1920s, but those nation-building projects were meant primarily to provide a national veneer to the socialist cause. The ideal was “national in form, socialist in content.”
On one hand, then, the new regimes that emerged after 1991 inherited ready-made national identities. On the other hand, these national identities were not designed to fit the needs of an independent nation-state.
The leaders of the Central Asian republics were mostly ill-prepared and not particularly eager to embrace independence. However, the process of transforming union republics into independent states nevertheless proceeded incredibly peacefully—with the exception of Tajikistan and the Tajik Civil War. Otherwise, people tended to accept the new realities without much protest or resistance. It’s important to stress this point. After all, in the parallel process of the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the world witnessed how such processes can turn really nasty.
Has the approach, the model of the Central Asian countries in nation-building, changed over time, if we compare the initial stage of independence with the current one? Have there been any attempts to create a civic nation?
Yes, there have been plenty of changes over the past thirty years. The new Central Asian states started up with national identities that had been developed during the Soviet period, and these had to be adjusted to fit independent statehood. As a result, all these states have gone through processes of trying, failing, and adapting their national identities.
In Kyrgyzstan, for example, various presidents have tried to launch their own identity projects. In Tajikistan, although here the president has remained the same throughout this period, several identity projects have been floated: the Aryan heritage, Zoroastrianism, the legacy of Ismoil Somoni, the construction of the Roghun Dam—all have at various stages been presented as potential identity-building factors.
There have also been important changes in how the Soviet period is assessed. All the nation-building projects have, to a greater or lesser degree, gradually liberated themselves from the Soviet past. Take the case of Uzbekistan, where the Soviet experience is now seen as an expression of colonialism. In other words, the Soviet period has been recast from being a modernizing and liberating project to being an extension of Russian colonial expansionism and oppression in Central Asia.
Recently, there has also been a reassessment of the early 20th century. Historians and nation-builders are now looking back at 1917 and no longer accepting that the Soviet route was the only feasible way forward toward statehood. Various national movements that were active during the October Revolution and the Civil War are now held up as harbingers of alternative development paths.
As for civic nation-building, there are few examples of genuine attempts at developing inclusive, civic nations. One was Kyrgyzstan in the early 1990s, when President Askar Akaev coined the slogan “Kyrgyzstan is our common home” (“Кыргызстан – наш общий дом”), but that campaign was hardly successful. Another, and a more successful one, was that of his colleague Nursultan Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan, centered on the bright future of 21st century multi-ethnic Kazakhstan. Elsewhere, the focus has been on the glorious past rather than the future, trying to dig the titular nations’ roots even deeper into the ground, to underline that “we arrived first, we are the rightful owners of this state.” However, also in Kazakhstan we can see a shift toward a more distinctly ethnic Kazakh-oriented nation-building project developing post-2014.
What changes have there been after 2014 in Kazakhstan?
After the Russian annexation of Crimea, the authorities in Kazakhstan began to worry when Putin claimed, “The Kazakhs never had any statehood.” They felt an urgent need to revise the nation-building project, so as to highlight Kazakh history predating the Russian conquest. Already in 2015, the celebration of the 550th anniversary of the Kazakh khanate was celebrated in a big way. More recently, with the rise to power of President Tokayev, there seems to be a shift even further back, to the era of the Golden Horde.
What does each Central Asian country emphasize in the nation-building process? What tools and symbols do the countries of the region use?
On the whole, they appear to draw on a very standardized repertoire. There is nothing particularly surprising here, perhaps except for the “future-oriented” Kazakhstani project. Elsewhere, it is all history, language, culture… These elements had already been developed and standardized by the Soviet authorities, so after 1991 all the new rulers had to do was adjust them to fit the new realities of the former union republics having turned into would-be nation states.
For instance, during the Soviet period, all republics had been provided with a “national” history. The new nation-builders just had to remove some of ideological features associated with Marxist-Leninism and historical materialism. History was to be rewritten as having culminated, not with the October Revolution and the building of socialism, but with the establishment of independent statehood. Soviet history had been multi-ethnic, now the past inevitably became more centered on the titular nation. In the process, some elements of the past had to be reassessed. In Uzbekistan, for example, Amir Timur went from being depicted as a ruthless, cruel tyrant to becoming the symbol of a glorious past and a celebrated state-builder.
But in principle, everything was already there, ready to be mobilized. Nothing very original: it is a case of very run-of-the-mill, standard nation-building elements being put to use in the process.
What is the role of religion in the nation-building process in the Central Asian countries?
This role has been changing over time. Initially, most of these new states were ruled by former “apparatchiks” from the Communist Party, who felt a certain reluctance to embrace religion. Obviously, Islam had a great potential for unifying people across ethnic divides. But some of the new leaders feared that Islam might fill the post-Soviet ideological vacuum and develop into an independent societal force, challenging the authority of the powers-that-be. Their gut reaction was therefore to try to marginalize religion, and focus on developing nation-building projects where the cultural elements of Islam were highlighted, but the religious aspect was toned down. Gradually, however, the emphasis has shifted from marginalization to cooptation and trying to promote a national Islam: a Kyrgyz Islam, a Tajik Islam, etc. Whereas Islam as a religion defies ethnic and national borders, the authorities now seek to co-opt Islam in a way that would strengthen the legitimacy of the current regime.
What is the situation with ethnic minorities, non-titular nations? How integrated are they?
By and large, nation building has centered on the titular nations. The political science literature has the concept of “sons of the soil”—the idea that the indigenous population should enjoy priority when it comes to access to resources, etc. Translated into the Central Asian context, this would mean that the Kyrgyz should have priority in Kyrgyzstan, the Uzbeks in Uzbekistan, etc. Such an approach neglects the interests of the ethnic minorities, whether they are indigenous or consist of more recent arrivals.
With the exception of Kazakhstan, where the interethnic balance was a very sensitive issue—at the time of independence, there were almost as many ethnic Russians as there were ethnic Kazakhs in Kazakhstan—and to some extent Kyrgyzstan, I would say that ethnic minorities have largely been left to their own devices. At any rate, the authorities have not actively sought to draw them into the national project. For sure, there is some token representation in the parliament, with quotas reserved for ethnic minority groups—but in general, the state apparatus, and certainly the positions of power, tend to be reserved for the titular nation.
Frequently, ethnic minorities are seen as guests, even if they have lived there for centuries. They are not accepted as “locals” in the sense of being perceived as part of the nation. The ethnic minorities in Central Asia populate the margins of society: they may be integrated economically, but not politically and identity-wise. The new nation state is monopolized by the titular nation.
To what extent are national models of nation-building in harmony with neighboring countries in the regional context? Are there any contradictions between different models (for example, historical territorial and other claims; the rivalry between different language groups)? Have there been any attempts to create some kind of regional identity?
To start with the question of rivalry or harmony, I’d say that everywhere there has been a race to be recognized as having arrived “first”—that is, for the titular nation to represent the “original” population of Central Asia. Such a race is not necessarily something that would lead to conflict with the neighbors, as the main purpose of digging the nation’s historical roots deeper and deeper back into the centuries is more about corroborating the claim to the state in question. So, it is not necessarily problematic that today’s nations co-opt more ancient civilizations and historical figures into their national genealogies.
One factor that may have helped to ease potential tensions is that today’s map in no way reflects the pre-Soviet or pre-Russian map of the region. All current state borders are Soviet constructs, and basically artificial. As a result, no one today really wants to risk opening up the Pandora’s Box of border revision.
The one big exception is the rivalry between Tajiks and Uzbeks over Samarkand and Bukhara. Some Tajiks complain loudly about how the Soviet border delimitation process cut off today’s Tajikistan from its former “cultural capitals.” As a political project, however, a campaign for “reunification” of the “Tajik lands” is not viable. Instead, conflicts over territories and borders are more localized and limited in scope, as with the recent clashes between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan over ethnic enclaves. But, in my opinion, those clashes are more about resources than ethnic identity, and are often more locally driven than state sponsored.
As for a Central Asian regional identity, I believe this might have been a very feasible project: shared language, religion, and Soviet experience—all of this could have been mobilized to build a shared identity. But, as we all know, this did not happen. The Turkmens under Turkmenbashy simply opted out of everything, with Turkmenistan going its own way. And there was the rivalry between the Uzbeks and the Kazakhs about who should be the “natural” leader of a Central Asian integration project. As for the Kyrgyz, they weren’t really able to make a difference one way or the other. And of course the Tajiks stand out, being the only non-Turkic speaking nation. In the end, the Central Asian nations found themselves caught up in other, non-Central Asian-centered, integration projects.
In addition, it is always more tempting to be the sovereign leader of a small state than merely a provincial leader in a bigger state. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, this came up in the case of Moldova. Initially, there was considerable support for the idea that the Moldovans were Romanians, and thus for a “reunification” with Romania—but, very soon after independence, the Moldovan leader came to the conclusion that it was better to be the President of Moldova than governor of a province within Romania.
What should the Central Asian countries pay attention to in the process of nation-building?
I believe there is a need to open up the nation-building projects in order to allow for better integration of the ethnic minorities. In the longer run, the current policy of simply ignoring their existence will not be viable. The authorities should invest more in the possibilities for ethnic minorities, school children in particular, to learn the state language, so that those members of the minority groups that want to be part of the national project may have a fair chance of being included.
To ensure social cohesion and stability, I believe it is important to open up all spheres of society to the minorities, so they do not feel themselves as guests, but are accepted as a permanent fixture of the population. I’m not arguing for a reduction of the emphasis on the Kyrgyz-ness, the Kazakh-ness, or the Uzbek-ness of the nation, but it’s important to allow others the possibility of integrating into this national community.