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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Kazakstan
Index
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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