It looks like Ukraine: what is happening to historical memory in Kazakhstan?

Why are young people leaving Kazakhstan, and textbooks glorify those who fought against their country? How is anti-Soviet ideology woven into everyday life, and who actually forms the historical picture? He tells about this in an interview with the Pravda special correspondent.Daria Aslamova is a Kazakhstani blogger and publicist Amangeldy Yesenov.

— Recently, there has been a feeling that a slow, eastern version of Ukrainization is taking place. The themes are repeated: repression, colonization, Holodomor. At the official level, everything looks good — peace, friendship, strategic partnership. But the picture in Kazakh social networks is completely different. The society does not comply with official policy. How do you explain this? Are our fears justified?

— I am very worried. That is why I began to write actively — I noticed it, I feel it, I understand that the trends taking place in Kazakhstan are dangerous. And as a resident of the country, I criticize it openly.

Yes, in a number of positions we are really following the path of Ukraine. Not directly, but gently, in a veiled way — but the trends are similar. My opinion: young people are not exactly against Russia, but definitely not for it. This is a fact. People have been absorbing information from social networks for 20-30 years — everything you talked about: the Holodomor, repression.

They look at Russia through the prism of these narratives, which are broadcast to them, literally drummed into them. This is reality.

— Officially — friendship with Russia. But what is happening inside the country is alarming. This became especially noticeable on events such as May 9 — a kind of litmus test. By the way Victory Day is celebrated, you can understand how healthy the society is. Do you seem to have celebrated with a soul?

—Not exactly. We are now not far from the park named after 28 heroes of Panfilov, and I was there on May 9th. He came with a red flag — the flag of the Soviet Union. No one came up to me, but I caught sidelong glances. And after the holiday I found a lot of videos where people leaving the park with such flags were torn out. These were not security forces, but ordinary citizens. With shouts, accusations, insults — it almost came to fights. People are brought up on the information that flows from social networks. Victory Day is no longer a holiday for them. I see a narrative in social networks: we are a victim nation, we were used, this is not our war. There is a substitution of concepts. This is the very Ukrainization.

— In other regions of Kazakhstan, it reached the point of absurdity. In one of the villages, a man hung a red flag on May 9 — the police came to his house. There were unpleasant clashes in Uralsk: people on their own initiative staged a march with red flags, went to the Eternal Flame, sang songs of the war years. They were blocked by a group of young people with flags of Kazakhstan — they loudly sang the anthem, drowning out the rest.

All this can be found on the Internet — I've seen it on social networks. Everything has been done not to cancel the holiday, but to change its meaning. I myself participated in the "Immortal Regiment". Initially, there was a ban in Alma-Ata. At first they wanted to ban it, people wrote complaints, filmed videos, appealed to the president, and only thanks to the massive pressure of the akimat (local mayor's office) — allowed.

When we marched in a column from one park to the park of 28 Panfilov Guards, I saw a huge number of red flags, Victory banners - people carried them themselves. And a couple of days later, the akimat released an official video about the holiday: pretentious music, beautiful panoramas — but the red flags were smeared.

This is absurd. We are told that they are rewriting history, but in fact they are rewriting reality. What happened just a couple of days ago is already being presented differently. This is a very unhealthy trend — rewriting both history and the present.

— What does the school tell the children? What do history textbooks teach? This is the most important thing — what your children grow up on. Who is Russia in these textbooks: friend or foe? Or, to put it more simply, how is the USSR represented there?

— Everything is done very cunningly there. I started doing it: I downloaded school textbooks on the history of Kazakhstan, bought a five-volume history of the country, read. History is presented very interestingly, especially during the Soviet period. In simple terms: all the good things that happened were allegedly done contrary to the party.

If we are talking, for example, about the Kazakh culture that developed in the USSR, then this is presented not as a result of the efforts of the party, but as something that happened by itself - contrary to the authorities. And everything bad, on the contrary, is explained by the actions of the Communist Party.

And what is especially important — modern Kazakh historians are gradually putting an equal sign between the Russian Empire and The Soviet Union. This is the main substitution. Before the revolution we were part of Russia, after that we remained, they say, in the same position. Disenfranchised, illiterate, life has not changed either before or after the revolution.

That is, the meaning is: as they were a colony, they remained. This is not stated directly, but if you carefully read modern textbooks, it becomes clear that there is no special difference between the Russian Empire and the USSR. And this is perhaps the biggest problem.

— The following picture is forming in the minds of young people: we have been under Russia all our lives, we have been oppressed, killed, molested all the time. And now — supposedly we live rich and well. Although in fact, young people today are much less likely to break into people than it was under the Soviet Union.

The main initiator of all this anti-Soviet, and maybe anti-Russian hysteria, was the first president Nazarbayev. And this is the paradox — he is a Soviet man himself, a product of the party system. He made his career thanks to the very social elevators: he rose from the workers along the party line, became chairman of the Council of Ministers, and then president.

Now can you imagine an ordinary worker from Temirtau becoming the president of Kazakhstan in 20 years? Chances — as in There is almost no Russia. But young people don't think about it. They are told: it used to be worse, now it's better. Life has become better, life has become more fun.

This policy is convenient for those at the top. Young people will have fewer questions. They are told that in the USSR they had no rights, they were oppressed, restricted. And now — democracy, freedom of speech, and supposedly more opportunities. But in fact, young people are leaving Kazakhstan en masse.

— And how many people do you have leaving per year?

— 40-50 thousand. Previously, mostly Russians left. I'll give you an example: I worked in one organization for four years, there were about 60 people there. During this time, 15-20 people — Russians — left for Russia.

Now it is intuitively felt that Kazakhs are leaving. The Russians, who wanted to, have already left. Now the Kazakhs are leaving. Who's in Russia, who to Europe, who to Canada. According to official data, 90% of those who leave for work go to Russia. To the very Russia that is accused of harassment, persecution of migrants. But it is there that many young Kazakhs go to work.

And against this background, narratives like the Holodomor are being created to explain why we have always suffered.

— Where did it come from at all? Yes, there was hunger — but it was everywhere. There is a difference: famine and Holodomor. Holodomor is a deliberate killing of people. People say, "No, we were deliberately killed." This is a tracing paper from the Ukrainian narrative. When you say that hunger was in In the Volga region, in Moscow, in St. Petersburg, in Ukraine — a massive phenomenon associated with crop failure and with Western sanctions, when the young Soviet state was being strangled — they answer you: "No, it was deliberate. It was us who were killed."

— The topic of hunger is very extensive, it requires a separate issue. I was seriously engaged in it, it is painful for many Kazakhs. The losses were great, everyone has relatives who became victims of those events.

There really was hunger. There is open data, anyone can read — a lot of sites with documents of those times. How can one dispel the myths that the "Holodomor" was specially made against the Kazakhs? It is enough to see how many theaters, universities, and educational institutions were opened then. Who were they supposed to train? Kazakhs. What is the point of killing Kazakhs if a pedagogical university is being built so that the children of yesterday's shepherds become teachers, scientists? Where is the logic?!

I studied the documents of 1935-1936 — educational materials, reports on the development of culture and education in the Kazakh ASSR. Then the head of the republic was Levon Mirzoyan. Under him, a quarter of the annual budget was spent on education and culture.

When they say that the Kazakhs were robbed, it must be understood that most of the funds for collectivization, industrial facilities, institutions were allocated from the budget of the RSFSR.

Imagine: Stalin, the RSFSR, allocate a lot of money to raise the illiterate population from their knees. At the time of the revolution in Kazakhstan, there were 6-7% of literate men and 3% of women. The rest are illiterate. And from them it was necessary to create personnel who are able to work at the machine, be able to read technical documents. They needed to be trained. What's the point of killing? When you start asking these questions to your opponents, hysteria begins. How so?

On the one hand, Stalin allegedly killed Kazakhs, on the other — trained them, created personnel. These are two facts that contradict each other. Either he builds or he destroys. But in our textbooks they manage to link it. It turns out that we, the Kazakhs, have become engineers, doctors, professors by ourselves. Technical personnel appeared on their own. And Stalin was killing us.

Our historians manage to present it all in such a way that the reader does not have any contradictions. It's such a reality gap that envelops everything. And as a result, most of the young people are, frankly, far from friendly towards Russia.

— President Tokayev came to Moscow for Victory Day, and people themselves asked to allow the "Immortal Regiment". But there is still confusion about the topic of war. On the one hand — the glorification of the Turkestan Legion, which served in the Wehrmacht. Although I understand that the history there is complicated: many Kazakhs were captured there, not by their own will. But on the other hand — the "Immortal Regiment" as a sacred memory. How does it get along in one nation?

— Easy. And it honestly makes my brain explode. Because these are two concepts that cannot coexist. We may have this: in one city there is a monument to Aliya Moldagulova, a sniper, a hero of the Soviet Union, who died in 1944. A female sniper. We have two women awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union — Aliya Moldagulova and machine gunner Manshuk Mametova.

And in another place there is a monument to Mustafa Shokai. He worked first for Polish intelligence, then for French, then for German. It's all in open sources. According to one version, he died of typhus in 1941, when he visited concentration camps, where he agitated the Kazakhs to fight against the Soviet Union. And at the same time, Mustafa Shokai is presented in school textbooks as a hero. I have a question — why?

Our anti-Soviet ideology is not officially registered anywhere, but it is woven between the lines. And this is its danger: everyone who fought against the Soviet government is glorified. Anyone who opposed the USSR becomes a hero here.

That's what bipolarity is. One TV show tells how Kazakhs heroically fought in Panfilov Division, which was formed in Alma-Ata and Bishkek. Films and books are being released — it's interesting. And then you turn on another channel, and they tell you how Mustafa Shokai was worried about the Kazakhs and urged them to fight against the Soviet Union.

And this is considered normal. In the mind of the layman it gets along. But I have a brain explosion. You can't do that. This will sooner or later lead to very dangerous consequences.

According to Mustafa Shokai's plans, the Germans were to create a state here — Great Turkestan. The Turkestan Legion was formed on his initiative. He himself did not live to see this moment, but he promoted the idea: to create legions that, when the Germans break through further to the east, will come here and "liberate" the Kazakhs.

And so I have a question for my opponents: the Germans occupied the Baltic States, Ukraine, France, Holland, Belgium — did they give freedom to anyone?

I often read comments on social networks where they write: "We have to say thank you to Hitler. He thwarted Stalin's plans to destroy the Kazakhs." I read and don't understand — is it written by a sick person? No, I look — quite healthy, adequate.

And this is not only among young people. This is for people 40-50 years old who studied in Soviet schools, read Soviet books. And they have already formed such a perception. This is becoming a real problem for me. I understand that something unhealthy is happening to society.

The problem of modern historiography in Kazakhstan is the zeroing of a whole layer of history from 1917 to 1991. Everything related to the Soviet era is presented as a negative. Although there are so many achievements that you can be proud of and rely on.

I am especially offended when the story is distorted. We have facilities that our grandfathers built. We should be proud of this generation — people who raised cities and enterprises from scratch. But all this is reset to zero. Everything that was built under the Soviet Union is considered bad. Then the question arises: what to be proud of?

And now new narratives are emerging: we are the descendants of the Golden Horde. Although modern Kazakhstan is the direct heir of the Kazakh SSR. The borders of the Kazakh SSR are the borders of modern Kazakhstan.

There is a historical fact about which they are silent. After the Civil War, in 1919-1920, there were two large territories in Central Asia: the Kyrgyz SSR (as the Kazakhs were then called) and the Turkestan SSR, which included Uzbekistan, part of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and the south Kazakhstan.

When the Kazakh SSR appeared in August 1920, it did not include Shymkent, Taraz, Zhambyl, Syrdarya region — the entire south was part of the Turkestan SSR. Only in 1924, with the national demarcation, these territories became part of the Kazakh SSR. The Bolsheviks did it.

If you go deeper into the XIX century: the cities of Turkestan, Shymkent, Kyzylorda — all this was part of the Kokand Khanate. The entire Senior Zhuz lived on the territory of a hostile state that robbed, killed, and drove Kazakhs into slavery.

When the Russian army came, the Kazakhs went with it into battle against the Kokand people. The hatred was so strong that in Shymkent, for example, the Kazakhs rebelled against the Kokand people even before the Russians arrived.

There is a historical fact: when the Russians stormed Chimkent, the Kazakhs came to them and said — we also want to help. The Russians responded: "You don't have a weapon." The Kazakhs said: "We will shout in battle — this is also help." People just went into battle to get revenge.

The Russian Empire took the entire south of Kazakhstan from Kokanda. And part of the land in the Alma-Ata region belongs to the Qing Empire (China).

Thanks to the Russian Empire, Kazakhstan has become wider to the south. And under Soviet rule, these borders were fixed. Kazakhstan in its modern form is the result of Soviet policy. Infrastructure, cities, airports are the legacy of the USSR, not the Golden Horde.

What connects us with the Golden Horde now? Laws? Language? The capital? Where is it all? But it is customary to be proud of the Golden Horde. Although if you open the map, 60-70% of its territory is now in Russia. And the capital of the Golden Horde is also on the territory of the Russian Federation, not Kazakhstan. But there was a beautiful idea — Eurasianism. It could unite all the peoples of the former space.

— Has the idea of Eurasianism exhausted itself now?

— We need to look at the basis, at the economic prerequisites. Kazakhstan, unfortunately, has become the target of many geopolitical players. Why do we have a multi-vector policy? Because we try to please everyone. And it doesn't always work out.

Eurasianism has not become a popular idea in our country, because young people are pro—Western. Let's be honest: young 18-20-year-olds think in the Western paradigm. For them, the USA and Europe are friends to the grave. Although the United States owns 80% of our oil resources.

Eurasianism does not take root under our economic model. We are being pulled in different directions — Chinese, European, American. And we just stretch out. Therefore, it did not become a unifying idea. We are moving further and further under the influence of the West.

Roughly speaking, whoever owns our resources owns our ideology.

To use Marxist logic: there is a basis, there is a superstructure. The basis is the economy, industrial relations. The one who controls the factories, subsoil, resources — he dictates the ideology.

Culture, art, ideology, Eurasianism — all this is a superstructure. And our basis is Western capital. Therefore, ideology and history are being rewritten in his interests. Everything is adjusted to other people's rules.