Kazakhs | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

The Kazakhs are a central Asiatic Turkic people whose language belongs to the Kipchak group of the Altaic family. Most Kazakhs identify themselves as Sunni Muslims. According to a 1997 population estimate, approximately 9 million Kazakhs resided in the central Asiatic republic of Kazakhstan. In addition, there were about 1.1 million Kazakhs in China, 808,000 in Uzbekistan, 636,000 in Russia, 120,000 in Mongolia, 88,000 in Turkmenistan, 37,000 in Kyrgyzstan, 9,600 in Tajikistan, and 13,000 in other countries.

The Kazakhs emerged as a distinctive people in the fifteenth century. At the time, different parts of present-day Kazakhstan were controlled by Mongols, Uzbeks, and other Turco-Mongolian peoples. In the mid-fifteenth century, about 200,000 Uzbeks, dissatisfied with their leader, or khan, moved from an area of present-day Uzbekistan to an area between the Chu and Talas Rivers; before this time, the ancestors of this group had been converted to Islam by Sufi mystics who had spread Islam in central Asia. These separatist Uzbeks became known as Kazakh Uzbeks or "independent Uzbeks." They adopted a nomadic pastoral way of life, in contrast to the sedentary farming of their Uzbek forebears. In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, these people, now known simply as Kazakhs, formed a confederation called the Kazakh Horde, which controlled much of the steppe region.

The Kazakh pastoral nomads dwelled year round in portable, dome-shaped tents called yurts, with felt coverings over wooden frames that could be taken apart and reassembled after a move. They migrated seasonally to find pasturage for their livestock, which included horses, sheep, goats, cattle, and camels. Theylived primarily off their herds and especially savored fermented mare's milk (koumiss) and horse flesh.

The Kazakhs originally organized themselves into hordes (ordas) that were subdivided into tribes, clans, and lineages. Groups at various levels in the tribal hierarchy had chiefs or khans, but only rarely were all Kazakhs, or even one of their hordes, united under a single khan. Descent and membership in lineages and clans were traced patrilineally. Lineages and clans were subdivided into smaller camping groups that consisted of several extended families each. These families usually included parents, unmarried children, and married sons and their families.

The Russian advance onto the Kazakh steppe began in the early eighteenth century, and by 1848 Russia had taken control of the area. During the nineteenth century, as part of Russia's colonization program, about 400,000 Russians flooded into Kazakhstan to convert steppe pastures into farmland. In the early twentieth century, approximately a million Slavs, Germans, Jews, and others also immigrated to the region. These immigrants crowded Kazakhs off the best pastures and watered lands, rendering many tribes destitute.

On 26 August 1920, the Soviet government established the Kirgiz Autonomous Republic, which in 1925 changed its name to Kazakh Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. From 1927, the Soviet government pursued a vigorous policy of transforming the Kazakh pastoral nomads into a sedentary population. The Soviet regime's brutal imposition of collective farming on the traditionally pastoral nomadic Kazakhs resulted in a marked decrease in the Kazakh population. Between 1926 and 1939, more than 1.5 million Kazakhs died, mostly from starvation, disease, and violence. About 300,000 Kazakhs fled to Uzbekistan, 44,000 to Turkmenistan, and thousands to China. In addition, Stalin's purges destroyed much of the Kazakh intelligentsia. Another large influx of Slavs into Kazakhstan occurred from 1954 to 1956 as a result of the Soviet so-called Virgin and Idle Lands project, which opened up the vast grasslands of northern Kazakhstan to wheat farming. The Soviet Union also located its space-launch center and a substantial part of its nuclear-weaponry and nuclear-testing sites in Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan declared its independence from the Soviet Union on 16 December 1991. In the early years of independence, significant numbers of ethnic Russians left Kazakhstan by emigrating to Russia, and many diaspora Kazakhs immigrated to Kazakhstan. Even by the mid-1990s, Kazakhs made up only 45 percent of their country's total population. By 1995, Kazakhs constituted about half the population of Almaty, the country's largest city and, until 1997, its capital.

Today, about three-fifths of Kazakh families live in rural areas. Most Kazakhs are settled farmers who still recognize membership in larger kin groupings based on patrilineal descent. In Xinjiang in northwest China, many Kazakhs still follow the nomadic way of life. Urbanization in Kazakhstan has resulted more from the immigration of foreigners than from the influx of Kazakhs into the cities from the countryside.

During much of their long nomadic period, the Kazakhs' adherence to Islam remained rather lax and informal. However, some young Kazakhs had studied Islamic theology in religious schools, known as maktabs or madrasahs, in the larger towns and cities. Consequently, there was an Islamic intelligentsia in the urban areas before the Soviet Communists took over in the early 1920s. Thereafter, Soviet authorities actively suppressed and discouraged religious teaching and practice in Kazakhstan. Since independence, Kazakhs have enjoyed freedom of religion, and there has been a religious revival.

Urban Kazakhs of both sexes dress in modern, Western clothing, while women and some men in rural villages continue to wear traditional costume. Some Kazakhs weave traditional carpets for home use and sale, and less-Russified Kazakhs often decorate their homes with qoshmas, bright-colored felt rugs.

Kazakhs, probably more than any other Central Asian people, show the impact of nearly two centuries of close contact with Russians. Unlike those Central Asians to the south of them, Kazakhs look more to Russia than to Islamic countries for inspiration in the post-Soviet period. Despite this, Kazakh scholars and intellectuals are actively working to reclaim Kazakh traditions and distinctive ways of life, including the literary and spoken language of a people whose experience has been greatly influenced by Russian culture, literature, language, and thought.

Oral epics formed the main literary genre among the largely illiterate Kazakhs until the nineteenth century. In the eighteenth century, the Russians established a series of outposts along the border of the Kazakh northern steppe. As a consequence of Russian contacts, some Kazakhs added written, poetic forms to their literature. Poetry remained the primary genre until prose stories, short novels, and drama were introduced in the early twentieth century, before the end of the czarist era in 1917. Today, urban Kazakhs can enjoy modern theaters that offer Uighur, Korean, and Russian musicals, opera, ballet, and puppet performances. They also enjoy cinemas and can participate in dance ensembles and music groups.

Capisani, Giampaolo R. (2000) The Handbook of Central Asia: A Comprehensive Survey of the New Republics. London: I. B. Tauris.

Demko, George J. (1969) The Russian Colonization of Kazakhstan, 1896–1916. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Olcott, Martha Brill. (1995) The Kazakhs. 2d ed. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press.

Svanberg, Ingvar, ed. (1999) Contemporary Kazaks: Cultural and Social Perspectives. New York: St. Martin's Press.

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