The ‘Great Steppe’ narrative: origins, politics and aspirations of Eternal Kazakhstan
Mukhlissova N.
2026Routledge
Central Asian Survey
2026#45Issue 124 - 40 pp.
Manifestations of the Steppe in Kazakhstan’s public domains have become more frequent including depictions of the Steppe on billboards, and 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, isolate and interpret the ancient past in a multitude of volatile ways. The Eurasian Steppe is being increasingly portrayed with the epithet ‘Great ’ – as the ‘Great Steppe’, and the Kazakhstani establishment is seeking to take ownership of that Steppe. 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. This article is meant to identify how the Steppe changed and was changed in the Imperial, Soviet political imaginings, and how it became the form and content of the new Kazakhstani identity. This is a discourse-based analysis of the term ‘Great Steppe’, which was consistently used by the First President of the Republic.
Central Asia , Eurasianism , identity politics , Kazakhstan , The Great Steppe
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History Department, Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan
History Department, Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States
History Department
History Department
10 лет помогаем публиковать статьи Международный издатель
Книга Публикация научной статьи Волощук 2026 Book Publication of a scientific article 2026