Russian Indigenous Kazakhs
Kazakhstan Indigenous People’s Struggle To Recover Language, Culture And Health.
Feb 20, 2007
Kazakh means nomad. There are three main Kazakh zhuz (hordes), each composed of a number of clans descended from common ancestors.
In the 19th century population density in Kazakhstan was 1 person per sq km. By the end of that century their land had been colonised by Slavic and Cossack invaders. The Kazakh population had always existed in a delicate balance with what the land could provide, so great famines followed the invasion.
At that time there were about three and a half million Kazakhs. As late as 1926 three quarters of all Kazakhs were still living a traditional lifestyle, dependent on livestock and seasonal agriculture. In the late 1920s, Stalin ordered the nomads to settle, in a bid to “intensify agricultural production”. This crass stupidity led to the deaths of 90 percent of Kazakh livestock. The ensuing famine resulted in the loss of 40 percent of the Kazakh population. The “settling” of these Indigenous people was nothing short of genocide.
After the deaths of so many, the gap was filled with international enemies of the state, prisoners of war and hard labour convicts, as Kazakh land became a vast prison for Russia’s convicted criminals. By 1959 Kazakhs were reduced to a mere 29 percent of the population of Kazakhstan.
Uzbekistan, its main competitor for native land claims in the region, has an estimated population of 17 million Indigenous Uzbeks. They now hold one sixth of the territory of the original Kazakhs. The average age of the Kazakh population is 31, up from 24 since 1989. However, the Uzbeks have only an average age of 25. This makes even the Australian Aboriginal average age seem old by comparison.
The Soviet government used these Indigenous people as guinea pigs for nuclear tests during the cold war, and their living areas are still dangerously radioactive today.
Most Kazakhs speak Russian now, but 99% also still speak their own indigenous language fluently, due to vast language recovery programs in recent years.
