History of Kazakhstan - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The history of Kazakhstan describes the human past in the Eurasia's largest segment of the steppe belt that was the home and crossroads for numerous human groups starting with extinct Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus

Sinanthropus

Sinanthropus is an archaic genus in the scientific classification system to which the early hominid fossils of Peking man and Lantian Man were once assigned. Both have now been reclassified as Homo erectus, and the genus Sinanthropus is disused....

1 mln - 800,000 in the Karatau Mountains

Karatau Mountains

The Karatau Mountains are located in southern Kazakhstan just north of the Syrdaria River, and they display a unique geomorphology. The name Karatau means Black Mountain in the Kazakh language...

, Caspian and Balkhash areas; Neanderthals 140 - 40 thousand years ago in the Karatau Mountains and Central Kazakhstan, and the arrival of the modern Homo Sapiens 40 - 12 thousand years ago in the Southern, Central, and Eastern Kazakhstan. After the end of the Last glacial period, 12.5 - 5 thousand years ago campsites spread across the whole of Kazakhstan, eventually leading to extinction of large animals (mammoth, woolly rhinoceros). The hunter-gatherer communes invented bow and boats, and used domesticated wolf and traps for hunting, developed Atbasar archeological culture. Around 5 thousand years ago in the process of Neolithic Revolution

Neolithic Revolution

The Neolithic Revolution was the first agricultural revolution. It was the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture and settlement. Archaeological data indicates that various forms of plants and animal domestication evolved independently in 6 separate locations worldwide circa...

appeared animal husbandry and agriculture, which formed the Atbasar, Kelteminar, Botai, Mokanjar, Ust-Narym, and other archeological cultures. The Botai culture

Botai culture

Botai Culture is termed Eneolithic . It was named by settlement Botai in Aqmola Province of Kazakhstan. The Botai culture has two other large sites: Krasnyi Yar, and Vasilkovka....

(3600-3100 BCE) is credited with the first domestication of horses. In the course of the Neolithic Revolution. ceramics and polished stone tools appeared, found spread across Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...

steppe

Steppe

In physical geography, steppe is an ecoregion, in the montane grasslands and shrublands and temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biomes, characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes...

s, river valleys, and mountains. The 4th - 3rd millenniums witnessed the beginning of metal production, manufacture of copper tools, and use of casting molds. Up to 100 sites were found with copper casting shops. In the 2nd millennium, ore mining developed in Central Kazakhstan, pastoral animal husbandry appeared and spread, and horse nomadic economy became a developed technology as a viable production method in the Eurasian steppes.

The change of climatic conditions forced massive relocations of populations in and out of the steppe belt. The aridization period that lasted for a millennium from the end of the 2nd millennium to the beginning of the 1st millennium BCE caused depopulation of the arid belts and river valley oasis areas, their population moved north to the forest-steppe zone. New populations migrated in with the end of the arid period in the beginning of the 1st millennia BCE, repopulating abandoned areas by inflows from the west and from the east, creating symbiotic societies that started forming in the 7th century BCE. In the 3rd c. BCE the arising Hunnic Empire

Hunnic Empire

The Hunnic Empire was an empire established by the Huns. The Huns were a confederation of Eurasian tribes from the steppes of Central Asia. Appearing from beyond the Volga River some years after the middle of the 4th century, they first overran the Alani, who occupied the plains between the Volga...

covered the whole of Kazakhstan among its territories, starting the Kazakhstan historical period. Soon after its creation,the Hunnic Empire absorbed 26 independent possessions, uniting various steppe and forest peoples into a single state. After the demise of the Eastern Hunnic Empire, the Tele people of Kazakhstan, known in Chinese annals as Tiele

Tiele

Tiele may refer to:*Tiele people, an ancient people of Central Asia*Tiele, Mali, commune and town*Cornelis Petrus Tiele...

, formed tribal unions that became a coveted attraction for the Hunnic successors, but they generally retained independence of their unions. In the 6th c. CE the people of Kazakhstan were again absorbed into the new political state, the Turkic Kaganate

Göktürks

The Göktürks or Kök Türks, were a nomadic confederation of peoples in medieval Inner Asia. Known in Chinese sources as 突厥 , the Göktürks under the leadership of Bumin Qaghan The Göktürks or Kök Türks, (Old Turkic: Türük or Kök Türük or Türük; Celestial Turks) were a nomadic confederation of...

, that controlled approximately the same area as the Eastern Hunnic Empire. Subsequently, large portions of Kazakhstan were ruled in sequence by the Uigur and Kirgiz

Yenisei Kirghiz

The Yenisei Kirghiz, also known as the Khyagas or Khakas, were an ancient people that dwelled along the upper Yenisei River in the southern portion of the Minusinsk Depression from the 3rd century BCE to the 13th century CE...

Kaganates

Khagan

Khagan or qagan , alternatively spelled kagan, khaghan, qaghan, or chagan, is a title of imperial rank in the Mongolian and Turkic languages equal to the status of emperor and someone who rules a khaganate...

. During the Early Middle Ages, a number of independent states also flourished in Kazakhstan, the best known being Kangar union

Kangar union

Kangar union, was a Turkic state in the territory of the entire modern Kazakhstan without Zhetysu. The ethnic name Kangar is a medieval name for the Kangly people, who are now part of the Kazakh, Uzbek, and Karakalpak nations...

, Oghuz Yabgu State

Oghuz Yabgu State

Oguz Yabgu State , was a Turkic state, founded by Oguz Turks in 766 CE, located geographically in an area between the east coasts of Hazar Sea and Aral Sea...

, and Kara-Khanid Kaganate

Kara-Khanid Khanate

The Kara-Khanid Khanate was a confederation of Turkic tribes ruled by a dynasty known in literature as the Karakhanids or Ilek Khanids, . Both dynastic names represent titles with Kara Kağan being the most important Turkish title up till the end of the dynasty.The Khanate ruled Transoxania in...

. In the 13th c. Kazakhstan fell into a dominion of the Mongol Empire

Mongol Empire

The Mongol Empire , initially named as Greater Mongol State was a great empire during the 13th and 14th centuries...

, and remained in the sphere of the Mongol successor states till the New Time. Starting in the 16th c. parts of Kazakhstan were annexed by the Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

, and what remained was gradually absorbed into Russian Turkestan

Russian Turkestan

Russian Turkestan was the western part of Turkestan within the Russian Empire , comprising the oasis region to the south of the Kazakh steppes, but not the protectorates of the Emirate of Bukhara and the Khanate of Khiva.-History:-Establishment:Although Russia had been pushing south into the...

, starting in 1867. The modern Republic of Kazakhstan was separated into a new political entity during the Soviet subdivision of the Russian Turkestan
Russian Turkestan
Russian Turkestan was the western part of Turkestan within the Russian Empire , comprising the oasis region to the south of the Kazakh steppes, but not the protectorates of the Emirate of Bukhara and the Khanate of Khiva.-History:-Establishment:Although Russia had been pushing south into the...

in the 1930s.

Prehistory

Humans have inhabited present-day Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan

since the earliest Stone Age

Stone Age

The Stone Age is a broad prehistoric period, lasting about 2.5 million years , during which humans and their predecessor species in the genus Homo, as well as the earlier partly contemporary genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus, widely used exclusively stone as their hard material in the...

, generally pursuing the nomadic pastoralism for which the region's climate and terrain are best suited. Prehistoric Bronze Age

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...

cultures that extended onto Kazakh

Kazakhs

The Kazakhs are a Turkic people of the northern parts of Central Asia ....

territory include the Srubna culture

Srubna culture

The Srubna culture , was a Late Bronze Age culture. It is a successor to the Yamna culture, the Pit Grave culture and the Poltavka culture....

, the Afanasevo culture

Afanasevo culture

The Afanasevo culture, traditionally dated to 2500–2000 BC , is an archaeological culture of the late copper and early Bronze Age of southern Siberia....

and the Andronovo culture

Andronovo culture

The Andronovo culture, is a collection of similar local Bronze Age cultures that flourished ca. 21200–1400 BCE in western Siberia and the west Asiatic steppe. It is probably better termed an archaeological complex or archaeological horizon...

. Between 500 BC and 500 AD, Kazakhstan was home to the early nomadic warrior cultures: the Saka

Saka

The Saka were a Scythian tribe or group of tribes....

and the Huns

Huns

The Huns were a group of nomadic people who, appearing from east of the Volga River, migrated into Europe c. AD 370 and established the vast Hunnic Empire there. Since de Guignes linked them with the Xiongnu, who had been northern neighbours of China 300 years prior to the emergence of the Huns,...

Early history

The earliest well-documented state in the region was the Turkic Kaganate, or Gokturk, Köktürk state, established by the Ashina

Ashina

Ashina was a tribe and the ruling dynasty of the ancient Turks who rose to prominence in the mid-6th century when their leader, Bumin Khan, revolted against the Rouran...

clan, which came into existence in the 6th century AD. The Qarluq

Qarluq

The Karluks were a prominent nomadic Turkic tribe residing in the regions of Kara-Irtysh and the Tarbagatai Mountains west of the Altay Mountains...

s, a confederation of Turkic

Turkic peoples

The Turkic peoples are peoples residing in northern, central and western Asia, southern Siberia and northwestern China and parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds...

tribes, established a state in what is now eastern Kazakhstan in 766. In the 8th and 9th centuries, portions of southern Kazakhstan were conquered by Arabs, who introduced Islam

Islam

Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

. The Oghuz Turks

Oghuz Turks

The Turkomen also known as Oghuz Turks were a historical Turkic tribal confederation in Central Asia during the early medieval Turkic expansion....

controlled western Kazakhstan from the 9th through the 11th centuries; the Kimak and Kipchak peoples, also of Turkic origin, controlled the east at roughly the same time. In turn the Cumans controlled western Kazakhstan roughly from the 1100s until the 1220s. The large central desert of Kazakhstan is still called Dashti-Kipchak, or the Kipchak Steppe. The capital (Astana) was home of a lot of Huns

Huns

and Saka

Saka

The Saka were a Scythian tribe or group of tribes....

.

In the late 9th century, the Qarluq state was destroyed by invaders who established the large Qarakhanid state, which occupied a region known as Transoxiana

Transoxiana

Transoxiana is the ancient name used for the portion of Central Asia corresponding approximately with modern-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, southern Kyrgystan and southwest Kazakhstan. Geographically, it is the region between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers...

, the area north and east of the Oxus River (the present-day Amu Darya), extending into what is now China. Beginning in the early 11th century, the Qarakhanids fought constantly among themselves and with the Seljuk Turks to the south. In the course of these conflicts, parts of present-day Kazakhstan shifted back and forth between the combatants. The Qarakhanids, who accepted Islam and the authority of the Arab Abbasid

Abbasid

The Abbasid Caliphate or, more simply, the Abbasids , was the third of the Islamic caliphates. It was ruled by the Abbasid dynasty of caliphs, who built their capital in Baghdad after overthrowing the Umayyad caliphate from all but the al-Andalus region....

caliph

Caliph

The Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the ruler of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah. It is a transcribed version of the Arabic word which means "successor" or "representative"...

s of Baghdad

Baghdad

Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...

during their dominant period, were conquered in the 1130s by the Kara-Khitan, a Mongol confederation from eastern Mongolia

Mongolia

Mongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest...

. In the mid-12th century, an independent state of Khorazm along the Oxus River broke away from the weakening Karakitai, but the bulk of the Kara-Khitan lasted until the Mongol invasion

Mongol invasion of Central Asia

The Mongol invasion of Central Asia occurred after the unification of the Mongol and Turkic tribes on Mongolian plateau in 1206. It finally completed when Genghis Khan conquered the Khwarizmian Empire in 1221....

of Genghis Khan

Genghis Khan

Genghis Khan , born Temujin and occasionally known by his temple name Taizu , was the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death....

in 1219–1221.

After the Mongol capture of the Kara-Khitan, Kazakhstan fell under the control of a succession of rulers of the Mongolian Golden Horde

Golden Horde

The Golden Horde was a Mongol and later Turkicized khanate that formed the north-western sector of the Mongol Empire...

, the western branch of the Mongol Empire

Mongol Empire

The Mongol Empire , initially named as Greater Mongol State was a great empire during the 13th and 14th centuries...

. The horde, or jüz
Jüz
A jüz is one of the three main territorial divisions in the Kypchak Plain area that covers much of the contemporary Kazakhstan. Variably, a jüz is believed to be a confederation or alliance of Kazakh nomads...

, is the precursor of the present-day clan. By the early 15th century, the ruling structure had split into several large groups known as khanate

Khanate

Khanate, or Chanat, is a Turco-Mongol-originated word used to describe a political entity ruled by a Khan. In modern Turkish, the word used is kağanlık, and in modern Azeri of the republic of Azerbaijan, xanlıq. In Mongolian the word khanlig is used, as in "Khereidiin Khanlig" meaning the Khanate...

s, including the Nogai Horde

Nogai Horde

The Nogai Horde was a confederation of about eighteen Turkic and Mongol tribes that occupied the Pontic-Caspian steppe from about 1500 until they were pushed west by the Kalmyks and south by the Russians in the 17th century. The Mongol tribe called the Manghits constituted a core of the Horde...

and the Uzbek Khanate.

Kazakh Khanate (1465–1731)

The Kazakh Khanate

Kazakh Khanate

Kazakh Khanate was a Kazakh state that existed in 1456-1847, located roughly on the territory of present-day Republic of Kazakhstan.-History:...

was founded in 1465 on the banks of Jetisu (literally means seven rivers) in the south eastern part of present Republic of Kazakhstan by Janybek Khan

Janybek Khan

----Janybek Khan was a co-leader of a new Kazakh Khanate, following a successful rebellion against the Uzbek Khan Abu'l-Khayr Khan in 1465 and 1466. Janybek's father was Baraq who was poisoned by emirs of the former White Horde...

and Kerei Khan. During the reign of Kasym Khan

Kasym Khan

Kasym Khan was the leader of the Kazakh Khanate from about 1511 to 1523.He was the son of Janybek who created the Kazakh Khanate by gaining their independence from Abu'l-Khayr Khan. Kasym khan is viewed as the first leader who united the Kazakh tribes, carrying on the line of the Golden...

(1511–1523), the Kazakh Khanate expanded considerably.

Kasym Khan

Kasym Khan

instituted the first Kazakh code of laws in 1520, called "Qasym Khannyn Qasqa Zholy" (Bright Road of Kasym Khan).

Other prominent Kazakh

Kazakhs

The Kazakhs are a Turkic people of the northern parts of Central Asia ....

khans included Haknazar Khan, Esim Khan, Tauke Khan

Tauke khan

Tauke Khan was a Kazakh khan of the Kazakh khanate.In 1652 after the death of Jangir khan, the son of Khan Esim, the ruler of Jungars Batyr had strengthened the military pressure on Kazakh khanate. Eventually he dies in 1670...

, and Ablai Khan.

The Kazakh Khanate did not always have a unified government. The Kazakhs

Kazakhs

The Kazakhs are a Turkic people of the northern parts of Central Asia ....

were traditionally divided into three parts – the Great jüz, Middle jüz

Middle Juz

Middle jüz is one of three main traditional divisions of the Kazakh nation. The other two are Great jüz and Little jüz.Middle jüz consists of six tribes. The tribes, in turn, are subdivided into clans, creating a hierarchical pyramid of affiliations. Some historians claim that Middle Juz have...

, and Little jüz. All zhuzes had to agree in order to have a common khan. In particular, in 1731 there was no strong Kazakh

Kazakhs

The Kazakhs are a Turkic people of the northern parts of Central Asia ....

leadership, and the three zhuzes were incorporated into the Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

one by one. At that point, the Kazakh Khanate ceased to exist.

The Kazakh Khanate is described in historical texts such as the Tarikh-i-Rashidi (1541–1545) by Muhammad Haidar Dughlat, and Zhamigi-at-Tavarikh (1598–1599) by Kadyrgali Kosynuli Zhalayir.

In the Russian Empire (1731–1917)

Russian traders and soldiers began to appear on the northwestern edge of Kazakh territory in the 17th century, when Cossacks established the forts that later became the cities of Yaitsk ( modern Oral

Oral, Kazakhstan

Oral , Uralsk in Russian, formerly known as Yaitsk , is a city in northwestern Kazakhstan, at the confluence of the Ural and Chogan Rivers close to the Russian border. As it is located on the western side of the Ural river, it is considered geographically in Europe. It has a population of 350,000...

) and Guryev (modern Atyrau

Atyrau

Atyrau , known as Guryev until 1991, is a city in Kazakhstan, and the capital of Atyrau Province. It is located at the mouth of the Ural River, 2700 kilometers west of Almaty and 350 kilometers east of the Russian city of Astrakhan. Other transliterations include Aterau, Atirau, Atyraw, Atyraou,...

). Russians were able to seize Kazakh territory because the khanates were preoccupied by Zunghar Oirats

Zunghar Khanate

The Zunghar Khanate was a nomadic power on the Eurasian steppe. It covered the area called Dzungaria and stretched from the west end of the Great Wall of China to present-day eastern Kazakhstan, and from present-day northern Kyrgyzstan to southern Siberia .In 1678 Galdan received from the Dalai...

, who in the late 16th century had begun to move into Kazakh territory from the east. Forced westward in what they call their Great Retreat

Great Retreat (disambiguation)

The Great Retreat refers to the period on the Western Front in 1914 between the Battle of the Frontiers and the First Battle of the Marne.The Great Retreat also refers to:...

, the Kazakhs were increasingly caught between the Kalmyks and the Russians. Two of Kazakh Hordes were depend of Oirat

Oirats

Oirats are the westernmost group of the Mongols who unified several tribes origin whose ancestral home is in the Altai region of western Mongolia. Although the Oirats originated in the eastern parts of Central Asia, the most prominent group today is located in the Republic of Kalmykia, a federal...

Huntaiji. In 1730 Abul Khayr, one of the khans of the Lesser Horde, sought Russian assistance. Although Abul Khayr's intent had been to form a temporary alliance against the stronger Kalmyks, the Russians gained permanent control of the Lesser Horde as a result of his decision. The Russians conquered the Middle Horde by 1798, but the Great Horde managed to remain independent until the 1820s, when the expanding Kokand

Kokand

Kokand is a city in Fergana Province in eastern Uzbekistan, at the southwestern edge of the Fergana Valley. It has a population of 192,500 . Kokand is 228 km southeast of Tashkent, 115 km west of Andijan, and 88 km west of Fergana...

Khanate

to the south forced the Great Horde khans to choose Russian protection, which seemed to them the lesser of two evils.

The colonization of Kazakhstan by Russia was slowed down by numerous uprisings and wars in 19th century. For example, uprisings of Isatay Taymanuly and Makhambet Utemisuly in 1836 - 1838 and the war led by Eset Kotibaruli in 1847 - 1858 were one of such events of anti-colonial resistance.

In 1863, Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

elaborated a new imperial policy, announced in the Gorchakov Circular, asserting the right to annex "troublesome" areas on the empire's borders. This policy led immediately to the Russian conquest of the rest of Central Asia and the creation of two administrative districts, the General-Gubernatorstvo (Governor-General

Governor-General

A Governor-General, is a vice-regal person of a monarch in an independent realm or a major colonial circonscription. Depending on the political arrangement of the territory, a Governor General can be a governor of high rank, or a principal governor ranking above "ordinary" governors.- Current uses...

ship) of Russian Turkestan

Russian Turkestan

and that of the Steppe

Steppe

. Most of present-day Kazakhstan was in the Steppe District, and parts of present-day southern Kazakhstan, including Almaty

Almaty

Almaty , also known by its former names Verny and Alma-Ata , is the former capital of Kazakhstan and the nation's largest city, with a population of 1,348,500...

(Verny), were in the Governor-Generalship.

In the early 19th century, the construction of Russian forts began to have a destructive effect on the Kazakh traditional economy by limiting the once-vast territory over which the nomadic tribes could drive their herds and flocks. The final disruption of nomadism began in the 1890s, when many Russian settlers were introduced into the fertile lands of northern and eastern Kazakhstan. In 1906, the Trans-Aral Railway

Trans-Aral Railway

The broad gauge Trans-Aral Railway was built in 1906 connecting Orenburg and Tashkent, then both in the Russian Empire. For the first part of the 20th century it was the only railway-connection between European Russia and Central Asia.There were plans to construct the Orenburg-Tashkent line as...

between Orenburg

Orenburg

Orenburg is a city on the Ural River and the administrative center of Orenburg Oblast, Russia. It lies southeast of Moscow, very close to the border with Kazakhstan. Population: 546,987 ; 549,361 ; Highest point: 154.4 m...

and Tashkent

Tashkent

Tashkent is the capital of Uzbekistan and of the Tashkent Province. The officially registered population of the city in 2008 was about 2.2 million. Unofficial sources estimate the actual population may be as much as 4.45 million.-Early Islamic History:...

was completed, further facilitating Russian colonisation

Colonisation

Colonization occurs whenever any one or more species populate an area. The term, which is derived from the Latin colere, "to inhabit, cultivate, frequent, practice, tend, guard, respect", originally related to humans. However, 19th century biogeographers dominated the term to describe the...

of the fertile lands of Semirechie. Between 1906 and 1912, more than a half-million Russian farms were started as part of the reforms of Russian minister of the interior Petr Stolypin, putting immense pressure on the traditional Kazakh way of life by occupying grazing land and using scarce water resources. The administrator for Turkestan (current Kazakhstan) Vasile Balabanov was responsible for the Russian resettlement during this time.

Starving and displaced, many Kazakhs joined in the general Central Asian Revolt against conscription into the Russian imperial army, which the tsar

Tsar

Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...

ordered in July 1916 as part of the effort against Germany in World War I. In late 1916, Russian forces brutally suppressed the widespread-armed resistance to the taking of land and conscription of Central Asians. Thousands of Kazakhs were killed, and thousands of others fled to China and Mongolia

Mongolia

.
Many Kazakhs and Russian fought the communist takeover and resisted their control until 1920.

The Alash Autonomy (1917–1920)

In 1917 a group of secular nationalists called the Alash Orda

Alash Orda

Alash Orda was the name of the provisional Kazakh government between 13 December 1917 and 26 August 1920.The Alash Party proclaimed the autonomy of the Kazakh people in December 1917. Membership consists from 25 members and 15 member candidates...

Horde of Alash, named for a legendary founder of the Kazakh people, attempted to set up an independent national government – the Alash Autonomy

Alash Autonomy

Alash Autonomy was a state that existed between December 13, 1917 and August 26, 1920, located roughly on the territory of present day Republic of Kazakhstan. The capital city was Semey ....

. This state lasted just over two years (December 13, 1917 to August 26, 1920) before surrendering to the Bolshevik

Bolshevik

The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....

authorities, who then sought to preserve Russian control under a new political system.

During this period, the Russian administrator Vasile Balabanov had control much of the time with General Dootoff.

In the Soviet Union (1920–1991)

The Kyrgyz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was set up in 1920 and was renamed the Kazakh Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1925 when the Kazakhs were differentiated officially from the Kyrgyz. The Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

recognized the ethnic difference between the two groups; it called them both Kyrgyz to avoid confusion between the terms Kazakh

Kazakhs

The Kazakhs are a Turkic people of the northern parts of Central Asia ....

and Cossack

Cossack

Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military communities in what is today Ukraine and Southern Russia inhabiting sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper and Don basins and who played an important role in the...

(both names originating from Turkic "free man".)

In 1925, the autonomous republic's original capital, Orenburg

Orenburg

possibly from Horn-(meaning corner) and Burg- (meaning Castle), was reincorporated into Russian territory. Almaty

Almaty

Almaty , also known by its former names Verny and Alma-Ata , is the former capital of Kazakhstan and the nation's largest city, with a population of 1,348,500...

(called Alma-Ata during the Soviet period), a provincial city in the far southeast, became the new capital. In 1936 the territory was made a full Soviet republic, the Kazakh SSR

Kazakh SSR

The Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic , also known as the Kazakh SSR for short, was one of republics that made up the Soviet Union.At in area, it was the second largest constituent republic in the USSR, after the Russian SFSR. Its capital was Alma-Ata . Today it is the independent state of...

, also called Kazakhstan. With an area of 2717300 km² (1,049,155.4 sq mi), the Kazakh SSR was the second largest constituent republic of the Soviet Union. From 1929 to 1934, during the period when Soviet leader Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

was trying to collectivize agriculture

Collectivisation in the USSR

Collectivization in the Soviet Union was a policy pursued under Stalin between 1928 and 1940. The goal of this policy was to consolidate individual land and labour into collective farms...

, Kazakhstan endured repeated famines, similar to the Holodomor

Holodomor

The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian SSR between 1932 and 1933. During the famine, which is also known as the "terror-famine in Ukraine" and "famine-genocide in Ukraine", millions of Ukrainians died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of...

in Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

, for which it may have provided a model, because peasants had slaughtered their livestock in protest against Soviet agricultural policy. In that period, over a million Kazakhs and 80 percent of the republic's livestock died. Thousands more Kazakhs tried to escape to China, although most starved in the attempt. Conquest

Robert Conquest

George Robert Ackworth Conquest CMG is a British historian who became a well-known writer and researcher on the Soviet Union with the publication in 1968 of The Great Terror, an account of Stalin's purges of the 1930s...

says that the application of party theory to the Kazakhs, and to a lesser extent to the other nomad peoples, amounted economically to the imposition by force of an untried stereotype on a functioning social order, with disastrous results. And in human terms it meant death and suffering proportionally even greater than in the Ukraine

Many European Soviet citizens and much of Russia's industry were relocated to Kazakhstan during World War II, when Nazi armies threatened to capture all the European industrial centers of the Soviet Union. Groups of Crimean Tatars

Crimean Tatars

Crimean Tatars or Crimeans are a Turkic ethnic group that originally resided in Crimea. They speak the Crimean Tatar language...

, Germans

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

and Muslims from the North Caucasus

North Caucasus

The North Caucasus is the northern part of the Caucasus region between the Black and Caspian Seas and within European Russia. The term is also used as a synonym for the North Caucasus economic region of Russia....

region were deported to Kazakhstan during the war because it was feared that they would collaborate with the enemy. Most Poles

Poles

thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...

(about a million) from Eastern Poland invaded by USSR in 1939 were deported to Kazakhstan. Half of them died there. Local people became famous for sharing their meager food with the starving strangers. Many more non-Kazakhs arrived in the years 1953–1965, during the so-called Virgin Lands Campaign

Virgin Lands Campaign

The Virgin Lands Campaign was an initiative by Nikita Khrushchev to open up vast tracts of unseeded steppe in the northern Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic and the Altay region of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, started in 1954....

of Soviet premier Nikita S. Khrushchev (in office from 1956 to 1964). Under that program, huge tracts of Kazakh grazing land were put to the plow for the cultivation of wheat

Wheat

Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...

and other cereal grains. Still more settlers came in the late 1960s and 1970s, when the government paid handsome bonuses to workers participating in a program to relocate Soviet industry close to the extensive coal, gas, and oil deposits of Central Asia. One consequence of the decimation of the nomadic Kazakh population and the in-migration of non-Kazakhs was that by the 1970s Kazakhstan was the only Soviet republic in which the eponymous nationality was a minority in its own republic.

Within the centrally controlled structure of the Soviet system, Kazakhstan played a vital industrial and agricultural role; the vast coal

Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...

deposits discovered in Kazakhstani territory in the twentieth century promised to replace the depleted fuel reserves in the European territories of the union. The vast distances between the European industrial centers and coalfields in Kazakhstan presented a formidable problem that was only partially solved by Soviet efforts to industrialize Central Asia. That endeavor left the newly independent Republic of Kazakhstan a mixed legacy: a population that includes nearly as many Russians as Kazakhs; the presence of a dominating class of Russian technocrats, who are necessary to economic progress but ethnically unassimilated; and a well-developed energy industry, based mainly on coal and oil, whose efficiency is inhibited by major infrastructural deficiencies.

Republic of Kazakhstan (1991–present)

On December 16, 1986, the Soviet Politburo dismissed the long serving General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan, Dinmukhamed Konayev. His successor was Gennady Kolbin

Gennady Kolbin

Gennady Kolbin was the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakh SSR from December 16, 1986 to June 22, 1989.Kolbin had not worked in the Kazakh SSR prior to his appointment...

from Ulyanovsk

Ulyanovsk

Ulyanovsk The city is the birthplace of Vladimir Lenin , for whom it is named.-History:Simbirsk was founded in 1648 by the boyar Bogdan Khitrovo. The fort of "Simbirsk" was strategically placed on a hill on the Western bank of the Volga River...

, Russia. This caused demonstrations

Jeltoqsan

The Jeltoqsan or "December" of 1986 were riots that took place in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan in response to General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev's dismissal of Dinmukhamed Konayev, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan and an ethnic Kazakh, and the subsequent appointment of Gennady...

protesting this move. These demonstrations were violently suppressed by the authorities, "between two and twenty people lost their lives, and between 763 and 1137 received injuries. Between 2212 and 2336 demonstrators were arrested". Also Kolbin prepared to unleash a purge within the Communist Youth League against any sympathisers, these moves were halted by Moscow. Later, in September 1989, Kolbin was replaced with a Kazakh, Nursultan Nazarbayev

Nursultan Nazarbayev

Nursultan Abishuly Nazarbayev has served as the President of Kazakhstan since the nation received its independence in 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union...

.

In June 1990, Moscow declared formally the sovereignty of the central government over Kazakhstan, forcing Kazakhstan to elaborate its own statement of sovereignty. This exchange greatly exacerbated tensions between the republic's two largest ethnic groups, who at that point were numerically about equal. Beginning in mid-August 1990, Kazakh and Russian nationalists began to demonstrate frequently around Kazakhstan's parliament building, attempting to influence the final statement of sovereignty being developed within. The statement was adopted in October 1990.

In keeping with practices in other republics at that time, the parliament had named Nazarbayev its chairman, and then, soon afterward, it had converted the chairmanship to the presidency of the republic. In contrast to the presidents of the other republics, especially those in the independence-minded Baltic states

Baltic states

The term Baltic states refers to the Baltic territories which gained independence from the Russian Empire in the wake of World War I: primarily the contiguous trio of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania ; Finland also fell within the scope of the term after initially gaining independence in the 1920s.The...

, Nazarbayev remained strongly committed to the perpetuation of the Soviet Union throughout the spring and summer of 1991. He took this position largely because he considered the republics too interdependent economically to survive separation. At the same time, however, Nazarbayev fought hard to secure republic control of Kazakhstan's enormous mineral wealth and industrial potential. This objective became particularly important after 1990, when it was learned that Gorbachev had negotiated an agreement with Chevron

Chevron Corporation

Chevron Corporation is an American multinational energy corporation headquartered in San Ramon, California, United States and active in more than 180 countries. It is engaged in every aspect of the oil, gas, and geothermal energy industries, including exploration and production; refining,...

, an American oil company, to develop Kazakhstan's Tengiz oil fields

Tengiz Field

Tengiz field is an oil and gas field located in northwestern Kazakhstan's low-lying wetlands along the northeast shores of the Caspian Sea...

. Gorbachev did not consult Nazarbayev until talks were nearly complete. At Nazarbayev's insistence, Moscow surrendered control of the republic's mineral resources in June 1991. Gorbachev's authority crumbled rapidly throughout 1991. Nazarbayev, however, continued to support him, persistently urging other republic leaders to sign the revised Union Treaty, which Gorbachev had put forward in a last attempt to hold the Soviet Union together.

Because of the coup attempted by Moscow hardliners against the Gorbachev government in August 1991, the Union Treaty never was signed. Ambivalent about the removal of Gorbachev, Nazarbayev did not condemn the coup attempt until its second day. However, once the incompetence of the plotters became clear, Nazarbayev threw his weight solidly behind Gorbachev and continuation of some form of union, largely because of his conviction that independence would be economic suicide.

At the same time, however, Nazarbayev pragmatically began preparing his republic for much greater freedom, if not for actual independence. He appointed professional economists and managers to high posts, and he began to seek the advice of foreign development and business experts. The outlawing of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan

Communist Party of Kazakhstan

The Communist Party of Kazakhstan is a political party in Kazakhstan. -Origin:The Communist Party of Kazakhstan was founded 1936 when Kazakhstan was granted a Union Republic status within the Soviet Union...

(CPK), which followed the attempted coup, also permitted Nazarbayev to take virtually complete control of the republic's economy, more than 90% of which had been under the partial or complete direction of the central Soviet government until late 1991. Nazarbayev solidified his position by winning an uncontested election for president in December 1991.

A week after the election, Nazarbayev became the president of an independent state when the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus

Belarus

Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...

signed documents dissolving the Soviet Union. Nazarbayev quickly convened a meeting of the leaders of the five Central Asian states, thus effectively raising the specter of a "Turkic" confederation of former republics as a counterweight to the "Slavic" states (Russia, Ukraine and Belarus) in whatever federation might succeed the Soviet Union. This move persuaded the three Slavic presidents to include Kazakhstan among the signatories to a recast document of dissolution. Thus, the capital of Kazakhstan lent its name to the Alma-Ata Declaration, in which eleven of the fifteen Soviet republics announced the expansion of the thirteen-day-old CIS. On December 16, 1991, just five days before that declaration, Kazakhstan had become the last of the republics to proclaim its independence.

Kazakhstan has followed the same general political pattern as the other four Central Asian states. After declaring independence from the Soviet political structure completely dominated by Moscow and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Communist Party of the Soviet Union

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...

(CPSU) until 1991, Kazakhstan retained the basic governmental structure and, in fact, most of the same leadership that had occupied the top levels of power in 1990. Nursultan Nazarbayev

Nursultan Nazarbayev

Nursultan Abishuly Nazarbayev has served as the President of Kazakhstan since the nation received its independence in 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union...

, first secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan

Communist Party of Kazakhstan

(CPK) beginning in 1989, was elected president of the republic

President of Kazakhstan

President of Kazakhstan is the head of state, supreme commander-in-chief and holder of the highest office within the Kazakhstan. The authorities of this position are described in special section of Constitution of Kazakhstan....

in 1991 and remained in undisputed power five years later. Nazarbayev took several effective steps to ensure his position. The constitution

Constitution

A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is...

of 1993 made the prime minister and the Council of Ministers responsible solely to the president, and in 1995 a new constitution reinforced that relationship. Furthermore, opposition parties were severely limited by legal restrictions on their activities. Within that rigid framework, Nazarbayev gained substantial popularity by limiting the economic shock of separation from the security of the Soviet Union and by maintaining ethnic harmony in the highly diverse country with more than 100 different nationalities.

In the mid-1990s, Russia remained the most important sponsor of Kazakhstan in economic and national security matters, but in such matters Nazarbayev also backed the strengthening of the multinational structures of the Commonwealth of Independent States

Commonwealth of Independent States

The Commonwealth of Independent States is a regional organization whose participating countries are former Soviet Republics, formed during the breakup of the Soviet Union....

(CIS), the loose confederation that succeeded the Soviet Union. As sensitive ethnic, national security and economic issues cooled relations with Russia in the 1990s, Nazarbayev cultivated relations with the People's Republic of China, the other Central Asian nations, and the West. Nevertheless, Kazakhstan remains principally dependent on Russia.

Looking Forward

The Soviet Union's spaceport

Spaceport

A spaceport or cosmodrome is a site for launching spacecraft, by analogy with seaport for ships or airport for aircraft. The word spaceport, and even more so cosmodrome, has traditionally been used for sites capable of launching spacecraft into orbit around Earth or on interplanetary trajectories...

, now known as the Baikonur Cosmodrome

Baikonur Cosmodrome

The Baikonur Cosmodrome , also called Tyuratam, is the world's first and largest operational space launch facility. It is located in the desert steppe of Kazakhstan, about east of the Aral Sea, north of the Syr Darya river, near Tyuratam railway station, at 90 meters above sea level...

is located in Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan

at Tyuratam

Tyuratam

Tyuratam is a station on the main Moscow to Tashkent railway, located in Kazakhstan. The name is a word in the Kazakh language and means "Töre's grave"; Töre, or more formally, Töre-Baba, was a noble, a descendant of Genghis Khan...

, with the secret town of Leninsk

Baikonur

Baikonur , formerly known as Leninsk, is a city in Kyzylorda Province of Kazakhstan, rented and administered by the Russian Federation. It was constructed to service the Baikonur Cosmodrome and was officially renamed Baikonur by Russian president Boris Yeltsin on December 20, 1995.The shape of the...

being constructed to accommodate the workers of the Cosmodrome.

Current issues include: resolving ethnic differences; speeding up market reforms; establishing stable relations with Russia, China, and other foreign powers; and developing and expanding the country's abundant energy resources.

Footnotes

Hiro, Dilip, Between Marx and Muhammad: The Changing Face of Central Asia, Harper Collins, London, 1994, pp 112–3.

Mike Edwards: "Kazakhstan – Facing the nightmare" National Geographic Magazine

National Geographic Magazine

National Geographic, formerly the National Geographic Magazine, is the official journal of the National Geographic Society. It published its first issue in 1888, just nine months after the Society itself was founded...

March 1993

External links

History of Kazakhstan

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Prehistory

Early history

Kazakh Khanate (1465–1731)

In the Russian Empire (1731–1917)

The Alash Autonomy (1917–1920)

In the Soviet Union (1920–1991)

Republic of Kazakhstan (1991–present)

Looking Forward

See also

Footnotes

External links