Legitimacy and Nationalism in the Central Asian States: A Case of Kazakhstan in the Context of the War in Ukraine

This paper aims to analyze selected mechanisms accompanying the processes of national revival in the Central Asian republics after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The idea is to investigate the authorities’ actions, which legitimized themselves by appealing to national issues and controlling the processes of building national consciousness. The paper also covers the changes in the nationalist narrative in Kazakhstan in the context of the war in Ukraine, showing the tensions over national identities and loyalties. Some Kazakhs supported Russian aggression against Ukraine, to the great disappointment of national patriots, which has sparked a debate about how the “us” vs. “them” division should be understood in the face of war and a possible threat from Russia. Some participants in the debate question the reliability of equating national identity with loyalty to the state. In doing so, they challenge the government’s primordial narrative, in which nationality legitimizes or naturalizes the current configuration of political power.