Central Asia Comes Out of the Russian Shadow

In Central Asia, speaking the Russian language used to be a sign of education, high culture, and a marker of the upper class. Its mastery also presented more opportunities in terms of employment. For the region’s most well-educated and prosperous, Russian remained the primary language after the Soviet regime collapsed in 1991.

Now that Russia is fighting a genocidal war in Ukraine to capture territory and impose its identity on the Ukrainian people, speaking the Russian language has turned into a symbol of lasting colonial repression of local identities. Today, more Central Asians, especially in urban areas, are asking themselves: Why do we continue to speak the language of a neighboring country that once occupied us, and not our native languages?

The region’s search for language, historic memory, cultural heritage and – above all – dignity outside of Soviet propaganda started two decades ago, but until recently lived mostly among Central Asian scholars and civil society. In politically freer Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, activists, scholars, and art communities have notably rebelled against old Soviet notions of the region. Criticism of Russian imperialism has spilled over into the mainstream.

Especially in larger cities, numerous public events have openly called for rejecting Russian colonial stereotypes about Central Asian cultures. The topics of these discussions range from recasting Soviet occupation as violent colonialism, to learning to speak regional languages, to searching for indigenous traditions in attire and cuisine.

Decolonial discussions are omnipresent – at conferences, parties, and podcasts. Families grapple with memories of who they lost in the violence under the Soviets, who among their relatives in Russia might have been drafted to fight in Ukraine today, and why some within their communities still blindly believe the Kremlin’s propaganda. Across the region, people ask: Are we, without realizing it, mankurts – mindless slaves who suffered torture in captivity, as described by the famous Kyrgyz writer Chyngyz Aitmatov?

This process is difficult because for most Central Asians familial and national memories end with the Russian revolution of 1917 and the establishment of a totalitarian regime over the region. For over 70 years under Soviet rule, histories were written to support Moscow’s colonial propaganda. Three decades after the Soviet disintegration, Russia continues to expect loyalty from Central Asians. The Kremlin demands that countries broadcast its TV and radio channels, respect the Russian language, and participate in regional security and economic initiatives with Moscow.

Russian Colonialism in Central Asia

Central Asia includes five countries – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Prior to the Soviet period, tsarist Russia advanced into Central Asia beginning in the 18th century. Both tsarist and Soviet Russian regimes subjugated the local population and extracted resources, but the Soviets also violently codified local languages, cultures, and ethnic identities. Titular cultures were imposed top-down, with local folklore reinterpreted through Eurocentrism and Soviet totalitarian aesthetics.

For instance, like in other Soviet colonies, Moscow replaced local dance traditions in Central Asia with dances in concentric circles with synchronized moves. Scarce video records from the early 1920s show how nomadic dancing traditions were spontaneous and meditative prior to Soviet intervention. Similarly, traditional cuisine and attire was engineered – each titular ethnic group received a set of standardized “traditional” dishes and types of dress. Elaborate attires fitting different lifestyles, climate conditions, and social roles were simplified into one standard outfit for each Soviet Republic.

The Soviet regime saw Central Asian indigenous cultures, especially that of the nomads, as inferior to the culture of the settled Russified population. Russian colonial policies forced nomads to switch to sedentary lives and erased local religious practices. The Communist Party coerced Muslim women to remove their veils and integrate into the proletariat workforce. Cultural and political elites were purged, resistance harshly suppressed. Lenin and Stalin organized and reorganized the region into Soviet republics, drawing borders that eventually became the internationally recognized borders of Central Asia’s independent states in 1991.

Regional economies depended on Moscow’s extractive and redistributed policies. Central Asian cotton, natural gas, hydropower, and grains supported the Soviet economy, while Moscow sent manufactured and industrial products to Central Asia. Extractive policies kept the local population worse off than those in the metropole, and devastated the environment. The Aral Sea dried up in service to cotton irrigation. Kazakhstan served as a nuclear testing site. And Ysyk-Köl (a lake also known by its Russian name Issyk-Kul) in Kyrgyzstan was used to develop torpedoes.

Under the Soviets, Central Asians lost contacts with the outside world and grew increasingly alienated from each other. Within a decade in the 1920s, local scripts were first changed from Arabic to Latin and then to Cyrillic. Few schools offered education in native languages. In their own countries Central Asians were commonly referred to as nastionaly by Russians (“ethnics” in Russian). Almost no one among Russian settlers learned local languages.

Still today, Kremlin propaganda casts this colonial conquest as a modernizing and civilizing force in Central Asia.

When the Soviet regime collapsed, the past as most Central Asians knew it was mostly imaginative or had been constructed top-down by the Communist Party. The most lucid imagery of time begins following the death of Stalin. The most vivid memories among the survivors of the regime were from the 1970s.

Central Asians’ memories of cultural belonging vanished under the colonial settler’s regime. Especially in formerly nomadic cultures, most familial and tribal memories were passed down orally through generations. Except for bits and pieces of stories prior to 1917 in some families, almost everything was erased. Even those who were able to maintain oral knowledge can’t be fully certain of history. Patrimonial memory is significant, but most either can’t name or must imagine or recreate patrimonial lineage out to seven generations.

While ethnic majorities were deprived of their languages, minority languages died or are at the verge of extinction. The Oirat and Bukhori languages are almost non-existent today. The Chagatai and Kypchak languages died in the early 20th century. Minority groups like Karakalpaks and Pamiris have preserved their languages, but few books are available in translation. Also, many Central Asians share ancestry with Tatars, Turkish, Uyghurs, Chinese, Jewish, German, and other ethnic groups. None of their languages are widely spoken in the region today.

A century after the Soviet conquest, a typical Russified Central Asian has little knowledge of local authors (and can’t read in local languages anyway) but likely has read most Russian classical literature. A Central Asian speaking their own native language will likely try communicating in Russian with the Russian-speaking population.

Today’s search for identities in Central Asia counters the Soviet-era shame of being not Russian enough. Instead, it has morphed into the shame of not knowing, never discovering, one’s own roots. It’s no longer seen as backwards to yearn for one’s own language or revel in expressions of genuine local culture. It’s an act of anti-colonial resistance, a pathway of self-discovery, creating an inclusive space with all marginalized groups regardless of language, ethnicity or gender. These are fundamentally efforts to respect the ancestors and mourn those who perished in mass violence. It is Central Asia, healing.

Soviet Legacies

When the Soviet regime collapsed, Central Asian leaders were reluctant to see the union disintegrate. Kazakhstan was notoriously the last Soviet republic to recognize its own independence. The modern borders of the entire Central Asian region had been created less than a century earlier, by the Soviet regime. These borders purposefully cut across ethnic groups and densely populated areas in the Fergana Valley. Because the Soviets tried to create homogenized ethnic republics in a deeply heterogenous area without stable ethnic identities, borders shifted until the late 1930s.

Different maps reflecting the continuous reshaping of borders, especially in the 1920s, are a source of disputes among Central Asian countries today. In the 1990s, Uzbekistan laid landmines in disputed areas with Tajikistan, causing casualties among the civilian population. In 2021 and 2022, the militaries of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan clashed over their disputed border areas. Dozens of people died as a result and over 100,000 had to temporarily flee their homes.

To fill the void left by Soviet Communist ideology, Central Asian leaders promulgated top-down ideologies of their own about the newly created independent states. Post-Soviet ideologies focused on nurturing new identities without communism. Ironically, these new ideas still glorified their nations’ past within the limits previously permitted under the Soviet regime. In Kyrgyzstan, the leadership focused on the Manas epic, in Uzbekistan on the dynasty of Amir Timur, and Tajikistan on Ismoil Somoni. Kazakhstan under President Nursultan Nazarbayev also constructed a glorious future built on a glorious past. In Turkmenistan, the leaders focused on their own personalities.

The state-driven ideologies of the 1990s included the mass renaming of major streets and cities from Soviet revolutionaries to these state-approved national heroes. Manas, Amir Timur, Somoni, and Abay entered the vernacular. All ideologies in the newly independent Central Asian states centered around the ethnic majority while still promoting a Soviet relic – the “friendship of the people,” which presumed that minority ethnic groups lived harmoniously with the majority group. They lacked imagination and complexity.

Few in Central Asia truly felt much enthusiasm around such top-down post-Soviet ideals of nationhood. In the 1990s, the Kyrgyz government invested into celebrating the Manas epic, but only the Kyrgyz speaking population were inspired to learn more. In Tajikistan, President Emomali Rahmon grew more self-centered in the 2000s, after the country’s five-year civil war. New leaders in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan in the past few years have tried to move away from their predecessors’ ideals. Over time, the initial state ideologies have lost their significance for a large swath of the regional population.

Decolonial Trends, Pushback and Progress

As the era of state ideologies faded in the 2010s, diverse and spontaneous discussions on identities emerged. The war in Ukraine and the lack of a large anti-war movement among Russians fuels decolonial thinking as being against the Russian imperial legacy.

Today, decolonial discourse transcends the ethnic majority group and captures Russified Central Asians, ethnic minorities, and a few ethnic Russians, too. Language learning clubs include students from all of these different backgrounds. The exploration of cultural and linguistic heritage is turning into a political idea – what defines the nation. Russified Central Asians feel the pain of the Ukrainians. But most discussions between activists from different countries take place in Russian, a shared language. These discussions take place across borders in Central Asia and with Ukrainian scholars, but now without Russia.

Decolonial discussion and practices confront the shame of looking like an under-Russified indigenous person and seek to gain a sense of a more genuine self. It’s a revising of one’s own relationship with culture, language, and with Russianness; its result is seeing non-Russified Central Asians as better carriers of indigenous culture. Shedding the shame of not looking Russified and integrating heritage culture into everyday lives. The decolonial process is a liberating practice.

There is a generational shift occurring in Central Asia as well. Over the past three decades many Soviet stereotypes persisted; Russification passed as civilized. Those questioning the unequal status of local languages and culture were seen as nationalist, xenophobic, or provincial. Such views are more marginal now and if voiced in public, are likely to be countered or debated rather than blindly accepted.

For Russia, such initiatives challenge its foreign policy stance as the inevitable and most important partner in the Central Asian region. Previously Russian embassy personnel in Central Asia openly challenged any criticism of Russia. Russia lobbies to install its envoys in the region to head local offices of intergovernmental organizations such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and U.N. offices. With post-colonial initiatives proliferating across the region, as well as grassroots support of Ukrainians, the Kremlin is losing its influence.

And yet, many in Central Asia still see Russian colonialism in a positive light. Older generations and migrants working in Russia see the Soviet regime as playing a modernizing role in Central Asia. Without the Soviets, the usual narrative goes, the Central Asian region would lack universal education, industry, and access to the rest of the world. Such perspectives internalize Russian colonial ideology, which presents Russian culture as a gift of greatness.

Polls in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan demonstrate that less than half of the population condemns the Russian war in Ukraine, and a large percentage is undecided about their views. A Russophile in Central Asia can agree that the war in Ukraine is brutal and the Soviet Union brought many tragedies, but at the same time praise Russia for its geopolitical strength and miss life in the Soviet regime. Many Central Asians left Russia for fear of being recruited into the war effort. Nevertheless, remaining labor migrants in Russia and their families can share favorable views of Russia despite it all.

Months before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a group of researchers from the Esimde research institute traveled to now embattled Kherson, to work with local archives containing records of imprisoned Kyrgyz under Stalin. Esimde found from its oral history project that families who lost their members in Stalin’s purge can despite the tragedy still be proud of their own achievements in the Soviet system. Accepting the violent past of Soviet regime means also questioning own role in perpetrating it.

Russia’s imperial innocence, as argued by historian Botakoz Kassymbekova, allows Russia to wage genocidal wars – past and present – without a sense of collective responsibility. But for former colonies, the sense of greatness of Russian culture also comes with the erasure of histories of local resistance against Bolsheviks and the indigenous forms of governance developed over centuries.

Here again, erasure of historic memory explains continuing loyalty to Russia.

Ruling regimes allow a reexamination of the past when it doesn’t challenge the power of the incumbents; that power is rooted in the Soviet legacy. In Kazakhstan, for example, the state allows discussion of the great famine Asharshylyk in the 1920s and early 1930s that took the lives of roughly 40 percent of the population. In Kyrgyzstan, the state is open to discussion of the Kyrgyz who fled to China in 1916, escaping the Russian tsar’s draft into World War I. The exodus known as Ürkün resulted in extensive deaths and suffering, eventually forcing many to return to their homeland. Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has highlighted how the jadids, a local insurgent movement, resisted the advance of the Bolsheviks in the 19th century.

Such revisions allow the incumbent regimes to call upon a sense of national unity and narratives of resilience. But the regimes continue to keep Soviet archives, those containing decolonial discussions, sealed. It’s easier to keep the status quo than to step into the unknown; better to keep the lid on Pandora’s box closed.

Despite the headwinds, there is a decolonial awakening taking place in Central Asia. It’s not unique; conversations are taking place across the territories formerly occupied by Soviet Russia. But the process differs across countries and regions depending on the extent of Soviet erasure of local cultural memory. Indigenous cultures were able to better survive in countries that preserved their pre-Soviet cultural heritage. The Baltic states, occupied the least amount of time, were able to preserve their languages. Georgia and Armenia were able to retain their alphabets, vast culinary traditions, and local cultivation practices. The grassroots memories of lives lived before the Soviets bind these communities more tightly together today.

Even though decolonial discussions are most visible in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, this wave of self-reflection will eventually reach other parts of Central Asia as well. In politically closed countries, such discussions mostly take place in private spaces and among the diasporas. The emancipation of the mind is met with resistance, however. Those who supported Russia before have become even more attached to an idealized version of the Soviet past.

Like elsewhere in the post-colonial world, old colonialism is replaced with other hegemonies. Central Asians create new rituals with elements of existing traditions but embellished in a fantasized images of the past. The search for religious practices, traditions, national art, attire, and food meets capitalism. More stores offer traditional clothing and art galleries showcase local talent. Bazaars sell locally made tchotchkes. Ikat, suzani, and shyrdak have become fashionable décor in public and private spaces.

The marketplace has also transformed to meet the demand of practicing Muslims. Religious literature, halal food, and headscarves for women are widely available. More creative marketing of religion includes improvised religious medicine and prosperity manuals. Private, sometimes underground, schools offer religious education separately for girls and boys. Market forces reinvented life cycle celebrations and rituals. Families race to appease communal expectations, and some go into debt to organize lavish weddings, kyz uzatuu (a bride sendoff ceremony), and funerals. East Asian, European, and America popular cultures now overshadow Russian influences.

The Colonial Roots of Violence in Central Asia

With the new post-colonial awakening in Central Asia, most of the work has taken place in society. The ruling regimes are lagging behind in the search for new identities, as mentioned above. The region’s autocratic leaders have instead focused on reproducing and creating new instruments of oppression. None of the incumbent leaders in Central Asia is likely to leave through elections. Instead, power transfers will continue to take place because of death, inheritance, coups, and mass demonstrations.

In consolidating their own power, the region’s ruling regimes leverage colonial legacies. Sources of authoritarianism implanted in the colonial period include the modern states’ politicized and robust security apparatuses. Under the Soviets, the police and intelligence services had centralized control and a decentralized pretense across the Soviet territory. The Soviet security apparatus lacked oversight mechanisms and was above all loyal to the ruler. Torture routines against civilians first instituted under Stalin continued throughout the Soviet period. All suspects were guilty until proven innocent under Soviet rule. Still today the acquittal rate is low in Central Asia. Instead of investigating crimes, law enforcement agencies continue to force confessions. Torture almost always goes unpunished.

Decolonial discussions draw parallels between the oppressive tactics of Central Asia’s contemporary rulers and the Soviet machine. In Kazakhstan, the protests in January 2022 coincided with already heightened public interest in reexamining Stalin’s atrocities. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev first brutally suppressed the street protests, then violence continued in detention facilities. Regime critics compare the killings and torture under Tokayev to the actions of the Gestapo and People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs during the Soviet period.

On a regional level, Russia expects and extorts loyalty from Central Asians. Its regional security alliance, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) focuses on supporting the incumbent regimes above all else. Tokayev was able to preserve power in January 2022 in part thanks to Russia’s agreement to send CSTO troops to Kazakhstan.

Russia has also used Central Asian migrants to leverage its influence in the region. Roughly 10 million labor migrants from Central Asia work in Russia. Facing shortages of manpower in the war in Ukraine, the Russian government expanded its carrot and stick approach: offering expedited citizenship in exchange for military service, while also tightening up the migration regime by introducing additional taxation to employers relying on immigrant work. Openly racist views about migrants are a norm among Russian politicians; they often accuse Central Asians of not appreciating Russian culture. Such measures inevitably force more migrants into the informal economy, where there are fewer protection mechanisms against violations by employers and law enforcement.

Since mid-2022, Central Asian men have been recruited en mass to fight in Ukraine or support Russian troops by digging trenches and collecting dead bodies. The shadowy tactics of the Wagner private military company in recruiting Central Asians from prisons in Russia and directly from their homelands set a new pattern for Russia’s abuse of citizens of other nations for its foreign policy objectives.

In the early months of the invasion in February 2022, mostly labor migrants were called for contract-based service with Russian forces. Some migrants were grabbed by the police in public spaces to be recruited into the armed forces. Some were offered Russian citizenship in exchange for military service; others were tortured until they signed enlistment papers. Still others were tricked into signing agreements to enlist when applying for work permits and thereby “volunteered” to join Wagner. Those who refused to join the war effort faced the risk of deportation. Except for the Islamic State’s recruitment in the mid 2010s, Russia’s invasion in Ukraine is the largest foreign war where Central Asians are deployed.

In the past, Russia tried to call upon Central Asian support for military operations in Syria. Around 2016, Russia called for CSTO member states to contribute to “peacekeeping” efforts in Syria. But at the time both Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan rejected any possibility of sending troops to Syria. Central Asian governments remain quiet about the number of current or former citizens forcefully recruited by Russia into the Ukraine war, but the authorities have repeatedly cautioned their citizens to not join the fight in Ukraine. The governments of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan have warned that joining a foreign military group is illegal for their citizens. Kyrgyzstan’s parliament is trying to extradite some inmates from Russia to prevent them from being recruited by Wagner.

Dozens of bodies of inmates recruited by Wagner, and killed in Ukraine have been delivered to the Central Asian countries. Some died fighting in major battlefield zones like Bakhmut or Mariupol, while others died while deployed to support roles in occupied territories. Dozens more have gone missing either while deployed in Ukraine or while still in jail in Russia, with their families suspecting they were recruited or coerced into the war effort. Residents living in proximity to mass graves of Wagner’s fighters found several graves of Central Asians as well. Most of them died since October 2022.

Russia’s recruitment of Central Asians takes place amid increased efforts by Russia to keep the region loyal to its geopolitical ambitions. Top Russian officials have been visiting Central Asia with higher frequency since the start of the war, including several in-person meetings and phone calls between President Vladimir Putin and his Central Asian counterparts. Despite that, Central Asian leaders have abstained from openly supporting Russia’s invasion in Ukraine and even have withdrawn from some regional initiatives, including CSTO exercises. With some exceptions, the incumbent regimes, however, also prefer to control grassroots public demonstrations against Russia’s war and in support of Ukraine.

Radical Decoloniality

Now that many in Central Asia agree the Soviet regime was a colonial oppressor and not a benevolent power, what does it mean for the region and its peoples?

The decolonial processes taking place in the region today won’t solve the ultimate dilemma of the post-colonial world – nurturing grassroots self-determination within externally created borders, government institutions, and economies. To genuinely find one’s self, former colonial subjects must also rethink their internationally recognized colonial legacies.

Decolonial discussions and practices, as well as the search for new identities, are still confined within the political borders established by the Soviets. Most physical state borders in the region are less than a century old. Central Asian countries and places within in them are internationally known by their Russified names. Kazakhstan is closer to the Russian pronunciation than Qazaqstan in Kazakh. Gorno-Badakhshan is Badaxşon in Tajik.

A genuinely radical idea in Central Asia is to rethink and reshape the current borders of the region. Holding onto Soviet ethnonyms, to the borders and words laid down by the Soviets, ensures the perpetuation of Soviet-envisioned versions of Central Asian identities. But it’s traitorous, in the eyes of conservatives at least, to look beyond the current nation-state architecture.

Violently imposed borders are common in the post-colonial world. But unlike countries in Africa and South Asia, the population in Central Asia also lives with a deep historical amnesia. Unlike the Ukrainians, Central Asians lack a diaspora in the West that was able to preserve cultural heritage under the conditions of true political freedom. Turkic people in western China are notoriously oppressed under Beijing’s own colonial regime, while in Afghanistan both Turkic groups and Tajiks have suffered from decades of imperial wars.

Central Asia’s future is uncertain: Will societies emerge more divided along different identities or ever more united as a region? One outcome is certain, however; grassroots initiatives to rethink the Soviet past will invariably change Central Asia’s relations with Russia.