By Mila Zhanat, Hasena Yahya, & Kara Dauletkanova

Our project, “Critique of Colonial Knowledge: Colonialism and Nationalism in Central Asia,” is a course unit for Week 16 that is aimed to deepen students’ understanding of the Soviet Union’s influence on Central Asian countries.

Since two of the group members – Mila and Kara – come from Kazakhstan, we decided to delve deeper into the country of our own so we can present a more profound outlook on how the USSR shaped the Kazakh culture and developed a nationalistic mindset among its citizens. Meanwhile, having a third-person perspective from Hasena, who spent most of her life in the UK, enabled us to display the information in a manner approachable to students of different backgrounds.

Yet the main reason for choosing this particular topic was the fact that rarely would students bring up the colonization in Central Asia; we would mostly refer to Western European countries’ colonization as the main subject of our weekly discussions. If last year there were only three students from Kazakhstan and a few more from other parts of Central Asia, this year the number has tripled adding up to the diversity here at NU-Q and Education City, in general. It is frustrating, however, that the majority of students, as well as faculty and staff members, get extremely surprised by hearing Central Asian students speaking fluently in Russian. They either lack the colonial knowledge in regard to the USSR or they tremendously underestimate the impact of the Sovietization on nations like Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. We genuinely hope that the information and discussion topics offered in our course unit will be explicit enough to educate people around our campus and beyond and broaden their cultural and political horizons regarding colonialism and nationalism in Central Asian countries.

Thus, we chose three readings as the main sources of our inspiration: Soviet Nationalism by B. Fragner, Travels into Bokhara by A. Burnes, and From the Steppe to Astana by Z. Slykhouse. The first reading talks about the hegemony of identity perpetuated by the USSR. The second reading explains the colonial history of Central Asia through the lens of a British explorer and diplomat, Alexander Burnes who’s work is a key text in understanding the state of Central Asia during the commencement of The Great Game between the British Empire and the Russian Empire. The reading specifically focuses on how Soviet Nationalism reinforced the spread of Ethnic Nationalism in Central Asia. While the third reading is crucial in comprehending the common features of Kazakhstani politics and independence activists in the post-independence period. It serves as a guide to the major elaborations of Kazakh nationalism within the Soviet influence.

On top of that, additional readings, videos created by our group members, self-tests, and writing prompts were employed to further the discussion. We believe this topic is indeed important in deepening our knowledge about colonialism and nationalism, especially considering that we come from such a diverse academic institution as NU-Q. We put a lot of effort into creating this course unit, so we hope that each and every one of you can get something out of it.