Actions Against Russian in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan ‘Two Different Things,’ Burnashev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 20 – Moscow’s decisions to criticize one former Soviet republic but not another on such issues as support for the Russian language often seem completely arbitrary, and even the expert community generally avoids discussing why one country becomes a target while another, with what appears to be an even more anti-Russian policy, is not.

            A happy exception to that is a commentary by Rustan Burnashev about what he calls “actions against the Russian language in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.”  He insists that these are “two different things” and Moscow must treat them as such (stanradar.com/news/full/47178-aktsii-protiv-russkogo-jazyka-v-kazahstane-i-uzbekistane-eto-dve-raznye-veschi.html).

            The professor at the Kazakhstan-German University says that “no one officially in Kazakhstan limits the use of Russian.” Instead, what is happening there is a reduction in the amount of Russian used because of demographic processes. But in Uzbekistan, “the situation is different,” and Tashkent’s attacks on Russian are “very strange.”

            In Kazakhstan’s cities, “the Russian language remains dominant, and in situaitons where people who know only Kazakh come into contact with Russian-speaking citizens, elements of ethno-nationalism arise and this gives rise to dissatisfaction.” But in Uzbekistan, it is unclear what produces this “dissatisfaction.”

            “In Uzbekistan, practically everyone speaks Uzbek,” and to suggest that there are a sizeable number of Uzbeks who do not know Uzbek is “absurd,” Burnashev says. Therefore talk about Russian in Uzbekistan looks like an anachronistic effort to win political points that ignores the enormous changes which have occurred in that republic since 1991.

            Nation building and together with it national language development have already taken place in Uzbekistan. Very few people there are affected by language issues. But in Kazakhstan, nation building is as yet incomplete, and the number of people affected by language issues is larger and potentially explosive.