This article focuses on a theatrical play performed during the Jubilee, the anniversary feast of Isabek Ishan, a local Kazakh saint. The state-supported celebration at Isabek’s restored shrine is an example of the nation-building processes of post-Soviet Kazakhstan. The Jubilee brought together pre-Soviet, Soviet, and post-Soviet themes, including narratives of sainthood and the significance of local sacred lineages. The play depicts Stalinist repression of religion, pointing to the importance of religious nationalism in contemporary state ideology. Despite occupying a relatively small space in the celebration, the play demonstrated how Stalinist trauma continues to inform local Muslim beliefs and practices, emphasizing the association of Kazakh nationalism with religious practices.
Pilgrimage to saints’ shrines is an important Islamic practice in Kazakhstan. Kazakhs go on pilgrimages seeking cures for disease, blessings for the future, and a connection to the past. Pilgrimage sites and those who control them are not, however, apolitical. The control of shrines and the business of pilgrimage are both connected to governmental nation-building policies. This paper shows that traditional shrine keepers from sacred lineages (qozha) in northern Kazakhstan seek patronage from political and economic elites in order to build, maintain, and expand shrine complexes. These patrons are often state officials who expect returns in cultural capital for investments of economic capital. The different goals of patrons and shrine-keepers occasionally lead to conflict. This paper examines one such conflict and explores what it reveals about the interplay between religion and local politics in Kazakhstan.
This paper examines the construction of Islamic authority in Kazakhstani online media. I build on the growing scholarship in Central Asian studies that questions the logocentric nature of Islamic authority, even for scripturalist Muslims. Taking the YouTube channel of Abdughappar Smanov as a case study, I argue that some scripturalist preachers in Kazakhstan construct their Islamic authority by tapping into Soviet, Kazakh, and global currents of masculinity and sport.
This article focuses on the project Sacred Geography of Kazakhstan, launched in 2017 in Kazakhstan as part of the nationwide program Ruqani Zhangyru (Modernization of Spirituality). The officially stated goal of the project is to cultivate a sense of patriotism in the country’s residents related to places and geographic sites that are important for the historical memory of independent Kazakhstan. The authors assume that the real goal of the project is national territorialization, or recoding of the semantics of space, by selecting, codifying, and articulating some symbols and practices, while leveling and “forgetting” others. The analysis, which is based on expert interviews and official documents, shows that this postcolonial process fits into the tendency toward ethnonationalization of Kazakhstan, in which discourse on the civil nation continues to be reproduced at the official level, while real activity is more focused on reinforcing the idea of Kazakhstan as the state of the Kazakh nation. The institutionalization of organizing and recoding the sacred landscape involves a wide variety of groups and actors. These factors may explain the success of the project in comparison to other projects being implemented under the Ruqani Zhangyru program.
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