“Russian Culture” in Central Asia as a Transethnic Phenomenon

“As if I Were an Illegal”

“…Ethnic Russians became "the first among equals" as Soviet officials positioned Russian language and culture as something that unified the Soviet Union's diversity of peoples (Martin 2001, 454-55; Sahadeo 2019). As privileged traits, Russian language and culture became a way of marking class as urbanites across the Soviet Union adopted Russian as their primary language (Kosmarskaya and Kosmarski 2019). At the same time, Sovietness functioned increasingly as unmarked Russianness, so that by the late Soviet period, the ideal image of the Soviet citizen, regardless of discourses that celebrated the diversity of the Soviet people, was that of the white, ethnic Russian, male Soviet patriot (Zakharov 2015, 188-89).…”

Continuities in Transition: Ethnicity, Language and Labour Market Inequalities in Kyrgyzstan

“…It was vigorously promoted by the Soviet authorities, explicitly as a medium of inter‐ethnic communication and implicitly as an instrument of political control and centralization (Pavlenko, 2006). Russian‐language proficiency was associated with higher social prestige and with being more cultured, and for many representatives of native groups, Russian was the primary language used in both the private and the public spheres (Kosmarskaya and Kosmarski, 2019). Prior research by the first author has highlighted substantial differences in demographic characteristics and behaviour, not only between Central Asian native groups and European‐origin groups, but also within the former, based on the degree of linguistic (and, arguably, cultural) Russification (e.g., Agadjanian and Dommaraju, 2011; Agadjanian and Qian, 1997; Agadjanian et al., 2008).…”

“…In fact, as the chaos of the early post‐Soviet years receded, the oil‐fuelled economic stabilization and growth in Russia have helped to re‐establish and reinforce these connections and Kyrgyzstan's political and economic dependence on Russia (as also attested by the drop in Kyrgyzstan's GNI in response to Russia's financial crisis of the mid‐2010s). At the same time, labour migration of Kyrgyz and members of other native Central Asian groups to Russia, almost non‐existent in the Soviet era, grew rapidly, reasserting the value and prestige of the Russian language in Kyrgyzstan and in other countries of the region (Fierman, 2012; Kosmarskaya and Kosmarski, 2019; Orusbaev et al., 2008; Pavlenko, 2013). Kyrgyzstan's entry into the Eurasian Economic Union, a Russia‐led alliance, in 2015, further cemented the country's economic and political ties with the Russian Federation and, by extension, the importance of the Russian language.…”

Societal transitions, ethnolinguistic identities, and marital conservatism in Central Asia

“…The spread of the Russian language, and of accompanying Russia-originating cultural attributes, during the Soviet era, was part of the broader sovietization efforts to promote economic development in Central Asia but also to uplift the local indigenous population from its alleged cultural "backwardness" rooted in Islam as well as in pre-Islamic beliefs and practices that were particularly widespread among its nomadic residents (Kosmarskaya, 2018). Notably, in the early Soviet period, the promotion of the Russian language and culture also paralleled the policies aimed at constructing and strengthening local ethno-national identities, especially of the "titular" ethnic groups in the newly established Soviet republics (Liber, 1991).…”

“…These variations are rooted in and connected to broader socioeconomic, cultural, and political transitions (Abela and Walker, 2013; Berquó & Xenos, 1992; Jones & Yeung, 2014; Pesando, 2018; Prince Cooke & Baxter, 2010). Specifically, in the transitional space that emerged in Central Eurasia after the disintegration of the Soviet Union more than three decades ago, marital norms and practices are very complex, as they are shaped by a combination of enduring pre‐Soviet traditions, the legacy of Soviet‐era quasi‐modernization, which was linguo‐culturally pivoted on the promotion of the Russian language, and the blend of Western influences and of state‐orchestrated selective neo‐traditionalization in the post‐Soviet period (Agadjanian & Makarova, 2003; Cleuziou & McBrien, 2021; Dommaraju & Agadjanian, 2018; Kosmarskaya, 2018; Kudaibergenova, 2018; Nedoluzhko & Agadjanian, 2015).…”