CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VI( 1)
communication 4. Thus, the production of national identity through Kazakh language is a long way project, which must be implemented not only by certain political authorities but also by the Kazakh’ s collective will. In the wake of nation-building processes, Nazarbayev administration tied the Kazakh language with the titular ethnic population of Kazakhstan population. The Kazakh as a state language is inclined to be also a significant ethnic symbol in supporting Kazakhification of the state 5.
Nazarbayev’ s language policy
The revival of the national language in Kazakhstan is considered one of the key priorities for the successful nation and state-building processes. The language policy of independent Kazakhstan, especially the proliferation of Kazakh language, seems to be a denotative code of national identity. However, to success the latter process, it is necessary to transform Kazakh into a vernacular language, which could hardly happen shortly. The idea here is that Kazakhstan ' s language policy is only the very start of the great national project. The ethnic Kazakh elite being agents of the process of kazakhifcation faces a couple of specific difficulties. Firstly, Kazakh elite set up certain preconditions for the development of state language by referring negative ethnic experiences inherited from Russianness, next they have to be careful not to offend the emotional feelings and interests of ethnic Russians, who constitute approximately 24 % of the population 6.
Another challengeable factor for the regime is the achievement of legitimacy. It is noteworthy to mention that all of the abovementioned policies government should organize under the umbrella of collective identity. Despite the establishment of ethnic management organizations Kazakhstan’ s government tries to set up a particular identity mechanism through which ethnic Russian, German, Uyghur, Tatar,
4 Anderson B., op. cit., p. 44.
5
See: Kesici Ö.,“ The Dilemma in the Nation-Building Process: The Kazakh or Kazakhstani Nation?”, Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe, Vol 10, No, 2011, pp. 31, 58.
6
Results of the 2009 National population census in the Republic of Kazakhstan, Ed. by Smailov A., Astana: Agency on Statistics of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 2011, p. 19. 108